“Man of Steel,” the first blockbuster of the summer movie season, is based on the origin of the DC Comics character, Superman. Interestingly, the film also features imagery and metaphors that evoke the earthly life of Christianity’s most central and revered figure.

The superhero movie is directed by Zack Snyder (“300” and “Watchmen”), produced by Christopher Nolan (“The Dark Knight Trilogy”), and scripted by David S. Goyer (“The Dark Knight Trilogy”).

The reboot of the Superman story boasts an all-star cast that includes Amy Adams as Lois Lane, Russell Crowe playing Superman’s birth father Jor-El, Kevin Costner in the role as Superman’s adoptive father Jonathan Kent, Diane Lane as adoptive mother Martha Kent, and Laurence Fishburne as Superman’s boss Perry White. The lead stars of the movie are Henry Cavill in the title role and Michael Shannon as Superman’s arch-nemesis General Zod.

The origin story is reimagined, Nolan-style, as was done with the Batman story. However, Superman aficionados will still recognize the general plot that has been spun so many times on the big and small screen over the last 75 years.

As residents of the planet Krypton face looming destruction, Jor-El and wife Lara place their newborn son, Kal-El [Superman’s Kryptonian name], into a minute spacecraft on a launch to Earth. The infant ultimately lands in Smallville, Kansas, where Jonathan and Martha Kent find, rescue, and raise him as their own son Clark.

In addition to the darker themes for which Nolan is famous, he and his creative collaborators have included in “Man of Steel” a significant degree of Christian symbolism.

The beginning scenes of the movie convey the miraculous birth of Kal-El on his home planet Krypton.  Father Jor-El declares that his newly born son is the first natural birth in centuries, and as Superman’s dad sends his son to Earth to save humanity he proclaims that “he [Kal-El] will be like a god to them.”

Kal-El’s adoptive father Jonathan is a character that is reminiscent of the biblical figure Joseph, the foster father of Jesus. Both individuals are the embodiment of the work ethic, Joseph employing wood and nails in his carpentry tasks, providing goods to the people of his land, and Jonathan skilled with the soil in crop production, supplying food to the tables of families. The spacecraft in which newborn Kal-El had been placed is safeguarded in his adoptive parents’ stable, evoking the image of the humble manger in which the baby Jesus had been placed.

As the young Clark Kent transitions into boyhood, he is troubled with his apparent differences from other children. He asks his adoptive father, “Did God do this to me?”

“Somewhere out there you have another father and he sent you here for a reason,” Jonathan replies.

During the central storyline of the film, Kal-El faces his ultimate trial. He is 33 years old, the same age as Jesus Christ when he reached the summit of his earthly ministry and endured his crucifixion.

Kal-El is ready to give up his own life to save the world. At one point in the movie, he surrenders to the villainous Zod in order to save the population of Earth, after Zod threatens to obliterate humans from the face of the globe.

At a point of intense tribulation, Kal-El as Clark Kent turns to a priest for counsel. Above his head moviegoers see a stained-glass window, which depicts Jesus in prayer at the Garden of Gethsemane.

Kal-El must also at a pivotal moment in the film withstand a place of torment, one that is located at the Earth’s core.

In another scene, when Kal-El is in need of knowledge and guidance, he is visited on Earth by his father’s spirit.

Throughout the movie, Kal-El bears taunts and affronts. He responds peacefully, though, despite his extraordinary abilities that could be used to retaliate.

Still, with the sundry of examples, the most recognizable Christian symbolism of all is apparent during a battle scene in which Kal-El as Superman leaps from Zod’s spaceship.  With arms outstretched he appears mid-air as a superhuman crucifix plunging toward the ground. It is not the end, for he later rises again.

Director Snyder admitted to CNN that the Christian material was no accident.

“The Christ-like parallels, I didn’t make that stuff up. We weren’t like, ‘Hey, let’s add this!’ That stuff is there, in the mythology. That is the tried-and-true Superman metaphor. So rather than be snarky and say that doesn’t exist, we thought it would be fun to allow that mythology to be woven through,” Snyder stated.

The executives at Warner Bros. were well aware of the Christian content and evidently strategized accordingly. The studio aggressively marketed “Man of Steel” to Christian clergy, even retaining a theologian to provide sermon notes for pastors from which they could preach about the film.

The notes have a fitting designation: “Jesus: The Original Superhero.”

Digital information is virtually unlimited in the ways in which it can be applied to predict future human behavior.

Search information provides data that can be used by sophisticated software in supercomputers to make predictions on all sorts of things, ranging from items that consumers are most likely to buy to how citizens will ultimately cast their votes in a political election.

Hollywood executives have been paying close attention to the whole subject of search information data, particularly with regard to potential applications within the entertainment industry.

Google, in fact, has been out touting its ability to utilize the information that it has collected to make predictions about which movies are going to be top box-office draws.

According to a recently released Google research paper that was posted on the Google Think website, the number of Google and YouTube searches of a movie has the capacity to provide the film industry with a highly accurate predictor mechanism, one that is able to act as an indicator of whether a movie will turn out to be a blockbuster or a bomb.

The paper, “Quantifying Movie Magic with Google Search,” focuses on the relationship between: 1) the number of searches in which future moviegoers engage concerning a particular movie and 2) the revenue that is ultimately generated by the film in question.

The study analyzed 99 movies that were released in 2012. Researchers found a convincing correlation between trailer-related searches conducted on Google and YouTube in the four-week period prior to a given film’s release date and the box-office performance of the same film during its debut weekend.

By analyzing the number of Google searches only for a particular movie, predictions on the box-office gross is able to be generated with approximately 70 percent accuracy, according to the study.

To supplement the search data, an additional indicator was evaluated in the study, the number of search ad clicks.

The Google researchers examined the variables and built a model, using a combination of search volume and the quantity of search ad clicks over the seven-day period prior to the release date.

According to the Google study, the model can predict opening weekend numbers with 92 percent accuracy.

The number of searches and ad clicks lead to real changes in actual dollars. Researchers found that in the seven days preceding the opening of a movie, if the film receives 250,000 more searches than a similar movie, the film with the higher number of searches will take in up to $4.3 million more over its opening weekend. Correspondingly, if a movie generates 20,000 more paid search ad clicks than a similar film, it will rake in an additional $7.5 million in box-office receipts during its first weekend.

However, the data for the model could only be completely extracted one day before the movie’s release. Consequently, the Google team turned its attention to predicting box office, using data that could be accessed one month before the debut weekend. By focusing on searches for movie trailers, researchers discovered an astonishing predictor for box-office performance.

By combining trailer search volume on Google with other metrics, such as the franchise status of the movie and the season of release, box-office results can be predicted four weeks before the release date, with a stunning 94 percent rate of accuracy.

As would be expected in the high anxiety entertainment business, studio executives are chomping at the bit to be able to use this type of data to shape the most effective marketing campaigns for their soon-to-be-released films.

A number of prominent critics have been savaging Will Smith’s post-apocalyptic film, “After Earth,” resulting in the movie garnering an abysmal 12 percent rating on the Rotten Tomatoes film critic website.

Smith is currently one of only a scant number of bona fide big-screen mega-draws, and while expectations for his latest movie had been quite high, ticket sales have so far proven to be a major disappointment.

Interestingly, the movie’s ultimate box-office outcome is a bit more personal this time around for Smith, who created the storyline and recruited M. Night Shyamalan to direct the project.

“After Earth”’s plot has General Cypher Raige (Will Smith) and his 13-year-old son Kitai (Jaden Smith) crash landing on a future Earth, one in which the human race has long since left the planet.

In order save his father, Kitai must make his way through various dangers and ultimately find the ship’s rescue beacon, all the while trying his best to avoid the aliens who feed on fear. Kitai learns to control his emotions and is successful in the end in his pursuits.

Aside from the general critiquing of the cinematic content, film reviewers have zeroed in on a couple of other unusual aspects of “After Earth.”

It is widely being noted that Smith’s character is absent from a substantial portion of the movie’s action scenes, which apparently allowed for Smith’s son Jaden to take center stage. Critics have suggested that a nepotistic component, which may have worked to the teenage son’s benefit, could have been in play.

Alonso Duralde wrote in The Wrap that the film “tells the story of an inexperienced boy trying desperately to please his father while making one mistake after another, and as such, it becomes an uncomfortable metaphor for itself.”

Manohla Dargis noted in the New York Times that “Mr. Smith and his wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, are producers on ‘After Earth,’ which suggests that there was no one on the production who could really say no to him.”

Dana Stevens of Slate referenced the father-son aspects of the project, opining that “even with his charismatic dad in his earpiece calling the shots, Jaden can’t turn himself into a movie star by sheer force of Will.”

What may be more important to the film’s public standing, though, is the fact that many critics have cited several similarities in the movie to the precepts of the Church of Scientology, and a possibility exists that it may be being perceived as a vehicle of propaganda for L. Ron Hubbard’s teachings.

The Wall Street Journal’s Joe Morgenstern referred to “After Earth” as a “sermon” that “echoes a central theme of Scientology.” Through a line of pointed questioning, the critic ponders whether the focus on Scientology might explain why “humor and humanity have been essentially banished; why everyone looks pained; why the very notion of entertainment has been banished in favor of grinding didacticism, and why Mr. Smith, who has been such a brilliant entertainer over the years and decades, looks as if he has undergone a radical charismaectomy?”

Dargis in the New York Times wrote that “casual students of Scientology may find their ears pricking up…because fear and its overcoming receive a lot of play in Dianetics, a foundational text by the creator of Scientology, the pulp science-fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard.”

Marc Headley analyzed the film for The Hollywood Reporter and focused in particular on the dialogue contained within the movie. Headley quoted Smith’s character telling Kitai, “Fear is not real. It is a product of thoughts you create. Now do not misunderstand me: Danger is very real. But fear is a choice.”

The former Scientologist explained that L. Ron Hubbard viewed emotions and fear as “triggers” and “part of the reactive mind.” According to Headley, Scientology in its teachings stresses the need to “rid oneself of your fears.”

Headley surmised that “Smith’s character is pretty much devoid of all emotions for the entire movie” and pointed out that “in Scientology, one goes through great amounts of training and counseling to control one’s emotions and ‘mis-emotion’ as described by Hubbard.”

As the movie builds to a finish, an image of an erupting volcano appears, which is almost identical to an image that is displayed on the cover of Hubbard’s book.

“The movie’s climax takes place on a volcano that could have been ripped right off the cover of Dianetics,” Headley wrote, adding that “in Scientology, the volcano is a common thread through many different teachings.”

Although he denies having any formal affiliation with Scientology, in 2007 Smith donated $122,500 to church charities, and in 2009 he and wife Jada Pinkett Smith opened the New Village Leadership Academy, a private school based on Hubbard’s teachings.

“After Earth” placed third over the weekend, with a disappointing $27 million, which is a particularly muted showing considering Sony shelled out $135 million for production and another $100 million for marketing. The possibility remains that Scientology-related content may have been a factor in the movie’s weak showing at the box office.

In advance of the June 18 release of his latest album, “Yeezus,” Kanye West is engaged in an unusual form of performance art public relations.

One of the singles from the rapper’s upcoming album is entitled “New Slaves,” and the piece is being debuted in various locations around the globe via video projections on the exterior of buildings.

Along with his own website, West has utilized social media sites Instagram and Twitter to drop clues to the public and press about where the video projection events were going to take place.

In mid-May, the “New Slaves” video was displayed on 66 buildings in prominent global locales that included New York, Chicago, London, Paris, and Sydney.

A second round of video projections occurred over the past weekend in which “New Slaves” was screened on the exteriors of buildings located in 22 additional metropolitan areas, including the U.S. cities of Philadelphia, Atlanta, Baltimore, Houston, and Tucson.

According to the Houston Chronicle, the police intervened and prevented a projection of West’s video that was slated to take place at Houston’s Rothko Chapel. Fans were informed that if they failed to disburse they would risk the possibility of receiving tickets for trespass violations.

Two additional scheduled Houston video projections were also halted, one that was scheduled to occur at the Central Library and another at the George Bush Monument.

In Baltimore, just hours before “New Slaves” was being readied to appear on the walls of the Bromo Seltzer Tower, Walters Art Museum, and Baltimore Museum of Art, police officers used Twitter to announce that the event had been terminated.

A spokesperson for the Baltimore police indicated that the events had been called off because organizers had failed to seek permits and there was the potentiality of attracting sizable crowds.

In addition to the stated reasons for event cancellations, authorities in both cities were likely concerned about the possible negative fallout from the racially charged lyrics, which are an explicit part of West’s rap song.

“I know that we the new slaves, I see the blood on the leaves, They throwing hate at me, Want me to stay at ease, F*** you and your corporation,” West conveys through the song’s lyrics.

West, incidentally, through the promotion and distribution of his music and through business projects beyond, is fully immersed in the corporate culture. Additionally, he is romantically linked with Kim Kardashian, an individual of extensive celebrity who is pregnant with his child. Individually, and now together, the two have taken sales, marketing, and personal consumption of corporate products to staggering new levels.

Despite the fact that the careers of West and Kardashian are heavily dependent on the media exposure that they routinely receive, West expresses hostility in the rap song toward the paparazzi, saying, “So go and grab the reporters, so I can smash their recorders.”

A good portion of the “New Slaves” tune contains lyrics that are implicitly violent and/or so extremely coarse that they are rendered unsuitable for print.

West made an appearance on “Saturday Night Live” earlier in the month to perform “New Slaves.” He was accompanied by images of fierce Doberman dogs and KKK hoods.

For all of the success and adulation that he has experienced, the music star nevertheless appears to be preoccupied with the issue of race. In September of 2005, during a benefit concert for Hurricane Katrina, West apparently deviated from a prepared script to inform the audience of the following: “George Bush doesn’t care about black people.”

President George W. Bush referred to the incident as “one of the most disgusting moments” of his presidency.

In September of 2007, West suggested that the reason Britney Spears had opened the MTV Video Music Awards (VMAs) as opposed to himself was related to race. “Maybe my skin’s not right,” West said.

During the September 2009 VMAs, West stunningly interrupted Taylor Swift as she was accepting her award for Best Female Video. He grabbed the microphone to declare that Beyoncé’s video was the musical work that should have won.

West now seemingly wants his fans to accept the idea that, despite his immense acclaim, abundant accolades, and untold wealth, he is somehow a victim.

The once dominant television phenomenon “American Idol” has tried almost everything this season. But unfortunately, even an episode that featured trendy dance moves by Psy, soulful renderings by Aretha Franklin, nostalgic falsetto singing by Frankie Valli, and a provocative performance by former judge Jennifer Lopez couldn’t stop the show’s ratings erosion.

Ending a season of dismal numbers, the final installment of Season 12 drew the smallest “Idol” finale audience in the show’s history.

Back in 2006, when the music industry marvel was quickly conquering the small screen, the finale attracted 36 million viewers. Subsequent “Idol” finales would typically tally over 30 million.

No such boasts can be made anymore. According to Nielsen, the show’s numbers were down 33 percent from last year’s finale, as it shed 7.2 million of its viewers and landed with a total viewer count thud of 14.3 million.

It marked the first time in the 13 year-long “Idol” run that one of its finales failed to attract 20 million or more. In 2011 the finale secured an audience of 29 million, which in 2012 dropped to 21.5 million viewers, a record holder up until now for the lowest rated finale. Simply stated, half of the reality show’s total viewership vanished in just two short years.

“Idol” ratings across Season 12 have been consistently below expectations, and what no doubt must be of serious concern is the precipitous decline that has taken place in the coveted 18 to 49-year-old demographic, which fell a massive 44 percent from the previous year and has the potential to be of major consequence to advertising revenues. A reduction of this sort in the young adult demographic is not only troubling for the show’s producers, it tends to set off a virtual panic alarm for network execs as well.

Television experts are somewhat befuddled and are likely scratching their heads and wondering what went wrong with the television juggernaut of bygone days. The show has been on for a dozen years, and it may simply be that its premise has grown stale.

It may also be suffering from some stiff competition a la copycat rivals. Viewers have been able to choose from an array of similar programming, including Simon Cowell’s “The X Factor” and the NBC “Idol” facsimile, “The Voice,” which incidentally has also experienced a ratings decline.

One of the advantages that “Idol” had going for it during its early seasons was its wholesomeness. Millions of families looked with anticipation to one of the few shows that together they could tune into and truly enjoy. It was uplifting and engaging for dream seekers of all ages.

Like so often happens, though, some “edgy” content began to seep into the show via guest artists and a series of subsequent judges, and it worked to actually undermine the ability of parents to feel as comfortable as they once had with “Idol.”

Additionally, competitive reality shows are about both judges and participants, and there has been a great deal of discussion among fans about the chemistry, or lack thereof, as it pertains to the most recent judge panel. On paper, a foursome that included Keith Urban, Nicki Minaj, Mariah Carey, and Randy Jackson may have looked like an outstanding lineup. However, there seemed to be a general shortage of valuable feedback for contestants, and the slate of judges didn’t garner the kind of fan reaction that producers had hoped for.

During the final weeks of “Idol,” the judges, whether inadvertently or not, gave viewers the impression that they were unduly favoring certain contestants over others. At times they even appeared to be subtly prodding viewers to cast votes in a particular direction. The problem is if there is a perception that bias exists among the judges, particularly during the final stages of the contest, it is natural for the credibility of the show to take a hit. Some of the judges’ comments apparently led a number of viewers to believe that this was the case.

The show is reportedly going to be totally revamped, which is supposed to include a fresh installment of superstar judges.

Fox Entertainment President Kevin Reilly, who spoke just prior to the network’s annual “upfront” presentation to advertisers, promised that producers are going to work on ways to reverse the viewer attrition that has occurred. The declining ad revenues would pretty much mandate that they do so.

Reilly indicated that next year the show is “likely” to go back to a three-judge panel format.

“Saturday Night Live” sunk to a to new low in the content of its most recent opening sketch.

The Lorne Michaels-created late-night television show was once recognized for its fresh, brash sketches that combined comedy with commentary.

That was then, this is now. Apparently, SNL producers and writers prefer to be politically correct in their commentary and aggressive in the expression of their liberal biases rather than just plain funny.

With the acquisition of further Benghazi information, which was recently revealed during congressional hearings and involved serious inaction, falsehoods, fabrications, and stonewalling following the Sept. 11, 2012 terrorist attacks, SNL could have used its media platform to comically nudge the Obama administration to be more forthcoming.

Instead the opening skit’s primary targets were GOP representatives on the House Oversight Committee, a lazy and possibly complicit demonstration from writers who are employed by a left-of-center network and are part of a largely liberal industry.

The SNL comedy writers took great pains to depict the Republicans as engaging in purely partisan theatrics. The sick sketch had the chairman of the congressional committee calling convicted murderer Jodi Arias to testify. Also waiting in the wings to be sworn under oath as the next witness was suspected Ohio kidnapper and rapist Ariel Castro.

Although the opening of the bit implicitly acknowledged that the media had failed to properly cover the Benghazi hearings, the humor that was incorporated into the piece came in the form of mockery of GOP committee members, with negligible pokes at the media and zero ribbing of the Obama administration.

SNL’s Bill Hader portrayed Rep. Darrell Issa, the Republican chairman of the House Oversight Committee. Kenan Thompson, who played Democrat Rep. Elijah Cummings, telegraphed the SNL writers’ mindset, when in character he declared, “Everyone knows that this [the hearings] is just a partisan witch hunt and a chance to attack the president and Secretary of State Clinton.”

Hader as Issa then set up the parody by saying, “My Democratic colleague is welcome to his opinion, but I’d like to see him and his friends in the media ignore these hearing after they hear from our first witness.”

It was then that the Issa character called Arias (portrayed by Nasim Pedrad) as his first witness. The real-life Arias was convicted of first-degree murder just days before the show aired.

After the Cummings character asked what “possible insights or expertise that she [Arias] could bring to the events in Benghazi,” the Issa character revealed his fictional motive.

“Do you realize how hard it was to book her, especially this week?” Hader as Issa asked.

The Arias character then voiced what seemed to be the central objective of the SNL writers, suggesting that the hearings were unnecessary.

The fictional Issa was asked, “If you know who did it, then why are you holding these hearings?”  The Republicans in the sketch were portrayed as dumbfounded by the query.

SNL’s version of the congressional hearings grew darker still. The show’s twisted opening aired only days after Castro was arrested and accused of unspeakable crimes.

“What about me? When do I get to testify?” SNL’s Bobby Moynihan as Castro asked.

Not content with merely characterizing Republicans as using the deaths in Benghazi for political purposes, the SNL writers added a line designed to make the Issa character look even more foolish. The fake Issa called the kidnapper the wrong name, invoking yet another name in the Castro news story.

“Don’t you worry there, Mr. Ramsey, you’re all next week,” he reassured.

Something intriguing has been happening at the “Tonight Show” with the content of host Jay Leno’s humor. The jokes that are flying are going where no late-night hosts have gone before.

Leno’s late-night TV colleagues, for the most part, have been blatantly partisan, particularly in the manner in which their material has been written. Leno’s peers have made the occasional reference to President Obama within the context of their jokes; however, in a similar vein to the mainstream media, they have been perfunctory at best in their targeting of Obama or his administration, reserving their sharpest comedic barbs for the GOP.

Not that Leno has shied away from making jokes at the expense of Republicans. An October 2012 study released by the Center for Media and Public Affairs (CMPA) indicated that, much like his competitors, Leno ribbed GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney more than he did Obama.

Still, in an earlier study, the CMPA revealed that Leno had told Obama jokes about twice as many times as his late-night rival David Letterman had.

When it comes to the president and his policies, it is the candid commentary that is imbedded in Leno’s humor that is distinguishing him from his competitors.

Comedic material has the ability to carry out a journalist’s mandate to “speak truth to power” in a way that no other form of communication can match. Lenny Bruce, the famed stand-up comedian who routinely pushed the boundaries of free speech, once described humor as “the only honest art form.”

Bruce also postulated, “Today’s comic is not doing an act. The audience assumes he’s telling the truth.”

Interestingly, Leno’s jokes have been taking aim at President Obama’s policies and the “Tonight Show” host appears to be going after some of the same uncomfortable truths that prior to now only conservative talk show hosts would dare to speak freely about.

Leno quipped about some remarks that the president had made at a recent press conference in which he alluded to his first term promise to close the facility at Guantanamo.

Leno set the joke up by saying, “President Obama held a press conference today. He said he still wants to close the Guantanamo Bay prison facility, but he doesn’t know how to do it.”

The late-nite comic then snapped out the following zinger: “He should do what he always does. Declare it a small business and tax it out of existence.”

Before the White House Correspondents’ Dinner took place, Leno told the following joke: “All five living presidents will gather for the opening of the George W. Bush Presidential Library. President Obama says he hopes he can pick up some ideas for when he builds his. It’s going to be called the ‘Blame George W. Bush Presidential Library.’”

Somehow the comedic material ended up being woven into Obama’s presentation at the D.C. event.

Some of Leno’s witticism, which was related to immigration reform, contained a subtext that was able to convey more in a few lines than most political pundits are able to say in an entire cable news face-off.

“The Associated Press, the largest newsgathering outlet in the world, will no longer use the term ‘illegal immigrant.’ That is out. They will now use the phrase ‘undocumented Democrat,’” Leno quipped.

Last year, following the election, Leno used his monologue to skewer both the president and the condition of the economy. “Good news for the economy,” he chimed. “President Obama is out of town.”

During the same show, he commented on Obama’s penchant for spending as well as the administration’s handling of taxpayer’s money, saying, “Well, the U.S. Postal Service reported that it had an annual loss of almost $16 billion. They’re losing money faster than Obama can spend it.”

Leno even threw out a joke that was at the expense of NBC’s sibling network, MSNBC. After sidekick Rickey Minor asked how bad the economy was, Leno gave a series of comedic answers that began with the phrase “The economy is so bad…”

Two of the answers were editorials that posed as gags. “The economy is so bad MSNBC had to lay off 300 Obama spokesmen. That’s how bad it’s gotten,” Leno said. Another answer lamented that “the economy is so bad President Obama sent Susan Rice out to defend it.”

Speaking of the U.N. ambassador, no other late-night comedian has touched upon the Benghazi scandal as much as Leno has. Back in October 2012, before the presidential election had taken place, Leno said, “More problems for General Petraeus. After searching the home of his mistress Paula Broadwell, the FBI said it found classified material on her personal computer.”

Pausing a moment for effect, Leno then said, “In fact, agents said she had more information about Benghazi than our U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice, okay? We should have talked to her.”

The Obama administration’s response to the September 11 attacks on the U.S. consulate also prompted Leno to crack, “‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ is back. Not for gays in the military. It’s President Obama’s new policy for questions about Libya: don’t ask, don’t tell!”

After the November 2012 election, Leno continued with the Benghazi theme. “And this week, CBS News became the first news organization besides Fox to ask President Obama, ‘Who changed the Benghazi talking points?’” the late-night host said, adding the punch line, “See, this is very dangerous to the White House if journalists should suddenly start asking real questions.”

Leno’s humor contains substantive messages that might pose a danger to someone who lacks the clout to buck the Hollywood infrastructure. It’s no problem for Leno, though. A freedom that oftentimes accompanies success has been won, and Leno now looks as if he has decided to go rogue.

In March 2013, The Hollywood Reporter revealed that NBC was planning an exit strategy for Leno. The stunning news was that despite Leno’s hosting of the most-watched late-night show, he would be handing the keys to the “Tonight Show” studio over to Jimmy Fallon. The transition would occur at the expiration of Leno’s contract in September 2014.

Leno is apparently not the kind of person who is itching to retire. Reports indicate he’s not in it for the money, “it” being his hosting duties on the “Tonight Show.” He does not use the salary he receives to pay for his day-to-day expenses but instead lives on the money he earns from a rigorous schedule of stand-up comedy gigs.

As was widely discussed during the Conan O’Brien fiasco, the most likely place that Leno may ultimately land is at a late-night Fox network show, which would be reliant on a positive reception by the Fox affiliate stations across the country.

In fact, Fox affiliate board chairman Steve Pruett recently told The New York Post that if the network were to present “the right business plan, the affiliate board would be interested.”

The Rupert Murdoch-owned network may be the perfect fit for the bold, honest humor that Leno has been delivering.

Even those few folks who had never heard of the hit reality series “Duck Dynasty” recently saw some of the cast of the reality show in attendance at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner.

A&E’s reality television series follows the lives of the Robertson family, who became wealthy as a result of the success of a family-operated business, Duck Commander, which is headquartered in West Monroe, Louisiana.

The show routinely includes scenes exhibiting time-honored American values, which, incidentally, certain current-minded television executives previously had a difficult time believing were marketable. Some of the values that are seamlessly woven into many of the episodes include fervent faith, family loyalty, dedication to the work ethic, and valuing of our constitutional rights, Second Amendment rights in particular.

To refer to the show as a hit does not really do it justice; more accurately, it is a full-fledged TV phenomenon.

Last week the Season 3 finale drew a massive 9.6 million viewers. “Duck Dynasty” ended up being the most-watched telecast in A&E’s history as well as the evening’s highest rated television show, when both cable and broadcast programs are taken into consideration. The reality series even trounced the small-screen powerhouse “American Idol.”

The males in the Robertson clan sport beards a la ZZ Top, making the Texas band’s tune, “Sharp Dressed Man,” a perfect fit for the show’s theme song.

Patriarch Phil Robertson created the Duck Commander duck call back in 1972 and launched the Duck Commander Company the following year.

Before Phil became a duck hunting legend, he played college football at Louisiana Tech University, starting ahead of famed Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback and current TV analyst Terry Bradshaw. Phil was drafted by the NFL after his junior year, but he turned down an offer from the Washington Redskins, making duck hunting a priority instead.

“Throwing a touchdown pass to a guy running down the sideline, and he runs down with the ball for six, it was fun,” Phil told Sports Illustrated. “However, in my case, it was much more fun to be standing down in some flooded timber with about 35 or 40 mallard ducks comin’ down on top of me in the woods. That did my heart more good than all the football in the world.”

“Duck Dynasty” is unique among reality television in its unabashed depiction of faith. At the end of each show’s episode, the family prays before breaking bread together. Phil is also often shown reading the Bible.

As a matter of fact, Papa Robertson fought against an early attempt by the show’s producers to edit the word “Jesus” out of the family prayers. When the show’s bosses tried to censor certain language in an effort to alter the image of the Robertson clan, he insisted that the editing cease.

Phil has been speaking to groups ever since hunters began clamoring for him to demonstrate his world famous duck call. However, as a result of his personal spiritual growth the content of his presentations went through a significant transformation.

“I’d say, ‘That concludes the duck call demonstration,’” Phil told USA Today. “I’d bring out my Bible and say, ‘While I’m here, based on my observation of the mischief in America, I need to preach the gospel.’ The audiences just keep getting bigger, bigger, bigger. Obviously, the Almighty put the Robertsons on the road, sharing the good news of Jesus, and do people ever need it.”

“Faith is the number one thing in our lives, and so everything revolves around it: our marriages, our families, our business,” Phil’s son Willie told the Blaze.

Willie’s Uncle Si used faith in addressing the gun control issue when he spoke to a crowd at the Texas Crawfish and Music Festival.

“Hey, look here, the president was just on the news about gun control, but hey, luckily our congressmen and senators, they voted it down,” Si said. “But look, America hasn’t got a gun control problem, we have got a sin control problem. Nothing has changed with the human race, OK? We’re a bunch of flawed people, OK? And ‘Duck Dynasty,’ look here, ‘Duck Dynasty’ is full of flawed people that have turned to Jesus, OK? That’s the difference.”

As an example of a left-leaning reaction to the faith and firearms displayed in “Duck Dynasty,” when the Robertsons were set to appear on “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” a scheduled guest, rock singer Morrissey, refused to appear with the reality show cast members, whom he referred to as “animal serial killers.”

The truth is, though, the only thing that “Duck Dynasty” is really guilty of is killing off all of its competition.

Robert Redford has a new agenda driven film out. Unfortunately for him, the timing of his latest release is terrible.

As the nation struggles to recover from the recent tragic events that took place in Boston, moviegoers have little appetite for flicks that are sympathetic to terrorism and its evil machinations.

Redford produced, directed, and stars in “The Company You Keep,” a political action thriller that is derived from a script, which was adapted from Neil Gordon’s revisionist novel of the same name.

In the movie, Redford plays widower and single dad Jim Grant, who is an anti-Vietnam War radical and former member of the Weather Underground. Grant is being sought by law enforcement in relation to a bank robbery and murder.

For three decades Grant has posed as an Albany attorney in order to hide from the FBI. He finds himself in the position of being forced to flee, after an aggressive reporter (played by Shia LaBeouf) exposes his true identity.

Sharon Solarz (played by Susan Sarandon) is another fugitive who readies herself to surrender to the law.

Replete with hippie-era clichés, the dialogue of the film puts a positive spin on sixties’ radicalism.

“We made mistakes, but we were right,” Solarz says at one point.

The line is reminiscent of an interview that Bill Ayers, former real-life radical and associate of President Obama, had given a while back to The New York Times.

“I don’t regret setting bombs,” Bill Ayers said. “I feel we didn’t do enough.”

Similar to onscreen characters in Redford’s movie, Ayers and fellow Weather Underground member Bernardine Dohrn married, and the two became fugitives who had to alter their identities, change jobs, and move from one location to another.

Numerous film critics who apparently share the nostalgic fantasies of the Hollywood left were elated over Redford’s cinematic treatment of some of the more infamous radicals of the sixties’ era.

Redford’s movie “is streaked with melancholy: a disappointment that the second American Revolution never came,” says Time magazine.

Variety calls the film an “unabashedly heartfelt but competent tribute to 1960s idealism …” and muses that “there is something undeniably compelling, perhaps even romantic, about America’s ’60s radicals and the compromises they did or didn’t make.”

In reality, though, the film gives a highly sanitized view of the Weather Underground, ignoring the unquestionable terrorist activity that is the hallmark of the group’s dark legacy.

A radical left organization founded in 1969 on the Ann Arbor campus of the University of Michigan, the group ultimately became known as the Weathermen. The following line from a Bob Dylan song, “Subterranean Homesick Blues,” purportedly provided the inspiration for the group’s moniker: “You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.”

The organization’s goal was a simple one, to overthrow the U.S. government. According to a position paper distributed in 1969, the group sought to destroy “US imperialism and achieve a classless world: world communism.”

The real Ayers and Dohrn were an integral part of the five people who initially ran the central committee of the Weathermen. Larry Grathwohl, an FBI informant who was with the Weatherman in 1969 and 1970, confirmed that Ayers and Dohrn were the two top leaders of the group.

Between 1970 and 1975, the group carried out a series of bombings of banks and government buildings. Ayers participated in the bombings of the New York City Police Department headquarters, United States Capitol building, and Pentagon.

Members of the organization claim that they had attempted to avoid human injury and had given evacuation warnings prior to the bombings. However, as a nail bomb was being assembled, which was being put together for nefarious use at a Non-Commissioned Officers’ dance at the Fort Dix U.S. Army base, the device prematurely detonated, taking the lives of three Weathermen members.

An FBI report later stated that the group possessed enough explosive to “level … both sides of the street.”

Emory University professor Harvey Klehr took issue with the claim that the Weatherman group was not trying to take lives with its bombings.

“The only reason they were not guilty of mass murder is mere incompetence. I don’t know what sort of defense that is,” Klehr stated.

Just days after the terrorist activities in Boston stunned the nation, “The Company You Keep” was expanded in its release and appeared in theaters in urban locations across the country.

President Obama told reporters at the White House in the aftermath of the Boston attack, “Any time bombs are used to target civilians it is an act of terror.”

According to the president’s definition, Redford, through his release of a film that rationalizes terrorism, has done a disservice to his career, and more importantly, the nation.

As the U.S. Senate voted in favor of initiating debate on the implementation of new restrictions on constitutional rights, the “Saturday Night Live” crew was readying its Obama-supporting comedic arsenal.

SNL writers came up with an opening skit for this past weekend’s show, which essentially chided Congress for failing to sufficiently negate the Second Amendment.

The most recent telecast of the longstanding NBC show began with an Obama impersonator handing over a fictitious presidential press conference to two senator actors.

The senator thespians were fill-ins for a couple of real-life senators who have actually put together a background check proposal, which recently garnered votes from 14 other GOP senators.

In the SNL skit, Bill Hadar is cast as Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Jason Sudeikis plays the role of Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA).

In a real world prelude to the TV humor, a filibuster threat was fended off, due to a routine procedural vote that allowed the Senate to begin formal debate on the Toomey-Manchin proposal, as well as other post-Sandy Hook legislative measures.

The mainstream press hailed the event as a breakthrough. The SNL skit, true to its snarky form, referred to the procedural vote as an agreement “to begin thinking about talking about gun control.” The show’s writers and producers additionally belittled the Toomey-Manchin background checks proposal, characterizing it as a meaningless proposition.

President Obama is portrayed in the bit by Jay Pharoah, who throws out the following line: “As you know, over the past few months, I have made gun control legislation a top priority for my administration. Which is why I am so proud to announce that last week, the Senate voted 68 to 31 to begin debating the idea of discussing gun control.”

For partisan emphasis, the faux president paraphrases the same statement, saying, “Let me say that again: They’ve agreed to think about talking about gun control.”

The SNL Obama also informs viewers that the deal is going to end the careers of both senators. Concerning Manchin’s future, the actor notes that since the senator is “from West Virginia and he’s proposing gun reform? He’s going to lose his job.”

Similarly, the Obama stand-in says that Toomey is “a Republican who’s willing to make just the slightest compromise on gun control? He’s going to lose his job, too.”

Predictably, SNL crafts the humor in a way that places blame squarely on the shoulders of Congress for not having done enough to further the president’s gun control agenda.

The sketch wraps up with the Obama actor shrugging his shoulders and saying, “See, this is what I’m up against.”

From a media psychology vantage point, the real Obama is engaged in exploitation of the Sandy Hook tragedy and is using every media apparatus he can get his hands on to sway public opinion. In addition, he has an army of willing allies in the news and entertainment media who are lined up to assist him in massaging the public’s psyche.

In a truly unsettling move, the administration has actually taken some of the parents who lost children in the Newtown tragedy and essentially turned them into lobbyists for its political agenda, even placing the parents in the offices of the U.S. Senate. Reportedly, the presence of the grieving parents was what persuaded several of the senators who were previously reluctant to back away from a filibuster.

“It’s remarkable,” Connecticut Democrat Sen. Christopher S. Murphy told the New York Times. “You can’t turn a corner in the Capitol this week without meeting a family of a gun violence victim. It’s hard to say no to these families.”

While meeting with the parents, Manchin evidently became so emotional that he broke down and cried.

“I’m a parent. … I’m a grandparent,” he told reporters, after being asked what he thought it meant to have them visiting the U.S. Capitol. Attempting to respond, the senator said, “I can’t imagine this … to do something.” He then gave up, succumbing to his emotions.

Emotional lobbying apparently played a role in the current Toomey-Manchin bipartisan matchup. The two were reportedly brought together by the staff of Americans for Responsible Solutions, former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords’ new gun control advocacy group.

Possibly buoyed in his gun control push by the effectiveness of having Newtown parents serve as inadvertent lobbyists, Obama, in a rather startling move, recently had Francine Wheeler in his place to deliver the weekly address. Wheeler had tragically lost her little boy in the Sandy Hook massacre.

Wheeler’s message seemed mostly intended for congressional ears, as she urged lawmakers to move to enact gun control legislation. She implored them to “help this be the moment when real change begins.”

Similar to the message conveyed by Wheeler, the SNL focus seems to have the earmarks of having been orchestrated by media savvy operatives in the Obama administration and who may have, as a further agenda, the goal of reaching beyond the Toomey-Manchin proposal.