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Joe Bendel

REVIEW: ‘Stoning of Soraya M.’ Deserved Some Academy Attention

by Joe Bendel

A film that won the NAACP’s Image Award for Outstanding Foreign Motion Picture and was the toast of the right-leaning blogosphere (including your very own Big Hollywood) would sound like it must have reached the broadest-based audience a film could hope for.  Yet, it was essentially shut-out during the rest of the recent award season and was sadly neglected by the critical community.  That is because Cyrus Nowrasteh’s The Stoning of Soraya M. boldly addresses a controversial topic: the appalling lack of rights granted to women in the Islamist world. 

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The United Nations estimates as many as 5,000 Islamic women fall victim to so-called “honor killings” every year.  Whether reported or not, each instance is an appalling crime, utterly incompatible with any concept of honor.  It is the true nature of such honor killings Nowrasteh and his co-screenwriter (and wife) Betsy Giffen Nowrasteh graphically dramatize in the viscerally intense The Stoning of Soraya M., which richly deserves to be revisited now that it has been released on DVD. 

Freidoune Sahebjam was a French-Iranian journalist who exposed many of the Islamic Revolutionary regime’s human rights abuses.  When passing through a provincial town, a chance encounter with Zahra, a sophisticated older woman of the Shah’s secular era, leads to the biggest story of his career.  Just the day before, her niece Soraya was gruesomely executed for the crime of inconveniencing her husband.  As Sahebjam interviews Zahra, she bears witness to the terrible injustice that befell Soraya.  (more…)

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Posted Mar 16th 2010 at 10:51 am in Culture, Film, Politics, Religion, Reviews | 65 Comments

Seth Mitchell

‘Soraya M.’: Shaping Hollywood with Our Wallets

by Seth Mitchell

Last week, I finally saw “The Stoning of Soraya M.” at a special screening.  The film tells the haunting and disturbing tale of an innocent Iranian woman murdered in cold blood in a tyrannical society. It has been reviewed numerous times here at Big Hollywood, and I will spare you another, other than to say it is a deeply moving and effective drama. 

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While the story itself is quite unnerving and will sit with you for days, what is most upsetting about the film is that it did not hit the mainstream in the way that it deserved. This is unfortunate because the story of Soraya should be heard all over the world.  

So often we hear of the injustices that occur in our world today, shake our heads and move on to our daily tasks not wholly understanding what we have just talked about.  This film doesn’t allow us to do that.  Instead, the film places a vivd and graphic picture of the suffering and torture that is occurring in our world at this very moment. This film is not about promoting political ideologies, or pushing religious dogma, but rather is about bringing awareness to a topic that is almost altogether ignored by our society, and does so with the highest of artistic integrity.   (more…)

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Posted Mar 10th 2010 at 6:43 am in Culture, Film, Politics, Religion | 62 Comments

Christian Toto

Blu-ray Review: Powerful & Compelling ‘Soraya M.’ Arrives on DVD

by Christian Toto

The 2010 Oscar ceremonies have come and gone without a word spoken about “The Stoning of Soraya M.” The searing drama, based on true events, follows the torture of an innocent Iranian woman charged with adultery. It’s the kind of message movie Hollywood doesn’t much care for, stories showcasing horrors that can’t be directly blamed on western culture.

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But the drama, released today on DVD and Blu-ray, deserved a smattering of Oscar buzz all the same. What other movies bring the issue of Sharia law to light in such fashion? More importantly, why didn‘t Shohreh Aghdashloo’s blistering performance earn her a place in the Best Actress category?

“Stoning,” directed and co-written by “The Path to 9/11” screenwriter Cyrus Nowrasteh, takes us to a remote Iranian village under the thumb of Sharia law. Young, attractive Soraya (Mozhan Marno) is raising four children with little help from her husband, Ali (Navid Negahban). When Ali decides he’d rather be married to a 14-year-old Iranian girl, he tries to pressure Soraya into granting him a divorce. (more…)

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Posted Mar 9th 2010 at 5:03 am in Culture, Featured Story, Film, Religion, Reviews | 71 Comments

Joseph C. Phillips

Saving the Soul of the Religious Left

by Joseph C. Phillips

A reader recently sent me an email admonishing me for not being more supportive of President Obama. For reasons that were not immediately clear, he also raised the issue of my confessed Christianity. The “aha” moment came when he asked, “Do you pray for your leader like you’re instructed in the good book?” I responded that while I have prayed for the president, I do not do so regularly. That, in his mind, was evidence of my Christian hypocrisy.

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This is an elementary school argument, but sadly one that is far too commonly made by the religious left and their secular allies. All Christian stumbling is demonstration of falsity; individual failure to practice principles is ipso facto proof of the bankruptcy of those principles. Sophistry of this sort allows the new left to dismiss ideas they disagree with and evidence they find inconvenient with a simple label: “religious right-wing extremist.” That sure beats actually having to make a substantive argument. What remains unclear is why the regular and unabashed support the religious left offers candidates whose policies are incompatible with or in direct contradiction to Christian principles is not more damning evidence of their Christian hypocrisy. (more…)

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Posted Mar 1st 2010 at 5:03 pm in Politics, Religion | 176 Comments

Yervand Kochar

How The Book of Eli Got Into the Wrong Hands

by Yervand Kochar

The storyline of the movie The Book of Eli is a cross between I Am Legend, Fahrenheit 451, and a B-movie western. In post-apocalyptic American wasteland, a strange wanderer named Eli (Denzel Washington)—who is a cross between St Francis of Assisi and Mad Max—carries the only surviving copy of the Bible. His task is to bring it to a destination (unknown even to himself) in the West where God told him to go and where the Book is most needed.

Along his lonely way, Eli stumbles into a town resembling those of the Old West. The leader of the town is a self-appointed, ruthless leader named Carnegie, played by Gary Oldman who is simultaneously a cross between Mickey Rourke from 9 ½ Weeks and Mickey Rourke from The Wrestler, as well as the whole process of evolution between the former and the latter. Carnegie is an evil megalomaniac who sends his lowlife savages in search of the Book, convinced that possession of a copy of the now-extinct Bible can help him spread his rule and establish control over degraded humanity.

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In case abusing his concubine, killing some people, and treating the rest like dirt was not enough to convey that Carnegie is a bad guy, we are shown that his favorite read is Mussolini’s biography. Yet, with all the weight of culture going against him, Carnegie is the only person who had managed to forge some semblance of a settlement with brewing elements of potential civilization.   His wild town—reminiscent of an Old West settlement but surrounded with cannibals instead of Indians—is the only semi-safe and positive place in an otherwise out-of-control and collapsed world. He is assembling a hierarchical society and he needs the Book to bring, as he thinks, “all the weak and wounded” under his dominion. His intentions are sinister and self-serving, but he seems to be the only person who understands the real power of the Book and its ability to transform and civilize the brutally egotistical and animal nature of disintegrated humanity . . . while at the same time correctly assessing any man’s, including his own, inability to re-create functioning societal interactions without a binding belief system. (more…)

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Posted Feb 19th 2010 at 3:15 pm in Culture, Film, Religion | 181 Comments

Andrew Klavan

BOOK EXCERPT: Andrew Klavan’s ‘The Long Way Home’ (The Homelanders) — Part 2

by Andrew Klavan

Charlie West went to bed one night an ordinary high school student. He woke up a hunted man. Terrorists are trying to kill him. The police want to arrest him for the stabbing death of his best friend. He doesn’t know whose side he’s one or who he can trust. With his pursuers closing in on every side, Charlie makes his way back to his hometown to find some answers. There, holed up in an abandoned mansion, he’s joined by his friends in a desperate attempt to discover the truth about a murder he can’t remember-and the love he can never forget.

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 Chapter One
The Killer In The Mirror – Part 2 

You have to understand:  a trained man with a knife is as deadly as anything, even more dangerous in some ways than a man with a gun.  You might grab a gun.  You might wrestle it away.  But you can’t get hold of a knife without getting cut.  And if the knife-man knows what he’s doing, he can carve you up with a blade just as fast as a bullet.

And this guy knew what he was doing all right.  All the karate training in the world wasn’t going to save me if I didn’t act fast and act smart.  If I fell and he came down on top of me, I’d be dead in seconds.

I knew it even as I was falling.  The panic raced through my belly.  The thoughts raced through my head:  I have to do something. (more…)

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Posted Feb 9th 2010 at 5:03 am in Books and Literature, Featured Story, Politics, Religion | 6 Comments

Andrew Klavan

BOOK EXCERPT: Andrew Klavan’s ‘The Long Way Home’ (The Homelanders) — Part 1

by Andrew Klavan

Charlie West went to bed one night an ordinary high school student. He woke up a hunted man. Terrorists are trying to kill him. The police want to arrest him for the stabbing death of his best friend. He doesn’t know whose side he’s one or who he can trust. With his pursuers closing in on every side, Charlie makes his way back to his hometown to find some answers. There, holed up in an abandoned mansion, he’s joined by his friends in a desperate attempt to discover the truth about a murder he can’t remember-and the love he can never forget.

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Chapter One
The Killer In The Mirror – Part 1 

The man with the knife was a stranger.  I never saw him before he tried to kill me.

I was in the Whitney Library when it happened, about seven miles from my hometown of Spring Hill.  I’d been there for about forty-five minutes.  I had come with a plan—a plan to clear my name, to get free, to get home to my family and out of danger.  Now I had to leave.  It wasn’t safe for me to stay in any one place for very long.

I was in the main research room on the library’s second floor.  I went down the hall and pushed into the men’s room.  I took off my black fleece and hung it on the door of one of the stalls.  Then, wearing just my jeans and black t-shirt, I stood at the sink and splashed cold water on my face. (more…)

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Posted Feb 8th 2010 at 5:03 am in Books and Literature, Featured Story, Politics, Religion | 15 Comments

Ben Shapiro

HOWARD ZINN’S LEGACY: Religious Fanaticism and Illegal Indoctrination of Your Children

by Ben Shapiro

As has been amply demonstrated by others, Howard Zinn was an anti-American secular humanist with heavily Marxist leanings.  As I have already written, teaching the Zinn Education Project in public schools likely violates the California education code.  It discriminates against particular races (namely, non-minorities) and all traditional religion (particularly with regard to its view of homosexuality).  Zinn himself called for violating the education codes wherever possible:

“Don’t obey the rules… you have to play a kind of guerrilla warfare with the establishment in which you try not to be fired… You have to depart from the curriculum… outside the lines that are set for us by the school administration, or the politicians.”

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Zinn, Josh Brolin, Chris Moore, Matt Damon

 Of course, that doesn’t stop schoolteachers everywhere from teaching Zinn.  According to the Oxnard Union High School District, Zinn’s on the California Department of Education Recommended Reading List.   

He’s taught at the San Lorenzo Unified School District Re-Entry Intervention Program, which targets kids coming back to school after being expelled, students with ten or more days of suspension who are on track for expulsion, students coming back to school from Juvenile Hall – in short, the worst of the worst.  This makes perfect sense – after all, what better way is there to teach borderline-criminal kids about good citizenship than pillorying America and giving them delusions of victimhood?  (more…)

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Posted Feb 4th 2010 at 5:01 am in Celebrity News, Featured Story, Law, Politics, Religion | 119 Comments

Jeremy D. Boreing

REVIEW: ‘To Save a Life’ — Authentic, Touching Look at Teen Life and Faith (And Steven Crowder’s In It!)

by Jeremy D. Boreing

As anyone in the entertainment industry will tell you, it is a miracle that any film actually gets made.  From the moment a writer sits down with an idea to the first time the movie actually graces the screen, a film has passed through the care of so many people, so many unique personalities and competing visions and interests, that even the simplest film is a defiance of the odds.

To Save a Life is not a simple film.

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From the moment we meet Jake Taylor, high school (and soon-to-be college) basketball star, it is clear we are meeting a young man in crisis.  Jake’s world has been upended by the recent and very public suicide of his childhood friend Roger – a relationship Jake had forsaken in recent years as his own star was on the rise.  For Jake, the burden of guilt for the choices he did and did not make along the way have become a crushing rebuke.  The young man is lost.

Unfortunately for Jake, introspection is not a welcome trait among his top-of-the-food chain peers. Instead, Jake finds common ground with Chris, a local Christian youth-pastor carrying his own guilt over Roger’s death. Chris, who struggles to navigate a true course through the often false world of Christian culture, detects an authenticity in Jake’s growing and self-imposed alienation from his equally false high school aristocracy.  Jake detects in Chris an authentic faith.  As the story unfolds, the two men help one another to stand against the tides of inconsistency in both worlds. (more…)

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Posted Jan 22nd 2010 at 5:03 am in Featured Story, Film, Politics, Religion, Reviews | 16 Comments

Jeffrey Jena

‘Jihad Jitters’: The Museum of Metropolitan Art Cowards

by Jeffrey Jena

The left has a long tradition of bowing down to dictators and others they fear. No, I am not talking about President Obama stooping to kings and other foreign leaders. That is just another example of a long tradition of silliness that is often seen from liberals. What I am talking about is how many on the left live in fear. They try to mask it as respect or cultural reverence but it is fear.

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The latest example comes from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.  It seems that these liberal defenders of the freedom of artistic expression, who would never listen to a conservative complaint about a display, have removed a number of depictions of Mohammad from the collection formerly known as the Islamic Galleries. The name “Islamic Galleries” has been changed “Arab Lands, Turkey, Iran Central Asia and Later South Asia.”

Man, that is a mouthful! (more…)

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Posted Jan 21st 2010 at 1:05 pm in Art, Religion | 49 Comments

Steven Crowder

Lonewolf Diaries: Poor People Can Be Greedy Too

by Steven Crowder

Ever notice that the chronically poor nearly always share one thing in common? They are some of the most greedy SOB’s on the planet. I know it seems sacrilegious to say so. You’re just not supposed to criticize the poor. Afterall, haven’t they had it hard enough? I mean, a man can’t help the hand he’s been dealt… Unless he’s Rain Man.

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Now before you go and crucify me, keep in mind that there is a huge difference between someone who is “down on their luck” and someone who is able-bodied and “chronically poor.” There’s a big difference, and I’m only addressing the latter.

We see the stereotype everyday in Hollywood films: The wealthy, corporate, penny-pinching sell-out who inevitably becomes a slave to their own greed. Note: That stereotype excludes the rich, bloated constituents of Tinseltown themselves. The sad part is that oftentimes Americans believe it. As a largely blue-collar nation, I could think of nothing more satisfying than vilifying the “boss” (not a Springsteen reference, for those wondering). The only problem is that it’s dishonest. (more…)

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Posted Jan 19th 2010 at 5:22 pm in Politics, Religion | 56 Comments

Ben Shapiro

‘Jihad Jitters’: Come On, ACLU, Go After the Met

by Ben Shapiro

Where’s the ACLU when you need them? 

On Sunday, the New York Post reported that the Metropolitan Museum of Art “quietly pulled images of the Prophet Mohammed from its Islamic collection and may not include them in a renovated exhibition area slated to open in 2011.”  The justification for the removal?  “The museum said the controversial images – objected to by conservative Muslims who say their religion forbids images of their holy founder – were ‘under review.’” 

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So here’s the bottom line: the Met decided it didn’t want to face the kind of murderous rage the global Muslim community often demonstrates when pictures of Mohammed are posted publicly (see: Danish cartoons).  

Aside from the obvious cowardice of the artistic community when it comes to images of Islam, there’s another problem: there’s a strong case to be made that removal of these images in order to “protect” Muslim sensibilities violates the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause under current Supreme Court precedent.  (more…)

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Posted Jan 14th 2010 at 12:41 pm in Art, Law, Religion | 70 Comments

Adam Baldwin

Secularism’s Drones ‘Sting’ Brit Hume

by Adam Baldwin

On Fox News Sunday, panelist Brit Hume offered a hopeful New Year’s message for the fallen Tiger Woods: 

“Tiger Woods will recover as a golfer. Whether he can recover as a person, I think, is a very open question… the extent to which he can recover, it seems to me, depends on his faith. He’s said to be a Buddhist, I don’t think that faith offers the kind of forgiveness and redemption that is offered by the Christian faith. So, my message to Tiger would be: ‘Tiger, turn to the Christian faith, and you can make a total recovery and be a great example to the world.’” 

As an avid golfer, Christian man, and therefore a witness to the historic fact of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, Mr. Hume clearly offered his message in good faith with honest concern for both Tiger’s future and for that of his family, friends, fans and business associates. 

Sadly however, some drones of Secularism have reflexively stomped on their Political Correctness brakes; stinging at Mr. Hume with personal demonization, as if he’d somehow committed a sin against their totalitarian faith: 

Keith Olbermann: “This crosses that principle [of keeping] religious advocacy out of public life, since, you know, the worst examples of that are jihadists, not to mention, you know, guys who don’t know their own religions or somebody else’s religion, like Brit Hume.” 

Dan Savage: “Whenever we have a discussion in our country about jihadism and radical Muslims, you always hear, ‘where are the moderate voices? Where are the moderate Muslims? Why don’t they speak up?’ Where are the moderate Liberal Progressive Christians when something like this happens?… American Christianity’s been hijacked by the lunatics [including] people like Brit Hume.”  (more…)

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Posted Jan 5th 2010 at 12:51 pm in Featured Story, Politics, Religion | 252 Comments

Big Hollywood

Hollywood Gets More Religious?

by Big Hollywood

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…so says Robert Butler in yesterday’s Washington Post: 

It’s everywhere at the multiplex these days: religion. Or if that word makes you uncomfortable, you can go with the more general “spirituality.”

In movies as varied as the dead serious “The Road,” the uplifting family picture “The Blind Side,” the biting comedy “The Invention of Lying” and even James Cameron’s sci-fi opus “Avatar,” issues of faith and morality and mankind’s place in the universe are all the rage.

Not all of these movies embrace religion. Some question human gullibility. Some ask for evidence of a higher purpose in what often seems a random universe. But whether they encourage prayer or doubt, they’re all part of the zeitgeist.

But why now? (more…)

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Posted Jan 4th 2010 at 8:55 am in Film, Religion | 70 Comments

Big Hollywood

‘Avatar’: What If Cameron’s Na’Vi Found Christ?

by Big Hollywood

Jonah Goldberg in The Los Angeles Times:

In short, “Avatar” tells the tale of a disabled Marine, Jake Sully, who — through the wonders of movie magic — occupies the body of a 10-foot-tall alien so he can live among the mystical forest denizens of the moon world Pandora. Sully is sent in mufti, like a futuristic Lawrence of Arabia, to further the schemes of the evil corporate nature-rapists desperate to obtain the precious mineral “unobtainium” (no, really). Jake inevitably goes native, embraces the eco-faith of Pandora’s Na’Vi inhabitants and their tree goddess, the “all mother,” and rallies the Pandoran aborigines (not to mention the Pandoran ecosystem itself) against the evil forces of a thinly veiled 22nd century combine of Blackwater and Halliburton.

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The film has been subjected to a sustained assault from many on the right, most notably by Ross Douthat in the New York Times, as an “apologia for pantheism.” Douthat’s criticisms hit the mark, but the most relevant point was raised by John Podhoretz in the Weekly Standard. Cameron wrote “Avatar,” says Podhoretz, “not to be controversial, but quite the opposite: He was making something he thought would be most pleasing to the greatest number of people.”

What would have been controversial is if — somehow — Cameron had made a movie in which the good guys accepted Jesus Christ into their hearts. (more…)

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Posted Dec 30th 2009 at 12:50 pm in Film, Politics, Religion | 129 Comments

Clay Jacobsen

Christian Bashing: A Special Christmas Gift From ‘NCIS’

by Clay Jacobsen

My family and I have been big fans of NCIS since it began.  So this Christmas break, one afternoon we sat down with my daughter home from college to catch up on the Christmas episodes of both NCIS and NCIS: Los Angeles that aired December 15th. 

Both shows started with wonderful Christmas flair: NCIS had a couple cutting down their own Christmas tree in a snow covered forest and NCIS: LA had a beautifully decorated downtown street complete with a Salvation Army Santa. Unfortunately the Christmas Spirit in both shows didn’t last through their first commercials. 

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In the NCIS episode, the couple in the woods found a young white Marine, a Muslim, killed while praying toward Mecca. His father, once a Marine Colonel, retired to become a minister because in his words, “When my wife died, I wanted to be closer to God, now he’s taken my son as well.” 

As Gibbs and his team take the forty-eight minutes to figure out who-done-it, the audience is treated with some not so light-handed preaching favoring Islam. At one point, when the father of the killed Marine utters, “God forgive me, and Tom’s God too.” Gibbs responds with, “They are one in the same colonel.”  And although I would beg to differ, anybody who watches NCIS knows that whatever Gibbs says is gospel.  (more…)

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Posted Dec 30th 2009 at 5:03 am in Featured Story, Politics, Religion, Television | 353 Comments

Frank DeMartini

‘Avatar’ and Boycotts: When the Left Does and Doesn’t Champion Free Speech

by Frank DeMartini

Over the last weekend, I had the privilege of seeing “Avatar.”  This is a film of epic proportions and although I had some problems with it cinematically, from a technological standpoint, I recommend that everyone should see it.  However, do not go and see it if you are expecting a live action film or good acting.  It is a combination of live action and animation and it should be viewed as such.  Just expect the equivalent of a technologically advanced, “Who Framed Roger Rabbit?”  I was disappointed because I was expecting a fully integrated live action film.

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However, there is one thing about the movie that really upsets me.  It is blatant anti-military and less blatant anti-American.  Without giving away too much of the plot, the bad guys in the movie are the United States Marines.  Apparently, in the future, the world has become one big country that seems to be controlled by the United States.  The United States Marines are sent to the planet of Pandora to destroy the opposition to the New World Order’s acquisition of its substitute for oil which just happens to be located on Pandora. (more…)

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Posted Dec 27th 2009 at 7:12 am in Entertainment, Featured Story, Film, Politics, Religion | 428 Comments

Alfonzo Rachel

Those Who Wage War on Christmas

by Alfonzo Rachel


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Posted Dec 25th 2009 at 3:04 pm in Religion, Video | 32 Comments

Andrew Klavan

A Christmas Ghost Story: ‘The Advent Reunion’

by Andrew Klavan

Part 1:


(more…)

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Posted Dec 24th 2009 at 2:29 pm in Entertainment, Religion | 24 Comments

John Nolte

REVIEW: Watch Out For Leftist Sucker Punch in Jim Carrey’s Lifeless ‘Christmas Carol’

by John Nolte

So Disney spends $200 million on the production of screenwriter/director Robert Zemeckis’ computer-animated adaptation of Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol,” a story of redemption, reconciliation and forgiveness proven to have strong universal appeal. And what do they let Zemeckis go and do in their big-budgetted holiday tentpole aimed at families excited about celebrating this most holy of seasons…?

Add his own piece of dialogue trashing organized religion.

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First off, I want Zemeckis to know he didn’t get me. Oh, hell yes I was ready for it. After a decade of watching this industry crap on its own art and box office in order to childishly get off on insulting their customers, you need not be a genius to understand that there was no way a story with a number of overt positive Christian moments could survive intact.

Oh, Zemeckis gave it everything he had to lull me into thinking this one was safe: A soundtrack loaded with classic carols about “Christ being born” and all that, but I’m not Charlie Brown with the football, and sure enough… (more…)

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Posted Dec 23rd 2009 at 11:06 am in Film, Politics, Religion, Reviews | 197 Comments

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