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Here’s what I wrote about “Stand and Deliver” — a film Jaime Escalante called 90% truth, 10% drama – just last year:

These inner city students had all kinds of reasons to fail but Jaime Escalante (Edward James Olmos, in one of the best performances of the 80s) refused to give them excuses. This scene crystallized the attitude of the entire film. No Ebonics, no multi-cultural nonsense, no woe is me. Escalante presented the world to his students as it is and prepared them to succeed in it by demanding their very best.

To produce narcissists you need only teach self-esteem based on identity instead of accomplishment.

Escalante produced adults. 

That was a quick impression based on a single scene, a scene YouTube has since removed. But having just watched the film a few months ago I was struck even more by the faith Escalante had in his students. Through all the attitude, posturing, bad behavior and bravado, and though he was encouraged at every turn to give up on them, this was a man who fundamentally understood that people are people and that these kids were just as smart and capable of learning as any child of privilege. (more…)

Over at National Review Online, they just finished going through their top 25 conservative movies of the last 25 years.  Overall, it’s a decent list. Still, there were many films left off and several that would not have made my cut. Here’s their full list, with brief comment:

25. Gran Torino: Fair enough. 

24. Team America: World Police: This should rank higher, if only for Hans Blix being eaten by a shark and a parody of Matt Damon that will forever wreck his political future – a service for which we should all be grateful. 

23. United 93: Again, this should rank higher, but the truth is that the story itself is conservative. Americans didn’t apologize for foreign entanglements or the American way of life on Flight 93 – they just rolled. The movie is almost a documentary.   (more…)

With National Review’s John J. Miller counting down the 25 best conservative movies of the last 25 years, it got me to thinking about conservative “moments” on film. This is not a preview of any upcoming films on the NRO list. You’ll have to keep an eye on the Corner for those. These are just clips [some with adult language] that stand out for the reasons stated below:

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1. “I’m not your best friend; I’m your only friend.”Other People’s Money (1991): One of the reasons Leftist films have been bombing at the box office (even with Leftists) is due to a one-sidedness that insults the intelligence. In just a couple years, between narratives and documentaries, there have been over a dozen anti-war films that have all flopped, and one of the reasons is that at no time was a single character allowed to stand up and point to the elephant in the room: (more…)