Kevin Willis on liberal propaganda movies

From the comments on a movie post recently, the great Kevin Willis writes:

I often debate the issue with lefties at the entertainment site, aintitcool.com, and I argue the number one problems is movies made with an ideological axe to grind (or itch to scratch) tend to be boring. The "atheist themed" Golden Compass will do in box office what a half-dozen of the current anti-war movies haven't, because movies like Lions for Lambs or In The Valley of Elah look, and are, boring and tedious. The trailers for Rendition made the movie look tedious. I wouldn't have gone to see it if it had been on the right side of the issue. Frankly, political policy is important to me, but I don't go to movies to learn about social security reform. I want to see a good story, a romantic comedy, or giant robots.

It's not a coincidence that modern liberals, making movies with ideological axes to grind, make boring and tedious movies. It's just a bad place to start. Even if they have a decent story, if the writers are trying to inject some of their personal politics into a movie (such as the line about no occupying force ever winning a war, spaketh by Tim Robbins in "War of the Worlds"), then that's usually the stupidest part of the movie.

But it's not just the war. Fast Food Nation completely tanked at the box office, making under $2 million dollars--it couldn't have been begun to pay for marketing. And it was a totally "America is Bad, Look we kill cows" movie, and worse that watching all the graphic images of cow slaughter is listening to characters try to insert liberal talking points into "conversation" like it's a PowerPoint presentation. And I could go on and on and on . . .

A followup post:

BTW, The Golden Compass will do good business, because it has Daniel Craig, and talking polar bears, and witches, and special effects, and all sorts of cook stuff, and isn't a bunch of eggheads sitting around talking about how stupid Christians are. But I guarantee you a lot of libs will see it as mainstream acceptance of atheism, anti-Christianity, etc. And then there will be the thoughtful Redford movie staring Meryl Streep as the reporter being harangued by Tom Cruise's fundamentalist paritioner. And that'll tank . . .

And this:

Lions for Lambs is tanking. Redacted (Brian DePalma's depiction of U.S. soldiers as murdering child rapists), for which DePalma has already won some awards (despite the fact many liberal critics have panned the film as godawful as a film) . . . Redacted will be debuting on HDNet (a cable channel with not a lot of market penetration) before it hits theaters, which seems to me a tacit acknowledgement that it's going to tank at the box office.

Again, interesting stories make for good movies. "America is bad" is not an interesting story. "I'm a Hollywood writer, and thus smarter and more moral than you rubes in flyover country, and this movie will teach you how to be smart like me" is also not an interesting story--in fact, it's a story that Hollywood has done way too much and it wasn't any good the first time.

It's called Christmas!

Fantastic tune and message

Hizonner

I had three blue jays gathering around my feeder today. They were too fast for me, though. Only got this one. Later I saw them flying around in the company of a cardinal. Talk about a colorful, but nasty, crew!

Is it because people don't like the war or because they don't like leftists?

From Hollywood is a casualty of war comes this clueless quote:
Veteran television producer Steven Bochco, whose 2005 television series "Over There" about a platoon of soldiers fighting in Iraq ended after just one season, said it was hard to engage audiences in a "hugely unpopular war."

"TV is fully saturated with this war and I don't know if you can do a serious drama about this war and locate any angle that would overcome the negativity about it," he told the New York daily Newsday.

This is like saying people who hate George Bush shun the Dixie Chicks. Someone tell me you think the Dixie Chicks are washed up because the anti-war crowd hates them.

This guy doesn't suspect, even the tiniest bit, that audiences are tired of being preached to by the anti-war crowd? It couldn't be that audiences are not so sure that the war is wrong or that our soldiers are evil baby killers?

The Dixie Chicks, and Hollywood, are being shunned by mainstream America because 1. Mainstream American boys are fighting in Iraq and 2. Mainstream America doesn't think its sons are baby killers and 3. Mainstream America doesn't like Hollywood politics.

Federal government prohibits angel and Christmas tree

I'm just curious whether the HUD directive prohibits 'Las Posadas' in HUD buildings.

From an AFA alert:


Federal government tells 85-year-old grandmother not to put an angel on Christmas tree

The Plant City Living Center has told Mrs. Arnold, an 85-year-old grandmother in Florida, that federal law prohibits her from displaying any religious words or items associated with Christmas in the common area of her apartment building.

According to the Center, The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) issued a directive banning "any religious symbols or religious words associated with Christmas." Under the guidelines issued by HUD, the elderly grandmother cannot place a small Christmas tree outside her door (because that area is a "commons area") if it contains any religious symbols or religious words, even an angel!

If the residents want to have a Christmas party in their Community room, they cannot call it a Christmas party. The Center says HUD directs residents not to use the word "Christmas" but to use the word "Holiday."

A Sunday School class from a church near Mrs. Arnold's apartment comes every year to host a Hanging of the Greens and Christmas Party for all the residents. She said the highlight of their Christmas Party comes at the very end of The Hanging of the Greens when someone places the angel on top of their Christmas tree. Their tradition is now banned by the federal government.

The federal government is becoming increasingly active in banning Christianity from the public square. Earlier, the National Park Service removed the wording "Laus Deo" (Latin for "Praise be to God") from a replica of the cap of the Washington Monument in Washington, D.C. and the Veterans Administration banned the script of the flag-folding ceremony mentioning "Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob," and "Father, Son and Holy Ghost" at over 100 national cemeteries. Both of these were rescinded after AFA supporters sent emails to proper authorities.

Thank you U of Delaware!

Hey, we conservatives have been called racists for decades.

Now, thanks to the U of Delaware, white liberals are also officially racists. (And they thought they were exempt!)

Red Scar Over China

Gayle's fascinating post today reminds me that, in China, the generation in power now is the one who killed their parents and grandparents in the cultural revolution, who looted the homes of their neighbors, tortured their own school friends, gutted the universities merely because there were signs of western thought or culture.

China today is literally a country full of sociopaths. They do not know right from wrong.

The fruits of the Chinese revolution: Killing healthy people to sell their organs .... making animal food that kills animals... making toys that kill children.

These people have no soul. It is the one and only lasting fruit of their evil communist experiment, a red stain on China, coming to your neighborhood soon.