Movies

A New York Times military correspondent filed a useful story on the problem of military veterans being stereotyped as violent and troubled on movies and TV. But what about when the Times was guilty of doing the same thing on its Sunday front page, smearing veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan as killers on "a cross-country trail of death and heartbreak"?

The UK-based Economist magazine took a snotty tone trying to explain the popularity of American Sniper to its sophisticated worldwide audience, attributing the movie's popularity to mindless pro-American jingoism, mocking it as "more John Wayne than Wilfred Owen." Isn't the whole "John Wayne" caricature getting old?

Vice Magazine has posted a long, fawning interview with limousine leftist documentary maker Michael Moore, infamous for his recent Twitter attack on U.S. Navy Seal Chris Kyle. Maintaining the offensiveness, Moore found American Sniper to be a racist "mess" and discredits the heroism of marksmen like Kyle, calling snipers "chicken-shit," saying the U.S. was the bad guy in Iraq. And on his Facebook…

Ayman Mohyeldin has suggested that Chris Kyle, the real "American Sniper," was a "racist" whose military missions were nothing less than "killing sprees."  With opinions like that, you might imagine Mohyeldin to be some unhinged bloviator from the bowels of the anti-American far left. Or, an NBC foreign correspondent [who formerly worked for Al Jazeera] who regularly reports on events in the…

On the January 27 edition of Hardball, former DNC chairman Howard Dean issued a tepid half-apology regarding his recent ill-advised statement on Real Time with Bill Maher wherein he blasted as "angry" the moviehouse audiences that have made American Sniper a runaway hit. 

Paul Bedard at the Washington Examiner reports “A new Ipsos/Reuters poll throws cold water on the racially-charged #OscarsSoWhite trend and other campaigns suggesting that the overly liberal Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences was biased this year against blacks and other minorities in picking Oscar nominees.”

In an article for Salon, Penn State professor Sophia McClennen claims the box-office blockbuster has “no nuance, no context and no subtlety” and that its director, Clint Eastwood, “represents a dark, disturbing feature of the GOP mind-set.”

Comedian Jim Gaffigan got off a great zinger on Twitter yesterday aimed straight at Hollywood folks who look down on the average American who has given American Sniper their vote at the box office.

Jim VandeHei sees dead people. On today's Morning Joe, the Politico honcho agreed with Joe Scarborough's suggestion that Chris Christie is like Bruce Willis in The Sixth Sense: [politically] dead but doesn't know it. Ironically, Scarborough distanced himself from his own suggestion, twice saying that he didn't believe it. But when he asked his guest if the characterization was fair, Vandehei…

Esquire blogger Pierce alleges that right-wingers have turned the civil-rights movement “into a weapon against issues on which Dr. King surely would have come down on the progressive side,” and declares that the movement “no longer can be used as history's truncheon against the legitimate social, cultural, and political aspirations of the people who are its truest heirs.”

"'Selma' Snubbed" lamented the teaser headline on msnbc.com for Joseph Neese's Academy Awards nomination story. "Director Ava DuVernay doesn't make Oscar cut," complained the subheader. But in fact Selma was not completely "snubbed," garnering two nominations, including the top prize, Best Picture.

If, like his character in the “Taken” franchise, Liam Neeson has a “very particular set of skills,” it doesn’t include recognizing his own hypocrisy. While the hyper-violent “Taken 3” was pulling down $39.2 million at the box office its opening weekend, Neeson was in Dubai railing against guns.

Hollywood is still making movies glorifying communists like blacklisted screenwriter Dalton Trumbo as the true libertarians and constitutionalists, no matter how ludicrous it sounds. Luckily, there’s a new antidote to this film’s message, a book called Hollywood Traitors by longtime Human Events editor Allan Ryskind.

Edelstein gripes in New York magazine that “the native population are portrayed as invaders of our sacred space instead of vice versa,” and that “the people [Chris] Kyle shoots always represent a ‘savage, despicable evil,’ and the physical and mental cost to other Americans just comes with the territory.”