Movies

Michael Moore: The Republican Party Is ‘Dead,’ and Self-Righteous America Needs a ‘Timeout’
By Tom Johnson | December 28, 2015 | 10:06 PM EST

In his new documentary, Where to Invade Next, Michael Moore jaunts around Europe showcasing what he deems enlightened social and economic policies, including Italy’s lengthy paid vacations, Norway’s treatment of prison inmates, and France’s school-lunch program. New York Times reviewer Stephen Holden observed that Moore’s “examples…are cherry-picked to make American audiences feel envious and guilty.”

On Monday, Salon ran an interview with Moore in which he talked about the movie as well as the U.S. presidential campaign. One of his comments: "I also think it’s a little gauche for Americans to point out to anybody in the world what their problems are at this point…I think we need a little time in the timeout room, you know what I’m saying? A little chill-down from running around the world: ‘You need democracy! Now you need democracy!’”

Historian Rick Perlstein: George Lucas and Ronald Reagan ‘Gave Us Permission to Stop Growing Up’
By Tom Johnson | December 24, 2015 | 11:16 AM EST

By the late summer of 1977, Jimmy Carter had been president for only a few months, but if you knew which way the cultural and political winds were blowing, he seemed unlikely to win a second term. That’s because on May 25 of that year, Star Wars had opened, and its colossal success both foreshadowed and helped to revive a mindset that carried Ronald Reagan to the White House. That’s the word from Perlstein, who laid out his theory last Friday in The Washington Spectator.

Boyega, Ridley Made More in ‘Star Wars’ Debut Than Harrison Ford Did in ‘A New Hope’
By Erik Soderstrom | December 22, 2015 | 4:18 PM EST

The left and entertainment press have had a field day whining about how much more Harrison Ford was paid for his role in The Force Awakens compared to costars and series newcomers John Boyega and Daisy Ridley.

“Harrison Ford Was Paid Over 50x More Than ‘Star Wars’ Co-Stars” Variety’s headline blared. (SPOILERS AHEAD)

New Film to Depict What Ted Kennedy 'Had to Go Through' at Chappaquiddick
By Jack Coleman | December 15, 2015 | 8:24 PM EST

Nearly five decades after Mary Jo Kopechne died in a car driven by Ted Kennedy, Hollywood is preparing a movie about the incident that appears more sympathetic to him than to her.

Kopechne, a 28-year-old former campaign worker for Kennedy's late brother Robert, was one of several women from the RFK campaign who attended a party on the remote island of Chappaquiddick off the coast of Massachusetts in July 1969, along with Kennedy and several other men.

 

Actor Kurt Russell to Liberal Journalist: 'Insane' to Think Terrorists Are Affected by Gun Control
By Melissa Mullins | December 11, 2015 | 1:40 PM EST

Kurt Russell has fought fires in the movie Backdraft, Chinese gangs in Big Trouble in Little China, American outlaws in Tombstone, crime bosses in Escape From New York and the Russian hockey team in Miracle. Now, he’s taking on the liberal media.

Russell was recently interviewed by Jeffrey Wells of Hollywood Elsewhere about his upcoming film Hateful Eight – directed by the very controversial Quentin Tarantino. Wells wasted no time trying to turn an entertainment piece into a political battle about gun control.

NYPost Writer Wants to Snuff Out Politically Incorrect 1980s Classic Teen Movie 'Sixteen Candles'
By Melissa Mullins | November 30, 2015 | 10:24 PM EST

Leave it to a humorless lefty to find patently offensive something that is a cult classic for millions of Americans who grew up in the 1980s:  John Hughes’s “Sixteen Candles.”

Ben Stiller's 'Zoolander 2' Decried: Jokes on 'Non-Binary' People Like 'Using Blackface'
By Melissa Mullins | November 24, 2015 | 9:51 AM EST

Transgender advocates are boycotting the forthcoming movie Zoolander 2 because its trailer features its moronic male model characters being confused by androgynous model named "All." Ben Stiller's Zoolander asks if the model is male or female. When the reply is "All is all," Owen Wilson's airheaded character asks “I think he’s asking is do you have a hot dog or a bun?”

Protester Sarah Rose complained over this as "an over-the-top, cartoonish mockery of androgyne/trans/non-binary individuals. This is the modern equivalent of using blackface to represent a minority."

The Boston Globe's 'Spotlight' on Sex Abuse Shows Hypocrisy
By Dave Pierre | November 22, 2015 | 4:03 PM EST

While Hollywood and The Boston Globe would want you to believe that the new movie Spotlight is an impartial dramatization of the paper's 2002 reporting on sex abuse in the Catholic Church in Boston, the truth is something else entirely.

As Spotlight slowly makes its way to theaters across the country, mainstream media movie reviewers are grossly distorting the truth about the Catholic Church sex abuse story.

Sounds Like Carville Just Called Ben Carson 'Chauncey Gardiner'
By Mark Finkelstein | November 4, 2015 | 6:41 PM EST

Can you imagine the liberal outrage if a Republican called a prominent African-American Dem candidate "Chauncey Gardiner," the simple soul from the Peter Sellers film Being There? The cries of racism might well cost such a hapless Republican his job. 

But don't expect James Carville to pay any price. On today's With All Due Respect, Carville said that a frustrated Bush "can't believe that Chauncey Gardiner [laughs] and Trump and all these people are running ahead of him." Given that Carson and Trump are the two front-runners, and that Carson, while brilliant, is soft-spoken, there would seem little doubt that Carville meant his Chauncey crack for Carson.

As Final Nail in Fact-Based Coffin Appears, 'Truth' Is Well on Its Way to Deserved Box-Office Oblivion
By Tom Blumer | November 3, 2015 | 12:59 AM EST

Truth, the cinematic attempt to make heroes out of the agenda-driven journalists who produced and broadcast the fraudulent 2004 CBS News story about George W. Bush's Texas Air National Guard service, went into wide distribution this past weekend, with utterly disastrous box-office results.

Readers, in between moments savoring the film's apparent descent into oblivion — though it will almost certainly be revived in left-controlled high school and college classrooms for years to come — really should read William Campenni's writeup at the Daily Signal. It puts the final stake in the heart of any attempt by anyone with an ounce of sense to claim that Dan Rather's and Mary Mapes's 60 Minutes report has any remaining credibility whatsoever. After the jump, let's have some fun looking at the movie's weekend attendance figures.

Variety: Charlie Brown Movie Could Really Use Diversity, Like a 'Non-White Love Interest'
By Tim Graham | November 2, 2015 | 10:33 AM EST

Peter Debruge, the “international film critic” at Variety, proclaimed himself mostly bored by The Peanuts Movie, but that didn’t mean he didn’t want to micromanage the classic cartoon into being more “progressive” about introducing a greater “diversity” into the classic cartoon.

Charlie Brown should go black? "While Franklin remains Charlie Brown’s only brown friend, a non-white love interest would have been as progressive as Schulz’s tomboyish depiction of Peppermint Patty was back in the day."

Lefty Professor: Conservatives ‘Make War On the Media Because It Sheds Daylight On Their Machinations’
By Tom Johnson | November 1, 2015 | 2:16 PM EST

In the week when a new James Bond film is coming out, it’s fitting that two lefty writers are both shaken and stirred by recent Republican blasts at media bias. In a Sunday article for Salon, Boston College history professor Heather Cox Richardson charged that “since the 1950s, Movement Conservatives have fought the fair examination of their ideas. They embrace a worldview in which a few wealthy men control the economy and dominate society. This idea repels most Americans…Movement Conservatives have gained power only by obfuscating reality. They make war on the media because it sheds daylight on their machinations. Transparency threatens their power.”

Also on Sunday, Washington Monthly blogger David Atkins declared that the MSM are “facing an existential threat” and urged them to not give in: "Republicans [are] increasingly unashamed to tell grandiose lies and respond to any press criticism with derogatory insults and whines about media bias as well as blackmail threats to cancel appearances if the questions are too tough…If the press chooses to assuage and give comfort to the GOP, it will lose what little credibility it has left."