Free Republic

Who would have guessed that the latest Batman movie would have a conservative point of view?

The Dark Knight has no use for FISA By Sharon McGovern This is not a review, though I submit The Dark Knight kicks a** so very hard. Instead, this will be a brief look at themes employed in TDK; a sequel to Batman is a NeoCon. If you haven’t already contributed to the movie’s astonishing opening weekend take, you might want to decide right now if you want to read something that gives away a number of its plot points. The Dark Knight begins with “the bat man� having become a fixture in Gotham. He inspires resentment for the toll...

Ok, after all the hype and reviews, I went to see Dark Knight yesterday. I go to the movies to be entertained and, like Ghoshbusters, I'm probably the only person out there who wasn't as entertained as all the hype suggested. The movie was too long and too intense. Too much needless violence. The movie should have ended when Two-Faced was revealed (and the coin flip thing grew old pretty quickly) but instead it went on for another 30 or 40 minutes. Bottom line, the Jason Bourne flicks still out do this one. Share your thoughts if you've seen the...

The Dark Knight Review There has never been a movie quite like “The Dark Knight,” Christopher Nolan’s much-anticipated sequel to his reboot of the Batman franchise, “Batman Begins.” While that first film was certainly a great picture, this movie may forever change the genre. It is nothing like the hoards of generic comic book movies that come out this time of year. And unlike so many typical comic book films, it actually produces something for everybody. Spectacular action sequences? Check. A gripping storyline? Check. Heartbreaking romance? Check. Oscar-worthy acting by an A-list cast? Check. Gorgeous visuals and cinematography? Check. Bottom...

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. -- He may be known to many children as a comic book friend, but a Purdue University professor warns the new "Dark Knight" Batman is a much more violent reincarnation of the classic character. Glenn Sparks, a professor of communication, studies the effects of scary movies, particularly on children. "The danger with a film like this is its history in the Batman comic book series and cartoons. People think of this hero as fun and entertaining, so parents may even take very young children to see what they believe is a family film. Instead, they may be...

It's not a comic book movie. That's the first thing you should know when your kids ask to see "The Dark Knight," this summer's biggest blockbuster. The film is vastly more true to Frank Miller's famous alternative view of The Batman than to the zap-pow camp of Adam West's TV portrayal and sanitized DC comics that filled our childhood. So how do you answer? Should your children see "The Dark Knight?" We turned first to our resident film fanatic and visual designer, Chuck Kim, the first of the Yahoo! Kids team to see the box office smash. "I would not...

God it must be fun to be Meryl Streep. She always seems to be having a blast. It’s certainly fun to watch her in “Mamma Mia!” You don’t often get to see 50-something women be as randy and rowdy as the boys in “Superbad.” But that’s what Streep, Christine Baranski and Julie Walters do while they steal the film away from every young hot body on that Greek island. And what an island. Sigh. If I lose my mind and get married I’ll head to that gorgeous church at the top of those winding stairs. What a magical place. It’s...

I think St. Paul would have approved of Batman: The Dark Knight. The story is chock-full of christology and soteriology. That is, Batman represents salvation by faith and grace, succeeding in redeeming Gotham where the law failed. The Queen Consort saw it as good versus evil and therefore representative of all religions, but I disagreed vehemently (in a rare moment of self-control, though, I didn’t escalate the argument). Christianity is alone in having not just a way in which man is saved, nor in having a generic messiah who effects our salvation, but in ascribing our redemption to a particular...

Batman is a neocon By Sharon McGovern In conservative circles there is a tradition of wailing and gnashing teeth over American movie culture. It’s well deserved. There is much about the industry that is despicable, movies are dauntingly complex to make, and most of what passes as film criticism—which might serve as a corrective or guide—is degraded and lame. It’s a near miracle that decent movies are made at all, let alone any that would please the notoriously fussy and uptight Right. The folly of the war in Iraq has been a defining theorem in Hollywood for the past few...

FR Reviews? The critics seem to like it.

(Don't worry. There are no spoilers in this review.)I sat down scared that I had hyped this movie too much, that there was no way that it could be as good as I thought it was going to be. I was right. It was better. The movie takes place after Batman has been operating for a while, and Harvey Dent, along with Jim Gordon have been cleaning up the streets. Things are going the law's way for once. Then comes The Joker.

LONDON (Hollywood Reporter) - No matter how many blockbusters there are, Universal's screen version of the global hit stage musical "Mamma Mia!" is the most fun to be had at the movies this or any other recent summer. Teenage boys may be glued to the latest action adventure, but the rest of the family will have a rollicking good time dancing in the aisles to Swedish pop group ABBA's irresistible songs. It's a delightful piece of filmmaking with a marvelous cast topped by Meryl Streep in one of her smartest and most entertaining performances. After its world premiere in London...

DFU COMMENT: Barack Obama will say anything he needs to say to any group. He will withdraw the troops - he will listen to the generals. He would look at the data regarding vouchers - he is totally against vouchers. He is Leonard Zelig and living the Woody Allen film. ============================================================================== One of Woody Allen's most diverse film projects, and coincidentally his shortest film to date, was the pseudo-documentary film he released in 1983, Zelig. The film, which Allen worked on at the same time as A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy, is a visual marvel and a miniature gem in...

A BBC drama has triggered a barrage of complaints after it showed gruesome images of a Muslim being beheaded. Bonekickers, about a group of archeological sleuths, depicted an extremist Christian decapitating a man with a sword. The bloody scene has prompted 100 complaints since it was broadcast on BBC1 on Tuesday evening.

A Forgettable Journey to the Center of the Earth July 11, 2008 - by Kyle Smith Journey to the Center of the Earth is aggressively bland, a display of X-treme mildness, a cinematic saltine. Like many children’s movies, this remake of the Jules Verne adventure novel, starring Brendan Fraser as a scientist following the trail of his lost brother from an Icelandic cave into the bowels of the world, would be more accurately described as a grandparents’ movie. Little kids brought up on Shrek and The Incredibles have nothing in their memory banks to compare to this movie’s air of...

Hot-on-the-heels of news that Darren Aronofsky may be directing MGM's Robocop reboot, the studio has announced plans to remake another '80s feature in the shape of Red Dawn. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Red Eye scribe Carl Ellsworth will pen the script, which will update the story to modern day. "The tone is going to be very intense, very much keeping in mind the post-9/11 world that we're in," explains Ellsworth. "As Red Dawn scared the heck out of people in 1984, we feel that the world is kind of already filled with a lot of paranoia and unease, so...

Not trying to be spammy here, but has anyone else seen this film? I just watched it and strongly believe that it should be required viewing for every American, lest we forget exactly who and what we're up against. From the website: "Obsession - Radical Islam's War Against the West is a new film that will challenge the way you look at the world. Almost 70 years ago, Europe found itself at war with one of the most sinister figures in modern history: Adolf Hitler. When the last bullet of World War II was fired, over 50 million people were...

This is a puff piece for a movie called Wall-E; this movie is for children and does its best to portray progress as terrible and people as unnecessary. I found the below interesting: For me, Mr. Obama showed signs of jumping the shark two weeks back, when he appeared at a podium affixed with his own pompous faux-presidential seal. It could have been a Pixar sight gag. In fact, it is a gag in “Wall-E,” where, in a flashback, we see that the original do-nothing chief executive of Buy N Large (prone to pronouncements like “stay the course”) boasted his...

The lead character in the Pixar film “WALL-E” is both an acronym (Waste Allocation Load Lifter—Earth class) and a lonely robot with a personality. While Pixar has mastered the art of animation, it is the implicit message this film conveys which makes it much more than a mere cartoon. Some conservatives have written the film off as anti-capitalist propaganda. If the intent of capitalism is to cater to the basest instincts of the human heart, requiring us to indulge our every whim and desire, leading to a dependence on government, then I guess I, too, am an anti-capitalist. However, capitalism...

Filmmaker Andrew Stanton says his latest film isn't about the environment or obesity. It's about relationships...[said Stanton] what really interested me was the idea of the most human thing in the universe being a machine because it has more interest in finding out what the point of living is than actual people. The greatest commandment Christ gives us is to love, but that's not always our priority. So I came up with this premise that could demonstrate what I was trying to say—that irrational love defeats the world's programming. You've got these two robots that are trying to go above...

I saw WALL-E with my five year old on Saturday night. It was like a 90-minute lecture on the dangers of over consumption, big corporations, and the destruction of the environment. All this from mega-company Disney, who wants us to buy WALL-E kitsch for our kids that are manufactured in China at environment-destroying factories and packed in plastic that will take hundreds of year to biodegrade in our landfills. Much to Disney's chagrin, I will do my part to avoid future environmental armageddon by boycotting any and all WALL-E merchandise and I hope others join my crusade.

Heads up: a thunderbolt is about to rip into the blanket of bland we call summer movies. The Dark Knight, director Christopher Nolan's absolute stunner of a follow-up to 2005's Batman Begins, is a potent provocation decked out as a comic-book movie. Feverish action? Check. Dazzling spectacle? Check. Devilish fun? Check. But Nolan is just warming up. There's something raw and elemental at work in this artfully imagined universe. Striking out from his Batman origin story, Nolan cuts through to a deeper dimension. Huh? Wha? How can a conflicted guy in a bat suit and a villain with a cracked,...

RT was among a group of journalists invited to the factory that Luxo built: Pixar Animation Studios. We were given the whirlwind tour as the company winds up for its big summer release Wall-E, set to pop on June 27, 2008, and also got to see the first 30 minutes of the film. Finally, we ended with an intimate Q+A session with the film's writer/director Andrew Stanton. "Small on the massive backdrop..." Andrew Stanton said that during our interview in reference to a story element in Wall-E but he could has just as easily been describing Pixar's clean, green, and...

WALL-E: A Gloom-E Satire June 27, 2008 - by Kyle Smith WALL-E is a cornucopia of filth, dust, rust and roaches, but if I wanted all of that I’d go back to my first New York City apartment. Compared to other kid flicks (or adult flicks, or even Ingmar Bergman flicks), this is one Gloom-E piece of work. WALL-E is the last (sort of) living creature on earth, a bedraggled and lonesome robot who spends his days in a befouled metropolis that makes the one in I Am Legend look like Oz. The earth has been made uninhabitable by junk...

Be Smart — Don’t See Get Smart June 20, 2008 - by Kyle Smith Get Smart hits so many wrong comedic notes it’s as if it’s playing the piano in boxing gloves.A few minutes into the movie, when (a version of) that briskly sinister title theme kicks in and Maxwell Smart heads for the sliding doors you’ll be happily ensconced, thinking: why mess with the classics? But shredding a classic is exactly what the filmmakers set about doing. The latest big-screen adaptation of the 1960s TV spy comedy, originally conceived as a mashup of James Bond and Inspector Clouseau, completely...

For the record, I’m all for Sean Penn travelling across America to gin up socialism volunteerism. Anything that keeps him off a movie set is a good thing. The once great actor’s acting-meter broke after playing a retard in 2001 (he’s not the first) and as a film reviewer I much prefer him takin’ it to the streets. The good news is that off-screen he remains great fodder. Penn explains to a crowd of worshipers why he’s stinking up the roads with bio-diesel buses:

This is the "official" thread for discussing Disney/Walden's second installment in the Chronicles of Narnia series. This thread is primarily intended for people who have already seen the movie, as the following review contains some mild spoilers. Here is the review I wrote after seeing the film. The long-awaited Narnia sequel is here, and as promised, delivers a far more “savage” journey into C.S. Lewis’s Narnia. The two-and-a-half hour film doesn’t stop for long, featuring two heavy battle sequences and one intense duel. (As opposed to the one battle for The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.) And as you...

CNN, following in the footsteps of ABCNews.com’s overblown take on the subject, couldn’t help but to insert snotty language into its report on the Catholic Diocese of Rome’s denial to the filming of the movie adaptation of Dan Brown’s "Angels and Demons." CNN international correspondent Jennifer Eccleston, closing her report on Thursday’s "American Morning," labeled the Church’s refusal, based on "The Da Vinci Code" book and movie’s bashing of the Catholic faith, "a big problem in Rome, where some sins are just too grave to be forgiven -- even if they're for art's sake." "Sins" that are "just too grave...

"Get Smart," which I saw Monday night, is a hodgepodge. The good news is, it’s not awful. It has somehow retained a little of the Brooks/Henry spirit. There is just enough of it, spread around thinly, to make you remember what real satire was like, since "Get Smart" was a take-off on everything from "The Man from UNCLE" to James Bond....James Caan also appears as a bumbling president of the U.S. who’s under the thumb of his evil VP.

Both are movies involving the weaker as they strive to become stronger. One has a little girl trying to save her island and the other involves an overweight panda trying to save his land. "Kung Fu Panda" is a Dreamworks animated movie that challenges the imagination and "Nim's Island" is a charmer. Both movies are geared to children but this adult enjoyed them as well.

Hi everyone - being a relative newbie, I could yet not resist this one: yesterday I saw 'Unforgiven' by Clint Eastwood for the first time. To start: I found it a stunningly good movie. It's been labelled as 'the very last western', or if you will, a revisionist version of trad western fare. I'd agree with both comments; but at the same time it's not out of step with tradional storytelling. What makes it special for me is the deep humanity in it all. Women of low standing are heroines; Clint stays true to the one woman that once saved...

This film is so bad that I feel compelled to make a spoiler-laden list of its most laughably terrible parts rather than review it. M. Night Shyamalan's latest movie, The Happening, is not merely bad. It is an astonishment, so idiotic in conception and inept in execution that, after seeing it, one almost wonders whether it was real or imagined. It's the kind of movie you want to laugh about with friends, swapping favorite moments of inanity: "Do you remember the part when Mark Wahlberg ... ?" "God, yes. And what about that scene where the wind ... ?" The...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: There's a little story here in Madison, Wisconsin. It's by somebody named Michael James Moore: "Why Do Men Hate 'Sex and the City'?" Dawn, have you been to see Sex and the City? Never watched the show, she has no intention of going to see the movie. It did gangbusters out there in its opening weekend. I don't know if Dr. De Cock was in the audience, but it did something like $55 million and chick flicks do not do that well. Most people don't see them. Chicks do. But this attracted all kinds of chicks. This...

“Swing Vote” revolves around a low-life trailer park drunk (Costner) who, by virtue of his young daughter's idealism, becomes responsible for deciding the fate of a closely tied presidential election. Both the incumbent Republican commander-in-chief (Kelsey Grammer) and the milquetoast liberal Democrat challenger (Dennis Hopper) descend on his small town and vie for his vote by shamelessly courting him, even going so far as to change their strongly-held beliefs to align themselves with what they mistakenly believe are his views. A small crowd at an advance screening on the Disney studio lot in Burbank, California this week laughed loudest when...

Last night I watched on cable for the first time, The Lost City. It was directed by and starred Andy Garcia. This movie was about a nightclub owner at the time prior and after the takeover of Cuba by Fidel Castro. It was the most realistic portrayal of the Fidelistas I have ever seen and therefore one of the best, if not THE best anti-communist movie ever made which is why it was shunned by Hollyweird. Despite the rarity of anti-communist movies from Hollywood, there have been a few. Which of these anti-communist movies do you think is the best?...

Trailer HENRY POOLE is HERE is a comedic drama about a disillusioned man who goes hiding in placid suburbia only to discover he cannot escape the forces of hope. Returning to the middleclass neighborhood where he grew up, Henry chooses to live in indulgent isolation. Real life, however, refuses to cooperate with his plans. Nosy neighbors interrupt him with curious visits and prying questions. Then the situation escalates as a stain on Henry's stucco wall is seen to have miraculous powers. His last-ditch hideout becomes a shrine; his backyard turns into an arena for passionate debate about faith and destiny....

VETERAN model Lauren Hutton has attacked Sex And The City's portrayal of promiscuous women and blamed "gay writers" for creating the stereotype that single women are "sluts". While Hutton admitted she had not seen an episode of the hit US TV series, she went on to claim it promoted the untrue myth that it's natural for women to be sexually promiscuous. "It's written by guys, who happen to be gay, who are sluts. That's what I think. Let's face it most men are sluts. "That's what testosterone is supposed to do. As a hunter, if you stayed alive after 30,...

Broadcast TV finally conveyed “Sex and the City” episodes to a wider public, albeit with a bit of editing here and there. The HBO breakout chick-flickette series gathered garlands and huzzahs, and a few brickbats, thru S&C’s long run on cable. It quickly saturated the post-HBO syndicated broadcast market, and fell short of many assessments by conservative voices. Much more mainstream than you’d have guessed, and far more than I’d guessed until the saturation distribution reached my eyes and ears. And analytical synapses. Now comes a summer release of the awaited feature film, with Big and Carrie rumored to wed....

Fraud: "deceit, trickery or breach of confidence, perpetrated for profit or to gain some unfair or dishonest advantage." The HBO movie "Recount" tells the story from the Democratic Party point of view that the 2000 presidential election was improperly won by George W. Bush because of the trickery of his fellow Republicans and the Supreme Court. That has been shown to be untrue by no less a source than the reliably liberal and pro-Democratic New York Times, but facts rarely influence propaganda. Here's a better example of fraud straight from the donkey's mouth that you can bet will never be...

It seems that the HBO fictional film Recount has triggered some horrible memories of vote suppression and fraud perpetrated by the evil Republicans. At least that is the allegation circulating in the leftwing blogosphere. One of the most specific of these allegations comes from the Democratic Underground where a DUer by the screen name of "Lorien" has made some rather shocking charges about betrayal by a high level Democrat campaign official and intimidation of minority voters by a racist cop in the Orlando FL area. Let us join Lorien as she lays out her charges in the DU thread, RECOUNT: My own Florida election day 2000 nightmare (emphasis...

Media: We know the 2000 race is over and all the hanging chads fell long ago. Yet HBO tries to "Recount" the votes one more time and — guess what — George W. Bush is still president.On Sunday, we were treated to HBO's retelling, the umpteenth retelling, of the Democratic Party talking points on how Bush "stole" the 2000 election in league with Florida's secretary of state and the U.S. Supreme Court. Yes, this is an election year. Interestingly, the creators of "Recount" and its stars aren't bothering to hide the film's bias or agenda. Actor Kevin Spacey, who plays...

Sir Ian McKellen returns to the big screen in The Hobbit film By Nick Squires in Sydney Last updated: 1:28 PM BST 25/05/2008 Sir Ian McKellen will reprise the role of Gandalf the wizard for two films to be made based on Tolkien's classic book The Hobbit, it has been confirmed. The two movies - The Hobbit and a sequel which has yet to be named - will be filmed in New Zealand and released in 2011 and 2012. Andy Serkis, the actor who played Gollum with the help of digital wizardry, will also return for the Hobbit film, but...

The folks at Scientific American are steamed at Ben Stein: (see links): Ben Stein's Expelled: No Integrity Displayed (http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=ben-steins-expelled-review-john-rennie) Six Things in Expelled That Ben Stein Doesn't Want You to Know...(http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=six-things-ben-stein-doesnt-want-you-to-know) Stein's controversial movie Expelled links Charles Darwin to Adolf Hitler, the ultimate scientific hero to the ultimate manifestation of human evil. "A shameful antievolution film tries to blame Darwin for the Holocaust," shouts John Rennie's headline. Rennie then declares that its "heavy-handed linkage of modern biology to the Holocaust demands a response for the sake of simple human decency." The problem is, that the link is quite real. In...

"Iron Man” kicks butt. The enemies of the United States of America and its allies are not – for once -- presented as saintly victims of evil American power or tragic casualties of a cruel, uncaring capitalism. They are power-hungry murderous savages and torturers who slaughter the innocent left, right and center just as they are in real life. And Iron Man makes sure they get what's coming. That's why the mega-hit movie “Iron Man” is a celebration of what's great about American capitalism -- and audiences around the world love it. "Iron Man" made $100 million at U.S. domestic...

I loved the three originals. I wasn't expecting much from the Crystal Skull, but I have to say I was surprised! It wasn't just mediocre, it was complete crap. Not partial crap, mind you. It was total crap - actually painful to sit through. I should have walked out. The eight bucks was a sunk cost. I lost utility by sitting through it. I went on a beer run a while back. I had to wait fifteen minutes for the liquor store to open. Sitting there with a bunch of other high society types, I recontemplated my life. I felt...

He has battled against Nazi villains, a Beduin swordsman and a pit of poisonous snakes. Now Indiana Jones can add the Communist Party of St Petersburg to his list of adversaries. Party leaders accused the actors Harrison Ford and Cate Blanchett yesterday of promoting crude, anti-Soviet propaganda in their new film, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. They have urged Russian moviegoers to boycott the film and told Ford, 65, not to visit the country. The swashbuckling archaeologist’s fourth adventure is set in the Cold War in 1957. It pits Indiana Jones against a sinister KGB agent,...

Looking at the origins and makeup of the various Indy films, it is clear that the producer-director combination of George Lucas and Steven Spielberg sought to create a James Bond-like character [1]. Even so, there are major differences between Indy and James Bond, starting with the fact that the latter is employed by a government agency with a "license to kill" across national borders. In effect, Bond was the archetypal imperialist figure for whom national boundaries meant nothing as he carried out his government's orders with scant disregard for life and even less for clothing his women. All in all,...

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Communist party members in St Petersburg on Friday condemned the new Indiana Jones' film as crude anti-Soviet propaganda that distorted history and called for it to be banned from Russian screens. "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" stars Harrison Ford as an archeologist in 1957 competing with an evil KGB agent, played by Cate Blanchett, to find a skull endowed with mystic powers. "What galls is how together with America we defeated Hitler, and how we sympathized when Bin Laden hit them. But they go ahead and scare kids with Communists. These people have...

This is one movie that I have enjoyed as much as the trailer! As the end credits started to roll, my six-year-old (girl) popped up her head and loudly asked if I would buy the DVD. . . THE GUYS...ARE GUYS! They are not "juiced up" thirty-somethings with sculpted muscles and steroids to match, nor are they psychologically tortured, identity-challenged, oversexed teenagers. They are young males who are not afraid to spill some blood when necessary for the greater good. . . THE GIRLS...ARE GIRLS! . . . [T]he usual "girl empowerment" pomposity that almost universally plagues today's child actresses...

Today, at one past midnight, I have seen the latest Indiana Jones movie. Like many among you, I presume, I was a fan of that American raider travelling all over the world to look for treasures. A BIG warning : the latest Indy is absolutely AWFUL. This is the worst thing you can imagine. Actors are nuts, there are so many special effects even when Spielberg said he wouldn't use them, the screeplay is ridiculous. This is a nightmare, and I really encourage fans to boycott it. This is a shame, far away from the original Indiana Jones trilogy. Even...