Michael Caine isn’t just a great actor. He’s a terrific interview subject.
Consider how he responded to a flurry of biting questions lobbed at him by The Onion’s A.V. Squad regarding his new vigilante movie “Harry Brown:”
AVC: It has drawn criticism for presenting what some have called a “Daily Mail take” on things—that it’s tabloid fear-mongering.
MC: That was exactly the reaction. Because one of the things is that if you’re a Socialist newspaper, well, the Socialists have been in power for 12 years, and these are the very poorest people in England, and this is what’s happened to them. So you’ve got to say it’s a load of crap. [Laughs.]
Well played, sir. Well played. If only other actors could handle delicate questions with that brand of grace and wisdom.
Compare Caine to Woody Allen, who recently wished for President Barack Obama to be a dictator for a spell and renewed his support for director Roman Polanski.
They should give Caine another Oscar simply for towering above his peers.
But the rest of the AV Club interview is illuminating for other reasons.
The interviewer really hammers Caine about the film in question. It’s crystal clear where the interviewer stands, ideologically speaking.
I applaud the questions in toto. They’re mostly tough but reasonable, and they hold Caine’s feet to the fire on some prickly issues.
Here’s my big complaint. When was the last time a liberal actor got similar treatment? Would love to see Sean Penn get hard-hitting questions like this. But it’s unlikely to happen because the standard journalist is more or less on the same ideological team as Penn and wouldn’t think to grill him.
Not to mention he or she could get slugged in the process.
Then again, remember what happened the last time a liberal actor got a few tough questions …
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“I applaud the questions in toto.”
Pun intended?
My wife and I don’t go to the theater much these days. First off, the movies lately have been crap or filled with more political agendas than actual entertainment (or both). If the movie appears to have any redeeming quality, we’ll borrow the Blu-Ray from a friend or catch it on one of the movie channels in all of it’s 1080i/5.1 digitally goodness. Mostly we skip them and turn on TCM or MGM-HD, or HDmovies (I have “Where Eagles Dare” just waiting for me on my DVR…but I digress).
However, with the recent reviews on this movie and the interviews with Mr. Caine I’ve read here and in other publications, this may be one we’re actually willing to break out the cash at the multiplex.
“Would love to see Sean Penn get hard-hitting questions like this.”
No joke. Considering what a splash Fair Game is making at Cannes right now, I’d like to see some reporter ask Sean Penn, “Given that it turned out that Richard Armitage was the one who leaked Valerie Plame’s name to the press, why didn’t you feel the need to mention that in your movie?”
I’d love to see Penn stammering in response to a question like that. But like you said, it’s unlikely the lefty press would ever ask him anything that hard-hitting. Can’t let the truth get in the way of a good story.
HARRY BROWN FOR PRESIDENT!!!!
Hoo, boy, those comments over at the AV Club from all the insulated lefties are priceless.
It’s dispiriting at times, though, that, unless a site is overtly conservative, the comments tend to be almost inevitably Moonbat free-for-alls.
@ Kensington
I truely believe, and have for nearly 10 years now, that Leftism/Liberalism is a serious mental disease. There is no way on this God’s Green Earth that anyone could have such thoughts and be a fair and open-minded person to the truth. It’s as if these people will do anything and all things to explain away the truth when it doesn’t suit their agenda/beliefs. I don’t know how many actors/actresses that I’ve turned my back on that spout these kooky ideas that I used to admire. One such is Jessica Alba. What’s up with her? But on the same hand, I’ve been surprised my many that are actually conservative who have come out of the liberal Hollywood closet and appeared on shows like Hannity and others.
Somehow, I am not surprised that Woody Allen would support that nasty piece of work, Polanski. Both men have a taste for statutory rape.
Having interviewed Mr. Caine, I have to say that I’m entirely unsurprised he acquitted himself so nicely in that AV Club talk. There really isn’t any comparison to Mr. Del Toro; Michael Caine was easily one of my two or three favorite interviews when I was at the Times…just a classy, classy guy, perfectly comfortable talking about anything I brought up. I still haven’t seen Harry Brown, but I’m definitely looking forward to it. And Inception, of course…
Yeah, I and a few other conservatives are lonely over there. They don’t take kindly to insults (they say as they drive “teabagger” into the ground).
Rumor has it that the crappy A movies loaded with PC are going to have a harder time getting financed. It seems that they been making them with the money from the family friendly stuff, animation, DVDs and overseas sales. Now times are getting harder and stuff made to pander to the leftist bubble are just not making a justifiable return on the investment to the guys with money. It kind of looks like Tom Hanks and his big mouth poisoned his HBO series on WW II in the Pacific. It may be a great series but damned if I’m going to put any money in that loud mouths pocket.
Dispiriting, Kensington, but not surprising.
Limbaugh’s Seventeenth Axiom: “Any political group or organization that is not overtly conservative from the outset tends inevitably to become liberal.”
This Michael Caine fan is looking forward to seeing Harry Brown–especially if it is shown at local-liberal-government-subsidized-”art-house” theater. Chances are it will be on the venue and the local aging boomers will watch the film and fell confused as they exit the theater. They won’t be able to make sense of this–isn’t Michael Caine one of them anymore?
Kensington is right about the comments at the AV site–what a group of morons.
He answered well, but don’t forget that Michael Caine also played an abortionist in a Klan Parenthood movie abut apple cider recipes or something.
I truly believe, and have for the better part of my 63 years, that Conservatism is a serious mental disease. There is no way anyone could have such thoughts and comprehend truth. These people will do anything and all things to explain away the truth when it doesn’t suit their agenda/beliefs.
I have mixed feeling about Caine. In his memoir, he answered the question about why he did so many crap movies by saying the check clears just as easily as the ones for good movies (not a direct quote, but you catch the sentiment).
At the same time, when Bob Hope asked him to do a benefit for the boys club that helped Caine get out of whatever shabby little town he grew up in, he complained to Hope that he didn’t get paid for it. Hope told him that he had it donated back to the club, because it’s the right thing to do. Whether or not, in telling that story, Caine told you more about his shabby character than he wanted, is up to debate.
@ David Ehrenstein
If conservatism is a mental disease then the entire United States as founded by its Declaration of Independence of 1776 and its ratified Constitution of 1791 would have never been.
You see, Conservatism is a belief that Rights come from our Creator, ie. God, and NOT from the government. Because what government can giveth, government can also taketh away. Conservatism also believes that the best government is one that governs the least which allows the People and their entrepeneurship to solve problems rather than a small group of elected and/or non-elected beurocrats to solve them for us.
Conservatism also believes that a person has a right to personal property and that the govermnent cannot just come in an taketh away. That one is allowed to keep the fruits of their labors, rather than giving it all over to the government for them to redistribute it as they see fit.
Judging by your name Mr. Ehrenstein, I can only assume you’re German or at least of German descent. Well, Mr. Ehrenstein, your confusion may come from the difference between the American Right and the European Right. The European Right is Nazism, while the European Left is Communism. However, the base of both of those theologies is Socialism. Nazism is National Socialism (meaning what you think it means…arian race) while Communism is Socialism that wants to spread Internationally, ie. the Soviet Union.
The American Right is about Freedom, Limited Government, Personal Responsibility, and Private Property Rights. While the American Left (over the last 100 years) has become like the European Left. Redistribution of wealth, period. High taxes on the rich to pay for entitlement programs for the poor. Only problem is, that sooner or later you run out of rich people to squeeze. They either leave or become poor themselves. Case in point….Greece. A country that has been run on cradle to the grave entitlement programs and now it’s totally bankrupt. And it may bring down a whole currency because of it.
Barack Obama is a Socialist, and maybe even a full-fledged Marxist. His parents were Communists, his Grandparents were Communists, and his spiritual leaders who follow the Black Liberation philosophy are Marxists. Barack alligned himself with Marxist professors in college. And for him to make us believe that he isn’t Marxist or at the very least Socialist is a joke. The evidence is overwhelming. There is no way you can have that big of an influence around your whole life of people who are Marxist and not hold at least some of those beliefs.
No, Mr. Ehrenstein, Liberalism is a mental disease.
BRAVO
Mr. Miller, you wrote “The European Right is Nazism, while the European Left is Communism. However, the base of both of those theologies is Socialism.”
Bravo for your spirited defense of conservatism. However, placing Nazism on the political right is a mistake, one perpetuated for over a half century by leftists anxious to defend communism from the criticism that would have otherwise resulted had people known the truth that Nazis and Stalinists were ideological bedfellows. For obvious reasons, radical leftist academics have allowed this damaging myth to continue, and have perpetuated it in the hope of discrediting right-of-center politics as “Nazi-like.” This is all a myth, if not an outright lie; Nazism arose from the same socialist ferment as Stalinism.
If conservatism is a mental disorder, go ahead and diagnose me any way you want.
Thank you for speaking out, Michael Caine, child who succeeded to maturity, human being who grew from disadvantage instead of settling into it.
Cider house rules was about an orphanage that succeeded with its children by teaching them they are strong. It is about abortion but its also about humanity. Teaching of a better way to live would end abortion by making women’s lives and pursuits viable so they would not be so broken down and desperate that they’d do what the women in the story did. What better way than through story?
Just a note: Caine didn’t say socialism is crap, although I believe you can read that between the lines. He said a socialist newspaper would have to call his movie crap because it shows the truth about what the socialism they have so staunchly defended for so many years has actually done to society’s poorest.
@Georgiaboy61
Correct…you’re agreeing with me. The thing is that the Left and Right of European politics are BOTH on the Left side of American politics. Yes, I’ve watched enough Glenn Beck episodes to know this, and I’m betting you have too. Basically if you draw a graph of the Left and Right as a horizontal line. The European Left and Right are on the left side of the horizontal line, but one is above the line and the other below the line. It’s basically the same problem we have now with mushy middle Republicans. In America, both the Dems and the GOp are on the left of center of the horizontal line with the Dems above the line and the GOP below the line or vice versa, or however you wanna put it.
Yes, there wasn’t an ioda of difference between Communism and Nazism. They both persecuted the Jews. They both were Socialistic ideologies.
Where the American Right gets wrongfully accused of being Nazi like stems from the anti-New Deal movement of the 1930s. When FDR was pushing the New Deal during the Great Depression, the American Nazi Party was the main source of opposition, and therefore at the time considered “right-wing”. IMO, that was the biggest bone-headed move of the “right” at the time, and most likley what started the skinhead movement in the States. Except everyone forgets that there was also an American Communist Party at the time as well, and it ran up through the 1950s as well. Where do you think McCarthy’s “Red Scare” came from? Ironically all the people that Sen. McCarthy tagged as being Communists…really were Communists. The modern Left refuses to believe and/or teach this, but it is indeed true.
Oh, one more thing…Miller isn’t my real last name….it’s the English translation of my European surname, of which my family still uses.
I would imagine that if you’re the type of interviewer that asks difficult questions you don’t get to meet Sean Penn or Woody Allen.
Senator McCarthy has been fully vindicated.