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Posts Tagged ‘movies’

Silencing critics, part 2

Posted by Richard on September 26, 2008

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) is even more aggressive than the Democrats about trying to intimidate and silence its critics. CAIR is an unindicted co-conspirator in terrorist funding cases and a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Muslim Brotherhood, which is the mothership of Islamofascism.

A couple of weeks ago, I posted about the distribution in Sunday papers of Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West (an excellent documentary; I contributed to the project and have recommended it many times). CAIR has filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission alleging that this DVD distribution was a Zionist plot to help elect McCain. (That link is to Robert Spencer's Jihad Watch story. I prefer not to link to the CAIR press release or the PDF of the complaint, but you can get there via Jihad Watch if you want.)

CAIR claimed that the DVD was being distributed in "swing states." Um, yeah, like New York. And California.

Spencer observed:

This is a very revealing action for CAIR to take. It reveals in particular two key aspects of CAIR's mindset:

1. It shows that CAIR is fully aware that the jihad against Israel is an integral part of the global jihad, and is not just a struggle to recover Palestinian "stolen land." Thus a film that reveals the nature and goals of that global jihad — Obsession — benefits Israel.

2. It also shows that CAIR believes that John McCain will fight against the global jihad in a way that Barack Obama will not — and that it believes therefore the distribution of an anti-jihad film, which in a sane world would be welcomed by both the Left and the Right since the global jihad wishes to destroy and remake the West utterly, must be some partisan plot.

Um, Robert? Who doesn't believe that John McCain will fight against the global jihad in a way that Barack Obama will not?

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Obsession in the Sunday paper

Posted by Richard on September 15, 2008

Along with the usual ad inserts, my Sunday Denver Post contained something special — something that made me cheer: a DVD of the one-hour version of Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West. The slick, eye-catching card to which it was attached listed over 60 newspapers in which it was being distributed, so maybe you got one too. 

You are going to watch it, right? You are going to pass it along to friends or family, right?

I've written about Obsession several times. I've contributed to the project. And I'm delighted that millions more people will now get the chance to see it.

Film critic Michael Medved called Obsession "one of the most powerful, expertly crafted and undeniably important films I've seen this year." You need to see this film. Your friends need to see it, too. It would make a great gift.

Using images from Arab TV, rarely seen in the West, Obsession reveals an ‘insider's view' of the hatred the Radicals are teaching, their incitement of global jihad, and their goal of world domination.  With the help of experts,  including first-hand accounts from a former PLO terrorist, a Nazi youth commander, and the daughter of a martyred guerilla leader, the film shows, clearly, that the threat is real.

A peaceful religion is being hijacked by a dangerous foe, who seeks to destroy the shared values we stand for.  The world should be very concerned

The DVD in the Sunday papers is the shortened version that aired on Fox News. If you didn't get one, or if after watching it, you want to support the project and get the full-length theatrical release DVD (on sale now for only $14.95!), click here or on the Obsession banner in my right sidebar. If you have broadband access, you can watch a full-screen, high-resolution stereo presentation online for $4.95, which can be applied toward a DVD purchase.

 

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2081

Posted by Richard on August 18, 2008

Harrison Bergeron is easily my favorite Kurt Vonnegut story, and I really liked the 1995 TV adaptation. Now, The Moving Picture Institute ("Promoting Freedom Through Film") is coming out with a theatrical short based on the story entitled 2081: Everyone Will Finally Be Equal. It looks and sounds terrific (the Kronos Quartet performs the original score). Here's the description:

Based on the short story Harrison Bergeron by celebrated author Kurt Vonnegut, 2081 depicts a dystopian future in which, thanks to the 212th Amendment to the Constitution and the unceasing vigilance of the United States Handicapper General, everyone is finally equal… The strong wear weights, the beautiful wear masks and the intelligent wear earpieces that fire off loud noises to keep them from taking unfair advantage of their brains. It is a poetic tale of triumph and tragedy about a broken family, a brutal government, and an act of defiance that changes everything.

Go to the 2081 website, watch the trailer, and sign up for email updates regarding screenings in your area.

Also, check out The Moving Picture Institute website and sign up for their email updates. Here's some background about the organization:

Founded in 2005 by human rights advocate Thor Halvorssen, the Moving Picture Institute is unlike any other foundation dedicated to promoting the ideal of liberty. At MPI, we believe that film, more effectively than any other medium, can bring the idea of freedom to life. In keeping with that belief, we are working to ensure that film becomes a center of genuinely democratic art in the coming years. Our goal is to guarantee that film's unique capacity to give shape to abstract principles—to make them move and breathe—is used to support and promote liberty. Toward that end, we fund films from development through post-production, support up-and-coming filmmakers, and serve as a high-level intern placement service.

Historically, the film industry has been largely unconcerned with developing a distinctive and nuanced portrait of deep-seated American values such as free speech, freedom of association, and the free enterprise system. Such values have been defined and defended almost exclusively in print and through oral argument. But as visual media become increasingly prevalent, we depend more heavily upon movies for our philosophical, moral, and social guidance. If the ideal of freedom is to endure—if it is to maintain its vitality and relevance in our society—it must find its way into film, our most vital, relevant, and far-reaching art form. Freedom must be seen to be believed.

MPI is going on my list of organizations to support. How about you?

(HT: Andrew Roth)

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This day in history

Posted by Richard on July 14, 2008

If you listen to Little Steven's Underground Garage, you not only get to hear some really cool music (including the weekly "coolest song in the world"), but you also learn some interesting trivia. For instance, you probably know that July 14 is Bastille Day, but did you know it's also Harry Dean Stanton's birthday and the anniversary of the U.S. premier of Easy Rider?

So in honor of the day, take your Harley out for a ride (or your Vespa, if that's all you've got). Listen to Steppenwolf's Born to be Wild. Have a nice Beaujolais with dinner. And then watch Paris, Texas, Escape from New York, Alien, or just about any David Lynch film. (Remember, "the owls are not what they seem.")

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The legacy of Charlton Heston

Posted by Richard on April 8, 2008

Charlton Heston was a great actor and a great champion of freedom and individual rights, as Alan Gottlieb of the Second Amendment Foundation noted:

“Mr. Heston stood head and shoulders above other civil rights activists,” Gottlieb recalled, “because he recognized that the Bill of Rights was all-inclusive. He marched alongside Dr. Martin Luther King long before it was fashionable for Hollywood stars to involve themselves in social issues. He was a firm believer in freedom of speech, and yet he was not afraid to hold this nation’s press corps and our institutions of higher learning accountable for their stifling political correctness.

“It is not often that a man of such international stature, and with such unquestionable dignity, steps forward to take a leadership role in a struggle of such importance as did Charlton Heston, in his ardent defense of the Second Amendment,” he continued. “Our prayers and most heartfelt thoughts are with Mr. Heston’s family.

“While we join our friends at the NRA in mourning the loss of this great American,” Gottlieb stated, “we should also celebrate the fact that he lived, and that he stood up when it counted. He was certainly an inspiration to those whose lives he touched, and to the millions of gun owners whose rights he unselfishly defended.

“Charlton Heston set an example by doing what he thought was right,” Gottlieb concluded, “and as a nation, we are the better for it.”

What I remember most about Heston is his aesthetic sense, sense of life, and profound understanding of the nature of art, as exemplified by two quotes that have stuck in my mind for many years. I can't seem to locate either one on the Web, so I'll simply paraphrase from memory. 

In an interview where he talked about the nature and role of art, in which he echoed some of Ayn Rand's ideas on the subject, Heston observed that Dustin Hoffman may be a great actor, but Michelangelo is so much more interesting than Ratso Rizzo.

And in response to the observation that many of the historical characters he played were "larger than life," Heston objected that they weren't larger than life, they were real people whom we could aspire to emulate. 

You young people out there could do a lot worse than aspire to emulate Charlton Heston. 

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MPAA guilty of copyright violations

Posted by Richard on December 7, 2007

Oh, the wonderful irony! The Motion Picture Association of America is, together with the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), one of the most hawkish organizations anywhere regarding copyright protection. At one time, the MPAA fought to ban VCRs because they "encouraged" people to copy movies. More recently, the MPAA and RIAA have been the driving forces behind the odious digital rights management (DRM) schemes that encumber digital entertainment and restrict our "fair use" rights. So I found this news just hilarious:

The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) recently released a software toolkit designed to help universities detect instances of potentially illegal file-sharing on school networks. The toolkit is based on the increasingly popular Ubuntu Linux distribution and includes the Apache web server as well as custom traffic monitoring software created by the MPAA. Although the toolkit was previously available from a web site set up by the MPAA, the software was removed last night after the organization received a request from Ubuntu technical board member Matthew Garrett to take it down due to GPL violations.

Many of the components in the Ubuntu Linux distribution, including the Linux kernel, are distributed under the General Public License (GPL). … Distributing software licensed under the GPL in binary format without making source code available to end users is a violation of the GPL and constitutes copyright infringement.

The MPAA, which has consistently lobbied Congress for stricter penalties on copyright infringement, will likely take some much-deserved heat for this embarrassing gaffe.  

Much-deserved indeed. 

Meanwhile, there's more good news for consumers regarding digital music. Retail giants Amazon and Wal-Mart have joined the fight for DRM-free MP3s:

Earlier this year EMI and Universal Music Group started selling DRM-free music. Now, Pepsi and Amazon have teamed up to give away 1 billion DRM-free MP3s. The offer puts pressure on record companies who aren't offering music in DRM-free format to either join the party or miss out.

In the past, retail giant Wal-Mart has sold music with Microsoft's PlaysForSure DRM. iTunes, the top online music retailer in the world, sells music compatible only with Apple iPod and iPhone devices.

Now, Wal-Mart is siding with the Smash-DRM movement, claiming it wants to switch to a DRM-free catalogue in 2008 and threatening to leave behind any record label not willing to comply. Meanwhile, iTunes has already started selling DRM-free music. Change is definitely in the air.

A couple of years ago, I pointed out that Microsoft was defending consumers' rights by backing the HD DVD format and insisting that it include Managed Copy, an extension of DRM that restores consumers' fair-use rights. Now, music consumers have a friend in Wal-Mart. Microsoft and Wal-Mart, the little guy's friends — somewhere, a corporation-hating lefty's head just exploded. ๐Ÿ™‚

Of course, those corporations are (as they should be) acting out of self-interest. It's really competition and innovation that are the little guy's friends:

Retailers and record labels wanting to sell DRM-free music are hardly feeling an alliance with the open source / free-love crowd. This is strictly business. Universal and others had no problem dealing with iTunes, DRM and all, when the iPod was the only significant MP3 player. But now that practically everybody has cell phones and other non-Apple devices that play digital music, cross-compatibility is looking a lot more interesting.

DRM will become marginalized as Apple's stranglehold on digital music playback weakens.

BTW, on Friday Wal-Mart is selling Toshiba's 3rd-generation HD-A3 HD DVD player for $298, and you get 12 (!) free HD DVDs. If you've been thinking about a high-def player, grab this deal!

 

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Another anti-war bomb

Posted by Richard on November 26, 2007

Four weeks ago, I noted that Hollywood's recent spate of anti-American propaganda films had been singularly unsuccessful:

The bad news is that Hollywood is relentlessly cranking out film after film intended to undermine support for the war against Islamofascism. The good news is that Americans are avoiding these propaganda pieces in droves. Most recently, Babel, The Kingdom, and Rendition have all bombed at the box office.

Add Brian De Palma's execrable Redacted to the list. In fact, put it at the top. According to a NYPost story quoted by JammieWearingFool, it may be the biggest box-office bomb ever. On its opening weekend, it took in about $25,000. No, I didn't accidentally leave off three zeros. Twenty-five thousand dollars. At what — about eight bucks a ticket? That means more people attended your average minor-league hockey game than saw this left-wing turkey.

JWF's post also has the unbelievable story of how De Palma is complaining that he's a victim. You see, his corporate overlords insisted on blurring the faces of dead American soldiers in a "collage of actual bloody bodies at the end of the film." He's been censored! Denied his opportunity to inflict gratuitous pain and suffering on the families and friends of the dead in service of his art (and politics)! Poor Brian!

De Palma is a vile POS, and a pretty sorry director, too — overrated, overblown, and completely derivative. His career should have ended years ago. I remember a great (late 70s?) Saturday Night Live parody commercial for a De Palma film called The Clams — a silly ripoff of Hitchcock's The Birds, complete with clams gathering on a jungle gym. As I recall, the money line at the end was "every couple of years, he picks the bones of a dead director and gives his wife a job."

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Anthony Hopkins

Posted by Richard on November 1, 2007

I just watched Anthony Hopkins on the Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson. Very odd segment, and it's clear that Hopkins is not very comfortable as a talk show guest, but he and Craig got on OK. Some nice English-Irish-Scottish-Welsh banter.

I've always liked Hopkins and greatly admired his acting. The World's Fastest Indian is one of my all-time favorite movies, and Hopkins was just tremendous as Burt Munro.

My high opinion of Hopkins was affirmed during this interview, and even raised a couple of notches: Hopkins mentioned in passing that his favorite actor was Robert Mitchum.

Anthony Hopkins, who trained at RADA, was discovered by Sir Laurence Olivier, was a member of the Royal National Theatre, won an Oscar and a couple of Emmies, and was nominated for several more, admires above all others Robert Mitchum.

Damn. That Anthony Hopkins is a fine judge of acting and a person of great character. I'm impressed.

If you haven't seen The World's Fastest Indian, I cannot recommend it highly enough. It's a true story, and I guarantee that you'll feel better about the human race just knowing about Burt Munro and the many people who helped him. Hopkins said that this was "the best film I've been in," and his portrayal of Munro is simply amazing, incredible, awesome, and every other superlative you can think of. You must see this film. 

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Hollywood’s war

Posted by Richard on October 31, 2007

The bad news is that Hollywood is relentlessly cranking out film after film intended to undermine support for the war against Islamofascism. The good news is that Americans are avoiding these propaganda pieces in droves. Most recently, Babel, The Kingdom, and Rendition have all bombed at the box office.

But it's not just that film-makers are making anti-war movies. They've also gone out of their way to avoid portraying the most believable and likely villains around today, Islamist terrorists, even if it meant rewriting stories like Tom Clancey's The Sum of All Fears to kowtow to the demands of CAIR (unindicted co-conspirators in a terrorism-financing operation). The film version replaced the Islamist terrorists in Clancy's novel with cartoon neo-Nazis.

Michael Fumento noted the difference between Hollywood then and now:

In 1942, Hollywood went to war. It began pumping out countless movies designed both to entertain the public and bolster its will to fight. A lot of them were cheap, hokey, or both. But even in a nation that seemingly needed little reminder of the dastardly attack on Pearl Harbor or the evils of the Nazis, they kept drilling home the message that we must persevere no matter the costs or the duration.

Well that they did. President Franklin Roosevelt lived in constant fear that the public would turn against the war. Indeed a Gallup Poll taken just five months before Germany’s collapse and long after the American public began learning of the horrors of the Holocaust, showed about one-fourth did not want to drive on to unconditional surrender.

Fast forward that reel to the post-9/11 era. Just how many Hollywood movies (not documentaries) have been made in which the bad guys are Islamist terrorists that do not specifically concern the Sept. 11 attacks? If you have to guess, guess “none.”

Read the whole thing. As Fumento observed, Hollywood seems bent on convincing us that either Islamist terrorists aren't really a threat or that they're no worse than we are.

Also, read Ed Driscoll's Hollywood Nihilism, which argues that the change in Hollywood predates 9/11 and Bush ("who's the real enemy," indeed).

It's really remarkable (and disgusting) that Tinseltown — with its well-known predilection for hedonism, its commitment to feminism, its enthusiastic embrace of alternative lifestyles, and its general "do your own thing" attitude — has consistently sided with the most barbaric, mysogynistic, intolerant, and repressive religio-political movement on the face of the earth, a movement that would, given the chance, behead or stone to death practically every last one of them. 

Driscoll be damned, I blame Bush.  

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Get Obsession

Posted by Richard on September 17, 2007

The full-length version of the acclaimed documentary film Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West was released on September 11 and is now available from all the major DVD retailers (although Amazon is already sold out).

I raved about the shortened version when it aired on Fox News, and quoted others who raved as well. For instance, film critic Michael Medved called Obsession "one of the most powerful, expertly crafted and undeniably important films I've seen this year." You need to see this film. Your friends need to see it, too. It would make a great Christmas or Hanukkah gift.

Using images from Arab TV, rarely seen in the West, Obsession reveals an ‘insider's view' of the hatred the Radicals are teaching, their incitement of global jihad, and their goal of world domination.  With the help of experts,  including first-hand accounts from a former PLO terrorist, a Nazi youth commander, and the daughter of a martyred guerilla leader, the film shows, clearly, that the threat is real.

A peaceful religion is being hijacked by a dangerous foe, who seeks to destroy the shared values we stand for.  The world should be very concerned

Click here or on the banner below to order the DVD for $19.95, or to watch a full-screen, high-resolution stereo presentation online (broadband required) for $4.95, which can be applied toward a DVD purchase.

Obsession the movie

 

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The Walter Duranty of the 21st century

Posted by Richard on July 3, 2007

I didn't have to read a movie review to know that Michael Moore's latest film, Sicko, was a steaming pile of crap just like its predecessors, full of blatant lies, distortions, and cynical manipulations of the people on both sides of the cameras. Nevertheless, it was a pleasure to read the review by MTV's Kurt Loder (!), which is a devastating critique of the film — and of socialized medicine. (HT: Ace of Spades )

Loder begins by praising Moore for bringing to light stories of people who were ill-served by the U.S. health care system. This makes the subsequent indictment of Moore all the more powerful:

Unfortunately, Moore is also a con man of a very brazen sort, and never more so than in this film. His cherry-picked facts, manipulative interviews (with lingering close-ups of distraught people breaking down in tears) and blithe assertions (how does he know 18 million people will die this year because they have no health insurance?) are so stacked that you can feel his whole argument sliding sideways as the picture unspools. …

As a proud socialist, the director appears to feel that there are few problems in life that can't be solved by government regulation (that would be the same government that's already given us the U.S. Postal Service and the Department of Motor Vehicles).

Loder contrasts Moore's glowing reports of the glories of socialized medicine in Canada, Britain, and France with the grim picture painted by the 2005 Canadian documentary, Dead Meat. He goes on to provide one of the best short summaries of the failings of socialized medicine I've seen in a while. 

Loder shows what a fool Moore is by nicely skewering Moore's fawning praise of France:

Moore's most ardent enthusiasm is reserved for the French health care system, which he portrays as the crowning glory of a Gallic lifestyle far superior to our own. The French! They work only 35 hours a week, by law. They get at least five weeks' vacation every year. Their health care is free, and they can take an unlimited number of sick days. It is here that Moore shoots himself in the foot. He introduces us to a young man who's reached the end of three months of paid sick leave and is asked by his doctor if he's finally ready to return to work. No, not yet, he says. So the doctor gives him another three months of paid leave – and the young man immediately decamps for the South of France, where we see him lounging on the sunny Riviera, chatting up babes and generally enjoying what would be for most people a very expensive vacation. Moore apparently expects us to witness this dumbfounding spectacle and ask why we can't have such a great health care system, too. I think a more common response would be, how can any country afford such economic insanity?

As Loder notes, even the French have come to realize that this madness can't go on, and soundly rejected Socialist Ségolène Royal for Nicolas Sarkozy, who made entitlement reforms and more market-friendly policies the centerpiece of his campaign.

Loder soundly critiques Moore's elaborately staged visit to a gleaming, state-of-the-art Cuban "Potemkin Village" hospital — a hospital to which no Cuban will ever be admitted. If you want to see what a real Cuban hospital looks like, Babalu Blog has some recent pictures. And lots of links to other Sicko-related stuff.

Michael Moore is a vile, contemptible creature. His glowing reports of the glories of Castro's Cuba and Saddam's Iraq make him the leading contender for the Walter Duranty Mendacity in Journalism Award, if there were one.

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Laser pistols don’t kill people, …

Posted by Richard on May 26, 2007

Thirty years ago yesterday, Star Wars opened in just 32 theaters across the country, and producers worried it would lose money. In Los Angeles this weekend, well over 20,000 fans are attending a five-day celebration of the anniversary, the Postal Service has issued Star Wars stamps, and George Lucas is making clips from the Star Wars movies available for "remixing" at StarWars.com.

But not all Star Wars fans are celebrating this weekend. An Aussie on his way to a 30th anniversary photo shoot made the mistake of letting his Star Wars laser pistol poke out of his backpack and alarm the hoplophobes in a Melbourne mall. Police, not knowing whether the laser blaster was fully charged, took no chances:

"It was a replica gun. We weren't sure what we were dealing with," Senior-Constable Daniel Sage told the Herald Sun newspaper. Photographs showed a gun closely resembling the weapon carried by Star Wars rogue Han Solo in the cinema classic.

The man had been on his way to pose for a community newspaper ahead of the 30th Star Wars movie anniversary when he was surrounded by armed police, forced to the ground and handcuffed.

Police said despite being a harmless replica and a close match to a weapon from a galaxy far, far away, the man would be charged with possessing an unregistered firearm.

Don't Australians realize that laser pistols don't kill people, people kill people? (Also, battle droids …)

In other movie news, today is the 100th birthday of Marion Morrison, better known as John Wayne. The Duke carried a plain old revolver, not a laser pistol, but he changed movies forever, too. Check out the fine tribute poem posted by commenter shirley at Firetop.

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Rated R for graphic smoking

Posted by Richard on May 11, 2007

The Motion Picture Association of America is going to consider smoking (by adults) as a factor, along with sex, violence, and language, in determining whether a film gets a restricted rating. Critics are complaining that the MPAA isn't going far enough. They want any image of tobacco use to automatically get an R rating, so that no child under 17 can see on the screen what they can see just outside the door on their way out of the theater:

"I'm glad it's finally an issue they're taking up, but what they're proposing does not go far enough and is not going to make a difference," said Kori Titus, spokeswoman for Breathe California, which opposes film images of tobacco use that might encourage young people to start smoking.

Titus said film raters should be as tough on smoking as they are on bad language to minimize the effects of on-screen smoking on children, including her own 5-year-old daughter.

"I don't want her using that language, but last time I checked, she's probably not going to die from that," Titus said. "If she starts smoking from these images she sees in movies, chances are she's probably going to die early from that."

Apparently in anticipation of such criticism, the MPAA had already lined up defenders to argue that their level of nannyism is sufficient:

While Titus' group wants tougher ratings restrictions, the MPAA released statements of support for its plan from John Seffrin, chief executive officer of the American Cancer Society, U.S. Sen. Joe Biden and filmmaker Rob Reiner, among others.

"By placing smoking on a par with considerations of violence and sex, the rating board has acknowledged the public-health dangers to children associated with glamorized images of a toxic and lethal addiction to tobacco," Barry Bloom, dean of the Harvard School of Public Health, said in a statement.

So, the public debate is whether images of people lighting cigarettes are worse than or merely as bad as images of rape or disembowelment.

How long do you suppose it will be before some group of nanny-state nazis calls for restricted ratings on films that depict the consumption of doughnuts or french fries? 

UPDATE: A caller to Rush had a brilliant idea. He pointed out that the MPAA's statements and actions amount to an acknowledgement of culpability by the film industry. How many millions of us watched Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, and others smoking on the silver screen in film after film, and thought they looked oh-so-cool, and decided to emulate them? Could we perhaps get John Edwards or one of his law partners to file a class action suit on our behalf? Or do Edwards and his pals only go after industries that aren't dominated by leftist Democrats?

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Who cares about Oscars?

Posted by Richard on February 26, 2007

Ed Driscoll borrowed Orrin Judd’s wonderful title, “The Unspeakable Toast The Unwatchable,” for his observations about last night’s Academy Awards show:

Regarding the Oscars, Orrin Judd writes, “When we were kids everyone used to watch them–they used to celebrate the movies. Know anyone who still does now that they celebrate Hollywood’s politics?”

Drudge has the early ratings:

ABC PULLS 27.4 RATING/42 SHARE IN EARLY OVERNIGHTS AT ‘OSCARS’… MORE… IF NUMBERS HOLD, WOULD BE 3RD LEAST- WATCHED OSCARS, JOINING LOW 2006, 2003… MORE…

In 2006, Hollywood switched from a mass industry serving the public to a niche market for blue/green activists. It invented a strategy that junks the Red States. But every year flyover country gets to remind Hollywood that the loss is reciprocal, at least for one Sunday.

If the Drudge numbers are correct, at some point in the future, just as C-SPAN covers the bulk of national political conventions, watch for the Oscars to move up the dial, out of the over-the-air networks and into the realm of cable. Maybe E! or HBO could host them. Or Current TV.

I remember watching the Oscars โ€” in fact, I remember looking forward to the show and caring about who won.

But I haven’t seen it in years.

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Must-see TV

Posted by Richard on November 17, 2006

Tonight at 9 PM ET (that's 7 PM here in Denver), Fox News is rebroadcasting Obsession: The Threat of Radical Islam. If you missed it last weekend, I strongly urge you to tune in. It's a one-hour presentation excerpted from the full-length movie, Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West, which has won considerable critical acclaim. For instance:

"Obsession is one of the most powerful, expertly crafted and undeniably important films I've seen this year. This courageous, utterly gripping expose' deserves the attention of every American — and merits serious consideration for the Academy Award for Best Feature Length Documentary."

Michael Medved
Nationally syndicated radio host, film critic, and "Eye on Entertainment"

Obsession is both scary and riveting! Each and every one of us should feel obligated to show Obsession to as many people as we can. Obsession should serve as a wake-up call to the free world to confront the threat now, before it is too late."

Joel Surnow
Executive Producer “24”

"This movie ought to be shown … in every community center, every school, every church, synagogue and mosque, every living room in America…"

Nolan Finley
The Detroit News, editorial page

" Leaves you speechless… [Obsession] is the single most powerful and terrifying public exposition of the fact that a global Islamic jihad is now being waged from Bali to Istanbul, from Chechnya to Madrid, from Morocco to Manhattan, from Thailand to Bloomsbury – and that the world that is under attack is deeply in denial about what it is facing. "

Melanie Phillips
Author and Journalist, the Daily Mail

" Riveting… Obsession is without exaggeration one of the most important films of our time… America needs to see it "

Glenn Beck
The Glenn Beck Program

Along the same lines, Glenn Beck aired his own special this past Wednesday, Exposed: The Extremist Agenda, and I recommend it, too. It will be rebroadcast on CNN's Headline News Network this Sunday evening (7, 9, and midnight ET).

Fire up your TIVO or VCR, or just sit yourself down and watch these two programs. They are gripping and spell-binding — and so very, very important.
 

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