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Clint Eastwood is changing his tune from "Go ahead, make my day" to "Can't we all play nice?" The "Dirty Harry" star appeared on CNBC on Friday to bemoan the lack of bipartisan effort in Washington, D.C., predicting that the nation will slide into a recession if the Democrats and Republicans don't put aside their differences. (Watch Eastwood call for bipartisanism here.) Recalling the 2010 efforts of Republican Sen. Alan Simpson and White House chief of staff Erskine Bowles to introduce fiscal reform and reduce the budget, Eastwood complained that such reaching across the...

By Allen Gardner

The Samurai Trilogy (Criterion) Director Hiroshi Inagaki’s sprawling epic filmed from 1954-56 is an early Japanese Technicolor masterpiece, rivaling the scope of filmmakers like David Lean and Luchino Visconti. Toshiro Mifune, Japan’s greatest actor, stars as real-life swordsman, artist and writer Musashi Miyamoto, following his growth from callow youth to disciplined warrior. The three films: the Oscar winning “Musashi Miyamoto,” “Duel at Ichijoji Temple,” and “Duel at Ganryu Island” are an incredible story of human growth, tender love and sublime, blood-soaked action. Not to be missed. Also available on Blu-ray disc. Bonuses: Interviews with translator and historian William Scott Wilson; Trailers. Full screen. Dolby 1.0 mono.

The 39 Steps (Criterion) Alfred Hitchcock’s 1935 story of spies, conspiracies and sexual tension put him on the map on both sides of the Pond. Robert Donat stars as an innocent thrust into a deadly plot alongside a cool blonde (Madeleine Carroll...

Former Wyoming Senator Alan Simpson, the current chairman of the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, flipped out at California seniors over a flyer entitled “Bowles! Simpson! Stop using the deficit as a phony excuse to gut our Social Security!” In a rather colorful letter dated April 6th, Simpson urged the group to "read the damn report" on Social Security, dubbing them "greedy geezers" for using people as a "tool and a front for your nefarious bunch of crap."...

At the start of this week's Face to Face (the online-only segment of CBS' Face the Nation), Bob Schieffer states that former Senator Alan Simpson has always been one of his favorite people to cover. And why wouldn't he be if this is how candid he can get in interviews? Simpson easily lived up to the title of the book he was there to promote, Shooting from the Lip, as he very bluntly explained his problems with Rick Santorum as a nominee.

Last night on Current TV.s .The Young Turks With Cenk Uygur. Senator Alan Simpson (R- Wy) joined Cenk for a lively debate about Social Security. Cenk vs. former Sen. Alan Simpson (Part 1) Cenk and former Sen. Alan Simpson (R-Wyo.) battle it out over Social Security. "There isn't a single person in your audience that isn't getting something from the federal government in the form of something and bitching about the government that gives it to them," Simpson says. Cenk argues that Simpson's proposal to raise the retirement age is an awful deal for workers. "That's terrible if you're a blue collar worker and your actual life expectancy hasn't changed," Cenk says. Cenk vs.

Former Senator Alan Simpson appeared on Your World with Neil Cavuto to answer back to anti-tax lobbyist Grover Norquist's rebuke that he was a 'senile drunk', criticizing Norquist's opposition to eliminating ethanol subsides, which Senator Tom Coburn championed. "I'm not obsessed with Grover, he says I've been saying I've been calling his answering machine! I don't call his answering machine. Hell, I don't call anything that he's connected with. I don't need to! He's as much a smart aleck as I am," Simpson quipped. "He called [Senator] Coburn's activity there a tax increase, and Coburn used the word 'ludicrous' -- I used word "deceptive," and I will continue to use that. You can't get where we have to go by taxing your way out of this baby or cutting spending your way out of this, baby. You have to have a plan. We've worked for ten months on this baby,...

As far as political personalities who hold no public office or have a job at a media association go, none seems to have skyrocketed to newfound popularity the way '90s staple and Americans for Tax Reform head Grover Norquist has during the debt crisis debate. With only thirteen Republicans refusing to sign his anti-tax pledge during this round of budget debate, former Sen. Alan Simpson told Lawrence O'Donnell tonight that it's time to "peel all the layers of the onion" and figure out just why people seem to listen to intently to Norquist.

The birther craziness, along with the innuendo about Obama's grades and the purging of dissenters, revealed a deep Gop divide that risks undermining the party going into 2012, says Howard Kurtz.

The regular Tuesday meeting of the House Republican caucus grew heated last month when some of the more seasoned lawmakers said it was time to "shut up," as one put it, about the birther issue.

Related story on The Daily Beast: How Palin's Winning the Media War

The caucus has 85 new members, more than 30 of whom are new to elective office- "the kamikazes," they are privately called-and some took strong exception to being urged not to talk about President Obama's birth certificate. "Well, I don't think he was born in this country," one freshman snapped.

The birther nonsense seems especially pointless-and corrosive-when one considers that Obama was planning the helicopter raid that would kill Osama bin Laden days later,...

MSNBC's Contessa Brewer really, really enjoyed a clip from former Wyoming Republican Sen. Alan Simpson, who was criticizing new, socially conservative members of the Gop as "homophobes" and "woman haters." After airing the clips--from an earlier episode of Hardball--Brewer couldn't quite resist the urge to add an "amen" in the form of an--assumingly ad-libbed--"Preach it!" Brewer also set up the clip by describing Simpson as a "truth-teller:"...

Co-Chair of the recent Debt Commission, former Republican Senator Alan Simpson appeared on State of The Union and unleashed a series of somewhat humorous, always weird jabs at current politicians in both parties who are not taking the deficit problem seriously. Simpson, no stranger to making controversial comments in the past, even called some critics "jerks" for lying about his budget saving plans for social security and suggested people don't "howl and bitch" about a raise in the retirement age.