AFP:

For many people, the images of commercial airliners hitting the Twin Towers, and of Manhattan engulfed in a huge dust cloud as they collapsed, looked like a Hollywood apocalypse-style movie.

But despite that — or maybe in part because of it — 9/11 has not generated as large a number of movies as previous epochal events such as World War II or Vietnam.

Industry insiders say experience shows that 9/11 movies just don’t work at the box office — adding that the attacks may even have pushed Tinsel Town to produce even more escapist movies than it normally would.

In the decade since, only two Hollywood studios have produced films directly inspired by the most deadly attacks ever on US soil: Universal with “United 93” by Paul Greengrass and Paramount with Oliver Stone’s “World Trade Center.”

This despite an initial surge of Hollywood interest following the September 11, 2001 attacks in Washington and New York.

“There was certainly an enormous amount of interest in 9/11 and the wars that happened afterwards,” said producer Bonnie Curtis, who has worked on films including Steven Spielberg’s “Saving Private Ryan.”

“I think that creatively, a lot of people started working on a material that normally wouldn’t even exist without the event itself,” she told AFP.

(more…)

For years, pundits have been trying to connect violent movies and video games with actual crimes.

The arguments typically end up more theoretical than reality based. In one famous instance, the 1994 Oliver Stone film “Natural Born Killers” supposedly inspired a young couple to kill a person and leave another paralyzed.

More recently, celebrities like Elizabeth Banks, Roger Ebert, Patton Oswalt and Michael Moore twisted the blame game for partisan reasons, using their Twitter accounts to accuse Sarah Palin of inspiring the Tucson shooter without a shred of evidence.

Now, we have a direct tie between an anti-war film and the murder of two U.S. soldiers. So … will the media cover the story? Will it change how the film industry treats the subject matter? And will Miss Banks and co. rush to Tweet their condemnation of the movie in question?”

Yes, I’m being rhetorical on all three fronts, but let’s plow on all the same.

“Redacted” by Brian de Palma (“The Untouchables,” “Scarface”) cast U.S. soldiers as racist, violent thugs. The film flopped in spectacular fashion, earning $65,388 for its entire theatrical run. Apparently, audiences weren’t too keen on seeing the men and women of the Armed Forces smeared.

But “Redacted” impacted Arid Uka, a Balkan Muslim who saw the film and went on to kill two U.S. Air Force servicemen in March. Uka told a judge this week he was inspired by “the movie’s graphic depiction of U.S. soldiers raping a girl in Iraq,” says The Daily Caller citing a BBC report.

(more…)

—–

From Gavin O’Connor, the director of “Miracle,” comes “Warrior,” which opens September 9th.

The poster’s tagline is “Fight for Country.”

Hrm?

Here’s the synopsis, courtesy of IMDB:

(more…)

FADE IN:

INT.   HOLLYWOOD STUDIO CONFERENCE ROOM – DAY

“Hurt Locker” scribe MARK BOAL slams his mighty fist down hard on the conference room table, making the HOLLYWOOD EXECUTIVES surrounding him jump in their leather seats.

MARK BOAL

Now listen up.  I don’t care about your liberal preconceptions and your smug certainty that you’re somehow better than those men and women out there in Afghanistan and Iraq just because you work in the movie industry and they actually work!

EXECUTIVE NO. 1

But, but…

MARK BOAL (pointing an accusing finger)

Put a sock in it, meat puppet!  You want to use those American heroes as a backdrop for some politician’s reelection campaign?  Well, you can take my Oscar and stick it in your Fonda-hole!  I’m not having any part of it!

Ed. Note:  We now pause for a photo of sensitive, introspective hipster Boal:

Big Hollywood has been all over the story of screenwriter Mark Boal’s collaboration with the Obama campaign’s usurpation of the work of our SEALs and other covert warriors in hunting down Osama bin Laden.  It’s outrageous – you know you’ve crossed a line in the sand of decency when even Jurassic liberal-saur Maureen Dowd seems creeped out by your shameless SEALS-ploitation.

As Big Hollywood has pointed out before, Boal is Hollywood’s go-to guy for sending the leftist message du jour about our troops.  When President Bush was in office and the party line was that fighting terrorists was a bad thing, Boal was there with In the Valley of Elah (2007).  That one painted our soldiers as hideous psychopaths driven crazy by the war, so nuts and evil they murdered one of their own because of, well, Bush or something.

(more…)

From Accuracy in Media’s Val Jensen II:

New York Times columnist, Maureen Dowd, broke a story last Saturday on the White House’s curious role in the production of a new Hollywood movie that tells the story of the killing of Osama bin Laden by Navy SEAL Team 6. The movie is set to be released October 12, 2012, conveniently just before the November presidential elections.

The movie’s creators are none other than director Kathryn Bigelow and journalist Mark Boal, whose 2009 movie, “The Hurt Locker,” won six Academy Awards in 2010.

The White House has offered Bigelow and Boal a questionable in-depth look into the mission which ended the terror king’s reign and is getting “top-level access to the most classified mission in history from an administration that has tried to throw more people in jail for leaking classified information than the Bush administration,” according to Dowd.

Predictably, The Washington Post, Reuters and, The Los Angeles Times led their coverage of the story with White House denials of jeopardizing national security. The Politico took a more balanced approach.

According to a Politico article on the matter, Rep. Peter King (R-NY), who chairs the House Homeland Security Committee, has written a letter to the CIA and Department of Defense demanding an investigation into the White House role in allowing unprecedented access into the mission and is quoted as saying, “It shouldn’t have been out there that SEAL Team 6 did this, and there have been so many details out there.” King continues, “And now we find out they are cooperating with a movie — what are we doing?”

(more…)

—–

Not much new here to report but make sure to hang in until the end when Rep. Peter King reveals that members of the intelligence community and the CIA, who agreed to participate with the making of Kathryn Bigelow’s upcoming bin Laden film, were blindsided when they learned that that the release date was just a few weeks prior to the 2012 presidential election — an obvious betrayal of their trust and goodwill. 

And why wouldn’t they feel betrayed? My guess is that most were eager to see this story told and to see their years of sacrifice and hard work given a positive bigscreen portrayal for a change. So there’s little doubt it must have felt like a slap across the face once they learned they had been conned into contributing to a “Barack Obama 2012″ campaign commercial.

If you think about it, this is really a two-track story. On one track you have the issue of the White House possibly giving classified information to friendly filmmakers prepared to create  that $75 million campaign commercial — something that obviously needs to be investigated. And on the other track you have Sony’s unforgivable decision to use the heroism and sacrifice of our military and intelligence personnel to boost a failed president’s re-election chances.

The word “disgraceful” really doesn’t do this situation justice.

(more…)

In a world in such disarray, it should not be of any surprise that within only a few short days of hearing about one of the most devastating blows to the U.S. Special Operations community, some citizens are doing their best to capitalize on this loss for their own personal gain—Hollywood and our own Administration.

Director Kathryn Bigelow with screenwriter Mark Boal

Screenwriter Mark Boal and director Kathryn Bigelow, those responsible for anti-war film The Hurt Locker, have decided to assist President Obama in his re-election. Together, they have been granted unprecedented access to some of America’s most classified data pertaining the death of Osama Bin Laden and the dark secretive world of our U.S. Navy SEAL’s and Joint Special Operations Command. They will be using this information to create a film about the “heroic leadership” within this administration based upon the U.S. led Navy SEAL kill mission which inevitably made OBL fish food.

It wouldn’t be surprising at all to see anti-war actors like Sean Penn, George Clooney, or Matt Damon partake with leading roles.

Sony Pictures is behind this madness and the same politicians who so tirelessly have gone out of their way to prosecute CIA and military interrogators are supporting them. With an S&P rating lower than any president, Obama needs all the help he can get for re-election.

Timing is everything. The release of this film is scheduled to open October 12th. October leaves just enough time to socially condition a grave amount of Americans in believing President Obama is truly the “chosen one.”

(more…)

Politico:

For ten years we’ve been waiting for Hollywood to engage in the War on Terror in a way that portrays our country and military personnel in a positive light — in a way that actually takes a side against the terrorists and for the Americans fighting and dying to stop them. Finally, just when it appears as though we might actually get that movie, it looks as though Sony Pictures has decided the Kathryn Bigelow directed, Mark Boal scripted October 2012 release should also be a $50 – $75 million re-election campaign commercial for Barack Obama.

What are your thoughts on this?

It’s often said that “time heals.” Although it’s true that time heals a lot of things, we can’t forget that it reveals a lot of things as well. And one of the things that time has most recently revealed is that President Obama’s 2008 mantra of “yes we can” has actually turned into “we probably can’t, but I’ll never admit it.”

Obama is on a downward slide everywhere in the country, except in 10 of the most liberal states in the union (i.e., these states that would still vote for FDR or Woodrow Wilson were either miraculously resurrected and placed back on the ticket). As a matter of fact, Obama-nomics have been so disastrous to America that one of the DRUDGEREPORT’s most recent headlines was “BARACKALYPSE NOW.”

So what’s Hollywood’s response to the first two and half years of Obama? Wel,l duh, they’re helping him out by producing an October 2012 surprise that will highlight the killing of Osama bin Laden just in time to get voters excited for The One again.

In all fairness, let me say that from the moment I first learned bin Laden had been killed, I immediately thought Obama would release the pictures of the terrorist’s body during October 2012 in hopes of making us think he really is a war president worthy of re-election. Now it appears he won’t have to do that, because Hollywood is going to use a gazillion dollar movie set to provide us scenes that look even better than the real ones. At least they’ll look better to Obama: our wonderful president who, after meeting SEAL Team 6 said, “They looked less young and fearsome than he expected, and more like guys working at Home Depot.” (According to Maureen Dowd)

The movie, directed by Oscar-winner Kathryn Bigelow and written by Oscar-winner Mark Boal, will likely cast Obama isn the most positive light possible and the White House is so desperate for eager to get some kind of boost in the polls that they’ve even allowed Boal into parts of the White House and Pentagon that are normally off-limits (which included allowing Boal into a “CIA ceremony celebrating the hero seals”).

(more…)

Accusing a film studio of exploiting our military and their heroism for partisan political purposes is a pretty serious accusation. Accusing the White House of cooperating with this kind of propaganda is also a serious accusation.  But that’s exactly what New York Times’ Leftist Maureen Dowd said is happening.

What do you think?

ADDED: Wonder what the Federal Election Commission thinks about this? This is a terrible thing Sony’s doing, using the bravery of these men to help Obama – politicizing their heroism. The decent thing to do is to move the release date well into December.

Screenwriter Mark Boal with director Kathryn Bigelow

Our utter failure of a president is looking to Hollywood for an October 2012 Surprise to save his hopes for a second term. Maureen Dowd says out loud what we all knew the moment the movie’s release date was announced:

The White House is also counting on the Kathryn Bigelow and Mark Boal big-screen version of the killing of Bin Laden to counter Obama’s growing reputation as ineffectual. The Sony film by the Oscar-winning pair who made “The Hurt Locker” will no doubt reflect the president’s cool, gutsy decision against shaky odds. Just as Obamaland was hoping, the movie is scheduled to open on Oct. 12, 2012 — perfectly timed to give a home-stretch boost to a campaign that has grown tougher.

The moviemakers are getting top-level access to the most classified mission in history from an administration that has tried to throw more people in jail for leaking classified information than the Bush administration.

It was clear that the White House had outsourced the job of manning up the president’s image to Hollywood when Boal got welcomed to the upper echelons of the White House and the Pentagon and showed up recently — to the surprise of some military officers — at a C.I.A. ceremony celebrating the hero Seals.

“To the surprise of some military officers.” There’s an interesting statement.

(more…)

Via Yahoo:

“I feel incredibly honored to have been invited to the Marine Corps Ball by Sgt. Dustin L. Williams,” Johansson said in a statement to Zap2It. “Not only does Sgt. Williams deserve recognition for his bravery, selflessness and dedication to the United States and its people, but he also displays a cheeky talent for film making. Sgt. Williams, unfortunately due to prior commitments I will not be able to attend the Ball with you this year but I am sending you a case of Moet and Chandon with gratitude. In my absence, I raise a glass to you and all the men and women of the U.S. Marine Corps, past and present, in thanks for your continued commitment to preserving the safety of our nation.”

A kind and gracious response, no?

It sounds like Williams will be understanding of Johansson’s conflict.

(more…)

73 year-old, two time Academy Award-winner Jane Fonda spends 4200-plus words “explaining” her infamous 1972 trip to Hanoi where she was infamously photographed sitting on a North Vietnamese (translation: the enemy) anti-aircraft gun (translation: a weapon used to kill American pilots).

It’s a long, anguished, intellectually dishonest rationalization from the aging actresses titled: “The Truth About My Trip to Hanoi.” 

Not sure it’s worth a read. Up to you. But the real meat is buried under thousands of words:

That May, I received an invitation from the North Vietnamese in Paris to make the trip to Hanoi. Many had gone before me but perhaps it would take a different sort of celebrity to get people’s attention. Heightened public attention was what was needed to confront the impending crisis with the dikes. I would take a camera and bring back photographic evidence (if such was to be found) of the bomb damage of the dikes we’d been hearing about.

I arranged the trip’s logistics through the Vietnamese delegation at the Paris Peace talks, bought myself a round trip ticket and stopped in New York to pick up letters for the POWs.

Frankly, the trip felt like a call to service. It was a humanitarian mission, not a political trip. My goal was to expose and try to halt the bombing of the dikes. (The bombing of the dikes ended a month after my return from Hanoi)

The only problem was that I went alone. Had I been with a more experienced, clear-headed, traveling companion, I would not have allowed myself to get into a situation where I was photographed on an anti-aircraft gun.

Imagine Jane Fonda’s father Henry Fonda (who, by the way, enlisted to fight in WWII)  saying, “In 1942, the Nazis invited me to Berlin where I was photographed on a Tiger II tank but I also did a bunch of other stuff while I was there, so please judge me by the full context of my trip to Berlin.”

Hilariously, to keep the focus off her fraternizing with an enemy desperate to kill American and allied troops and in the process of  subjugating the sovereign nation of South Vietnam into the slavery of Communism, Fonda crybabies about all the lies told about her trip, especially those told on the Internet. This is a semantic ploy meant to distract from her many serious critics who need not make a single thing up or exaggerated in the least to reveal her actions as despicable and outright traitorous.

(more…)

One year ago today John Nolte reported in this space that “Captain America: The First Avenger” director Joe Johnston said the film based on the legendary comic book hero is “not about America,” and I can finally confirm that he spoke the truth.  The $140 million blockbuster, which opens at midnight, is not anti-American–it’s even kinda pro-American–but if you’re looking for that rare film that surrenders itself to the reality of American exceptionalism, don’t let the title fool you.  Johnston describes the latest from the summer movie factory that is Marvel Studios best: “It’s an international cast and an international story. It’s about what makes America great and what make the rest of the world great too.”   Now, I’m very much relieved that it’s now okay to call America “great” in Hollywood, but as far as “Captain America: The First Avenger” is concerned, self-conscious pandering to multi-cultural feel-goodism combined with some unambitious storytelling makes for an unsatisfying movie-going experience.

—–

“Captain America: The First Avenger” is set in the latter half of World War II.  The action begins with a scrawny Steve Rogers (a digitally depreciated Chris Evans) doing everything he can to enlist in the U.S. Army.  Rogers has all kinds of heart, but he’s gaunt and is thus 4-F.  The plot turns when an impassioned speech to a friend (“There are men laying down their lives.  I have no right to do any less than them.”) catches the ear of Dr. Abraham Erskine (a very Stanley Tucci Stanley Tucci).  Erskine is a German scientist who is working with the U.S. Army to develop a Super Solider Serum–the ultimate performance enhancing drug–and is on the lookout for a test subject.  The serum amplifies what’s inside of you, so someone of Rogers’ size and character makes him the perfect candidate for this breakthrough procedure.  Erskine and engineer Howard Stark (father of Tony) put Rogers in what looks like a retro-50s refrigerator, crank up the dials until all the power in the building short-circuits, and out comes this guy: (more…)

Due to a scheduling conflict, Betty White broke his heart. But Sarah Connor herocially steps in to pick up the pieces:

—–

Via My Fox:

At times, it seems Hollywood is but a caricature of all things Left: an image created by the most flagrantly non-patriotic and anti-military celebrities imaginable. It seems the mainstream media flocks to stars that fit such criteria, and those stars, in turn, are given an open microphone with which to spew their opinions on the supposedly naïve and uneducated masses in this country (i.e., you and me and the salt-of-the-earth folks who live their lives in flyover country).

Occasionally, however, Hollywood gives us something else: something so far out of the norm for the Left coast, so utterly pro-American and purely patriotic, that we have to pause and take note. We saw this with comedian Vince Vaughn, who launched Chicago’s 52^nd annual Air and Water Show by parachuting out of an airplane over the city with one of the Army’s elite parachute teams.  We saw this with Sylvester Stallone, who refused to apologize for his pro-American film “The Expendables,” and who told his antagonizers that “America apologizes too much,” just for good measure.

And to give credit where credit is due, we’ve also seen this kind of grit from Robert Duvall, Larry the Cable Guy, and Nick DiPaolo, among others.

Now we’re seeing it with comedian Rob Riggle (from the movie “The Hangover”). What few know is that Riggle is not only an accomplished actor but also a Marine Corps Reservist who holds the rank of Lt. Colonel. And he recently told Marines Magazine that one of his proudest accomplishments is of “serving his country” as a Marine. (more…)

[Editor's Note: Script reviews of upcoming projects have been around for as long as there's been an Internet. Therefore it's no secret that a film can evolve into something quite different from its screenplay. Please keep in mind that this article represents a look at a particular script and not the final product.]

There are different ways to write and make movies. Very few are made from the heart; many more are formula based. There are movies inspired by dishwasher manuals and a great number derived from Marxist textbooks. And there is a special category of movies: those written and made by self-righteous hypocrites.

—–

“The Whistleblower” is a drama based on the experiences of Kathryn Bolkovac (played by Rachel Weisz), a Nebraska cop who served as a peacekeeper in post-war Bosnia and exposed the U.N. for covering up a sex scandal involving peacekeepers and an international ring of sex traffickers. The cast also includes Monica Belluci, Vanessa ‘best friend of Israel after Obama’ Redgrave and David Strathairn among others.

As Kathryn investigates the exploitation of young and underage girls, she discovers that “sex lords” are bribing the UN officials to run the illegal prostitution clubs that spring up like mushrooms across the war-ridden and apocalyptic Balkan terrain. Moreover, not only are the UN officials are being bribed to close their eyes on sex slavery but, in fact, the clubs are really operating to serve the UN peacekeeping force. The story also flashes back to how an underage Ukrainian girl is tricked into sex slavery by her own relatives.

(more…)

Should a two-time Oscar-winner like Jane Fonda really be making a spectacle out of the fact that she wanted to appear on a home-shopping channel? What’s next? “Damn those righties! I was looking forward to cutting the ribbon at that grocery store with Leif Garrett!”

Anyway, some shameless whoppers in Ms. Fonda’s own words:

I was to have been on QVC today to introduce my book, “Prime Time,” about aging and the life cycle. …

The network said they got a lot of calls yesterday criticizing me for my opposition to the Vietnam War and threatening to boycott the show if I was allowed to appear.

Bottom line, this has gone on far too long, this spreading of lies about me! None of it is true. NONE OF IT! I love my country. I have never done anything to hurt my country or the men and women who have fought and continue to fight for us.

In other news, for some reason no one understands, Jane Fonda was not struck by lightning.

No one’s criticizing Fonda for her “opposition to the Vietnam War.” It was hanging out with the enemy and propagandizing on their behalf that upsets people. This isn’t 1968 anymore. If nothing else, the Left has figured out that while this country is okay with opposition and protest, the days of tres chic trashing of the troops are long past and beyond the boundaries of decency.

(more…)