[8/31/07]
[Mark
Joseph author] 12:35
am [permalink]
Ballot box brethren: New documentary dares to talk about (LDS) religion and (presidential) politics By CODY CLARK
Most people who follow politics, and many who don't, have probably heard by now that Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney is a practicing member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Filmmaker Adam Christing, however, said that Romney is only about 50 percent the focus of his film "A Mormon President."
Christing is preparing two versions of the film, a one-hour cut for television and a 90-minute theatrical cut, and hopes to find distribution for both in the next month or two. [more @ The Herald]
[8/29/07]
[Mark
Joseph author] 12:35
am [permalink]
Movie gets tagged as 'Christian' and loses out By TERRY MATTINGLY Scripps Howard News Service As a rule, movie producers do not enjoy seeing America's most influential newspaper crucify their films.
"Reeking of self-righteousness and moral reprimand," spat Jeanette Catsoulis of the New York Times, a movie titled "The Ultimate Gift" could be considered "a hairball of good-for-you filmmaking coughed up by 20th Century Fox's new faith-based label, Fox Faith."
Wait, there's more, because this "cinematic sermon" makes sure that its "messages -- pro-poverty, anti-abortion -- are methodically hammered home."
There were other reviews, good and bad. Still, the nastiness in strategic corners of the media caught veteran producer Rick Eldridge off guard, in large part because he thought that he was producing a mainstream movie, with mainstream talent, that was going to have a chance to reach a thoroughly mainstream audience.
What he didn't count on was getting stuck with two dangerous labels -- "Fox" and "Faith." Those words can turn your average media insider into a pillar of salt. [more at Scripps]
[8/22/07]
[Streetsweeper]
12:05 am [permalink]
Streetsweeper's Cinema Sweepings: Boys Behaving Badly An 'extremely right-wing movie with extremely filthy dialogue.' --- Superbad--a horrifyingly foul-mouthed, shockingly hilarious, and surprisingly moving new teen comedy that will probably be the best-known and most fondly remembered Hollywood picture of 2007 a quarter-century from now--is set on a Friday two weeks before the end of the school year. Seth and Evan, friends since infancy, are graduating. They are classic high-school oddballs--not losers, exactly, because they're funny and because most other kids seem to like them fine. But they're certainly second-tier material.
They are, therefore, shocked and delighted to find themselves invited to a cool party in part because they promise to supply the alcohol. That seems an easy task, because they have a car and their friend Fogell, an unquestioned loser, has gotten himself a fake ID. But then the car is towed and Fogell gets punched in the face during a liquor-store robbery, which leads Seth and Evan to think he's been busted for his phony ID. [more at Weekly Standard]
[8/20/07]
[Streetsweeper]
12:05 am [permalink]
Streetsweeper's Cinema Sweepings: Aliens in Our Midst Washington gets overrun in "The Invasion" by Peter Suderman - How is it that when aliens invade, they always seem to pick Washington? Perhaps it’s the precedent set by The Day the Earth Stood Still, or maybe it’s just the drama of blowing up the Capitol building, like in Independence Day. Either way, whether by design or dumb luck, Hollywood’s alien hordes usually end up in the seat of government. Somehow, it just seems right. And so it is in The Invasion, an update of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, in which Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig tear through Georgetown while fending off baddies from another world. Unfortunately, the remake replaces the bleak scares of the original with a bid for political relevance that’s as hollow and unconvincing as its legions of extraterrestrial goons. [more at National Review]
[8/17/07]
[Ralph
Peters - author] 12:03
am [permalink]
Whacking Iran – The media missed a big one Tuesday.
They ran with the story that the Bush administration will soon designate Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps - a major troublemaker in Iraq - as a terrorist organization. But they didn't look past the public-consumption explanation that the move lets our government go after the Revolutionary Guards' finances and the international companies that cut deals with Tehran's thugs.
The real reason for the move is to set up a legal basis for airstrikes or special operations raids on the Guard's bases in Iran.
Our policy is that we reserve the right to whack terrorists anywhere in the world. Now we have newly designated terrorists. And we know exactly where they are.
This doesn't mean we won't go after their money, too. The Revolutionary Guards have built up a financial empire - they're religious fanatics, but, in their version of Islam, "greed is good." Hurting Iran's assassins in the pocketbook reduces their ability to export terror.
But watch that space: We've long delayed taking action against the Iranians who provide Iraq's Shia extremists with the sophisticated IEDs that kill and maim our troops. We fell into the Vietnam-era trap of allowing the enemy a sanctuary - this time, in Iran. The Revolutionary Guards' al-Quds subsidiary helped butcher hundreds of our troops - and got away with it virtually scot-free.
Looks like those days are nearing an end.
[8/15/07]
[Julia
Gorin pundit/comedian] 12:05
am [permalink]
Serbian Jew with a Clue on EU “Serbia Must Choose Kosovo over EU”
NOVI SAD — Leon Kojen believes that Serbia “has no place among those who actively support dismemberment of its territory”.
The former Kosovo team coordinator says that in case the authorities in Priština decide to declare the province’s independence unilaterally, and achieve recognition by some EU countries, Serbia must halt all EU integration processes.
“Just as any other Serbian citizen, the government and parliament must respect the constitution and do all to make sure its provisions are implemented. That means that the parliament would have to decide to stop EU integrations for the unforeseeable future,” Kojen told Novi Sad daily Dnevnik.
He said this would constitute for a “minimal answer” on the part of Serbia, and added the country “certainly has no place among those who actively support dismemberment of its territory”.
The analogy offered by Jim Jatras and Srdja Trifkovic comes to mind, in terms of the choice being offered to Serbia: It’s like someone telling you, “Sure you can join the club. But first you have to cut off your arm and rip out your heart.” [Gorin Glob]
[8/13/07]
[from our friends @Mediacrity]
12:01 am [permalink]
Mississippi on the West Bank
The
New York Times Saturday gave us a vivid reminder of its disconnect from
reality in the Middle East, as well as its expected pro-Palestinian
bias.
An atrocious front-page article by the reliably anti-Israel Steve Erlanger describes a "segregated" -
as in Bull Connor and antebellum Mississippi and KKK - road on the West
Bank.
The poor, poor Palestinians can't travel into Jerusalem
unless they have proper permission. Horrible! Segregation! Apartheid!
How could those bad bad Israelis do such a thing? The animals!
Little
things such as terrorism or the day-to-day bloodletting did not intrude
into the picture Erlanger painted. The road will eliminate the need for
checkpoints, and is only a few miles long, but that is not mentioned in
the article.
But then, right above the continuation of the article on an inside page, we have another article by the same reporter explaining why the road is needed. A Palestinian decided to grab a gun
from a security guard in the Old City of Jerusalem, and went on a
shooting spree. This is precisely the kind of terrorism that makes it
impossible to allow West Bank Palestinians free access to the Old City.
If
they weren't killing people there would be no need for roads without
exits or separation barriers. But Erlanger makes no mention of the
Jerusalem shooting spree in his article on the road.
That would
allow reality to intrude, and reality is a concept that does not exist
in the Times's coverage of the Middle East. Better to paint a picture
of Bull Connor and Mississippi of 1960. [go
to Mediacrity blog]
[8/9/07]
[Streetsweeper]
12:05 am [permalink]
Streetsweeper's Cinema Sweepings: Lights, Camera, Reaction Thor Halvorssen's campaign to make Hollywood safe for non-leftists. by Sonny Bunch During the fourth season of HBO's hit comedy series Curb Your Enthusiasm, one of the subplots centered on the bumbling attempts of the show's star, Larry David, to take advantage of a rather unusual anniversary gift given to him by his wife: He can have an affair with any woman he wants, as long as he does it by the day of their anniversary (which also happens to coincide with the opening of Larry's Broadway debut in The Producers). Needless to say, this leads to a number of awkward encounters until finally, as time is about to run out--on the night of the show itself, in fact--the very attractive female lead in the musical invites Larry into her dressing room for a quick fling. The liberal New Yorker is game, making out with the starlet until he notices something not quite right: a picture of George W. Bush beside her vanity mirror. Disgusted, he turns away, deciding he'd rather let his gift expire than have sex with a Republican.
To many conservatives, this vignette neatly sums up Hollywood's ideological monomania: Left-wing politics trumps even a good old fashioned roll in the hay. [more at Weekly Standard]
[8/8/07]
[Streetsweeper]
12:05 am [permalink]
Streetsweeper's Cinema Sweepings: Becoming Jane By James BowmanAnyone likely to be watching Becoming Jane, Julian Jarrold's attempt to imagine a historical love affair between a young Jane Austen and an impecunious Irish lawyer in 1795, is likely to know in advance how it comes out. Though he's got a lot of nerve, Mr. Jarrold hasn't got quite enough to make one of the world's most famous spinsters into a happily married lady. The suspense lies in our waiting to see not if but how the lovers will be parted. In this respect, if in no other, all honor to Mr Jarrold and his screenwriters, Sarah Williams and Kevin Hood. They have given us an ending that, for its high moral tone and sense of duty, Jane Austen herself might have been pleased with. Otherwise, the movie is a load of sentimental rubbish. [more at American Spectator]
[8/7/07]
[Julia
Gorin pundit/comedian] 12:05
am [permalink]
Viva Las Vegas [By Julia Gorin @ American Spectator] While America looks to amnesty as a way out of an illegal immigration problem it can't cope with, and while Europe undergoes soft Islamization as it gives up any hope of assimilating the newcomers to its shores, there remains just one entity capable of preserving civilization: Casinos.
Take Las Vegas, for example. In defiance of the current trend of embracing Arabic culture and even bending to certain Muslim practices in banking, real estate and other spheres, last week the Mandalay Resort Group announced that the Luxor hotel-casino will be dropping the Egyptian theme... [more at American Spectator]
[8/6/07]
[Streetsweeper]
12:05 am [permalink]
Streetsweeper's Cinema Sweepings: No Reservations Scott Hicks (Shine, Snow Falling on Cedars), the director of No Reservations, deserves hearty congratulations, in my opinion, for coming as close as anyone can to defying Bowman's First Law of Remakes -- which is that remakes are always worse and nearly always much, much worse than the originals they're based on. Well, you can see why. Not only can Hollywood, which is the only place where they make remakes, not help Hollywoodizing everything it touches, but also remakes start out well behind in the race because, by definition, they haven't got what made the movie they are copying worth copying to start with -- that is, a compelling individual vision. In this case, that vision belonged to the German director Sandra Nettelbeck whose Bella Martha, was released in this country as Mostly Martha in 2002. [more at American Spectator]
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