Free Republic

THERE are many graceful touches in Mao's Last Dancer, Bruce Beresford's stirring, uplifting adaptation of the best-selling memoir by Li Cunxin, the Chinese ballet star who defected to the West in 1981 while on a fellowship with the Houston Ballet. Snip There's little grace, though, in Beresford's highly efficient if workman-like direction. With so much ground to cover and so many characters to keep track of, Beresford diligently churns through Cunxin's story in a frill-free, matter-of-fact manner. This certainly gives the film great drive, if little rhythm or any real sense of style.

The cheap Arabist film: "The Visitor"   A pen-pal of mine was recently "forced" to watch that film ('The Visitor' - http://pajamasmedia.com/phyllischesler/2008/06/16/help-the-vistor/), by taking a flight in Latin-America as this was the "featured" film on board.   It was probably chosen because of its 1) Embedded "immigration" issue, 2) criticizing-America, popular with post Obama election ever more.   This is what she had to say about it:   A. It is a total reaffirmation of "we Arabs are always innocent victims".   B. 'Mouna' (mother of "Tarek") is a "bad" actress, she tries so hard to pose as "gracious", yet she never projects it,...

DIFF Partners with World Cinema Foundation to Protect Middle Eastern Cinema Heritage The Dubai International Film Festival (DIFF) today announced its partnership with the World Cinema Foundation (WCF), an international body set up by cinema legend Martin Scorsese to call attention to the cause of film preservation and restoration. The organization preserves prints of non-Hollywood films that are important milestones in regional cinemas but which are in danger of being lost due to improper storage, lack of funds for restoration, or neglect. Masoud Amralla al Ali, DIFF’s Artistic Director, stated: “Arab film has a pedigree that dates back a century,...

Hollywood has gone back to war. And this time, it’s appalling. All autumn long, the film industry released movies about America’s battle against global jihad. With one exception—the competent actioner The Kingdom—each of these movies distorted an urgent, ongoing historical enterprise through the lens of a filmmaker’s unthinking leftism. Redacted, Rendition, In the Valley of Elah, and Lions for Lambs characterize our soldiers and government agents as rapists, madmen, murderers, torturers of the innocent, or simply victims caught up in a venal and bloodthirsty American foreign policy. All this at the very moment when our real-life soldiers and agents are...

Editor’s Note: For over five years, director Parvez Sharma traveled through Iran, Egypt, Turkey and India, 12 countries in all, filming gay Muslim men and women, who try to embrace both their faith and their sexuality. “A Jihad for Love” has won numerous awards, most recently as Best Documentary in the GLAAD (Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation) awards in March. Sandip Roy, host of “New America Now,” interviewed Sharma when his film came out in 2007.When you started making "A Jihad For Love,” I heard that you were filming stories of Muslims in America, but you decided against that....

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.

SINGAPORE, Jan. 10 (AP) - (Kyodo)—Singapore has decided to relax a ban on political films in yet another step to tone down its image as an authoritarian state to meet the demands of an increasingly Internet-savvy younger generation. "The government will amend the Films Act to allow for certain types of party political films," Singapore Minister for Information, Communications and the Arts Lee Boon Yang said in remarks at a news conference for local media on Friday, now posted on the ministry's website. "Films which are factual and objective, and do not dramatize....or present a distorted picture will be allowed,"...

Last week we were totally blown away by Emma Watson’s William Tempest navy dress, and this week we applaud Kate Winslet, who wowed the crowd at the premiere of Revolutionary Road in Los Angeles. Kate Winslet arrived at the red carpet along with Leonardo DiCaprio in a slim black Balmain dress from the house’s fall collection. She complemented her outstanding ensemble with satin Louboutin shoes, a black clutch and a pair of jeweled bangles.

On Friday, Walden Media announced that Co-CEO and co-founder Cary Granat was exiting the company. One thing we noticed in the press release, however, was that The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader has not yet gotten the green light: Cary Granat, Co-CEO and co-founder of Walden Media, will transition from his Walden position to a consultant for the company effective December 1. Granat will be Walden's creative consultant on the third installment in "The Chronicles of Narnia" franchise – "Voyage of the Dawn Treader"- which the company hopes to greenlight soon. He will also provide consulting...

Chicago Tribune September 28, 2008 Sunday Chicagoland Final Edition Same goal at opposite ends of the spectrum BYLINE: By Michael Phillips, TRIBUNE CRITIC SECTION: ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT ; ZONE C; Pg. 1 LENGTH: 1036 words On Friday a deeply divided America will have another round of new films to choose from at the theaters. One is "Religulous," a comic documentary in which Bill Maher, America's best-known agnostic humorist -- some would characterize him as the heretofore-undiscovered category beyond atheist -- travels the world and leaves us with a vision of the destructive forces of organized religion, a vision no less...

A federal investigation is being requested by a pro-family organization into the new Dakota Fanning movie "Hounddog," which was made more than a year ago and debuted at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival but kept investors at bay with its graphic sex scenes. "This is a body of work that sexualizes children. This movie is rated 'R,' begging the question: If a child cannot see the movie, why should a child star in it?" said a letter sent to U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey and Deputy Assistant Attorney General Larry Rothenberg. A copy of the letter also was sent to...

If you’re one of the few conservatives in Hollywood, you might be used to keeping your head down — and your politics to yourself — and hoping for the best. There are some signs that things are looking up for Hollywood conservatives, however. Revered playwright and screenwriter David Mamet recently published a sprawling essay in the Village Voice explaining, “Why I Am No Longer a ‘Brain-Dead Liberal.’” And Robert Downey Jr., the formerly troubled actor turned smash success with the summer blockbuster Iron Man, recently outed himself as, well, something other than a liberal. “I have a really interesting political...

We can hope our favorite movie will come away with the big prize, but in the long run, some of the best pictures ever made did not receive Best Picture Oscars. A good example would be the AFI’s choice for number one movie of all time, Citizen Kane.

Update: YouTube pulls anti-Islam videos to appease Pakistan Until now most of the intimidation has been of the “soft” kind, with the Dutch PM nudging Wilders to kindly remind him that if some savage beheads someone over his film, it’s his fault. Now, the inevitable: The Dutch government is looking into whether it can stop a politician from releasing an anti-Koran film, fearing attacks on its citizens and businesses, a newspaper reported on Monday.Government lawyers are looking into whether there are legal grounds to ban the film by anti-immigration lawmaker Geert Wilders, who has likened the Koran to Adolf Hitler’s...

LITTLE ROCK, Ark., Feb. 10 (UPI) -- Actor Roy Scheider, the star of such films as "Jaws" and "All That Jazz," died Sunday at 75 in Little Rock, Ark., his wife told The New York Times. Scheider, who lived in Sag Harbor, N.Y., died of complications from a staph infection, Brenda Scheider told the newspaper. Scheider had suffered from multiple myeloma. Scheider came to prominence in such '70s films as "Klute" and "The French Connection" -- for which he earned an Oscar nomination as Buddy Russo, the partner of police Detective Popeye Doyle, played by Gene Hackman. Scheider may have...

What do monks, kites, unwanted pregnancies, a 19th century abolitionist, and a young man with a life-sized inflatable doll have in common? They're all in movies that we've deemed the ten most redeeming films of 2007. posted 01/29/08 First off, what do we mean by "redeeming" films? They're all stories of redemption—sometimes blatantly, sometimes less so. Several of them literally have a character that represents a redeemer; all of them have characters who experience redemption to some degree—some quite clearly, some more subtly. Some are "feel-good" movies that leave a smile on your face; some are a bit more uncomfortable...

As the 2008 edition of the Sundance Film Festival got under way, fest poobah Robert Redford warned audiences not to expect too many films that directly engaged the significant issues of the day, because filmmakers were reacting to dire world problems to a great extent with "levity" instead. From the blurbs in the festival catalogue, it hadn't appeared that comedy looked to be a major item from American indies this year. But after the first weekend, it dawned on me that perhaps Redford had meant a very different sort of levity. It seemed that nearly every film I saw featured...

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.

....It's pretty likely that some people will be heartily offended by Rambo; once again an American hero is mowing down hordes of brown skinned people who have no redeeming qualities or humanity. The leader of the Burmese troops is not only a killer and an %#%^!, he's a gay pedophile! I believe the guy had a mustache but I don't remember it being twirled. But the fact is nobody expects - or wants - reality or complexity in a Rambo movie. Hell, one of the main themes of this movie is that killing is necessary, and missionaries who spend the...

In court, the man admitted to filming the women but he denied that he did it so that he could watch the films. Instead, he argued that the filming challenge itself was exciting. Nevertheless, reported Upsala Nya Tidningen, he conceded that he had been 'an idiot'.

August 24, 2007 -- Friday Schedule 6:00am -- Love Is On The Air (1937) 7:15am -- Brother Rat (1938) 8:45am -- Code Of The Secret Service (1939) 9:45am -- Angels Wash Their Faces (1939) 11:15am -- Dark Victory (1939) 1:00pm -- Hell's Kitchen (1939) 2:30pm -- Desperate Journey (1942) 4:30pm -- One For The Book (1947) 6:15pm -- John Loves Mary (1949) 8:00pm -- Bedtime For Bonzo (1951) 9:30pm -- Kings Row (1942) 11:45pm -- Knute Rockne All American (1940) 1:30am -- Girl From Jones Beach, The (1949) 3:00am -- Night Unto Night (1949) 4:30am -- Prisoner Of War (1954)...

SANTA MONICA, Calif. —  Charles Lane, the prolific character actor whose name was little known, but whose bespectacled face and crotchety persona made him instantly recognizable to generations of movie-goers, has died, his son said Tuesday. He was 102. The actor's son, Tom Lane, said he was talking with his father Monday evening. "He was lying in bed with his eyes real wide open," the younger Lane said. "Then he closed his eyes and stopped breathing." Lane, whose career spanned more than 60 years, appeared in such film classics as "It's a Wonderful Life," "Mr. Deeds Goes to Town" and "Twentieth...

Torture porn? Now that’s entertainment Lock up your children! Tinseltown is about to unleash a new wave of horror movies, sicker and more violent than anything seen before outside sado- masochistic hardcore pornography. Dubbed 'torture porn' by an American critic, it is so grotesque that a grassroots backlash is developing. One studio has been forced to take down 30 billboards in Los Angeles, many near schools, touting the film Captivity after complaints from outraged parents. LA Times columnist Steve Lopez describes the four-panelled billboard like this: "Abduction, in which a terrified young blonde woman has either a gloved or black...

On AMC now.

From Aladdin to Lost Ark, Muslims get angry at 'bad guy' film images Crude and exaggerated stereotypes are fuelling Islamophobia, says study Lucy Ward, Social affairs correspondent Thursday January 25, 2007 The Guardian (UK) Popular films ranging from Hollywood blockbusters to children's cartoons are depicting "crude and exaggerated" stereotypes of Muslims and perpetuating Islamophobia, according to a study published today. A report by the Islamic Human Rights Commission argues that films as diverse as The Siege, a portrayal of a terrorist attack on New York starring Denzel Washington and Bruce Willis, the Disney film Aladdin and the British comedy East...

Until now Sacha Baron Cohen has insisted on being interviewed in character. Roland White discovers he’s not the man you expect We remember him fondly as the hip-hop king of Staines. We have briefly been introduced to him as Bruno the fashion reporter, the campest man in Austria. And some of us are still reeling from the sight of that bikini-style thong that he wore as Borat, the glorious reporter make much comedy benefit Kazakhstan. Yet it’s rare that comedian Sacha Baron Cohen, who last week won a Golden Globe as best actor in a comedy, puts on a performance...

Ben Stiller's PG-rated "Night at the Museum" took in $24 million to stay on top at the box office for a third-straight weekend, fending off a soft crop of newcomers during the post-holiday lull. "Night at the Museum," from 20th Century Fox, raised its three-week domestic total to $164.1 million, according to studio estimates Sunday. Will Smith's "The Pursuit of Happyness," from Sony, finished second again with $13 million to raise its total to $124.2 million. Expanding from its Christmas debut in a handful of theaters, Universal's thriller "Children of Men" led the new wide releases, coming in at No....

Hollywood film-makers are threatening to snub Britain after the Government’s decision to withdraw tax breaks for films that are not “culturally British”. The Times has learnt that new rules imposed by the European Commission would mean films such as Star Wars, Caligula and Batman Begins — which were all made in Britain — would not qualify in future for a tax break because the storyline is not set in Britain. Now all films hoping for a subsidy from the Treasury must pass a test set by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and approved by the European Commission. The...

Mel Gibson's bloody epic "Apocalypto" and Clint Eastwood's World War II saga "Letters from Iwo Jima" were nominated for foreign language Golden Globes Thursday, potentially boosting their prospects for the upcoming Academy Awards. Jack Nicholson and Mark Wahlberg of "The Departed," Kate Blanchett for "Notes on a Scandal" and Jennifer Hudson and Eddie Murphy of "Dreamgirls" were among supporting acting nominees. The musical penguin tale "Happy Feet," the talking autos comedy "Cars" and the spooky children's flick "Monster House" were nominated for best animated film of 2006. Film and TV nominees for the 64th annual Globes were being announced in...

Mel Gibson is sicker than we thought. As his new film "Apocalypto" makes clear, he's not just a drinker and a raving anti-Semite, but a man with a grotesque appetite for human suffering and an enormous talent for exploiting it. There was great violence in "Braveheart," too, but it was cloaked in historical context. And the stripping of Jesus' flesh in "The Passion of the Christ" had the cover of Scripture. But "Apocalypto" exists solely as an action-adventure and a deft cinematic demonstration of man's capacity for cruelty. This is the true passion of Mel. If you can take unflinching...

For those in or near Los Angeles, this might be an event worth attending.

October 7, 2006 -- SIENNA Miller, now in Pennsylvania shooting "The Mysteries of Pittsburgh," is trying to backtrack from her nasty comments about the former steel town, which she referred to in Rolling Stone as "S - - - sburgh." "Can you believe this is my life?" she moaned to the mag. "Will you pity me when you're back in your funky New York apartment and I'm still in Pittsburgh? I need to get more glamorous films." In a statement sent out yesterday via her rep, Leslie Sloane Zelnik, Miller said, "I want to apologize for my comments, which seem...

GEORGE Lucas, the creator of Star Wars, is getting out of the movie-making business, saying that big-budget releases are too risky, that Americans are abandoning cinemas and that the future of film will be smaller-budget releases distributed over the internet.To Hollywood executives suffering declining audiences and revenues in the face of online and pay-per-view competition, the special-effects master may seem to have been seduced by the dark side. But, as ever, he is looking to the future. "We don't want to make movies. We're about to get into television. As far as Lucasfilm is concerned, we've moved away from the...

BBC did not know of 9/11 film's link to religious right David Leigh Wednesday September 13, 2006 The Guardian (UK) The BBC broadcast a controversial docu-drama, The Path to 9/11, this week without realising that it had been made by a member of the US religious right. The three-hour programme, shown over two nights on BBC2 to commemorate the fifth anniversary of the attack on the twin towers, was purchased from ABC, a subsidiary of Disney. At the last minute the US television company was forced to re-edit sequences after claims of distortion from former president Bill Clinton and members...

VENICE (Reuters) - Top directors used the Venice Film Festival on Friday to excoriate the Bush administration, the war in Iraq and Hollywood itself, and presented three starkly different movies to express their views. Oliver Stone, in the canal city for the European promotion of "World Trade Center", said he was worried about when, if ever, the "war on terror" would end. "Many of us are concerned that it could get worse," he told reporters after a screening of his film, which has already been released in the United States. "I think things have gotten very dark," he said. "The...

Acclaimed actor-comedian Robin Williams has checked himself into rehab to battle alcoholism. According to "Access Hollywood," Williams' publicist announced the actor's decision to seek treatment. "After 20 years of sobriety, Robin Williams found himself drinking again and has decided to take proactive measures to deal with this for his own well-being and the well-being of his family. He asks that you respect his and his family's privacy during this time. He looks forward to returning to work this fall to support his upcoming film releases." No further details were made available. Williams made his mark on the television sitcom "Mork...

Karen and Howard Baldwin spoke at The Atlas Society's recent Summer Seminar about plans for their film adaptation of Atlas Shrugged. The principals in Baldwin Entertainment Group (BEG), producer of the 2004 Oscar-winning "Ray," appeared in a 90 minute panel session on July 7 with TAS board member John Aglialoro, who holds the screen rights to the Ayn Rand novel and will be co-executive producer with Howard Baldwin, the company’s president and CEO. Baldwin and Aglialoro confirmed earlier reports that BEG will collaborate with Lionsgate, the studio that produced last year’s Oscar winner, "Crash”; the final contract was signed just...

LONDON, July 17 — The problem with most movie action heroes, said Alex Pettyfer, who plays a teenage secret agent in the forthcoming film “Stormbreaker,” is that they are way too old. “He said, like, ‘Imagine your dad on an ironing board, snowboarding down a mountain with a bunch of guys chasing him,’ ” Mr. Pettyfer, 16, said recently, recounting a preproduction conversation with the screenwriter of “Stormbreaker,” Anthony Horowitz. The full horror of the image is meant to speak for itself: Mr. Pettyfer’s father is “like 47, 48.” To open in Britain on Friday and in the United States...

Stormbreaker, for those who have not stumbled on the four-page ads, or do not have children, arrives in cinemas tomorrow. It introduces quad-biking, scuba-diving, mountaineering, teenage superspy Alex Rider. It is the first in what the makers obviously hope will be a franchise: Anthony Horowitz, who created Rider, has written six novels about him and sold 10m copies. Film adaptations of children's books have always been big business - Disney comes to mind - but since the appearance in 2001 of Harry Potter and the Lord of the Rings, they're really big. Last year alone saw Charlie and the Chocolate...

Going to a movie theater with my son yesterday, I came upon a trailer for an upcoming film titled The Nativity Story, which is scheduled to open nationally in December. Its tagline reads: "One Couple. One Journey. One Child...who would change the world...forever." The Internet Movie Database (which simply titles the film Nativity) has little information on it, but I am certainly interested in watching it when it premieres. Of course, I am concerned about the movie's orthodoxy, so any further information is appreciated. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0762121/maindetails http://www.thenativitystory.com

(English-language translation) “Holy God!”, my grandmother would have said if she were still alive, if she spoke English, and if she would have read the [film] review of “Superman Returns” written by Richard Corliss titled “The Gospel of Superman” that appears in the June 26 issue of “Time”. We read that Bryan Singer’s version emphasizes the superhero’s divinity and elaborates: “He is not a super man; he is a god (named Kal-El), sent by his heavenly father (Jor-El) to protect Earth. That is a mission that takes more than muscles; it requires sacrifice, perhaps of his own life. So he...

A documentary that records almost two dozen leaps from the landmark bridge has generated praise and scorn for its maker. For an entire year the cameras rolled, capturing death amid the eerie fog and shifting tides. One by one, filmmaker Eric Steel documented the final moments of nearly two dozen despondent men and women, and the agonizing, four-second fall after they leaped off the Golden Gate Bridge, drawn by the span's tragic beauty. His intent, he says, was to illuminate "the darkest corner of the human mind." If he watched enough people take their own lives, he thought, he could...

TFP Student Action launches Pray for Notre Dame. Join thousands of concerned students and parents in prayer and reparation. So many students and parents had trusted Notre Dame’s new president, Fr. John I. Jenkins, would restore moral order on campus by stopping two blatant anti-Catholic events from occurring year after year: “Queer Film Festival” and “V-Monologues.” However, hopes that Notre Dame would ban immoral events were shattered on April 5, when Fr. Jenkins issued a statement allowing pro-homosexual film festivals or events to continue at Our Lady’s university. Fr. Jenkins said, “[I] see no reason to prohibit performances of 'The...

Search giant Google Inc. Friday announced the launch of a pilot programme that would make films from the collections preserved by the US National Archives available online. Through this service, the general public would be able to view historic documentaries and movies belonging to the National Archives for free via the Mountain View, California-based company’s video service, Google Video. The pilot programme features 103 films. The non-exclusive agreement boosts Google's efforts in popularizing its online video search service, which so far has not been tremendously successful. (more at link)

Washington: A Russian director is all set to make a new indigenous film version of the 1965 classic Dr Zhivago, in a bid to correct the inaccuracies in the Academy Award-winning US movie. David Lean's film starring Omar Sharif and Julie Christie scooped five Oscars and is regularly ranked among the top movies of all time, but its Western approach to a classic Russian story has long been criticised in the homeland of author Bosris Pasternak. Director Aleksander Proshkin hopes his eleven-part TV movie, with an all-Russian cast, will re-dress the balance. “It is a wonderful US film that belongs...

Hollywood Does It Again by Jennifer King, Managing Editor February 3, 2006 "The Heretical Housewife"Liberals have become so predictable, it’s almost boring prognosticating what they’ll do next. Anything to poke a stick in the eye of the unlettered bourgeoisie. All efforts must be aimed at insulting plebian Red America. Thus, at the “Golden Globe” awards, the alleged precursor to the Oscars, the winners included a plethora of tediously tendentious offerings. Brokeback Mountain, a movie about gay sheepherders whose illicit lust destroys both of their heterosexual marriages, won for best drama, best director, best original song (which some wag dubbed, “Homos...

The cowboy love story "Brokeback Mountain" led the Academy Awards field Tuesday with eight nominations, among them best picture and honors for actor Heath Ledger and director Ang Lee. Also nominated for best picture were the Truman Capote story "Capote"; the ensemble drama "Crash"; the Edward R. Murrow chronicle "Good Night, and Good Luck"; and the assassination thriller "Munich." The Johnny Cash biography, "Walk the Line," considered a likely best picture nominee, was shut out, though Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon earned acting nominations for the film. George Clooney picked up two nominations, as supporting actor for his role as...

In "This Film Is Not Yet Rated," a documentary receiving its world premiere Wednesday at the Sundance Film Festival, Dick uses private investigators to unmask the identities of members of the Certification and Rating Administration, which the Motion Picture Assn. of America (MPAA) operates with the National Association of Theater Owners. The film also presents side-by-side scene comparisons that Kirby contends show how the board's decisions favor studio releases over independent films while also revealing sexist and homophobic attitudes. The film includes interviews with several filmmakers who have gone through the appeals process to avoid an NC-17, a restrictive rating...

Film fans no longer want to wait months to see films in their own homes. A small-budget movie that cost just £905,000 will begin a revolution hailed as the end of Hollywood as we know it. Elizabeth Day reports A crowd of tourists is sheltering from the drizzle underneath the awning of a multiplex cinema. It is Friday night in Leicester Square, central London, and the billboards above their heads are flashing with tantalising promises of films "coming soon". Inside, a member of staff stands in front of a row of shelves stacked with sweets and popcorn. The ticket seller...

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) - Most movie studio executives are probably glad that 2005 is finally over. Sure, some films that were expected to do monster box office ("Star Wars: Episode III", "War of the Worlds" and "Batman Begins," for example) delivered. And there were a few surprise blockbusters too. (Check out the gallery to the right for a look.) But a handful of hits was not enough to overcome the fact that people just didn't seem to be interested in going out to the multiplex as much as they once were. According to data from box office tracking firm Exhibitor...