The film, set to bow at the Starz Denver Film Festival this weekend and already airing on Showtime, does offer more than just those recycled themes. It’s an occasionally fascinating look into the modern actor’s mindset as well as the anger the general public feels when they hear celebrities pontificating on events of the day.

Director Barry Levinson

We’re also given a peek at the passions driving some celebrities to speak out on the issues. Yet the film is emblematic of Hollywood productions which strain to achieve balance but come up mostly empty.

The bulk of the film features liberal celebrities from the Creative Coalition, a nonpartisan group, maneuvering around last year’s Democratic National Convention in Denver.

The group itself may not choose sides, but we see plenty of footage of its actors beaming as President-elect Barack Obama speaks. And when some of those celebrities pack their bags for the Republican National Convention in Minneapolis, they look as if they’re preparing for a funeral.

“She’s All That” actress Rachael Leigh Cook is forlorn when she realizes Republicans will be invading her Minnesota hometown. “But what can you do?” she asks with a shrug.

Maybe, if you’re part of a nonpartisan coalition, you go and learn what people who disagree with you think about politics.

Levinson, who conducts one interview wearing an Obama knit cap, complains about the rise of flash over substance while watching Gov. Sarah Palin’s appearance at the RNC. But he has nothing to say about similar hoopla surrounding Sen. Obama or his throng of admirers.

“Poliwood” takes a half-hearted stab at defending actors for being out of touch elites who don’t understand how reg’lar folks think. Levinson lets actor Matthew Modine shares memories of back breaking work of his youth and the pride he felt in a job well done.

That’s wonderful, and it’s likely many of today’s stars worked just as hard – or harder – before fame and fortune came calling. But living in a cocoon of fame and wealth for an extended period can change a person’s perspective, sometimes radically.

When Jennifer Lopez sang, “I”m still Jenny from the block,” was anyone buying it?

A few celebrities acquit themselves well regarding their right to speak out, including Susan Sarandon, Ellen Burstyn and Modine.

Aging political troubadours David Crosby and Stephen Still ramble on in platitudes that add nothing to the debate and only support those who say celebrities should keep their yaps shut.

“Poliwood’s” focus keeps shifting, robbing whatever potency the film essay might have had otherwise. Levinson detours into a conversation about how the mainstream news is getting too bogged down in tabloid fare and often exploits story lines that tell us little about the way government works.

The film also takes time to savage Joe the Plumber for overstepping his bounds by acting as a war correspondent for PJTV. And yet the entire film is about celebrities who, one could argue, overstep their bounds every day by talking about matters they’re not well versed in.

A few scenes prove pure dynamite, like watching pollster Frank Luntz gently lecture some Coalition members about the harsh words they use in trying to sway the masses. Before Luntz can finish, actors Josh Lucas and Gloria Reuben nearly jump out of their seats, both recoiling at being told their methods might not be effective.

Even better, listen as actress Lynn Whitfield shares why she won’t be joining her Coalition peers at the RNC. “I don’t have the skill to communicate with people who have hurt my feelings so deeply,” she says.

Anne Hathaway makes a valid point that often journalists will ask an actor about a political topic even though the actor had no intention of of discussing the subject.

We almost get a reason to applaud the celebrities and their outspoken ways when director Spike Lee nails New York Governor David Paterson with a tough, but fair, question about city school funding. Paterson can’t come up with an answer, but the liberals in attendance, including Lee, simply laugh at the governor’s awkwardness and the question is dropped.

The Creative Coalition co-produced “Poliwood” but the film does it few favors even if it proves intermittently enlightening.

Two weeks before cameras were to roll, the service revoked all their permits. Harrah and crew scrambled for a Plan B, eventually settling on shooting mostly in Moab, Utah to capture the film’s naturalistic setting.

“It was so much better, with a better infrastructure [for filmmakers],” says Harrah, a native of Sun Valley, Idaho.

Harrah ended up shooting a few scenes, guerilla style, in the Grand Canyon.

“We opened the van door, jumped out with a giant camera … and started filming,” he says.

The film’s heroes prove just as resourceful, battling against rattlesnakes, wolves and the elements after their honeymoon plans go awry.

“It’s two young people starting their life off and making a stupid mistake,” he says.

The film shoot hit other complications, one which could have proven deadly. Strahovski nearly got blown off a ledge one day, only to be saved by two burly co-workers on the set. And a romantic scene featuring an Ella Fitzgerald song got dumped when the filmmakers couldn’t afford to pay for the rights to use the number.

Harrah shot “The Canyon” on a tight budget, and the film is enjoying a brief theatrical run in select cities before hitting DVD stores on Nov. 17.

The first-time director didn’t let money get in the way of some critical shots which illustrate the beauty and grandeur of the Grand Canyon. Many were taken by a camera operator lifted far above the movie set courtesy of a crane, and Harrah says he had to fight for each of those moments.

Harrah also didn’t skimp on the gore for one nasty sequence involving an impromptu surgery.

“This isn’t a gratuitous slasher film,” he says, adding the audience needs to see exactly what the characters are up against for it to have the proper impact.

The film’s brief theatrical release allowed the film to generate some critical reviews, which Harrah says will hopefully help the eventual DVD sales.

He understands it’s a problem many independent filmmakers face today. It’s rare for their films to be shown in darkened theaters.

“The new paradigm hasn’t formed yet,” he says, alluding to the closing of several independent studios in recent years. “People are trying to find out what the new model is. I’m so lucky we got our foot in the door as it was shutting.”

[ed. note: Christian Toto's review of "The Canyon" can be read here.]

The new film, enjoying a brief theatrical release before jumping to DVD Nov. 17, doesn’t reinvent the wheel so much as spin said wheel as smoothly as possible for nearly two tense hours. Yuppie newlyweds Lori (Yvonne Strahovski) and Nick (Eion Bailey) want to see the Grand Canyon via mule, but they don’t have the permits necessary to make the trek.

Enter Henry (Will Patton), a grizzled local who promises he can secure two permits and guide them to some of the canyon’s lesser known sites. Nick can’t wait. He’s a city slicker at heart, and a rough and tumble trip through a tourist trap’s hidden side is an intoxicating challenge.

Henry knows the terrain, and has the scars to prove it, but even a savvy outdoors type can’t prepare for everything the canyon has to offer. Disaster soon strikes, leaving the newlyweds at the mercy of their surroundings.

“The Canyon” doesn’t stray far from the “innocents vs. the wild” narrative, but director Richard Harrah maneuvers through familiar terrain with impressive skill. Harrah can’t massage some of the dialogue between the love birds, which ranges from touching to tortured.

Screenwriter Steve Allrich provides some gripping confrontations, and never do the main players take a “Rambo” turn for the ridiculous. But Allrich doesn’t provide a compelling backstory for the couple, even if he hints at a few tasty subplots that never fully develop.

The aerial camera work keeps reminding us the odds stacked against our heroes, but this plucky duo won’t go down without a fight.

Consider “The Canyon” another small budget, small expectations thriller that manages to outperform a good chunk of its bigger pocketed peers.

Yet, “Not Evil Just Wrong” still won’t get the attention of your average Michael Moore polemic. That’s a shame, since it’s far more balanced than Moore’s body of work and offers a message few mainstream documentaries are willing to touch.

What if global warming is just another wide-scale scare tactic, like Y2K, the killer bees or mad cow disease, but with far more devastating results? These questions are rarely asked in the press, so kudos to “Not Evil” for doing so in such a methodical fashion. The film isn’t as entertaining as a Moore screen rant, but it still looks snazzy while imparting a raft of enlightening material.

Naturally, the film presses its thumb on the scale to favor the skeptics, but the global warming believers here add both texture and perspective. “We live in an age of fear, but humans have never lived longer or been healthier,“ the narrator says.

The film then trots out a wealth of experts to address the global warming movement and its flaws, but none are more passionate than Patrick Moore, a founding member of Greenpeace. He’s aghast at the direction the environmental movement has taken in recent years, and thinks too many of his peers take an “anti-human” approach to the matter. “They care more about fish eggs than humans, and there’s something immoral about that,” he says of some enviro-peers.

“Not Evil” spends too much time addressing, and debunking, the case against DDT as a weapon against malaria. Yes, demonizing DDT had disastrous consequences and there’s plenty to be learned from this chapter in environmental history. But focusing so long on the matter blunts the overall theme.

Some film polemics pluck at our heartstrings without shame, and while “Not Evil” shows a lower middle class family to showcase the results of potential green legislation, it also subverts the genre’s touchy feely clichés.

The film shows school children in Northern Ireland who sketch frightening drawings inspired by Gore’s fear mongering. Given the recent news headlines concerning brainwashed kiddies singing odes to President Barack Obama, the sequence proves even more chilling than intended.

The documentary could have gone the Moore route, blasting away at its opponents while overstating its case with fast edits and slippery truths. But McAleer meticulously states its arguments, sometimes to the film’s detriment.

Take the movie’s debunking of the “hockey stick” graph used to highlight one the global warming movement’s key talking points. We’re walked through the entire process, learning step by step how two curious men were able to puncture the stick myth once and for all. The film also deftly illustrates the “Kumbaya” mentality so prevalent amongst environmentalists. One do-gooder wonders what Uganda would be like without birds, which she fears would be the result if DDT were introduced into the country.

“Can you imagine Elton John with no piano?” the environmentalist asks. We’d rather imagine an African country fighting back against a killer disease.

“Not Evil Just Wrong” may not be as flashy as “Sicko” or as easily digested as “Super Size Me,” but it could open up viewers’ eyes to some inconvenient facts about the global warming debate.

Matthew McConaughey won’t be in the mix for any Oscar nominations this year, and probably not in 2010 or 2011, for that matter. But the routinely shirtless actor has one up on some of his A-list peers.

At a time when many celebrities risk alienating their fan base by voicing political views, McConaughey is opting to speak out on behalf of our men and women in uniform.The “Ghosts of Girlfriends Past” star will appear in a new public service announcement that encourages giving back to veterans, politics be darned.

“It’s our duty to serve veterans and military families who serve their country in the most difficult ways imaginable,” McConaughey says in the spot, set to benefit the Major League Baseball-launched and supported Welcome Back Veterans.

Good for McConaughey. It’s hard to imagine who could disagree with a group helping veterans, and no one who sees the spots will come away with a negative impression of the actor.

So the next time audiences see a McConaughey movie, they won’t bring any negative baggage with them. Except, of course, for memories of “How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days,” “We Are Marshall” and “Failure to Launch.”

The Huffington Post has made it crystal clear where it stands on the news that director Roman Polanski may have to answer for his 31-year-old crime of child rape: “Move on, everyone. Nothing to see here. Keep on directing, Roman. Love ya!”

The popular liberal site has posted numerous essays since news that Polanski was arrested in Switzerland broke over the weekend, each arguing vehemently against the Oscar winner’s persecution.

• Kim Morgan: “Roman Polanski understands women” – starts with her exasperation over the Polanski witch hunt.

• Bernard-Henri Levy: Let’s start a petition in support of Polanski.

• John Farr: Leniency for Polanski.

But HuffPo readers aren’t buying it. And boy, are they angry.

Check out the comments left on each of these essays and you’ll see faithful HuffPo readers aghast that the site could be defending the indefensible.

Here are just a few comments:

“Nope, it’s not a “conspiracy.” Child rape is a crime and Polanski should serve his time- he should have served it long ago instead of trying to pay off his victim”

“I am an California attorney, a confirmed Democrat-liberal and admirer of Mr. Polanski’s talents and those of many who have niavely signed this petition … Mr. Polanski did what he did and no amount of spin or the passage of time can change that. He drugged and raped a child. What don’t you understand about that? Is it O.K. to do that to your daughters? … Shame on you, all of you. You should (and probably do) know better.

“Let’s see these artists sign their names to a petition to excuse the drugging of and forced sex with a 13 year old. Let’s put it bluntly.”

Could this be the work of conservative “trolls” trying to sway opinion on the site? Possible, but highly doubtful. My best guess is that some issues go beyond ideology, like sticking up for a 13-year-old girl cruelly attacked by a much older man. Thank goodness for that.

Week after week The Onion bends over backward not to satirize The One. That’s keeping in line with most of today’s cowardly comics, from David Letterman to Bill Maher.

Jon Stewart of “The Daily Show” has shown some interest in pursuing the president’s comic potential, but it comes in fits and starts. But The Onion’s latest attempt at humor is both vicious and wrongheaded.

“U.S. Government Finds $20 Trillion Buried by Absentminded Reagan in 1987,” the headline cries.

The article tells how Reagan stored away a near endless array of Mason jars, shoe boxes and other small capsules with small amounts of money, keepsakes and other trivial goods toward the end of his second term.

The find means the country’s current economic crisis is over, we’re told, and the article further hints the nation’s money woes can be traced directly back to the 40th president.

Never mind Obama’s stimulus package has led to a ballooning of the national deficit to comic proportions.

Nothing worth satirizing there, folks. Move along.

Presidents should never be protected from satire, but a gag related to Reagan’s mental health in light of his Alzheimer’s Disease is a pretty low blow.

In case the reader isn’t sure the piece mocks Reagan’s mental state, check out his part of the story:

“Reports from retired Secret Service agents who routinely witnessed a disoriented Reagan sneaking out of the White House late at night …”

Maybe Onion readers will have to wait 20-plus years for the newspaper to dare tackle Obama’s profligate spending.

The piece ends with this vile faux quote from an average citizen:

“I guess the poor man [Reagan] wasn’t as crazy as everyone thought. Turns out he was a [expletive] lunatic.”

Huh? Is the world getting warmer? I had no idea. You would think the media, or the movie industry or any other information outlet for that matter would have told us about it by now.

Thank goodness Duran Duran and the Scorpions are here to set the record straight.

Yes, those ’80s rockers, along with actress and certified Truther Marion Cotillard, Youssou N’dour, Bob Geldorf, Khalil Fong and South African archbishop Desmond Tutu have cut a new tune available for free soon.

Actually, it’s not a new song. It’s “Beds’r Burning” originally recorded by Midnight Oil two decades ago.

It’s hard to decide what’s more pathetic – a bunch of fading rockers trying to jump on the charity bandwagon, or the fact that after countless movies/books/news reports regarding global warming these warblers think their song will finally open our eyes to the problem.

For me, the attacks showed me a new side of some of the country’s most respected artists. And it wasn’t pretty.

Earle

Artists reacted to 9/11 in a number of ways. Some wrote songs promising a holy whup ass (Toby Keith) on the terrorist nation, while others went on to create stirring work about a city struck without warning (Bruce Springsteen’s “The Rising”)

Alt-country troubadour Steve Earle opted to write a song from the perspective of the traitorous thug, John Walker Lindh, who joined the Taliban against his own country.

“John Walker’s Blues” takes an empathetic view of this American man who, some say, actively took up arms against his fellow Americans.

It’s one thing to write from the perspective of a criminal. Johnny Cash did that with grace and power, and there are lessons to be learned from those songs. But it seemed outrageous to empathize with someone like Lindh, especially when the wounds from the attacks were still so raw, so palpable.

What would convince a singer to take such a stance?

Earle wasn’t the only artist whose post-9/11 comments were either ugly or foul.

Novelist Barbara Kingsolver used the attacks to savage patriotism in an editorial reprinted in papers across the nation.

“The American flag stands for intimidation, censorship, violence, bigotry, sexism, homophobia, and shoving the Constitution through a paper shredder? Who are we calling terrorists here? Outsiders can destroy airplanes and buildings, but it is only we, the people, who have the power to demolish our own ideals.

Other artists picked up similar themes, but it makes my teeth hurt – and my heart ache – to even remember the specifics.

I’ve always embraced and supported the arts, even though my own art career ended as soon as I realized I lacked the chops to truly make a living off my drawing skills.

But seeing respected artists act in such a manner following 9/11 changed my views of the artistic mind – for the worse.

Director Michael Moore has a new movie coming soon – “Capitalism: A Love Story.”

It could only mean one thing – OK, many, many things:

• Rave reviews from at least 80 percent of film critics. And I’m being conservative.
• More press coverage than any documentary filmmaker could ever dream of.
• Few, if any, labels associated with him in the press. Liberal? Nah, he’s a muckraker, an iconoclast, a rebel, a truth teller…
• Oscar buzz aplenty. Feel badly for any other documentary filmmaker who did great work this year. Chances are you won’t be taking home the Oscar for your troubles. Better luck next year.
• More softball questions thrown his way by alleged journalists – this time, Oprah herself will get in on the action.

Moore, who won the Best Documentary Oscar for “Bowling for Columbine” and gave us the factually challenged “Fahrenheit 9/11,” has helped shape the film industry for better and worse.

He’s single handedly given the documentary genre more exposure than it’s ever had. And his films, even if they make a conservative’s teeth hurt, are often entertaining.

Too bad the press in toto will roll over and play publicist for Moore once more.