According to Michael Moore’s tweet (and everyone on MSNBC and CNN), President Barack Obama is correct to force the Catholic Church to offer insurance that provides free birth control, sterilization, and the Morning After abortion pill — because “the law is clear” about “equal access to birth control for all women no matter where they work.”

Really? There’s a right to free birth control through your employer? Liar.

But what Moore is doing here is what Obama and his media minions are doing. They’re turning a government mandate that violates the First Amendment into a “rights” issue.

What Obama is attempting to do to the Catholic Church is no different than creating a federal mandate that would require every Islamic-run business to provide pork rinds in their vending machines — because people have a right to equal access to fat free foods.

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The new “found footage” horror entry, “The Devil Inside,” has plenty of problems as a stand alone film. My colleague Christian Toto points out many of them here. Reportedly, Paramount purchased the exorcist story for somewhere around a million dollars, which means that even after the costs associated with advertising, profits will be pouring in after only one weekend. Good for them; the marketing was better than the film. What’s new?

But I do think that all those involved made an error in using the film to gratuitously bash the Catholic Church. One of the few genres us Jesus freaks are still able to enjoy is the horror genre, especially as it relates to — say it with me — SATAN!, because for all the horror elements that might turn some social conservatives off (violence, etc.), our faith is at least accepted as a reality. For my money, “The Exorcist” is one of the most Christian films ever made. Bottom line: This Jesus freak loves getting the devil scared out him.

Thus, I purchased my ticket for “The Devil Inside” expecting heroic Catholic priests and the purity of Jesus Christ to be presented as the only antidote to a certain kind of evil in the world. What? Scientists can’t answer everything and fix everything? That’s not what PBS told me… with my tax dollars.

Thankfully, I can report that this marginal horror film that delivers only a very few tense moments does, in fact, star two heroic priests and Christ’s goodness. But for some reason these are “rogue” priests who work outside the church and trash it at every opportunity. You see, because the church is “hypocritical” and “bureaucratic” and “doesn’t care about people,” it no longer sanctions exorcisms, so it’s up to these two to risk excommunication and fight the devil outside the system.

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If Hollywood hadn’t spent most of the post-9/11 decade portraying Islamic terrorists as nuanced victims driven to violence by the West, their open cowardice when it come to taking on Islamists might make some sense. After all, if these extremists are — as leftist Hollywood would have us believe – nothing more than misunderstood freedom fighters, what is there to be afraid of – why so spineless?

And doesn’t Leftist Hollywood’s refusal to take on Islam add up to a politically incorrect and culturally insensitive insult to Muslims? As Penn Jillette Tweeted so elegantly last week:

“I believe the most damning thing that can be said about Muslims is saying you’re afraid to say anything.”

Or as an agnostic friend of mine emailed last night: 

“Your headline needs to read, ‘Comedy Central Determines That Christians Are Nicer and More Tolerant Than Muslims’”

So I guess that means we Christians should take the announcement of what looks to be another tired, old, cliched, cinematic attack on our faith as a compliment, right?

Hayden Christensen has signed on to star in Snakes of a Plane/Cellular/The Final Destination director David R. Ellis‘ big screen adaptation of John Case’s thriller novel The Genesis Code.

And what is “The Genesis Code” about? As though you have to ask. From the press release announcing the film [emphasis mine throughout]: (more…)

Warning: This post divulges the entire “Angels & Demons” plot. If you haven’t seen the movie and intend to, go no further for there be spoilers…

People whose opinions I respect have defended A&D as not being anti-Catholic. This is probably due to the end of the film which delivers a trumped up moment of warmth and reconciliation between Tom Hanks’ Robert Langdon character and the Church in the form of a new Pope.  From my perch, this moment is a subtle but devious cherry on top of a blisteringly unfair and wholly dishonest attack on the Church.

Serial adulterer Martin Luther King, Jr.

Serial adulterer Martin Luther King, Jr.

Serial adulterer Martin Luther King, Jr.

One way to dishonestly destroy someone or something is to repeat only the negative about that someone or something. DreamWorks has just announced a new film about the life of Martin Luther King, Jr. and were it to focus solely on King’s extra-marital affairs no one would argue that the movie was anything other than a propaganda tool produced with the goal in mind of assassinating his character. (more…)

I didn’t get permission to see Ron Howard’s “Angels and Demons” film from anyone official but as a member of the media as well as the Catholic Church my gut feeling was that I should see it, but not pay for it. I wasn’t sure how I was going to pull that off because although the program I host on St. Joseph Radio is heard on EWTN, it’s really not on anyone in Hollywood’s radar, and my in-box at Indie 1031 has got Internet radio written all over it’s empty enclosure. Somehow I was invited to a screening at the ArcLight in Hollywood presented by Flemming’s Steakhouse. Perfect!

We could debate for a while whether A&D is really a movie at all or just a series of scenes with silly dialogue propelling an action filled scavenger hunt through Vatican City. Instead I will try to be as informative as I can about whether the movie is offensive, blasphemous, inaccurate, or just a joke; or all of those things like “The Da Vinci Code.” (more…)

Have at it.

Discuss. Debate. Write your own review…

Big Hollywood’s review can be found here.

There’s a lot of “It’s better than ‘The Da Vinci Code‘” flying around about director Ron Howard’s “Angels & Demons,” but that’s a lot like saying “It’s smarter than Nancy Pelosi” or “It’s less involved with the Nazis than George Soros.” For starters, A&D is not better than “Da Vinci,” which at least made some sense in helping us to understand how the mind of Symbologist Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks) worked. Instead, this follow-up offers the same plodding plotting, outrageously dishonest Catholic bashing and numbing over-length … but now Langdon’s mental methodology is made completely incoherent to the point of gibberish.

The Pope is dead and to elect the new Holy Father, the ancient ritual of the Conclave is set to begin when the four Cardinals most likely to be chosen, the preferiti, are kidnapped. An ancient brotherhood known as the Illuminati takes responsibility. They have no demands and only wish to teach the Church a lesson for a violent purging of their scientific “free thinkers” hundreds of years ago and to do that they have promised to violently kill one Cardinal an hour, each in a different location, with the grand finale being the complete destruction of Vatican City with an anti-matter bomb stolen in the film’s opening scene.

The only clues offered that might save the day are also meant to further the Illuminati’s pro-science stance. Each clue is based on the four altars of science: earth, air, wind, and fire and to help unravel these symbols, Harvard Professor Robert Langdon is called in. Joining him is Vittorio Vetra (Ayelet Zurer), the gorgeous Italian scientist who helped create the anti-matter and the best hope to disarm it. (more…)

People do not believe lies because they have to, but because they want to. – Malcolm Muggeridge

I’m a fan of Ron Howard. I’m also a Roman Catholic. So when Howard recently defended his upcoming film, Angels and Demons, on the Huffington Post from criticism leveled by William Donohue of the Catholic League, I sat up and took notice.

Here’s an understatement for you: Not everybody likes William Donohue. Whereas some admire him as a passionate defender of the faith, others view him as a hectoring, self-righteous censor, with a tendency to get red-faced and a bit shouty when locking horns on one of the ubiquitous news talk shows.

Howard, of course, is always calm and collected. Besides, he’s Opie; and who doesn’t like Opie? So I enter this fray with the greatest trepidation, fully expecting to regret every minute of it. (more…)

Part 1 of what I half-jokingly called my “Manifesto.”

In a fiscal conservative’s utopian dreamworld, there would be no federal funding for the arts (or so many other government agencies or programs for that matter).  This has been our position since the inception of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) in the early 1970’s.  We’ve been saying that if elected, we would abolish these misguided programs and departments and bring our government back to the bare-bones constitutionally described role that it has and leave everything else to the states.

We’ve held the influential bully pulpit of the presidency for twenty of the past twenty-eight years, and what has happened to the NEA?  It has grown.  While we have stood on principle,  we have also stood on the sidelines.  The founding fathers would be outraged that the federal government is funding art with taxpayer money, but because we are on the sidelines standing on our principles, all of that money is going to the people creating art with messages that undermine our very existence. (more…)