Reprinted with permission from Conservatives For Palin. Written by Stacy Drake.

Many months ago, HBO announced it was planning to make a movie based on the book, “Game Change” by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin. After reading John Nolte’s article, which indicated that the movie would be focused primarily around Governor Palin, and it wouldn’t be portraying her in a very positive light, I decided to study up on it. I purchased a copy of the book, read the TWO chapters based on Gov. Palin, and took down some notes.

As Nicole recently noted, HBO decided to release a trailer to that movie late last year. The actual movie doesn’t air until March 10, or as John Nolte wrote in his follow-up piece:

The one dynamic HBO probably didn’t count on was Palin’s decision not to run for the 2012 nomination. The film’s promotion and the cable news chatter that’s sure to follow seems timed to hit on, before, and around March 6, which is Super Tuesday.

The one line from the notes I took back in March that stood out as I was reviewing them for this piece, was:

Even though this book is supposed to be a story about 2008, it’s really all about 2012.

This movie was orchestrated from start to finish as a way to damage Gov. Palin during an election year by people who are not merely “artists & entertainers.” Just look at the people involved in the making of the movie.

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The 2010 presidential election tome “Game Change” recalled the battle between Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama for the Oval Office.

The HBO movie version is all about McCain’s Vice Presidential candidate, Sarah Palin. And, if this early peek is any indication, conservatives can expect a feature-length assault on the Tea Party darling.

The first full trailer for the movie, debuting March 10 on HBO, backloads the Palin bashing. We get a respectful treatment of Sen. McCain (ably reproduced by Ed Harris) and Woody Harrelson playing McCain’s campaign chair Steve Schmidt. Then we meet Sarah, and right away it’s clear that actress Julianne Moore hasn’t captured Palin’s charisma or personal pluck.

Heck, even Tina Fey’s excoriating impression of the self-described Hockey Mom had more clarity.

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Hollywood has learned something effective about conservative women: If you play them convincingly enough to left-wing stereotypes, people will believe that the caricature is the real deal. We saw this with Tina Fey’s portrayal of Sarah Palin where so many young people actually seem to believe Palin said she could see Russia from her house.

Expect to see a similar nasty portrayal by Julianne Moore in HBO’s “Game Change.” Moore confesses that it was hard to find a good side to Palin, and the miniseries is candid that her ambition outstrips her capacity. Hollywood knows well that you only get one opportunity to introduce these figures of national or international import, and they intend to make it bad impression on their behalf.

So it is with Lady Thatcher in “The Iron Lady,” whose creators have ridiculously compared Meryl Streep’s Thatcher to a modern-day King Lear in their disgusting attempt to dance on Thatcherism’s memory.

“Iron Lady” producer Harvey Weinstein, director Phyllida Lloyd and screenwriter Abi Morgan are engaged in a caricature of conservatism, through a caricature of Lady Thatcher and all those around her. Weinstein has even claimed that Thatcher is a “social progressive,” as if being pro-choice, pro-gay, and pro-national health service were all there were to Thatcherism.

Alas Weinstein and Streep never show us Thatcher’s considerable economic and political successes, preferring to spend two-thirds of the film luxuriating on her old age. This is as fictional as it is slanderous. We simply do not know how Lady Thatcher is doing because she has lived a life far removed from the press.

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When HBO announced it was making a film based on the 2008 election chronicle “Game Change” conservatives imagined yet another GOP hit job from a network known for its liberal bias.

The book painted a glowing portrait of Obama while McCain’s campaign was cast as chaotic at best. Turns out the film is worse – much worse – than any Red State denizen could imagine, according to a review based on an early screening of the film.

While the book covered both the Obama and McCain campaigns, the movie focuses like a laser on Palin. And none of it is pretty:

It is made crystal clear that Palin didn’t really understand why there was a North Korea and a South Korea. She clearly thought that Saddam Hussein was behind the 9/11 attacks. She needed to have Germany’s role in the Second World War explained to her. She thought “the Fed” referred to the federal government, not the Federal Reserve. The Governor of Alaska was as ignorant of the world as a four-year-old….

In one scene, she is catatonic, curled up, immobile in a fetal position because she’s been dieting. In another she screams at a McCain staffer on her cellphone and then smashes the phone against a wall. She is depicted as someone who could be taught to memorize generic replies to questions from journalists, but could not recognize her own ignorance. As the movie shows it, after every appearance before cheering crowds her ego swelled and she simply declined to listen to any advice about anything.

An interesting side note is how the assembled scribes reacted to the screening:

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Isn’t it just grand when self-proclaimed Hollywood feminists gang up on conservative female heavyweights? As entry #5,849,948 in my Profiles of Liberal Hypocrisy we have Ellen Barkin, Julianne Moore and Meryl Streep: three award-winning actresses who fancy themselves feminists with a love of strong, powerful women.

Yet, not surprisingly, these three gals conveniently chuck feminism aside in regards to three others gals (Michelle Bachmann, Sarah Palin and Margaret Thatcher, respectively) whose political views differ from their own. Somehow, I must’ve missed the asterisk providing an exception to the feminist cause:  ‘Thou must support thy sisters – unless, of course, said sisters disagree with you politically.”

Barkin v. Bachmann: Barkin’s Twitter feed (which rivals that of Alec Baldwin’s in its unrestrained slamming of the right) repeatedly attacks conservative female figures. During the December 15th GOP debate, her vicious tweets revealed this actress is a feminist in name only. Blasting even Fox News’ gorgeous Megyn Kelly, a superstar network anchor and successful working mom (“This Megyn Kelley has more Botox in her f*ckin face than a 57 year old actress, Just sayin.”), Barkin saved her best sneer for Bachmann: “Don’t u just love when Bachmann says “When I am president…”? That’s like me saying… “When I am performing my next heart transplant….”  Odd, one would think Ms. Barkin, political-views aside, would have more respect for a woman who:  is a sitting member of Congress and presidential candidate, successfully raised 5 children and fostered a whopping 23 children. If Bachmann isn’t a poster girl for strong female women, I don’t know who is.

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The 1993 smash ‘Jurassic Park’ represented a quantum leap in how dinosaurs are depicted on the big screen.

Instead of shooting actual lizards or resorting to stop-motion magic, director Steven Spielberg’s team used CGI to render the most dynamic dinosaurs ever captured on film.

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Those stunning creations are the main pleasure to be mined from ‘The Lost World: Jurassic Park,’ the 1997 sequel to Spielberg’s monster mash. The film just hit Blu-ray as part of a ‘Jurassic’ trilogy, a hefty collection including all three films (so far) as well as a copious array of extras and 7.1 surround sound.

What’s even more obvious seeing the film anew in High-Def is how little Spielberg brought to the project. It ranks as one of the weaker films in his otherwise exemplary canon, a pedestrian affair not worth the master’s attention.

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As “Crazy, Stupid, Love” begins, Cal (Steve Carell) sits in a crowded restaurant with Emily (Julianne Moore), his wife of nearly twenty-five years. When Cal, oblivious to the affair that his wife has had with a coworker, says that he wants dessert, his wife states that she is looking for something as well:  A divorce. This couple’s relationship is one of several that is explored in depth in “Love,” a new comedy that examines love from a variety of different perspectives.

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Dan Fogelman, who previously wrote the delightful “Tangled,” penned this new film and balances several different romantic relationships in it. The main romantic relationship is the one between Cal and Emily, who talk past each other instead of talking to one another. When the couple eventually separates,  Cal starts spending his time at bars complaining about his failed marriage.

Jacob (Ryan Gosling), a smooth-talking ladies man, eventually takes him under his wing and gives Cal a much-needed makeover. Jacob teaches Cal the rules of picking up women but inevitably begins falling in love with a girl himself. Jacob’s relationship with Hannah (Emma Stone), the girl that he develops feelings for, is the other main romantic relationship that is explored in depth in “Love.” A third relationship, between Cal and Emily’s son and his babysitter, is also focused on in this film about the highs and lows of being in love.

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Man, has it been one rough summer for Tom Hanks. As the writer-director and star of the colossal flop “Larry Crowne,” he no doubt has found plenty of time to wonder why audiences stayed away in droves from his tale of an average Joe (well, Larry) and how he shakes his life up when he loses his job amid the recession. 

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He may want to look over his shoulder at Steve Carell to figure it all out, for Carell appears to have taken over the title of America’s Favorite Everyman from Hanks. It’s not just that Carell shares Hanks’ genuine relatability and genial everyday charm, but likely also the fact that one is hard-pressed to find Carell forcing his political opinions on movie fans and telling them how to vote. He just shows up and does a great job, often weaving tales of sympathetic characters who ultimately try to do the right thing even amid a world that seems to reward doing the wrong thing – and making us laugh like crazy in the process. 

And so it is that “Crazy Stupid Love” marks the latest Carell film to hit the multiplex, this time backed by a stellar ensemble cast with Oscar nominees Ryan Gosling and Julianne Moore, Oscar winner Marisa Tomei, fast-rising star Emma Stone and the perennially popular Kevin Bacon – all of whom are intertwined in surprising ways as they each search for their own form of true love. The difference between this film and utter dreck like “Valentine’s Day” and “He’s Just Not That Into You” is that “Crazy” is genuinely funny and touching with well-drawn and acted portrayals of people who seem real, rather than merely looking like it’s weaving stories just to hit all the marketing demographics in existence. 

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I wrote at length about the timing of HBO’s adaptation of “Game Change,”  — an obvious hit job that even the New York Times, Atlantic and Poynter Institute criticized for a lack of sourcing. But the Left is not about truth, they are only about tactics:

We’ll see how closely the film sticks to the book, but Governor Palin disputed how “Game Change” portrayed her and being as that it was one of the very few books I had time to read last year, it was easy to see why. Written by Mark Halperin of Time Magazine and MSNBC, and John Heilemann of the New Yorker, the lack of sourcing, the use of so many “anecdotes” based on tales told by ”deep background” types, allowed the authors to craft their reporting in a way that was obviously meant to reaffirm the mainstream media’s biased narrative of the 2008 campaign — especially when it came to destroying Palin and enshrining President Obama. I don’t think Palin’s a perfect person by any stretch of the imagination but I don’t think Barack Obama is perfect either, but after reading “Game Change” — other than an out-sized opinion of himself — you most certainly come to the conclusion that the calm, cool, smart, thoughtful, steady, ready-for-history Barack walks on water.

“Game Change” savages Palin with innuendo, gossip, and unnamed sources in order to portray her as some sort of supreme head case and diva who you would never believe was capable of amassing a resume that made her much more prepared to be president than the floundering failure ruining our economy right now. And I’m not the only one saying so. No less than the New York Times, the Atlantic and The Poynter Institute expressed concerns over the book’s gossipy lack of sourcing.

HBO has also found an actress to portray Governor Palin’s oldest daughter, Bristol:

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HBO just can’t help themselves.  Less than two weeks after the pay television giant announced Julianne Moore, 50, will play a 43 year old Sarah Palin during the 2008 Presidential election, the network announced its intentions to make another anti-GOP movie based on the 2008 Barton Gellman book, Angler: The Cheney Vice Presidency as well as The Dark Side, a 2006 documentary which aired on Frontline, a PBS public affairs series.

There is no argument that Gellman’s book casts a very dark and negative shadow over Republican Vice President, Dick Cheney.  His own website describes the book as taking on “the full scope of Cheney’s work and its consequences, including his hidden role in the Bush administration’s most fateful choices in war: shifting focus from al Qaeda to Iraq, unleashing the National Security Agency to spy at home, and promoting ‘cruel and inhuman’ methods of interrogation.”  If you didn’t know any better, you might think that description fits a member of the KGB, or even the Gestapo.

The Dark Side, not to be confused with the UK horror film publication or as the general concept of evil in the Star Wars universe or the anthology horror TV series produced by George A. Romero or the DC comics super-villain, no The Dark Side is a documentary produced by David Fanning and Michael Kirk of Frontline.  The title of the documentary perverts a quote from Cheney a few days after the 9/11 attacks in which he stated that in order to defend America against future Osama bin Laden and al Queda attacks, we would have to work “sort of the dark side, if you will,” because, “That’s the world these folks operate in…” and depicts the struggle between the CIA and the vice president and how Cheney was the chief architect of the war on terror and invasion of Iraq.

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Remove from this little family drama the gratuitous girl-on-girl sex, the guy-on-girl sex, and the ridiculously unnecessary and explicit images from a guy-on-guy gay porn film that no amount of hypnotism or bleach could ever erase from my mind, and what you have here is essentially a Lifetime Movie Channel melodrama with above average performances, especially from Annette Bening.  The film is pleasant enough but nothing here feels like cinema. You need something smarter than nudity and edgier than profanity to elevate a production into something bigger than a rote movie of the week.

Nic (Bening) and Jules (Julianne Moore) are a lesbian couple in a long-term, loving and committed relationship that from the outside looks perfectly idyllic. The two women live in a nice home in a nice Los Angeles neighborhood and are raising two teenagers of their own. The kids, college-bound Joni and the younger and the somewhat lost Laser, are products of a sperm donor but both kids love their moms and seem as well-adjusted as Wally and Theodore Cleaver.

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Beneath the surface, however, cracks are forming in the family’s foundation. Nic is the breadwinner, a physician who drinks too much and likes control over her environment and all those who inhabit it. Jules might be in her forties but she’s still looking for her place in the world, which is a nice way of saying she has trouble holding down a job. These pressures have taken the steam out of the couple’s sex life and undermined their emotional intimacy, and the person who will introduce the element that splits these cracks wide open is Laser. Now that they’re older, both kids are naturally curious as to who their real father is. Especially Laser,  who’s at an age where he’s missing and could use an actual father figure.

Because she’s eighteen, Joni is able to get the information on their donor daddy, Paul (Mark Ruffalo), the shaggy, hippy dippy owner of a organic food restaurant who’s something of a lothario (pretty much the same performance he gave in the vastly superior “You Can Count on Me“).  With his easygoing manner, Paul is a nice relief from the uptight Nic and the neurotic Jules, so the kids understandably take a shine to him and turn a blind eye to his self-centeredness. Though obviously jealous, Nic and Jules do their best to encourage the burgeoning relationship and to make Paul a part of their family. This ends up taking an ugly turn when a sexually frustrated Jules, who’s tired of feeling inferior to the much more successful and centered Nic, engages in heated sexual affair with Paul. (more…)

The Kids Are All Right, an indy film starring Julianne Moore and Annette Bening, examines the difficulties faced by two lesbians trying to raise children when a man enters the mix. But the man, played by Mark Ruffalo, is not just any man; he’s the donor whose sperm  helped create the two ‘kids’ of the title. 

You see, the son, Laser, wants to find out who the father is, but can’t because he’s only 15. So, he pleads with his 18-year old sister, Joni (named after Joni Mitchell; more on that later), to help him out. She resists at first, but eventually relents. Without spoiling anything, I’ll only say that the remainder of the movie involves all the twists and turns that any good movie uses to build the tension which eventually leads to a climax that leaves the audience breathless and the characters stocked up with new insights that ensure they will live richer and more honest lives.  Whew! In other words, your basic, garden variety Hollywood relationship movie;  well written, acted, and, photographed.

But, as Wilson Pickett once said: “Don’t let the green grass fool ya!” This is a smartly made and subtle contribution to the debate raging throughout the country that concerns gay marriage, civil unions, and gay rights in general. The director,  Lisa Cholodenko, is no rookie when making movies about same-sex relationships, and it shows in Kids. Given the chance at making a film with Hollywood heavies like Moore and Bening, most directors would wield a two-by-four instead of  Cholodenko’s scalpel. First and foremost, she shows when most would merely tell. (more…)

Among Hollywood’s many mind benders is the fact that a book and a movie can have the same title but not be the same story, while two or more movies can also have the same title and tell the same story — or not. I mention that because the new film, “The Kids are All Right” is not the same story as the book of the same title and neither have anything to do with 1979’s rock group in the raw documentary film about The Who, “The Kids Are Alright.”

Jules and Paul can't resist each other

In this “The Kids are All Right,” Nic (Annette Bening) and Jules (Julianne Moore) are a Hollywood stereotype lesbian married couple with two teenage children (Mia Wasikowska and Josh Hutcherson) who are basically getting along just fine until their kids contact Paul (Mark Ruffalo), their biological father, whose anonymously donated sperm impregnated each of their parents. As the children bond with Paul and his influence grows, Nic, the “husband” in the union takes offense: “I need your advice about child rearing about as much as I need a stiff dick up my ass!” Jules, the “wife,” does need something, however, and Ruffalo and Moore are soon engaged in very sweaty hetero screen sex.

I won’t spoil the ending. (more…)

[Part one of this two-part series can be found here.]

Sixteen of the top 20 box office earners have either a G or PG rating which should be a clue that R rated films ( “Titanic” being the exception) don’t do as well yet studios continue to add gratuitous irrelevant sex scenes that ruin the film. Why? It certainly can’t be artistic license because the principal reaction to them is usually-‘Ew!!! Why did they do that?” 

Movie-going statistics have dropped significantly among older adults and that’s understandable since most fare today cater to hormonal adolescents without a clue as to the true appeal of sensual art. Yet senior citizens today are former film buffs who would relish worthy theatrical offerings but their treks back to the wide screen lonely leave them disappointed. 

A few years ago I went with an elderly friend to see, “Love Actually,” because we’re both great fans of Alan Rickman. The film has various vignettes of romantic couples and their curious experiences pursuing the love game. One of these couples happens to be two individuals acting in a porn movie and although the intent was to inject irony in the sex scenes showing the relative naïveté of the participants as they try to hook up, it failed miserably. My friend later said that particular graphic display spoiled the otherwise charming film which she no longer would add to her DVD collection when it came out.  (more…)