–Francis Schaeffer, The God Who Is There

I read that simple, elegant question as a senior in high school, and it’s stuck with me for almost seven years now. How profoundly that illustrates the unique historical revelation of the Gospels; instead of revealing himself through a lengthy vision or message that could only be seen/translated by one lucky individual, God showed up on earth to be seen, heard, even touched by anyone who was able. The disciples’ letters in the New Testament often reaffirm this sensory proof; 1 John refers to “[t]hat which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched.”

They saw a man walking over the deep sea; they saw the blind and lame healed; but most importantly, they saw a dead man–dead from an extremely thorough, conclusive form of murder–alive, still sporting his wounds but eating and drinking, walking and talking. Their insistence upon claiming they sensed these things led virtually all of them to a life of constant persecution and eventually execution.

It’s with that in mind that I present the end result of my obsession with Schaeffer’s question, “I Could Get a Splinter,” a song that’s far too serious for me, given all the anti-hipster hipster cred I’ve built up with constant sarcasm and above-it-all potshots. I hope that this song, as well as its B-side, “Who Could Have Known,” help you feel a little bit of wonder at the Incarnation and how God became a man so that we could be forgiven for constantly choosing our self-destructive autonomy over his perfection.

Merry Christmas, everyone.

I first met Tucci, an award-winning illustrator and graphic novel writer, at San Diego’s massive Comic-Con International in 2010. Tucci was intently drawing away in his display booth seated next to an aged but unbowed veteran of WWII’s famous 442nd Regimental Combat Team.

On closer inspection, I saw that that Billy was personalizing a panel connected with his then-current offering, “Sgt. Rock – The Lost Battalion.” This illustrated novel was a beautifully rendered fusion of the fictional Sgt. Rock combat hero with a historically accurate account of the 141st Regiment’s rapid advance into German lines only to be cut off in the rugged Vosges Mountains region.

Running low on food and ammunition and with casualties running high, the divisional commander made the decision to break the German siege of the 141st by sending in the 442nd. The 14,000 men who would serve in the 442nd, a regiment of Japanese-Americans recruited out of internment camps, earned 21 Medals of Honor, more than 9,000 Purple Hearts, and more than 18,000 medals overall – the greatest number of decorations for any unit of its size and duration of combat service.

Tucci has an eye for detail and, in the case of his military-themed work, this detail is fortified by personal service in the Special Forces as an enlisted man in the 1990s.

I saw Tucci again last weekend at the Austin Comic-Con, where his latest work caught my eye because it was so decidedly out of his usual superhero, military, beautiful fantasy samurai/geisha woman pinup genre: a graphic novel about, as Tucci said, “The greatest superhero of all time.”  “Billy Tucci’s A Child is Born” is indeed about the greatest of superheroes; great because he is real, immortal, and to this day is so relevant that the modern world marks time by the date he was born: Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

“A Child is Born” follows the birth of Jesus through 25 pages of 84 magnificently illustrated panels based on the gospels of Matthew and Luke.  The prophecy of Isaiah 9:2-7 serves as the books preface, foretelling the birth of the Savior who “…will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”

True to a traditional telling of the Christmas story, “A Child is Born” adds a modern astronomical element as well, offering a scientific explanation for the “star” seen by the Magi.  We see the Magi referring to a triple conjunction of the planet Jupiter with the star Regulus in the constellation the Lion – representing the Kings of Kings of the House of Judah.

In the afterword we learn that Rick Larson, a lawyer, had become “obsessed” with figuring out the puzzle of the Christmas star that signaled Christ’s birth. Acquiring an astronomical software program, Larson ran it back about 2,000 years and “uncovered a celestial poem so beautifully written it changed (his) life forever.” Larson produced the DVD “The Star of Bethlehem,” which Tucci used to incorporate the extra-Biblical but historically-accurate account of the rare astronomical activity that would have drawn the attention of the Magi.

Published by Apostle Arts, “Billy Tucci’s A Child is Born” saw its first printing this month, just in time for Christmas.  It marks the artistic end of a trying year for Tucci, who saw victory declared in his wife’s battle with breast cancer.  As Tucci explained why he was creating a book without the usual “cowls and capes” to his oldest son, “Jesus is a superhero, William – the greatest superhero ever to walk the earth!”

See www.achildisbornbook.com for details.

MotorGaga

The Lady in question, known at birth as Stefani Germanotta, has progressed beyond wanting recognition or even fame; now she craves Importance, that vain pursuit which has derailed many a talented artist (and you can quibble about putting that label on her, I’m just being polite). And on Born This Way, this attitude goes beyond didactic lyrics; Gaga puts on the airs of a prophet/oracle/Messiah for the courageous, self-endangering causes of same-sex marriage and female empowerment, doing her best to conflate sexual identity with Christianity–not just any religion, but Christianity specifically.

The album has more references to Jesus than the latest Wovenhand record, the inevitable clash of her Catholic-school upbringing and her professed bisexuality. On the aggressive yet perversely endearing “Judas,” she sings, “I wanna love you, but something’s pulling me away from you / Jesus is my virtue, Judas is the demon I cling to.” Throughout the song, “Judas” has been the “Dear Abby” pseudonym for an abusive lover (perfectly appropriate to compare a bad relationship to the betrayal of the Christ), so first she’s Jesus (a “holy fool”) being betrayed by Judas, then Jesus is an external entity from which Judas is pulling her away… I’m instantly regretting the decision to analyze these lyrics.

The “holy fool” phrase returns on the angsty “Electric Chapel,” which laughably mashes together church bells and “Money for Nothing” guitar riffs. Digging up the long-rotted corpse of the “love as religious experience” metaphor, she entreats her holy fool lover to use her like a priest–”confess to me… pray for your sins… we’ll find a way to make a pure love work in a dirty way.” And, like “Judas,” Gaga continues equating failed relationships and the Crucifixion in “Bloody Mary,” presenting herself as both the execution-happy Catholic queen and, again, a Christ figure, dancing with “hands above my head, like Jesus said.” Sadly, “Bloody Mary” is also the most dialed-down and catchy song on the album, so its obtuse, contradictory lyrics are an even greater letdown.

Aside from these attempts at casting herself as some sort of prophetess, the remainder of Gaga’s religious references express her frustration with the oppressive, patriarchal, heteronormative hatemongering which Jesus represents. On “Scheiße,” she wishes she were able to cut through all the BS of religion and society and be herself–to “dance on a single prayer” and be a strong feminist who doesn’t need anyone or anything. “Americano,” the album’s most openly political song (yes, even more than “Government Hooker“), laments the fact that she can’t marry another woman, so she breaks into a mariachi-inspired beat that blends techno with a historically ethnic musical genre about as eloquently as “Cotton-Eye Joe.” Inspired by Proposition 8’s reversal in California, the chorus sums up the left-wing response to that democratic vote quite well: “I don’t speak your Americano / I don’t speak your Jesus Christo.” Talk about petulance.

The album’s title track destroys any last, desperate hope that maybe Gaga has even a cursory understanding of the theology she rejects. Resting on the inane platitude “God makes no mistakes,” she proceeds to assert that you are morally justified in whatever you do by the very fact that you exist, even pausing at one point to run through a laundry-list of politically correct correct sexual identity labels: “No matter gay, straight or bi / Lesbian, transgendered life / I’m on the right track, baby / I was born to survive.”

Without getting into original sin, if you think that you were “born” into your adult identity, you’ve got some explaining to do. Was John Wayne Gacy born a murderous pedophile and therefore guiltless? Was Roman Polanski born a rapist and therefore guiltless? If sexual identity is predetermined and totally unaffected by your personal decisions, what other personal attributes aren’t predetermined, and how can we tell? What keeps us from admitting de Sade was correct in saying “What is, is right”? But I digress; this is a music review, after all.

“Born this Way” has been accused of ripping off Madonna’s 1989 single “Express Yourself” because of its similar chord progression, but Gaga is more directly plagiarizing the mid-to-late-90s style of Madonna and Cher–cheesy rave beats with overactive hi-hats and forceful chest-voice singing–just with more extraneous noise and louder mastering. Opener “Marry the Night” finds her evoking Cher’s “Believe,” most notably on the bridge’s elongated vocal flourishes. The chorus of “Scheiße” echoes Madonna’s “Sky Fits Heaven,” and, in a move I can’t even comprehend, penultimate track “Yoü and I” is the kind of twangy pop-rock that arose with the likes of Faith Hill and Shania Twain. All in all, this is very backwards-looking pop music.

That said, I’d be a hypocrite for dismissing Gaga’s take on ’90s pop out of hand, especially when I’m on the record praising that style coming from Swedish pop star Robyn. With, no doubt, all the money she wanted at her disposal, the production is top-notch, and despite cuts like “Government Hooker,” which spoils a good beat with an abysmal melody, the first half of the album mostly gets things right. Perhaps it’s just the fact that I’ve listened too many times while writing this piece, but it’s led to some toe-tapping, even singing along. However, after the bouncy self-esteem anthem “Bad Kids,” everything falls apart and the record gets unlistenable. “Highway Unicorn (Road to Love)” and closer “The Edge of Glory” recycle the chord progression from “Hair” (you know, that panderrific “Four Chord” loop that makes me lose any respect for you as a songwriter), and I’m about to add “Heavy Metal Lover” as one of the definitions of “filler” on Urban Dictionary.

Lady Gaga is, apparently, the most powerful celebrity in the entire world right now.  She knows how to get the average person to pay attention to her, if only to be shocked or offended, and she has a willing army of young social media followers willing to do her bidding. It appears that on Born This Way, she’s let that power go to her head. In an attempt to fuse her activism with her music, she’s turned a middling effort into something far more grating. I know I don’t have to say anything to dissuade our readers from buying Born this Way, but the album still deserves commentary. It’s extremely depressing that a 25-year-old who’s still in a “rebel-against-my-parents’-religion” phase is the moral compass for millions of young children, but no one on our side is willing to invest in musicians to model the alternative to Gaga’s postmodern nonsense. We’ve abandoned cultural engagement for so long, we deserve this mess.

Sure, we’re getting films like the “Blind Side,” “Narnia,” and “Fireproof” — all of which are appreciated, but nothing like the visceral emotional experience of a “Passion” that hits the faithful in their very soul and translates into a real religious experience. For all the obvious reasons, Hollywood seems unwilling to do what they do with every other hit film: recreate it over and over and over until it drops dead of fatigue.

But why would any sane filmmaker take the risk? We all saw what the Hollywood establishment and the MSM did to Gibson long before he said those terrible things during his DWI arrest a year or so later. We all watched as they set out to destroy an Academy-Award-winning director in every way possible, to toxify him. But that was the idea. The MSM and Hollywood were so threatened by the very idea of the ”Passion” (no one had seen it when the attacks began) — especially should it be a hit –  that their only recourse was to launch into the ugliest and most personal campaign of destruction launched against a filmmaker since the 1950s. And the message to the rest of Hollywood was clear….

“This will happen to you. ” On a smaller scale, we just saw the same thing happen to Joel Surnow with respect to ”The Kennedys.”

And so with all that money sitting there on the table, here’s one direction Hollywood’s decided to go in:

Via DHD:

Mel Gibson hewed closely to the New Testament with 2004’s The Passion of the Christ and the film grossed over $600 million worldwide to become the largest independent film of its day and the top-grossing non-English language film ever. But veering from that strategy can do more than alienate that audience segment as Universal Pictures found out when Martin Scorsese filmed 1988’s controversial and in some eyes blasphemous The Last Temptation of Christ from Nikos Kazantzakis’ novel and angry protesters were dragging crosses in front of the home of MCA Universal head Lew Wasserman. Have things changed since then? …

Hollywood agency WME will soon shop the movie rights to The Final Testament of the Holy Bible, a James Frey book published this weekend that imagines what the Second Coming of Christ would be like in contemporary America and depicts Jesus Christ as bisexual and promiscuous.  …

Director Paul Verhoeven (RoboCop, Total Recall, Basic Instinct, Starship Troopers) and his ICM reps have spent the last half year unsuccessfully trying to raise financing for a movie version of Jesus of Nazareth, a book Verhoeven co-wrote and researched for nearly two decades. In his revisionist vision of Christ, Verhoeven rejects the miracles, the immaculate conception, and the resurrection that Catholics all over the world will celebrate tomorrow. Verhoeven feels they undermine the core teachings that have kept Christ relevant for more than 2,000 years. Verhoeven had developed a Jesus Christ film idea with comedian Mel Brooks years ago and became consumed.

“The Last Temptation of Christ” made $8.4 million.

“The Passion of the Christ” made $612 million.

Please tell me again how Hollywood is money driven and not agenda-driven.

In their fright the women bowed down with their faces to the ground but the men said to them, “Why do you look for living among the dead? He is not here, he has risen!”
Luke 24: 5

“Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself! Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have.”
Luke 24:39

He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation.”
Mark 16:15

2 Peter 3:18

The play, written by a Notre Dame grad, recently took to stage at the University of Delaware. The dialogue includes a gal asking Christ: “Did you ever say, ‘I’m Jesus, and I say that stupid girls who let guys talk them into going to the back seat of their cars have to have babies?’ Did you say that ever?”

“No,” Jesus replies.

“All you talk about is, be nice to each other!” the teenager continues. “You never said nobody’s allowed to have an abortion.”

The fictional Jesus confirms her assertion.

“So can I? Can I? Can I?” she asks.

“Honestly, I — I don’t really have an issue with it,” Jesus tells her.

Honestly?

Honestly. Rather than uplift and challenge, the hallmark of great art, this just seems to bring Jesus down to our broken level. Where’s the hope in that

Read the full piece at NRO.

It’s impossible for me to hate these people more than I already do, so let me just say that I would sure like to be there when Jesus throws Fred Phelps and his followers out of his office and into the pit of Hell.

The Wrap:

The fiercely anti-gay [Westboro Baptist Church] — which has generated controversy by protesting at funerals of service members — announced its intentions to picket Taylor’s memorial service on Wednesday.

While the group didn’t say exactly why they planned to disrupt the funeral of the actress, who passed away at 79 on Wednesday, it’s a safe bet that Taylor’s activism for AIDS patients has something to do with it. Margie Phelps, daughter of WBC leader Fred Phelps, tweeted about the planned picket on Wednesday, referring to Taylor as a “serial-adulterous f– hag.”

From what I’ve read, the very reason Liz Taylor married so often was due to her desire not to cheat. So they might not even be hating her for the right reasons. Regardless, by all accounts Taylor was one of the most beloved and universally adored stars in the history of Hollywood. She also took up the righteous cause to fight AIDS long before red ribbons became Hollywood chic — which is probably the real motive behind this protest. Like the rest of us, Taylor undoubtedly had her moments of moral weakness, but there’s never been a moment in her life where she purposefully committed an act of outright evil like, say, picketing a funeral.

Remember the Jesus capable of going off at the temple and turning over the moneychangers’ tables? That’s the Jesus I want Fred Phelps and company to meet.

Meet James Frey

What’s a shameless author to do to get back into the good graces of the New York literary world while hoping to conjure up a Hollywood movie deal? Offer a sacrifice to their godless imagination in the form of a new novel entitled, The Final Testament of the Holy Bible, staring Jesus, an alcoholic bachelor who sleeps with prostitutes and marries gay couples. The other gimmick placed atop Mr. Frey’s inane offering is a limited U.S. print run of 10,000 slip-cased leatherette copies, as well as 1,000 collector’s editions signed and numbered by the author.

Mr. Frey said in a 2008 interview the book is his “idea of what the Messiah would be like if he were walking the streets of New York today.” His Jesus — or Ben Jones – is apparently a drunk who impregnates a prostitute, smokes pot and fools around with men. “It doesn’t matter how or who you love. I don’t believe the messiah would condemn gay men and women,” Frey said. Judas, meanwhile, would be the “same as he was two thousand years ago”, a “selfish man who thinks of himself before the good of humanity, who values money more than love.”

A writer should only write about what he knows; yet Mr. Frey clearly sees himself as the Messiah in the spinning of his yarn. Though upon a closer examination of the author’s choices in life, and the release of this gimmicky offensive novel, exposes Mr. Frey as being more in the vain of Judas, a “selfish man who thinks of himself before the good of humanity, who values money more than love.”

Only those shrouded in the pop-culture-ruling-class applaud artist as groundbreaking when they pee on Jesus, paint him with elephant dung or depict him in a novel as a typical liberal living in the West Village.  However, those who have more respect for people’s faith simply find this sort of art cowardly and uninspired, created by artists who see the media spotlight as their ticket to a worldly heaven.

At some point in a writer’s life one must decide whether he’s hanging on the cross for his work, or pounding in the nails. With Mr. Frey’s latest book, he’s clearly chosen a nail gun and aimed it at Christians. It’s not even a brave literary choice. If Mr. Frey really wanted to be edgy and expose a burden in today’s society, he would have written a novel about Muhammad the cab driver in a post 9/11 New York seeking peace by contemplating a conversion to Christianity.

6.  “Nuclear weapons are awful.” – Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)

There are probably a few inventions that have saved more human lives and prevented more suffering than nuclear weapons.  The wars since World War II, when we quite properly dropped two A-Bombs on Japan and ended the slaughter, have been a mere shadow of what they would have been without our thermonuclear arsenal.  That’s just a fact, and all the posturing about the “insanity” of deterrence in this inexplicably beloved movie can’t change that.  You should love The Bomb.

—–

Of course, Dr. Strangelove provides a better idea than nuclear deterrence by wholeheartedly embracing anti-missile defense.  Nah, just kidding.  The film advocates nothing except ironic detachment, essentially abdicating any responsibility and simply complaining about a strategy that, well, worked.  And let me be blunt – it just doesn’t hold up after all these years.  There, I said it.  Except Slim Pickens – Slim will always rock.

7.  “Greed is not good.” – Wall Street (1987)

Oliver Stone makes his third appearance on this list with a searing indictment of the financial industry that overwhelmingly supported the Democrats in 2008.

Like most liberals and leftists, Stone is either unaware of the difference between greed and enlightened self-interest or he simply does not care.  But sadly, he has managed, for a whole generation of half-wits, to make the face of capitalism Gordon Gekko instead of Adam Smith.

Note that Stone recently released a sequel to Wall Street, Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps (2010).  It cost $70 million to make but only grossed $52 million.  That’s okay, though, because Oliver Stone isn’t in it for the money.

8. “True courage means helping out the Nazis.” – The English Patient (1996)

John Nolte recently dissected the utter moral bankruptcy of The English Patient, but this astonishing film deserves another mention here.  Basically, the film approves of its hero’s selling out information to the Nazis in order to preserve his chance to score with his lame girlfriend.  I’ll rephrase that, because you probably think you read it wrong – this critically hailed motion picture’s position is that when you are given a choice between helping or not helping the Nazis, you should follow the instructions of your penis.

The problem isn’t that some screenwriter spews this kind of poison.  It’s that there are so many moral illiterates out there who mistake it for morality.  The English Patient was praised high and low for its profundity; in fact, at its heart it is nothing but a sickening, despicable ode to selfishness.  Greed may not be good, but apparently horniness is a virtue.  If you really dig a chick, so what if a few thousand guys battling Hitler get wasted?  Gimme a break.

At least The English Patient has a happy ending – the traitor gets burned up and dies, so it has that going for it.  You get to at least leave with a smile.

9.  “The CIA is both all-powerful and shockingly inept all at once.” – The Bourne Films (2002-2006)

What’s astonishing about the Bourne films, other than the fact that anyone watches these tiresome action retreads with a hero who cannot be defeated, deterred, or killed and a cinematographer who doesn’t own a tri-pod, is how the CIA is alternatively omnipotent and impotent.  When the plot requires it, the CIA can do anything it wants, right up until the plot needs it not to be able to.  Then it becomes less effective than the TSA on Quaaludes.

There have been a hundred films about the CIA, most picturing it as some sort of super spy force that has its wicked claws in pretty much everything around the world.  We wish!  The idea that American intelligence has an army of killbots designed to hunt down and eliminate our enemies at a moment’s notice would be totally awesome.  Sadly, the reality is more likely that any action request would get routed through three bureaus, six directorates, and a suite of lawyers before someone leaked it to the New York Times while the bad guy sips champagne with his hookers in a villa in Caracas.

10.  “The central tenet of Christianity is preventing teenagers from dancing.” – Footloose (1984)

As Hollywood understands it, Jesus brought the Ten Commandments to the people on a magic carpet largely because he wanted them to stop enjoying themselves.  And the first and most important commandment was that no Christian can ever dance.  It’s right there, written on the side of the Ark of the Covenant that Indiana Jones found.

Now, perhaps you missed these theological insights at Sunday school, but you gotta understand that the Hollywoodoid’s understanding of the religion embraced by most Americans is rather limited.  They know that Jesus is somehow involved, and that he has superpowers and can probably fly, and that everyone who is religious is repressed, and that to Christians all sex is bad.  Why red states like Utah seem to actually have a growing population while God-free blue zones like San Francisco are withering away is a question they never ask.

Now, Christians often complain that Hollywood doesn’t understand them, but they shouldn’t feel bad.  Hollywoodoids don’t understand any religion – they don’t discriminate in their ignorance.  Well, there is one religion they do understand and embrace wholeheartedly – leftism.  And if hackneyed lefty tropes constitute their sacraments, their pinko deity must be well-pleased.

Any attempt to pick the worst of the worst is bound to disappoint someone.  This list by no means contains all of the hackneyed, parochial, and just plain obnoxious bits of liberal received wisdom that the Hollywood brain trust has spewed forth over the years.  For every nitwit insight on the list, there are dozens more floating around the nether reaches of Netflix, waiting to annoy the unwary.  No doubt the commenters will find many more.

So, here my top ten in no particular order:

1. “All American Soldiers are psychos.” – Platoon (1986)

It’s pretty obvious that the American soldier is the greatest force for evil in all of human history – or it would be, if all you watched were post-Vietnam War Hollywood movies.  It seems that to most of the hacks in Hollywood, the mere act of donning an Army uniform turns you into a bloodthirsty killing machine with an appetite for murder.  And that’s not just on the battlefield.  In American Beauty (1999), the conservative Marine neighbor not only abuses his wife and son but murders people because he’s secretly gay!  That’s a liberal stereotype trifecta – they probably think it makes him a prime candidate for King of the Tea Party.

Oh, but they support the troops. See, it’s the system that turns these guys into monsters – a meme that lets the Hollywoodoids both trash the guys dumb enough to end up in uniform while at the same time showing how much they care for these pitiful “victims.”  So, it’s a win-win…or, more accurately, a libel-libel.

Platoon is a prime example of this despicable trend, made all the worse by the fact that Oliver Stone – who makes his first of his several appearances on this list – is a Vietnam vet.  This technically well-crafted slice of propaganda portrays American soldiers in Vietnam as near-savages barely able to contain their bloodlust long enough to function as a military unit.  What’s sad is that there are such things as war crimes, and soldiers can do wicked things, but Hollywood has zero credibility left to tell those stories. Regardless, Platoon sort of raises a question about Stone himself – either he’s a scumbag for slandering troops by accusing them of crimes he didn’t see them commit, or he’s a scumbag for seeing such crimes and not standing up to stop them.  Either way, Stone’s a scumbag.

2.  “All misfits, losers, and malcontents are inherently heroic.” – Animal House (1979)

No one loves Animal House more than I do, but one unfortunate legacy (besides convincing a generation of sheet-clad college drunks that they should try to sing Shout) is that it help popularize the very silly notion that somehow being a total failure confers upon you some sort of superior moral status.  Sure, the frat guys are a bunch of creepy jerks whose initiation practices would fit in at a Halloween party at Robert Mapplethorpe’s loft.  But in real life, weirdos, losers, and mutations like the Delta House guys are, well, weirdos, losers, and mutations.  Their antics may be amusing, but you just don’t want them trying to hang out with you.

Now, the Hollywood elite’s embrace of slobs is no surprise because the deadbeat demographic has become a vital and essential element of the Democratic Party’s electoral coalition.  Perhaps putting the lazy and stupid on a pedestal by depicting such doofuses as role models is really a kind of marketing campaign designed to increase their numbers.  Combined with the Democrats’ firm commitment to pro-parasite policies, like Obamacare and the expansion of other government handouts to layabouts who refuse to support themselves, maybe what we are seeing is part of a cultural conspiracy of shocking proportions.

Or maybe the Hollywoodoids are just too creatively lazy to do anything else.

3.  “Those darn conservatives killed JFK.” – JFK (1991)

Leave it to Oliver Stone to once again not let inconvenient truths get in the way of his conclusions.  Why should the fact that a commie piece of human waste who had defected to Russia and who was actively advocating for Cuba shot Kennedy keep Stone from making another technically great movie that instead posits a conspiracy including but not limited to the Pentagon, the CIA, General Motors, Denny’s restaurants, Microsoft, the state of Alabama, miscellaneous Norwegians, three of the Doobie Brothers, the Sham-Wow guy, shiny reverse vampires, and the mastermind, a 12-year old Rush Limbaugh.

We’re through the looking glass here, people.  Especially where Costner names noted tool of the rightwing capitalist conspiracy Arlen Specter as one of the ringleaders.  Yeah, that Arlen Specter.

4.  “Every American who is not an affluent urban elitist is a drooling degenerate.” – Deliverance (1972)

It’s always fun to see how the liberal elites in Hollywood and their comrades in D.C. and New York seem to look at the rest of their country like medieval folk looked at ancient maps – as if the lands beyond the fringes of the known world are described with the words, “Beware! Here be sodomites!”

Now, no one is parochial like a Hollywoodoid.  These folks think driving south of the I-105 requires a passport and heading east of the I-5 (except maybe to Vegas) requires vaccinations.  The fact that they know nothing of the world outside their manicured lawns is not surprising; the fact that they constantly portray it as at best quaint, but usually malignant, is just getting tiresome.

In reality, the insular Hollywood community of today, drawing as it does new blood only from the same set of prestigious schools and from the offspring of its own members, is more incestuous than any backwoods West Virginia hollow.

5.  “Nuclear Power is eeeeevvvvvviiiiiiilllllll” – The China Syndrome (1979)

Hanoi Jane stars as a crusading reporter in this cheap-looking relic that was shot with all the technical flourish of a very special episode of CHiPs.  Sure, we know that all corporations are evil, but The China Syndrome teaches us that the nuclear power industry is especially evil.  We know this because, well, anyone who opposes the liberal agenda is evil.

The title refers to the idea that a nuclear plant core meltdown would send the core deep into the earth, releasing a cloud of radiation that would destroy, well, if this movie is to be believed, pretty much everything.  This silly movie was lucky enough to come out around the time of the Three Mile Island incident, where a little radiation was released and nothing much happened.  Sadly, it gave ammunition to the liberal Luddites who oppose safe, clean nuclear power.  And who also oppose coal and oil power.  And hydroelectric power.  And solar power.  And wind power (at least in their backyards).

But on the plus side, when we have no electrical power at all, we’ll never have to watch crap like The China Syndrome again.

Stay tuned for Part II.