Honoring September 11th: They Want Us to Forget

“The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” – William Faulkner

“We will write our own future, and the future will be what we want it to be.” – Barack Obama

In a quiet and seemingly innocuous gesture, President Obama has designated 9/11 as “The National Day of Service and Remembrance.” Personally, I liked the ring of “Patriot Day,” and what does “service and remembrance” mean, precisely ? The idea is to get Americans to “engage in meaningful service to create change…in four key areas”: education, health, energy/environment and community renewal. None of these seems to have anything to do with honoring 9/11, but that seems to be the point: in the Huffington Post, Muslim-American playwright Wajahat Ali wrote, “In the US, we are trying to move away from focusing on 9/11 as a day of horror, and instead make it a day to recommit ourselves to national service.” An excellent Spectator article provides a blunter translation: “Nihilistic liberals are planning to drain 9/11 of all meaning.” Why? ”They think it needs to be taken back from the right.”

In other words, they resent the surge of patriotism and righteous outrage stirred up by the attacks, sentiments that empower the political Right. In order to advance the leftist agenda of dismantling American exceptionalism and recasting ourselves as the villain in our history books, they need Americans to put 9/11 behind us, forget the victims, forget that our enemy danced in the streets in celebration, forget that Islamic terror plots on our very shores continue to be disrupted, and forget that our rights and freedoms are under assault by a subversive civilizational jihad. (more…)

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Tags: 9/11, 9/11 hijackers, American Exceptionalism, Blocking the Path to 9/11, cosmic war
Posted Sep 11th 2009 at 7:30 am in Featured Story, Military, Politics | 218202127 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/mtapson/2009/09/11/honoring-september-11th-they-wants-us-to-forget/Honoring+September+11th%3A+They+Want+Us+to+Forget2009-09-11+14%3A30%3A28Mark+Tapson

Story and the Power of Conservative Themes in Film

Boy, did I ever kick a hornet’s nest with my tongue-in-cheek Archie Bunker-on-steroids BH post, “My Secret Life as a Conservative Republican.” Lefties called it Reaffirmation With Senator Smalley, which I expected. But Righties nearly wet their pants in fear, which I did not expect in the least. Where’s the pioneering spirit, self-confidence and gutter-level humor that founded this country?

People, this is OUR Fortress Hollywood! This is OUR sanctuary! Since when the hell do we care about what demagogues like Keith Olbermann think or say? Or any other mental tinfoil hat Lefties like Garofalo for that matter? It’s like Churchill worrying about Hitler calling him a fat cigar-chomping drunk! Who won that fight, and why? And who was in the right, despite all the insipid name-calling?

Time to grow a pair, people. It’s also time to raise the stakes. Now, I’ve heard from some contributors here at BH that it is really bad in Hollywood in places. That people might even lose their jobs if they spoke up like I do here. If true, that’s McCarthyism at its worst. Fortunately, that’s not my experience. I still have great relationships with people in the biz who could care less about politics. All they care about is finding great scripts or literary works to adapt, and telling great stories on film.

And that is where the battle really needs to be fought: on their playing ground. An insurgency of ideas, if you will. Example. Just under the Big Hollywood sign today, I saw the banner “TNT’s ‘The Closer’ Thrives on Strong Moral Foundation.” That PJM-linked article describes how The Closer, a show that portrays the border, the illegals situation, and even the cops themselves in very gritty and realistic fashion, is the top-rated scripted show on ad-supported cable since its inception. (more…)

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Tags: Academy, Afghanistan, al qaeda, American Gangster, AMPAS
Posted Jul 21st 2009 at 10:22 am in Classic Hollywood, Film, Politics, Religion | 184986103 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/jtsimpson/2009/07/21/taking-the-fight-to-the-left/Story+and+the+Power+of+Conservative+Themes+in+Film2009-07-21+17%3A22%3A45John+T.+Simpson

‘Stoning’ Director on Hannity — Film Expands This Weekend

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This weekend, Cyrus Nowrasteh’s “The Stoning of Soraya M.” continues to expand its theatrical run, including the entire state of Florida. As brave Iranians once again take to the streets chanting, “Death to the dictator,” there’s no better way to put that plea into context than with a screening of this powerful and unforgettable film. (more…)

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Tags: cyrus nowrasteh, Florida, Hannity, The Stoning of Soraya M.
Posted Jul 9th 2009 at 5:30 pm in Entertainment, Politics | 18041815 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/bighollywood/2009/07/09/stoning-director-on-hannity-film-expands-this-weekend/%27Stoning%27+Director+on+Hannity+--+Film+Expands+This+Weekend2009-07-10+00%3A30%3A06Big+Hollywood

Part 2: Interview — ‘The Stoning of Soraya M.’s’ Cyrus Nowrasteh

Note: Part 1 of this 2 part interview can be found here.

The execution scene at the heart of “The Stoning of Soraya M.“ is all force and little subtlety. Some audiences might flinch at the visuals, while others may draw parallels to the violence at the core of “The Passion of the Christ.”

But director/co-screenwriter Cyrus Nowrasteh says a version of the film featuring a shortened stoning sequence didn’t test as well as the full-length movie.

“This movie is a ticking clock to an execution. That execution is a primitive rite we’re witnessing, and we need to go through each stage of it,” he says. ”It’s almost a catharsis.”

Not all audiences are ready to take the journey.

He says about five or so people typically leave the theater during test screenings once the execution starts – but roughly half return to watch the film’s finale.

Nowrasteh, who is of Iranian heritage, has been watching the news reports coming out of Iran in recent days as intensely as any viewer.

(more…)

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Tags: Bill Clinton, Bob Iger, cyrus nowrasteh, iran, Iranian protests
Posted Jun 26th 2009 at 1:13 pm in Entertainment, News, Religion | 1688462 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/cftoto/2009/06/26/part-2-interview-%e2%80%94-%e2%80%98the-stoning-of-soraya-m%e2%80%99s%e2%80%99-cyrus-nowrasteh/Part+2%3A+Interview+%E2%80%94+%E2%80%98The+Stoning+of+Soraya+M.%E2%80%99s%E2%80%99+Cyrus+Nowrasteh2009-06-26+20%3A13%3A22Christian+Toto

‘The Stoning of Soraya M.’ – A Powerful, Must-See Film

As the world watches and waits for the political uprising in Iran to either succeed in toppling the brutal Khomeinist regime or be crushed by it, a movie by the name of The Stoning of Soraya M.  opens in limited release today. Far from being your typical summer fun film fare, Soraya depicts the ugliest, most brutal side of human nature and one woman’s crusade to keep it from being swept under the rug.

Directed by Cyrus Nowrasteh (The Path to 9/11) and written by Nowrasteh and his wife Besy Giffen-Nowrasteh, Soraya is based on the 1995 non-fiction book of the same name by Freidoune Sahebjam. Soraya takes place after the Islamic revolution in Iran and centers around Soraya (played by Mozhan Marnò), a woman whose husband, Ali (played by Navid Negahban), has tired of her after 20 years of marriage and wishes to discard her for a younger woman. Actually, “younger” is an understatement, as Ali lusts after a 14-year-old girl. Soraya knows about Ali’s plans, but won’t agree to a divorce because she knows she will be unable to provide for her two young daughters (the two sons will stay with Ali, of course). Ali must then come up with another scheme for getting rid of his uncooperative wife, and he uses guile, cunning and good old-fashioned blackmail to get the key players in place for what is passed off as a religious cleansing rite. (more…)

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Tags: Ali Pourtash, Betsy Giffen Nowrasteh, cyrus nowrasteh, David Diaan, Freidoune Sahebjam
Posted Jun 26th 2009 at 5:03 am in Featured Story, Religion, Reviews | 1681306 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/pmeister/2009/06/26/the-stoning-of-soraya-m-a-powerful-must-see-film/%27The+Stoning+of+Soraya+M.%27+-+A+Powerful%2C+Must-See+Film2009-06-26+12%3A03%3A22Pam+Meister

Part 1: Interview — ‘The Stoning of Soraya M.’s’ Cyrus Nowrasteh

Director Cyrus Nowrasteh has news for people who think the public execution scene at the heart of “The Stoning of Soraya M.” is too long, too graphic or too uncompromising in its horror. The real thing is worse. Much worse.

Nowrasteh’s “Stoning,” which debuts in select cities June 26, tells the true story of an Iranian woman accused of adultery by her narcissistic husband and subsequently stoned, per Sharia law, for her crime. The film, based on the book by journalist Freidoune Sahebjam, reveals its critical sequence via the title. But audiences will still recoil at the monstrous behavior on display.

“I want people never to forget what a stoning is,” Nowrasteh says. “I’ve seen it on tape, and it’s much worse.”

Nowrasteh, who wrote the ABC miniseries “The Path to 9/11,” read Sahebjam‘s book back in 1994 but figured no one would green light a film based on the harrowing true story. The story stuck with him all the same, and years later he and his wife, screenwriter Betsy Giffen Nowrasteh, decided to try to make such a movie themselves. Wresting the legal rights to the book took time, but they had very little competition, he says. Only two Italian directors flirted with the notion of making the book into a movie, as did, briefly, director Costa-Gavras (“Missing”). (more…)

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Tags: Betsy Giffen Nowrasteh, cyrus nowrasteh, Farsi, Freidoune Sahebjam, Shohreh Aghdasloo
Posted Jun 24th 2009 at 11:47 am in Entertainment, News, Religion | 1671344 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/cftoto/2009/06/24/bh-interview-the-stoning-of-soraya-ms-cyrus-nowrasteh/Part+1%3A+Interview+--+%27The+Stoning+of+Soraya+M.%27s%27+Cyrus+Nowrasteh2009-06-24+18%3A47%3A16Christian+Toto

The Whitewashing of Soraya M.

While Iranian-American protesters packed streetcorners in Westwood last Saturday afternoon in support of the revolution currently playing out in the streets of Tehran, an historical drama about stoning in Iran got underway at the Los Angeles Film Festival mere blocks away.

For the few who don’t know by now, The Stoning of Soraya M. is based on French-Iranian journalist Freidoune Sahebjam’s bestselling book, which relates the true story of a woman in a remote Iranian village, in the years after the 1979 Khomeini revolution, who is falsely accused of adultery and stoned to death by a mob desperate to cleanse themselves of this affront to their collective honor and to their religion. It’s not only a gripping story in its own right, but it shines a harsh spotlight on the almost unimaginable reality that the barbaric punishment of stoning still exists in the Iranian law code, despite a largely nominal 2002 moratorium, the result of pressure from Western human rights groups.

(Full disclosure, even though I’m not reviewing the film here: I’m close friends with the filmmakers Cyrus and Betsy Nowrasteh, I provided Mpower Pictures with a bit of research on the project, I’m friends with other cast and crew and producers associated with the film, and I think stoning is bad. So don’t take my word for it when I say Soraya will be the most important, affecting film you’ll see all year. Instead seek out the multitude of reviewers who recommend the film, including Big Hollywood’s John Nolte and then see it for yourself.)

Following Saturday’s screening was a panel discussion, not so much moderated as simply hosted by Iranian novelist Khaled Hosseini, author of the bestselling The Kite Runner, who personally selected the film for the L.A. Film Festival. The panel also included Soraya’s writer-director Cyrus Nowrasteh, starring actress Shohreh Aghdashloo, and Dr. Reza Aslan, billed as an Islamic scholar. (more…)

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Tags: cyrus nowrasteh, Freidoune Sehabjam, iran, Reza Aslan, Shohreh Aghdashloo
Posted Jun 24th 2009 at 5:03 am in Entertainment, Featured Story, Politics, Religion | 1674903 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/mtapson/2009/06/24/the-whitewashing-of-soraya-m/The+Whitewashing+of+Soraya+M.2009-06-24+12%3A03%3A56Mark+Tapson

Review: The Stoning of Soraya M.

The biggest narrative challenge facing the “The Stoning of Soraya M.” is in the overcoming of its own title. With the awful outcome inevitable, co-writer/director Cyrus Nowrasteh is forced to hold our attention through means other than a curiosity over how things will end. Replacing this with a gut-wrenching dread awaiting the final act won’t suffice — not for two hours, anyway. This leaves a single, narrow and challenging avenue; the summoning of a rare kind of storytelling invention, the kind where the audience knows full well what’s coming but still hopes against hope some cinematic magic will occur to alter the unalterable.

In an impressive feat of direction Nowrasteh accomplishes this, making “Soraya” much more than a film of the political moment or a position paper on the Middle East. In a current events’ vacuum, maybe even set on another planet, the story would work without the benefit of allegory. This is a universal, human story, after all, but not the story of a victim, but of a woman’s remarkable courage and determination to free the truth.  This woman is Zahra (Shohreh Aghdashloo), and yesterday her niece Soraya M. (Mozhan Marnò), was buried alive up to her chest and stoned to death. (more…)

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Tags: cyrus nowrasteh, James Caviezel, Mozhan Marnò, Shohreh Aghdashloo, The Stoning of Soraya M.
Posted Jun 23rd 2009 at 5:03 am in Featured Story, Reviews | 16688211 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/jjmnolte/2009/06/23/review-the-stoning-of-soraya-m/Review%3A+The+Stoning+of+Soraya+M.2009-06-23+12%3A03%3A34John+Nolte

Review: The Stoning of Soraya M.

Cyrus Nowrasteh’s “The Stoning of Soraya M.” is a grim and solemn duty.  This is no popcorn flick, to be viewed and forgotten.  It stays with you, like your conscience telling you to do the right thing, the difficult thing.  

Set in 1986 Iran – the Islamic Republic of Iran – Stoning is a gut-wrenching film with haunting music.  Nowrasteh’s movie, set to open June 26, is based on a book about the crime by French-Iranian journalist Freidoune Sahebjam. 

The film opens with Freidoune (James Caviezel) breaking down in his car on his way to the border.  Spending unwanted hours in a small village, he is approached by Zahra (Shohreh Aghdashloo), a woman the villagers try to shoo away as they call her crazy.  But Zahra has a terrible secret.  She does all she can to get word to the journalist about a terrible injustice committed in the village the previous day when her niece, Soraya M. (Mozhan Marnò), falsely accused of adultery by her cheating husband, Ali (Navid Negahban), was stoned to death per Islamic law.  (more…)

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Tags: Ali Pourtash, cyrus nowrasteh, Islamic Republic of Iran, James Caviezel, John Debney
Posted Jun 22nd 2009 at 12:56 pm in Featured Story, Reviews | 16610611 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/cdevore/2009/06/22/review-stoning/Review%3A+The+Stoning+of+Soraya+M.2009-06-22+19%3A56%3A10Chuck+DeVore

Tweet This Movie: #TheStoningofSorayaM

This week’s Washington Times column:

Last Tuesday as I was driving home from a screening of “The Stoning of Soraya M.,” a profoundly moving and eerily timely drama that comes out Friday, I found myself stuck in a bizarre late-night traffic jam thinking of ways to spread the word about this potentially transformative movie that thrusts its audience into the day’s headlines and draws attention to the plight of those who could potentially topple Iran’s cruel and menacing theocracy.

With an LAPD helicopter hovering above me in the night sky, I called home to ask my wife why our neighborhood was cordoned off, with traffic enforcement redirecting cars around the perimeter of the Los Angeles Federal Building. She couldn’t find anything on TV. When I reached home, I discovered via Twitter that thousands of Iranian-Americans, plentiful in West Los Angeles since the Islamic Revolution in 1979, were demonstrating solidarity with family and friends in Tehran by protesting the rigged Iranian election results and drawing attention to the regime’s long-standing human rights abuses.

The closure of a segment of Wilshire Boulevard, a key east-west artery, spoke to the urgency and magnitude of the situation. (more…)

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Tags: cyrus nowrasteh, iran, The Stoning of Soraya M., twitter
Posted Jun 21st 2009 at 8:17 pm in Entertainment, Featured Story, News, Politics | 1660222 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/abreitbart/2009/06/21/tweet-this-movie-thestoningofsorayam/Tweet+This+Movie%3A+%23TheStoningofSorayaM2009-06-22+03%3A17%3A34Andrew+Breitbart

A Revolution Named Zahra

There’s a “new” old name suddenly in circulation that is both filled with ancient history and ripe with a revolutionary spirit for today’s game-changing events.

Zahra.

Well known to Muslims, Fatima az-Zahra was one of four daughters of the prophet Muhammad. Today, Zahra is also the name of two important, outspoken women of Iran.

One is Zahra Rahnavard, the courageous and charismatic wife of the allegedly defeated Iranian presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi. The other is Zahra Khanum, the equally courageous and charismatic woman portrayed in a new movie, “The Stoning of Soraya M.,” about the death of an Iranian woman on trumped-up charges of adultery.

Begging forgiveness for this confederacy of cliches, but we seem to have a perfect storm of tipping points. (more…)

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Tags: cyrus nowrasteh, Fatima az-Zahra, iran, Iran election, Kathleen Parker
Posted Jun 17th 2009 at 7:20 am in Entertainment, Featured Story, Politics | 1634702 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/kparker/2009/06/17/a-revolution-named-zahra/A+Revolution+Named+Zahra++2009-06-17+14%3A20%3A12Kathleen+Parker

Trailer: ‘The Stoning of Soraya M.’

Directed and co-written by Cyrus Nowrasteh, “The Stoning of Soraya M.“ is based on Freidoune Sahebjam’s novel and stars Jim Caviezel and Shohreh Aghdashloo. According to a press release, it opens June 26th “in New York, Los Angeles and other key markets, with a national roll out to follow.”

More information is available at the official website.

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Tags: Blocking the Path to 9/11, cyrus nowrasteh, Freidoune Sahebjam, Jim Caviezel, john ziegler
Posted May 14th 2009 at 6:37 am in Politics, Religion, Video | 102686No Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/bighollywood/2009/05/14/trailer-the-stoning-of-soraya-m/Trailer%3A+%27The+Stoning+of+Soraya+M.%272009-05-14+13%3A37%3A51Big+Hollywood

We Must Hang Together, Or We Will All Hang Separately

Big Hollywood will likely contain plenty of stories dealing with and (hopefully) overcoming the hardships associated with being a “conservative” in and around Hollywood. I want to commend those who have been able to hold on to their principles and have had the courage to share their true convictions in the face of obvious and insidious prejudice.

However, coming from an area of the “entertainment” world (talk radio and documentary films) where expressing a strong opinion is not only allowed, it is mandatory; I come at this challenge from a different perspective than many of the writers for this site. I believe that a complementary relationship between those who are just now slowly “coming out” and those of us who are already battle scarred and hardened is absolutely vital to our side having any chance in the message/information war which is currently raging, and in which we have been getting creamed, for far too long.

And make no mistake this is a war we are in. One of the many reasons we are losing so badly is that their side gets this, our side does not.

When you are in a battle like this (even one that usually doesn’t involve real bullets, but rather only the verbal variety) you need generals, infantry and diplomats all working in coordination and in the best interest of the team. In my experience, our forces are largely disorganized, discouraged and in disarray. Consequently, our soldiers, through little fault of their own, are forced to act out of their own survival instincts rather than out of what might be good for the cause.

(more…)

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Tags: cyrus nowrasteh, FOA, hollywood conservatives, How Obama Got Elected, john ziegler
Posted Jan 7th 2009 at 7:15 am in Entertainment, Media Criticism, Politics | 641756 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/jziegler/2009/01/07/we-must-hang-together-or-we-will-all-hang-seperately/We+Must+Hang+Together%2C+Or+We+Will+All+Hang+Separately2009-01-07+14%3A15%3A41John+Ziegler