Free Republic

In the new movie The Men Who Stare at Goats, which opens today in the United States, George Clooney plays a former member of a secret sect of soldiers trained by the U.S. military to deploy a host of paranormal weapons against the enemy. Their deadly talents supposedly include the ability to kill a goat via psychokinesis—by staring at the beast they can make its heart stop with thought alone. The movie takes some liberties in the name of comedy, but the program it's based on is real. During the Cold War, the U.S. military became convinced it was losing...

Just got hold of the latest issue of the magazine my old alma mater in Spain sends me regularly. A feature about a movie actor, now also a producer, immediately got my attention. First, a magazine that tries to be serious in character would normally not talk about actors and celebrities. Second, though I’ve heard of the story before in a tangential way, I thought it would just have a short shelf life, just a flash in the pan, you know. In short, the article broke my guiding principles. It deserved to be read. And I did. Now, I feel...

I'm amazed by the soothsayers: Ayn Rand, for instance, who warned us fifty years ago of the risk of dictatorship or civil war if collectivism persisted. Or economist Friedrich Hayek, who wrote in the 1940s that we'll become serfs if we move toward big government. However, what feels most prophetic lately is an obscure movie from the l970s called Little Murders. The writer, Pulitzer-Prize-winning cartoonist Jules Feiffer, predicted that the '60s would unleash a feral, primitive society. The movie has a checkered history. It started out as a play on Broadway in the mid-'60s that was such a bomb, it...

A film about the rise of anti-Semitic movements in Poland has recently been met with censure by members of the country's parliament and public. Hitler's Daughter, directed by Aro Korol and produced by Korol's London-based Awesome Industry, focuses on right-wing radio station Radio Maryja, as well as its founder, Tadeusz Rydzyk, a Roman Catholic priest. "Father Rydzyk sees no contradiction between wearing a collar and spreading his politics via satellite," Korol wrote on the film's Web site, hitlersdaughtermovie.com. "One of Radio Maryja's many anti-Semitic commentaries suggested that Jews were sabotaging the struggle of democracy in Ukraine and Belarus. The station...

Producer Barrie Osborne cast Keanu Reeves as the messiah in The Matrix and helped defeat the dark lord Sauron in his record-breaking Lord of the Rings trilogy. Now the Oscar-winning American film-maker is set to embark on his most perilous quest to date: making a big-screen biopic of the prophet Muhammad. Budgeted at around $150m (£91.5m), the film will chart Muhammad's life and examine his teachings. Osborne told Reuters that he envisages it as "an international epic production aimed at bridging cultures. The film will educate people about the true meaning of Islam". Osborne's production will reportedly feature English-speaking Muslim...

Prophet Mohammed Film Planned An epic film about the Prophet Mohammad backed by the producer of "The Lord of the Rings" is being planned with the aim of "bridging cultures". 01 Nov 2009 Filming of the £90 million English-language film was set to start in 2011, with Barrie Osborne as its producer, Almoor Holdings, a Qatari media company, said. The company said the film - in which the Prophet would not be depicted, in accordance with Islamic strictures - was in development and talks were being held with studios, talent agencies and distributors in the United States and Britain. Mr...

Maurice Sendak’s poetic, luxuriantly illustrated Where the Wild Things Are is revered as a childhood classic, but I think it speaks more powerfully to grown-ups than to children, or at least children of the age for picture books. I’ve met grown-ups who don’t like it, but I suspect they wouldn’t have liked it as kids either. If a child doesn't like it, there is always the chance he will grow into it a few years down the road. If kids do like it, it may be that they grasp that there is something there they don’t quite understand, something waiting...

After a couple of weeks of unsubstantiated rumors, it has been confirmed that the forthcoming film The Invention of Lying is indeed intended to satirize religion and religious believers. New York Post critic Kyle Smith has seen the film and describes it as “a full-on attack on religion in general and Christianity in particular. It might be the most blatantly, one-sidedly atheist movie ever released by a major studio, in this case Warner Bros.”

The Top 10 White Trash Heroes of Cinema Redneck and "white trash" culture tends to get a bad rap by the snootier elements of our culture. Maybe you think that hicks and hillbillies don’t know nothin’ ‘bout nothin’, but you couldn't be further from the truth. Sometimes we need to look to the trailer parks for succor, refuge, and justice. Source: Twentieth Century Fox 10. Aileen Wuornos from Monster Source: Columbia TriStar Charlize Theron was one of the first of the bombshell actresses to get on the white trash bandwagon. Never one to make a misstep when it comes to...

Frank Darabont, the director of The Shawshank Redemption, has words for the millions of people who believe his 1994 prison drama is the greatest film of all time. “I think that’s a little crackers, to be honest, especially when you think of the other films on the list.” He means films such as The Godfather, Citizen Kane, Lolita, Vertigo and foreign-language contenders like Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Conformist, Jean-Luc Godard’s Contempt, Luis Buñuel’s Belle de jour or Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant.

Million Dollar Baby (1941) A young innocent's surprise inheritance causes problems with her poor but proud boyfriend. Cast: Priscilla Lane, Jeffrey Lynn, Ronald Reagan, May Robson Dir: Curtis Bernhardt BW-101 mins, TV-G www.tcm.com

IT SEEMS Queensland is making as big an impression on The Voyage of the Dawn Treader’s cast and crew as the world of Narnia has made on us. Edmund and Lucy Pevensie, along with their cousin Eustace Scrubb and their friend King Caspian (played by Skandar Keynes, Georgie Henley, Will Poulter and Ben Barnes respectively) have begun filming the third Chronicles of Narnia movie at Warner Roadshow Studios at Movie World on the Gold Coast. And although official dates have not yet been released, locals can look forward to some big Narnia names coming to the area, when filming kicks...

Last night’s Red Eye discussed the recent loss of Hollywood director John Hughes, who died of a heart attack in New York this past Thursday. Host Greg Gutfeld noted that he “owned the 1980’s,” and he most certainly did. Hughes was behind some of the best comedies of the 1980s including The Breakfast Club, Weird Science, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Uncle Buck, The Great Outdoors, and the Lampoon’s Vacation films. Christmas Vacation has always been a holiday favorite of my family, and is certainly one of Hughes’ most quotable films. Red Eye guests went on to discuss their admiration for...

This was in my archives and I think it is worth putting out for everyone to see. It is a 1940's film clip of the "Master Plan." I have no other information, other than what you see.

The New York Times called it "torture porn." But audiences at the Los Angeles Film Festival had a different take; they named the controversial film "Best Feature" at the gathering. Dennis Prager writing at Townhall has some thoughts about the film and conservative complaints about Hollywood: ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yet, now, released as if by Providence the week after the fraudulent elections in Iran and the suppression and murder of Iranian dissidents, is a film about the nature of the radical Muslims who govern Iran. Titled "The Stoning of Soraya M.," the film depicts events based on the true story of a...

Is American mega pop star Britney Spears set to return to the big screen, seven years after starring in the box office flop Crossroads? According to reports, Spears has been offered a part in the upcoming Holocaust film The Yellow Star of Sophia and Eton, which integrates time travel, concentration camps and a love story.

Federal election officials will have a hand in writing the script on Sen. John Kerry's plans to become a movie producer. The Federal Election Commission meets Thursday to consider Kerry's request to use $300,000 from his campaign funds to invest in a documentary about injured Iraq war veterans. The 2004 Democratic presidential nominee wants to be an executive producer for a movie tentatively titled "Keeping Faith," by White Mountain Films. Kerry would not be paid, but he could get up to a 120 percent return on his $300,000 investment, according to a March 16 letter he sent to the FEC...

Cinema Comes To Riyadh for First Time in Decades By DONNA ABU-NASR | Associated Press | For the first time in three decades, Saudis in the nation's capital did something that most Westerners take for granted _ they went to the movies. But it wasn't exactly date night. No women were allowed.

The Stoning of Soraya M. Over two decades ago, a solitary voice dared to speak the truth. One woman courageously defended the dignity of another. One woman risked her life to uphold the sanctity of another’s life. One woman vowed, “The world will know!” On June 26 — the true story will be revealed — when The Stoning of Soraya M. is released in selected theaters across the U.S. From the filmmakers who produced "The Passion of the Christ," THE STONING OF SORAYA M. is the heart-rending film based on the International best-selling book by French-Iranian journalist Freidoune Sahebjam which...

Nowadays blacklists are a silent way of trying to destroy people and their careers. And that suits those doing the blacklisting particularly if they call themselves liberal and claim to care about censorship and human rights. But some liberals forget to keep quiet and make public what is really going on. [W]e asked a number of US companies to work for us. We needed companies to make DVDs and provide translated subtitles for our new documentary Not Evil Just Wrong...it challenges liberal orthodoxy - taking a critical look at environmentalism and Global Warming hysteria. [T]he Atlanta based International Services translation...

A judge officially rejected Roman Polanski’s request for a dismissal of 32-year-old child sex charges today after the filmmaker missed a deadline to surrender to U.S. authorities. His attorneys had informed Superior Court Judge Peter Espinoza in advance that the director would not return to Los Angeles to meet a deadline set by the court in February, but the judge nevertheless took the bench at the time of his scheduled appearance.

Wolverine!!! Come on, who didn’t leave the theaters screaming the famous line from John Milius’s 1984 movie “Red Dawn”? Okay, not all of us. I was too young to have seen the movie in theaters and saw the film only later on DVD. Er, I mean, VHS. You remember them, right? Those box-looking rectangle thingies with, you know, film and junk? Anyways, they’re rebooting “Red Dawn” for a new generation. So what can we expect? Latino Review has gotten their hands on the script by Carl Ellsworth (”Red Eye”). You can watch the full script review for yourself, and I...

Canada's arts community is pondering another swell idea. The folks that brought you compulsory Canadian content on Canadian TV channels at night, and "Can-Con" on radio, are kicking around a new concept, according to a recent news story. Canadian filmgoers aren't going to art theaters and film festivals in large enough numbers to help the Canadian film industry. So, some in the industry are suggesting that one remedy would be to force your local multiplex to devote one or two screens to Canadian films.

Al Gore is about to feature in a new movie, but he's not going to like it very much. Titled Not Evil Just Wrong: The True Cost of Global Warming Hysteria, the film presents a devastating account of the shaky foundations and hefty price of Mr. Gore's brand of self-interested and hypocritical alarmism. Created by the Irish film making duo of Phelim McAleer and Ann McElhinney -- who made another excellent documentary about the "dark side of environmentalism" called Mine Your Own Business-- Not Evil provides the perfect rebuttal to Mr. Gore's An Inconvenient Truth. Despite being chock a block...

He may be a maker of "easterns" rather than westerns, but Majid Majidi is still a big admirer of the director John Ford. "I've always been a great fan of American cinema," said the Iranian director, whose new movie "The Song of Sparrows," features more ostriches than horses, but still has a sense of a new frontier. (See Joe Morgenstern's review.) Karim, the film's quixotic hero, could have been played by Charlie Chaplin or Buster Keaton. He possesses a comic aura of incipient doom. On the ostrich farm where he works, he loses a bird, then loses his job. His...

Private equity firm Patriarch Partners snapped up the assets of the photography pioneer with a cult following.New York-based private equity firm Patriarch Partners won the auction for bankrupt Polaroid Corp's assets, both companies said Thursday, with Patriarch winning over three rival bidders. The result of the auction, which ended Tuesday, is subject to court approval at an April 6 hearing. The assets Patriarch is buying include the company's name, intellectual property, and photography collection. It beat bids from PHC Acquisitions, Hilco Consumer Capital Corp and Ritchie Capital. Patriarch's bid totaled $59.1 million, the company said. "We look forward to reconnecting...

WASHINGTON, March 13, 2009 – On location in the Middle of Nowhere, Iraq, filmmaker Jake Rademacher focuses his lens on a unit of young reconnaissance troops with whom he’s embedded. For five days they wait in the desert near Syria, watching idly for smugglers bringing weapons, cash or foreign fighters across the border. Conversation is the only thing that colors the monotony of the blank horizon. One soldier says he joined the ranks to make his father proud. Another is confident his duty will benefit posterity. And a crew-cut junior enlisted troop says through a wad of chewing tobacco he’s...

Between action and cut a million things can go wrong. And if something does, you can always just cut to something in the editing room. Most of the time. "Doing it in one" is about the bravest choice a filmmaker can make. Without shooting coverage you are leaving yourself zero options in post production. You have to get the vision in your brain to happen in three dimensional space right there on the day. And you also have to hope that that initial vision is compelling and will flow with the rest film's rhythm.

WASHINGTON, Feb. 24, 2009 – Coinciding with the HBO Film premiere of “Taking Chance,” based on a Marine’s tribute to a fallen comrade, more than 100 servicemembers joined the Run4Chance team at the 28th Annual Los Alamitos 5K “Race on the Base” in California to honor the fallen hero. More than 100 servicemembers made up the Run4Chance Team at the 28th Annual Los Alamitos 5K “Race on the Base” at the Joint Forces Training Center in California, Feb. 21, 2009. HBO and the Chance Phelps Foundation joined forces for a series of running events around America to benefit members...

To say that Polly Wagner McCourtney has lived a charmed life would be an understatement. In her 98 years, she has lived many charmed lives. McCourtney, who will turn 99 years old in August, will be discussing Hollywood of the 1930s at the Alex Theatre on Feb. 14 before the screening of “The Philadelphia Story” starring Cary Grant and Katherine Hepburn. She is the perfect speaker for this golden age of Hollywood because she lived it. “We used to spend all our time at the beach,” McCourtney said. “Marion Davies had a place on the beach and she had all...

Kate Winslet's chances of Oscar glory are being hit by an orchestrated campaign to dismiss her film The Reader as an apologia for Nazi Germany.

According to an AFP report Oscar-winning director Martin Scorsese plans to adapt the 1966 novel “Silence” by Shusaku Endo for the screen. The book tells the story of a young Jesuit priest from Portugal who lands in southern Japan, and of Japan’s brutal persecution of Catholics during the 17th century.

This week on NRO, we're going to count down the 25 best conservative movies of the last 25 years, starting with #25 later this morning and finishing with #1 on Friday.

Sam Mendes’s new film, , reprises themes from his celebrated American Beauty and reunites the stars of Titanic, Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet. (Winslet has already won both a Golden Globe and a SAG award for her performance in Road.) Based on a Richard Yates novel, the film depicts the suburban malaise experienced by a young couple (Frank and April Wheeler), a stay-at-home mom of two (Winslet as April) and a father (DiCaprio as Frank) who commutes into the city to work in the stifling corporate world at the same company for which his father labored anonymously throughout his adult life....

Oink, oink, oink. Here comes failed automaker Chrysler again, demanding more of your money to save their a**es — while they turn around and dump cash into a movie-making venture. They’ve got $4 billion in federal bailout money and are asking for another $3 billion to seal a deal with Italian car manufacturer, Fiat. Chutzpah: Chrysler’s got $4 billion in emergency aid from the U.S. government and has said it will seek another $3 billion in government loans. And yesterday it agreed to form an alliance with Italy’s Fiat as it looks for the road out of the woods. (The...

The owners of an Aspen movie theater now hold the rights to Swedish filmmaker Ingmar Bergman's catalog after an eight-year legal dispute with a Scandinavian media group that raised tricky questions about international business deals.

The Bergen County Film Commission wants to build upon the area's rich film history, but limited funding and lack of support from local officials is hampering efforts to lure filmmakers. FILE PHOTOS At World Pictures in Fort Lee, formed in 1914, stagehands prepare a set for filming a silent movie. Formed by the Bergen County Freeholders in October 2007, one of the volunteer group's missions was to encourage filmmakers to come to the county and help them find suitable locations. The county, Fort Lee in particular, was home to several film studios in the early 1900s. And since that...

Claude Berri, who as a director, producer, screenwriter and actor was among the most influential figures in the French film industry over the past 40 years, died Monday in Paris. He was 74 and was described after his death by President Nicolas Sarkozy as “the great ambassador of French cinema” to the world. The cause was a stroke, his agent, Dominique Segall, said in a statement. Mr. Berri had been admitted to the hospital on Saturday with a “cerebral vascular problem,” he said. Mr. Berri was, by and large, a filmmaker of mainstream sensibility who favored stories of either quirky...

PHILADELPHIA — A South Philadelphia man enraged because a family was talking during a Christmas showing of "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" decided to deal with the situation by shooting the father, police said. James Joseph Cialella Jr., 29, is charged with attempted murder, aggravated assault and weapons violations. His alleged victim, whom police did not identify, was shot in the left arm. He was treated at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital. "It's truly frightening when you see something like this evolve into such violence," said police spokesman Lt. Frank Vanore. "That something like this leads to a shooting in...

The headline on a critique in today’s New York Times says it all: “Wonderful? Sorry, George, It’s a Pitiful, Dreadful Life.” Nothing more clearly illustrates the paper’s hatred of normalcy than its revisionist perspective on “It’s A Wonderful Life.” The moral of the 1946 Capra classic — life has meaning. Even if we don’t achieve our dreams, even if our existence is seemingly hum-drum, those who lead good lives will never know how much good they’ve done. George Bailey does, by glimpsing what his world would look like if he’d never been born. He discovers (to paraphrase the film) that...

DHP Review: Gran Torino Clint Eastwood’s hinted that Gran Torino might be his last turn in front of the camera. If that’s true, he could not have chose for himself a more fitting farewell. Without a hint of the self-referential, Torino touches on the many iconic moments of both his best genre pictures and more serious fare. Most of all, he’s masterfully blended both into a hard-hitting, supremely satisfying story that carries big themes with a deft gentleness. Working from a superb script by relative newcomer Nick Schenk, Gran Torino opens in just the kind of Catholic church you expect...

Breitbart’s big, red Hollywood By Kris Kitto After playing supporting roles to big names in media and politics, Andrew Breitbart is poised to become the protagonist in his own story. The publisher of the online news aggregator Breitbart.com helped launch and run two of today’s most influential media and political punditry websites, Arianna Huffington’s left-leaning The Huffington Post and Matt Drudge’s right-leaning Drudge Report. He offers little about his past with Drudge, where he was a part-time editor who once at a dinner party jokingly called himself “Matt Drudge’s bitch.” He compares the comment to President-elect Barack Obama speechwriter Jon...

ANNOUNCEMENT: Dirty Harry Moves To ‘Big Hollywood’ Jan 6th Posted by Dirty Harry on Tuesday, December 2nd, 2008 I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask all of you to move with me one last time. Tuesday, January 6th, 2009, Dirty Harry’s Place will shutter closed as I assume the full-time duties of Editor-In-Chief at Big Hollywood, a group blog and brain child of Andrew Breitbart that will examine the effect of pop culture on our society and politics, and the effect of politics on our pop culture. I’ll pass on more information as we move closer to launch but...

Veterans in Politics Talk Show Introduces Phil Valentine LIVE on www.AllTalkRadio.net November 29: Phil Valentine Film Producer and Director of "Who Will Stand": "Veterans In Politics" is a weekly radio show produced by the Veterans In Politics International and hosted by Steve Sanson. The "Veterans In Politics" show is live every Saturday 2:05 PM Pacific Time you can call in and speak to the guest or/and host at (702) 942-7371. Have A Happy Thanksgiving

Joaquin Phoenix Confirms He's Done With Movies Sunday, November 2, 2008 1:30 PM LOS ANGELES -- The writing on Joaquin Phoenix's fists said it all. The words "Good Bye" were penned on the actor's knuckles at a premiere Saturday night for his latest film, "Two Lovers," and Phoenix confirmed a surprise announcement he made last week: He's giving up movies. "I think it's just moving on. It's rediscovering something else," said Phoenix, 34, said in an interview with Associated Press Television News before Saturday's American Film Institute festival, which also premiered "Che," starring Benicio Del Toro. "Two Lovers" is his...

A historian has discovered film footage of Edwardian London that includes fascinating snapshots of people going about their everyday lives. The film was shot in 1904 as a 'travelogue' for Australians curious about life in what was "one of the most exciting cities anywhere", according to Professor Ian Christie. He discovered the 12 minute reel while trawling through archives in Canberra. Prof Christie said: "It's a rather clever mixture of what we would expect to see - such as the Embankment, Buckingham Palace and Trafalgar Square - but it also has these wonderful close ups of individuals.

Movie shows 'war you don't know about' PREMIERE: "The Third Jihad," a documentary about radical Islam, was screened at Harkins theater in Scottsdale. Dr. Zuhdi Jasser, left, narrated the film and was on hand to take questions after the showing. By Ari Cohn "We all know about terrorism. This is the war you don't know about," Dr. Zuhdi Jasser intones from the movie screen over images of radical Islamists burning the American flag after Sept. 11. Jasser, who lives in Scottsdale and practices medicine in Phoenix, is the narrator of the documentary "The Third Jihad: Radical Islam's Vision for America,"...

Syndicated talk host Michael Savage is being sued by a filmmaker over his demand that YouTube remove a video by the filmmaker criticizing Savage using excerpts from his show. Brave New Films alleges in the suit filed on Friday (10-10) in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California that use of the excerpts containing anti-Muslim rhetoric falls under "fair use." Robert Greenwald, a documentary filmmaker, uploaded to YouTube a short video titled "Michael Savage Hates Muslims," criticizing comments Savage made on a broadcast in October, 2007. The video contains about a minute of audio excerpts in which...

LOS ANGELES — Already on the hook for billions to bail out Wall Street, taxpayers are also finding themselves stuck with a growing tab for state programs intended to increase local film production... ...Michigan, its own budget sagging, is in the middle of a hot political fight over a generous 40 percent rebate on expenditures to filmmakers that was carried out, with little opposition, only last April. Producers of films for studios like Warner Brothers and the Weinstein Company rushed to cash in ... Rebellious legislators from both parties are now looking to put a cap on the state’s annual...

You can almost picture the Hollywood studio execs scratching their heads A film that was made for $500,000, relied more on word of mouth than television and print ads, and is headlined by an actor best known for a 1980s television show, opens at No. 4 in the country and rakes in $6.8 million in ticket sales. "Where did this come from? We didn't see this on the radar," actor Kirk Cameron imagined the execs saying. "What is 'Fireproof?'" After this week, few will be left wondering. The Christian-themed film, which stars Cameron as a firefighter whose marriage is on...