Son of CIA Agents Directs Spy Flick

One minor flaw with your movie premise. . . there are no "anti-American liberal radicals" left. Nope. They're all good little Amerika loving ObamaNazis now.

Well said!

It's always been there, it just needed the right Fuhrer to bring it out so openly. As the cult of personallity grew, with even "repected journalists" talking about feeling a tingle, these little socialists decided the time had come to get out their uniform(ities) and bring about the brave new world.

But like all good stories, there's a twist. Their leader is an idiot and things are going horribly wrong before they've even seized the entire palace, much less the country.

You give him that much credit? I doubt he'd be able to find the trigger.

Right. And if we could get a VA benefit or grant system working that allowed vets access to art funds, (like their non serving contemporaries often have) they'd be able to make a few short films to get started. Enter contests, get their work seen, etc.

Like I've said, no matter politics, if they make good product, good art, even the most partisan liberal distributor will see green over blue or red. That's capitalism and that's America.

Cool. Thanks for the heads-up. Might be a trend, too. Or maybe a category at GI Filmfest or here at BH, even, to give 'shout outs' (gosh, I hate that phrase, forgive me) to aspiring writers/creators who restore a positive cultural image once again to our military.

All it takes is the right person to see it.

That's a great idea — profile one writer/creator a week or so. You never know who's watching the board? Not to mention, the BH community seems to be growing all the time.

Well, this is the way I look at it. If it makes money, Hollywood will consider it. If it's liberal, Hollywood will make it. So, since it won't possibly be liberal, it must be able to make money, to be profitable, to get made. And as pointed out here by others, the question arises, how do you do that without first having a 'name' that ends in Eastwood, Gibson or Sandler?

In this case, since we're talking, or at least I was suggesting, a fund or festival, like the GI Fest recently started, which sounds great. But that's just the festival end. I'm thinking along the lines of the starting point, where servicemen and women could get access to funds to create their short films in the first place.

These works could then be shopped around to GI Fest and other 'friendly' festivals to see what kind of noise they can make. If they're sufficiently noisy and take people's breath away, even a liberal distributor will not outright ignore them, I believe. That's my belief. He won't put up any money, but if it's making money, or the promise is clearly there, he will not totally ignore it.

Another thing, which is full of irony, since we're talking American military, is the overseas market. As we all know, most films now are routinely shopped overseas, with the gross profits being made up in increasing amounts from countries outside the U.S..

Short films are a different entity, of course, and with no stars, no big director names to promote it, it is clearly a disadvantage. But packages could be formed, which combined complimentary titles of shorts on a single DVD and sold overseas primarily. There is a market for this, particularly with younger audiences.

Certain percentages of the profits would go back to the fund from which the filmmakers originally tapped.

The thing is, the guys and gals have to write the stuff, and make the stuff. Wishful thinking gets us nowhere slowly. We must act, not react to the liberal disease that has taken root in our culture. Making conservative movies with a big C on the front is, in my opinion, not the way to go about it. Like I said, liberals didn't take hold by screaming their liberalism.

We must create works, that are not clearly conservative, not clearly republican (if that word means anything anymore), not partisan in any way. They cannot turn folks off before they even get started.

Recently, a fellow writer here at BH discussed the topic of movie scores. Lots of great info and lots of great comments. Everyone loves music. Everyone loves movies. Movie music is a special animal that many people feel very strongly connected to. But when viewing the lists of composers like Korngold, Tiomkin, Rosza, Kaper, and recent musicians like Williams, Horner, Barry, Goldsmith, etc. I noticed one glaring fact. I couldn't, if you put a gun to my head, swear to the politics of a single one of those masters. Not one. That says something. You can't go in with an agenda, right or left, and expect people to not be defensive or closed somewhat to it, even if they sort of are supportive of it, such as the troops. You have to move people. The work has to speak to them, and political ideology rarely speaks, it shouts, and often too loud.

These have to be human stories above all else. Then and only then will anyone who is not already in the choir going to think about singing along.

That's just my take.

As for PBS and the like, yeah, forget it. The days when PBS produced good stuff and imported great stuff from Great Britain during the so-called 'dark times' (Reagan/Thatcher years) was PBS's finest hour, and BBC's as well.

Ah. Yeah, that pesky thing. Way too sensitive a mechanism. I wonder what it keys on. Maybe "micro changes in air density"?

Ok, name that film quote! Haha!

But seriously, it's most likely not in BH control, but rather IntenseDebate's, since that service coordinates the comment part of the blog. Hmm. Maybe a personal email to editors John or Alex might help.

Agreed. I'd like to expand this idea more and maybe post it as an article sometime. I think the case can definitely be made that there is no reason to deal with Hollywood if you are talking lower budget (and every smart person is, these days.)

One of the problems is many here at BH and in Hollywood work, as they say, 'under the line' or not in the top money making spots of director, producer, etc. So, they are not rich. They do good work and work hard. And many of them, a majority, are not liberals or if they are, it's not with a capital L. They don't want productions to leave S.Cally. You could see the amount of flak an article got that simply said, 'maybe that's not a bad thing' to the news that less and less productions are taking place in S. Cal. So, it's a sensitive issue.