Free Republic

Almost more than the convention of Barack Obama, the 2008 DNC is like a party given for and by Nancy Pelosi. The House Majority Leader is a ubiquitous dynamo, an Energizer bunny pushing the Democratic platform, explaining and extolling the Obamas, making everything seem right in the world to anyone who might be worried or have questions. Tuesday night, my cab driver told me he’d just received a call to pick her up from a private dinner party! The woman does not sleep! So it’s not too surprising that she’s getting help at home. Pelosi’s daughter Alexandra, the respected filmmaker...

From The Sunday Times August 10, 2008 Oliver Stone's George Bush biopic Oliver Stone's Bush biopic plays it for laughs, but it's every bit as controversial as JFK and Nixon Christopher Goodwin You have to admit it’s a great question: “How did George W Bush go from alcoholic bum to the most powerful figure in the world?” That’s what the American film-maker Oliver Stone says he wants to explain in his forthcoming movie biopic, entitled, simply enough, W. Not surprisingly, Texas-sized dust storms have already blown up in Hollywood and Washington over the film, which is being rushed through production...

Henry is a man in deep existential angst. Luke Wilson plays the role brilliantly with a face, demeanor and carriage which is literally, as they say, “right out of central casting”. Later in the film we will learn that Henry has received a terminal medical diagnosis which sent him into the latest downturn. However his hopelessness and despair have been growing inside of him for years, draining away the life. He, like so many people, is a member of the walking wounded, dragging the pain of unresolved childhood hurt and trauma like a ball and chain behind him. The chip...

Toby Keith Hits Back at Accusation Song Is Pro-Lynching Friday, August 08, 2008 Toby Keith hit back at a recent blog post that derided his 2003 song "Beer for My Horses" as a pro-lynching anthem. "The song was a hit and the words 'lynch' and 'racism' has never come up until this moron wrote this blog," he said, according to ContactMusic. The country singer, 47, was on "The Colbert Report" last month to perform "Beer for My Horses," the popular song that inspired a movie of the same name. Huffington Post blogger Max Blumenthal called the song an "ode to...

The most striking thing about the new Batman movie, now smashing the all-time box office records, is its emphasis on sado-masochism as the animating element in American culture these days. It must appeal to the many angry people in our land who want to hurt others, even while they themselves feel deserving of the grossest punishments. In other words, the picture reflects the extreme depravity of the current American sensibility. Seeing it all laid out there must be very validating to the emotionally confused audience, and hence pleasurable, in all its painfulness. The rich symbolism in this spectacle represents the...

DHP Review: Towelhead Posted by Dirty Harry on Thursday, July 24th, 2008 During the Q&A, after a sneak preview of Towelhead, writer/director Alan Ball said of child rape, “Society wants us to believe that’s a soul destroying event, I don’t believe that.” The context of such an incendiary statement is important and can be found in his film, the story of a thirteen year old Arab girl, Jasira, (Summer Bishil) who‘s raped by her Army Reservist next door neighbor (Aaron Eckhart), molested by her mother‘s boyfriend, and sexually manipulated by Thomas (Eugene Bradley), a young man she goes to school...

Hollywood's conservative underground 'Friends of Abe' group meets quietly EXCLUSIVE: A group of politically conservative and centrist Hollywood figures organized by actor Gary Sinise and others has been meeting quietly in restaurants and private homes, forming a loose-knit network of entertainers who share common beliefs like supporting U.S. troops and traditional American values.

Egypt summoned a senior Iranian diplomat in Cairo on Monday over an Iranian film on the assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, an Egyptian Foreign Ministry official and state media said. Egypt's state news agency MENA said Cairo called in the head of the Iranian interests office in Cairo over the film, which upset Egyptian sensibilities. But MENA gave few details of the film's content. Mainly Sunni Muslim Egypt and Shi'ite Iran have not had full diplomatic relations since Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution, when Iran cut ties after Sadat hosted the deposed pro-Western Shah in Cairo. Iran said in January...

Here we go! Arsenic and Old Lace Aliens (great series except for 3) Apollo 13 The Aviator Apocolypto All About Eve The African queen Assault on Precinct 13 (1976) Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me Armageddon

Here we go! Casino Royale The Court Jester The Caine Mutiny Cat on a Hot Tin Roof A Clockwork Orange The Cruel Sea Casablanca Citizen kane Chaplin Catch Me if You Can

Here We Go Die Hard The Dambusters Dr Strangelove or: How I Learned to stop Worrying and Love the Bomb The Dead Zone Dirty Rotten Scoundrels Deliverance The Duelists Das Boot (I Know!) Dirty Dancing Dragon: The Bruce Lee story

here we go! The Last King of Scotland The Lord of the Rings trilogy Life is Beautiful Last train from Gun Hill The Last Samurai The Last of the Mohicans The Lavender Hill Mob (being remade by director of Galaxy Quest) Lawrence of Arabia The Long Good Friday (IF you haven’t seen this..Please do!)The Ladykillers (Sim and Guinness)

Hi everyone - being a relative newbie, I could yet not resist this one: yesterday I saw 'Unforgiven' by Clint Eastwood for the first time. To start: I found it a stunningly good movie. It's been labelled as 'the very last western', or if you will, a revisionist version of trad western fare. I'd agree with both comments; but at the same time it's not out of step with tradional storytelling. What makes it special for me is the deep humanity in it all. Women of low standing are heroines; Clint stays true to the one woman that once saved...

Cannes' Voyage to Neverland By Yervand KocharDuring the 1963 Moscow International Film Festival, few had a doubt that Federico Fellini’s “8 ½� was not just a masterpiece but a milestone achievement that will signal a new epoch in filmmaking. The film was not merely contending for the Grand Prize; it was clear that no conventional prize can put a tag on the sheer artistic genius and refreshing power of the movie. Threatened by Fellini’s highly formalistic language, the Communist party’s movie department that was behind making the decisions of the festival, as usually, suspected something potentially harmful for the cause...

VIENNA, Austria (May 19) -- The hills are alive ... with the sound of protest. Plans to run a hotel out of a former home of the von Trapp family immortalized in the movie "The Sound of Music" have triggered fierce resistance from neighbors who fear tourists will tie up traffic and make a nuisance of themselves. "We will fight this with all means at our disposal," said Andreas Braunbruck, who lives near the Villa Trapp in a neighborhood of Salzburg already teeming with "Sound of Music" tourists seeking a glimpse of the house. "Buses and cars are constantly in...

Anger as Hugo Chavez gives film star £9m By Charlie Devereux in Caracas Last Updated: 1:20am BST 20/04/2008 For years Venezuela's struggling film industry has eagerly welcomed visiting Western stars keen to show their solidarity with the country's radical president Hugo Chávez. Kevin Spacey, Sean Penn and Harry Belafonte are among those who have trooped to Caracas to witness first hand the country's Bolivarian revolution and Mr Chávez's crusades against globalisation and American imperialism. But Venezuela's hard-pressed film makers are no longer quite so enthusiastic about these glamourous "sandalistas". Last week the country's national assembly agreed to pay the second...

A friend of Mine teaches Media Studies in New Zealand. Some of her students have an entry for the youngest age bracket in an annual film competition for students ages 12 to twenty four.

Thanks to the intervention of the Dutch government, a second anti-Islam movie will not see the light, at least for now. "I can confirm that Mr Ehsan Jami has decided not to broadcast his controversial film," Ayhan Tunja, a member of the Muslim Coordinating Council of the Netherlands, told IslamOnline.net Tuesday, April 1, over the phone. "He has announced his decision on Dutch television," he added. Jami, a former Muslim of Iranian origin, told the Netwrek TV show he has decided not to release his cartoon film, The Life of Muhammad, as expected on April 20. The film would have...

(CNSNews.com) - It wasn't an April Fool's joke after all: Dutch politician Geert Wilders has posted his short film on the Koran online, as promised, before the end of March. Within hours, millions of people had accessed it. The film juxtaposes graphic images of Islamist terrorism -- including bombings and beheadings -- with verses from the Koran, footage of Muslim clerics endorsing violence, and newspaper headlines dealing with various aspects of radical Islam. In recent months reports on the planned film, entitled Fitna (an Arabic word in the Koran translated as "strife" or "ordeal"), have prompted reactions in the Islamic...

  Dutch anti-Islamic film's Internet site suspended Mar 23 10:20 AM US/Eastern     An American network provider Sunday said it had suspended a website that Dutch MP Geert Wilders had reserved to post his anti-Islamic film, which has sparked wide condemnation and fears of a backlash. "Network Solutions has received a number of complaints regarding this site that are under investigation," the provider said a message posted on the Internet. Although his website is offline, Wilders on Sunday insisted he still wants to put the movie "on the internet quickly" but did not specify how. He also told the...

BRUSSELS — Dutch anti-Koran film "Fitna" seems unlikely to air on domestic TV, with broadcasters lining up to say they will not take it. None are ready to accept demands by Geert Wilders, the politician behind the 15-minute film, that it should air complete and unedited. The latest rejections were reported Thursday in Dutch daily De Volkskrant. The Netwerk and Nova news programs, on pubcaster Nederland 2, have both been talking to Wilders but now say his demands are "bizarre" and unacceptable. Commercial broadcasters SBS and RTL are also reported to have rejected the film. If no broadcaster picks up...

CAIRO (AFP) — An Egyptian festival on Sunday went back on its decision to ban a Dutch film after what it said was a Dutch government apology for a short film attacking Islam directed by a far-right MP. "After the apology of the (Dutch) cabinet ... the committee agreed in less than a minute to take the film back into the festival," Naem al-Baz of the Cairo International Film Festival for Children told AFP. The festival had on Thursday decided to ban the children's film, "Where is Sinterklass' Horse?", because of a planned film by Dutch far-right member of parliament...

Since 1996, George Soros’s Open Society Institute has been funding the production of “social justice” documentaries to win converts to the billionaire’s brand of liberalism. In 2001, Soros joined forces with actor-director Robert Redford and let Redford’s Sundance Institute take over his Soros Documentary Fund. What’s the outcome of this made-in-Hollywood merger?

"An abridged history of American-centric warfare, from WWII to present day, told through the foods of the countries in conflict."

The company that pioneered instant photography is getting out of the film business to focus on digital imaging. Polaroid says it will close its two remaining film manufacturing plants in Massachusetts. The facilities in Norwood and Waltham employed about 150 people and made large-format film for commercial use.

I just saw it on F/X. If you enjoy mixed martial arts films - with real expert martial artists not just actors learning how to kick - and Russian culture context with a Rocky-ish hero fights the system theme, rent it and watch it now!

Often enough I hear my pro-RKBA, libertarian, and conservative/patriot friends complaining that Hollywood doesn't make movies for us and that the movies they do make are hostile to our core values.Here's your chance to turn that tide by supporting some new movies made by friends who do share our values.First up is the new comedy Witless Protection, starring Larry the Cable Guy, Jenny McCarthy, and Yaphet Kotto, released this past weekend by LionsGate. (This is the same studio that is producing Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged.) The writer/director of Witless Protection is Charles Carner, a friend I met through our...

Larry the Cable Guy's "Witless Protection" is coming out on Academy Awards weekend, but producer J.P. Williams knows the silly crime comedy is a far better bet next year to snag a Golden Raspberry award for dubious achievement than Oscar gold. "We shoot for the Razzies," said Williams, who has built a lucrative empire around Larry, the country fried alter ego of Dan Whitney, and his feller "blue-collar" comedians. Related Stories - Movie projections "Certain studios are in it for statues, but I'm in it to make money because it's my money on the line," Williams said.

Last May, I attended a press screening of a darling film called Americanizing Shelley. Though not a film critic, I did write my own kind of review of the film. If you wish to read it, you'll find no spoilers...just my general sense that if all romantic comedies were like Americanizing Shelley, then the romantic comedy genre would rise considerably in my estimation. Wonderful film! Well, Warner Brothers has now become the film's distributor! Here's a note from the happy producers:The Scoop: After a great run at the US Box Office (against the likes of Spiderman 3 in May 2007)...

By Burt Prelutsky Some years ago, I was a movie reviewer. I started out at UCLA, reviewing for the Daily Bruin, and then moved on to be the first critic for Los Angeles magazine. All told, I stuck it out for about a dozen years. I was always struck by the fact that my readers would insist that I never liked movies, even after I’d just written a rave about, say, “The Apartment� or “Some Like It Hot.� The fact of the matter is that pans are simply more memorable than raves. For instance, I have friends who still recall...

The Dutch Muslim Council has attacked far-right Dutch MP Geert Wilders' politics as "racist and fascist". The council, which includes 200 organisations, appealed for calm ahead of the planned release by the MP of a controversial film. Mr Wilders says his film will show the Koran as an inspiration for murder.

Night after night, from her cell in solitary confinement, Mehrnoushe Solouki could hear the anguished crying of fellow inmates in Tehran's Evin prison. When the French-Iranian filmmaker asked her guards about it, they were clear: The cries were not from hardened criminals but female activists, artists, and intellectuals locked up for nothing more than their political beliefs. Since January 18, Solouki has been back in Paris, safe in the warm embrace of family and friends -- and far from Evin prison. Yet it still haunts her. A doctoral film student at Canada’s University of Quebec, Solouki traveled to Tehran in...

Officials in the Netherlands, where tensions have been high since a Muslim murdered a filmmaker more than three years ago, are bracing for the release of a new movie by a controversial politician that aims to show Islam's holy book "is an inspiration for intolerance, murder and terror." In 2004, filmmaker Theo Van Gogh was murdered by a Muslim avenging his film critical of Islam. Two years later, riots protesting the publication of cartoons about Islam's prophet Muhammad left about 100 people dead. Now, the Dutch government is warning of a 10-minute film to be released this month by parliament...

THE HAGUE (AFP) - The Dutch government is ready for any possible fallout of a planned film by far-right MP Geert Wilders that attacks Islam as an "inspiration for murder," Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende said Friday. "We are ready to react quickly, it is our role to be prepared for calamities," Balkenende told journalists at his weekly press briefing. Earlier on Friday Dutch media had reported that the government had compiled a secret document on how best to deal with reactions to the film. Wilders, the head of the far-right Freedom Party, announced in November that he planned to...

Through revolution and repression, art was Marjane Satrapi's lifeline. She was 9 in 1978 when Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was deposed and the Islamic Revolution rocked her native Iran; 25 in 1994 when she left her homeland for France, where she put her youth into personal and historical perspective. Persepolis, the superb film based on Satrapi's graphic memoirs of the same name, is a riveting odyssey in pictures and words. It's unlike any journal you've read or any animated movie you've seen. In pen-and-ink it chronicles young Marjane's exhilaration at the fall of the shah and her confusion at the...

It's a plot straight out of Hollywood. A sexy female superagent circles the globe in pursuit of a cold-blooded terrorist who has hidden nuclear bombs in four of the world's major cities. In the climax, the two of them fight in a Pakistani fortress while the heroine's bosses nervously watch the countdown from their high-tech command center. But this isn't your latest Jerry Bruckheimer action movie. It's a Russian production called "The Apocalypse Code," and its heroine, Darya, works for the FSB, the successor agency to the KGB. The command center is supposed to be the Lubyanka, a real-life building...

Nietzsche once trenchantly quipped that “...our modern noisy, time-consuming industriousness, proud of itself, stupidly proud, educates and prepares people more than anything else does, precisely for unbelief.”The truth in that statement is perhaps never more on display than during the Christmas season. Slogans urging us to “keep Christ in Christmas,” or “recall the reason for the season,” sound about as hollow as the Christmas jingles that reverberate in our ears every time we enter a store. Those in search of an antidote might consider watching the newly released DVD Into Great Silence, Philip Groening’s movingly observed study of the daily...

USCCB Office for Film & Broadcasting under fire for review of "The Golden Compass"; Director reminds readers, "We have the Church's best interests at heart." By JOSEPH McALEER Fairfield County Catholic, December 22, 2007 "Hollywood history is rife with examples of literary works that, by dint of problematic sexual, violent, or religious content have been softened to varying degrees to mollify public sensibilities." So began a review of The Golden Compass written by Harry Forbes and John Mulderig, director and media reviewer, respectively, of the Office for Film & Broadcasting (OFB) of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). The...

Film Clips by: Heyecan Veziroglu, December 20, 2007 The Washington Film Institute is a new organization which was established to inspire and stimulate audiences through film education and discussions. The Institute has been programming film events such as Prince Among Slaves which was shown at Howard University’s Cramton Auditorium on December1, 2007. The film is far more than the true story of an African Prince (Abdul Rahman Ibrahim Sori) who was sold into slavery in the American South in 1788. The Moslem Prince was enslaved for 40 years. Then he regained his freedom and returned to Africa. He married a...

USCCB Reviewer Caught Okaying Another Film Celebrating Homosexual Immorality Special to LifeSiteNews.com by Pete Vere NEW YORK, December 18, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Harry Forbes, director of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) Office of Film and Broadcasting, has given a positive review to the homosexually-themed "Rent". Forbes, whose initial positive review of "Brokeback Mountain" two years' ago was subsequently modified by the USCCB, became the center of controversy earlier this month after the USCCB withdrew his positive review of "The Golden Compass". The 2005 movie "Rent" is based upon a musical of the same name. The movie's plot...

An ultra-nationalistic Turkish group is seeking to stop a Mel Gibson film about the genocide of the Armenians with an e-mail campaign, the Turkish newspaper "Zaman" reported on Tuesday in its internet edition. The man behind the campaign....

IT'S hard for Hollywood pacifists like Brian De Palma to capture the hearts and minds of America if Americans won't see their movies. While the public is staying away in droves from “Rendition," “Lions for Lambs" and “In the Valley of Elah," audiences are really avoiding “Redacted," De Palma's picture about US soldiers who rape a 14-year-old Iraqi girl, then kill her and her family.

A ranking member on the House Armed Services Committee sent a letter to the Chairman of the Motion Picture Association today calling the new Iraq war film "Redacted" a shameful view of American soldiers. California Republican Duncan Hunter sent a scathing letter regarding Brian DePalma's new Iraq war film to Motion Picture Chairman and CEO Dan Glickman asking that he not forget that there are heroes who have sacrificed their lives for the United States and Iraqi people. "Unfortunately, Brian De Palma's new movie "Redacted," which opened in several theaters this week, portrays American service personnel in Iraq as uncontrollable...

"Peeping Tom," the chilly 1959 movie by Michael Powell, concerns a young psychopath who uses a 16mm movie camera to film his victims while he is killing them. The close-ups of terror that cross the faces of the women as he impales them on a spike attached to his tripod are for him a source of curiosity and pleasure. Widely reviled on its release--and credited with destroying the commercial career of Powell, a venerable English director ("The Red Shoes")--the work was rediscovered by Martin Scorsese and other cinéastes in the 1970s. They argued against its earlier detractors, noting that in...

Can a movie stop the war in Iraq? With "Redacted," director Brian De Palma hopes so. His new film recounts (and embellishes upon) an incident in which American soldiers...raped and killed a young Iraqi girl. De Palma has long held a reputation as a...copycat artist, a forger of second-rate goods who casually lifts from his cinematic betters. In..."Dressed to Kill," "Mission to Mars" and "Blow Out," he shamelessly appropriated motifs and narrative elements from respected directors like Alfred Hitchcock, Stanley Kubrick, and Michelangelo Antonioni. He's also long exhibited a particular fascination with the confluence of violence and sexuality. So instead...

Debbie Schlussel: Early Movie Review: 3-D Spectacle "Beowulf" is Fun "300" as Played by WWE Characters By Debbie Schlussel It's definitely not for kids. And I didn't care for the right-in-your-face naked CGI rear ends of Beowulf (Ray Winstone) and Grendel's Mother (a skank played by a skank--Angelina Jolie). But I thoroughly enjoyed "Beowulf"--the 3-D marvel, in theaters tomorrow (Friday). And, yes, guys, this movie is for you. Dragons, fire, monsters, kings, warriors, swords, damsels in distress--this has all those and more. It's the story of the swashbuckling, but exaggeratingly braggadocious, fair-haired warrior Beowulf who saves Danish King Hrothgar's (Anthony...

Hollywood, CA -- Several new cities saw the premier of Bella last weekend ranging from Pittsburgh and Milwaukee to Honolulu and Albuquerque. The movie, which has struck a chord with the pro-life community because of its theme in favor of respecting life, continued to attract a strong audience despite the limited number of theaters showing it. Over the first few weeks of the film's release, just 186 theaters showed the movie, which gave it the second and third highest per-theater sales figures during late October and early November. The premier this weekend in venues in places such as Green Bay...

Two brothers, a murdered father and an untold story of pain and forgiveness are the inspirations behind an award-winning documentary on the secret death of a prominent evangelical pastor in Iran. A Cry From Iran, co-directed by Bishop Haik Hovsepian’s two adult sons, tells the martyr’s story through the eyes of his sons. “This was not a payback to the regime but this was an honest telling of our dad’s story,” said co-director Andre Hovsepian, who was only 10-years-old when his father was murdered. “We could have been with the people who make bombs and think how we can...

Hollywood, CA -- Bella, the pro-life themed movie that has the potential to change hearts and minds on abortion, opened solidly with $1.3 million over the weekend in a limited release in just 31 cities. Though other movies achieved higher gross sales, they needed significantly more theaters to do so. The film stars Eduardo Verastegui as a former soccer player who learns the value of human life and helps a pregnant waitress, played by Tammy Blanchard, appreciate the value of the baby she's carrying. The number one movie this weekend, according to initial figures, was "Saw IV," a Holloween horror...