"America"

I saw Dinesh D'Souza's movie America last night.

Go. See. It.

He lists the standard Leftist's accusations against America, and promptly debunks every one of them.

With facts.

With the Truth.

Very uplifting.

And enlightening...I bet you find out something about American history you didn't know.

Seriously. Go. See. It.

And, like me....and my escort (!) when you can, buy a few copies of the DVD and pass them around.

Happy Fourth of July

/gun

Movie Review

Not exactly a surprise:  A conservative's review of "The Butler".

I'll pass seeing it, thanks.

/gun

Another One?

Honestly, I didn't find this in the same place or at the same time...and when I saw this one, I'd forgotten that the last post was a picture of Heath Ledger as THE JOKER.

That one was a political comment.

This one is just a great line about his performance.

If you haven't seen it....do.

Egan and Ledger

I just saw a movie preview...with someone named Christopher Egan. Since I'm so pop-culture challenged, I don't know who he is. But at first I thought Heath Ledger had come back to life.

This guy's a dead ringer (sorry) for Heath. But weirder, he sounds EXACTLY like him. It's not just the accent—both are Australian, but it's the timber and tone of his voice.

I checked the credits to see if this kid's name was "Ledger" - thought it might be his younger brother. But there's no indication of it in a quick google search.

Egan is in a movie called "Letters to Juliet" in case you want to check it out. Fair warning: it looks to be a sweet love story "chick flick". Take your woman. She'll love you for it.

The Gunslinger
(Kinda crushing on Christopher)

Hollywood's Own "Art" Proves Their Politics Wrong

One of my observations about Hollywood is that they keep making "conservative" movies, but they just don't know it, because they regularly mis-identify their heroes and villains.

I love it that Leigh Scott agrees with me.

It takes a healthy dose of cynicism, a dash of historical ignorance, and a lot of gullibility to fully embrace modern statist rhetoric.  Hollywood drinks the kool-aid by the gallon.  Yet, in their pursuit of good story telling and their aspirations towards art, they more often than not end up making really good conservative stories.

When you get right down to it, the reason there are so few “conservative” films out there is because most films are inherently conservative.  Any film that champions the rise and strength of the individual is conservative.  Any story that tells of the triumphs of good over evil is conservative.  The subtext of films that resonate, films that capture our imaginations, are based on the romantic ideals of conservative thought.

We all know the classic romantic comedy formula.  Boy meets girl, boy gets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl back.  The backbone of this formula is individual achievement.  Note that it isn’t boy meets girl, then boy gets government to force girl to be with him in the interest of “fairness.”

 Of course, it's not like I needed validation. I knew I was right.

The Gunslinger, EOTIS
Para Bellum

The Dark Knight - Spoiler Alert

Okay, what did I miss? I read nothing but glowing reviews of Batman The Dark Knight, and I watched it Tuesday night....and it was, like, alright.

The plot holes were big enough to drive a John Deere through. And the denouement was nothing if not underwhelming. WTF??

On the other hand...Heath Ledger, may he rest in peace, was totally AMAZING! Honestly, I had expected that the praise of his performance had been inflated by the media and Hollywood because of his untimely and sad death. I figured he'd get an sympathy Oscar, you know, because he croaked. But, by God, he really was great. If he is voted Best Actor, I won't argue. And though it's a little selfish, after seeing that stunning performance, I'm even sorrier that he died. Imagine what we might have seen; what he might have done had he lived. His death is not just a tragedy for him and his...but for us. We are a little poorer for his death too.

But getting back to the movie. Am I the only one who thought the plot was sloppy and stupid? Am I the only one that thought that when you warn people they are potential victims of a clever and devious criminal, you don't let them stand in front of wide open, uncovered, plate glass window brightly lit in the middle of the night? Am I the only one that knew immediately that in a hostage situation, what appears to be masked gunmen, lined up single file, standing in plain sight and directly in the line of police fire, just might be the hostages?

Seriously, how stupid are Gotham City police?

Am I the only one that didn't get the central, plot revolving "choice" the Joker offered Batman? There were two people in danger. Batman had time to save only one. The idea, I guess was that he had to choose between them, condemning one to die. Horrors.

Well, except that the police were part of the scenario: so there was an entire police force ready to rush to the aid of the "other" one. Lessens the finality and the curse of the "choice" it seems to me.

"I'll save her, you save him." Not that gut wrenching. Not that tough. Not that soul-searing a choice, really.

Okay, it didn't quite work out. But the CHOICE was the point of the exercise from the Joker's point of view. And it was, well, stupid.

And did anyone else care what the hell happend to the chick, whose name I can't even remember? What a two-faced lying selfish bitch. Am I wrong??

She keeps Bruce on a string, promising to be there when he can give up being Batman, while all the time, planning to marry Dent. Kind of a whore, really. I just couldn't work up any sympathy when she bit the big one. Call me insensitive.

As for the denouement, according to the reviews I read (wishful thinking as far as I can tell, by Conservatives who wanted it to be so) Batman realizes that playing by the rules when fighting an enemy without rules, and who exploits your "rule-keeping", doesn't work — so he goes Medieval on the bad guys. I was SO looking forward to that.

But no. A formerly good guy (Dent) turns crazy bad and goes Medieval on good people, murdering several of them (exposing the fact that his "goodness" was about a millimeter deep) and rather than allow Dent's Dudley Do-Right image tarnished in the public eye after his death, Batman accepts the blame for what he did, preserving Dent's White Knight image for a desperate-for-hope populace, while assuming, in the minds of those same people, the image—but not the reality—of the evil, Dark Knight.

Noble? Sure. The right message about fighting wild, pointless, maniacal, destructive, evil effectively? Not so much.

Tell me where I'm wrong here.

Pros: The action was stupendous. And loud. The Joker was a tour-de-force. Watching Christian Bale do anything on screen is worth the price of admission.

Cons: The plot sucked wind, and the characters were less realistic than in a comic book.
Did I mention that Morgan Freeman's hysterical response to Batman's single slight deviation from absolutely police-legal protocol was so farcically absurd and so extreme it actually made you blink and assume you must have missed something?

Overall, I have to recommend the damn movie because you absolutely have to see Heath Ledger's Joker. Oh...and the action scene at the warehouse. Holy Shit. But other than that, snooze through the rest.

The Gunslinger

The Departed

If you have 2.5 hours to spend on a movie that's doesn't quite do justice to a good idea, and is at least a half an hour too long...BUT has some of the best acting you will ever see, courtesy of Leonardo Di Caprio, I recommend this film.

He is magic. His screen presence is electric, his accent immpecable, his character as real as it gets. And he's finally getting to an age where he's an interestingly attractive man, not just a wildly talented, adorably cute kid.

I like Jack Nicholson and Matt Damon, but Di Caprio doesn't do them any favors: he's riveting, and anyone he shares the screen with—even these two—becomes part of the scenery.

I first saw DiCaprio in What's Eating Gilbert Grape. He played a retarded teenager, and was, in a word, sensational. His work has been of the same caliber since. But because he was the young leading man in the stupendously successful "summer blockbuster" Titanic, and became the teen idol of a generation of adolescent girls, he got tarred with what might be called the "David Cassidy" tag.

But nothing could be further from the truth. He's a great talent. And he proves it, again, in The Departed.

The Gunslinger