I’ve been looking around for answers, but all I hear is noise. Everyone is pointing fingers at the Left or the Right, blaming Hollywood or Capitol Hill. Time is flying by too quickly for petty arguments. My children’s future won’t wait. I’ve got to do something now.

Here’s my hunch: Could it be that we have simply forgotten what made us such a great nation in the first place? So many people are waiting around for our leaders to come up with a grand plan to save our nation. But is that really how America got started? What if things actually work the other way around? What if real change doesn’t start at the top but at the bottom? What if the best place to begin transforming our country is not the Oval Office but the dinner table?

For the past year and a half, I’ve been making a film called “Monumental,” and I am thrilled to announce that it’s coming to theaters on March 27. We are creating a live, one-night national event in 500 theaters where audiences can experience a monumental moment together. Then we will release the film in theaters in select cities, while providing helpful new resources to families, churches, and schools who want to go further with what they’ve experienced in the film. 

In the film I retrace the footsteps of our Founders from England to America in the hope of discovering our true “national treasure.” I wanted to listen to them, to learn from them. Our forefathers knew we were a forgetful people, that someday we would lose our way as a nation. So they left us “maps” that would guide us back to the source of America’s success. What I discovered is amazing! This is one of the most important journeys of my life. America is worth fighting for, and so are our families. We can still be a “city upon a hill,” but we need to work together. With God’s help, we can turn this thing around. It’s been said, “Footprints in history are not made sitting down,” and I couldn’t agree more. I hope that our children will mark this moment as the turning point when we stood up, came together, and reclaimed the true national treasure of America.

It may sound strange to assert that many conservatives don’t understand what makes a film conservative, but the evidence is all over the web.  More and more conservative websites are listing their top conservative films, but few of the films they list can actually be considered conservative.  It’s as if they just picked films they like and then struggled to find something. . . anything they could call conservative within each film.

Indeed, you’d be amazed how many people identify leftist propaganda as conservative because “that film rocked” or because it has a tough guy or advocates revenge. When was conservatism ever about revenge?  And many are mistaking errant lines of dialog for conservative themes. . . a serial-killing, eco-terrorist Marxist does not become a conservative hero just because he spouts off that he doesn’t trust the federal government to provide quality health care.

“I’m just not sure ObamaCare will work?”

So what are conservative values?

Well, surprisingly, this is where people get lost.  Many simply want to attribute everything good to conservatism and everything bad to liberalism.  Others claim things like patriotism, bravery, and even religious belief as conservative values.  But these aren’t uniquely conservative values. Indeed, many liberals have fought bravely and died for this country, and there are even leftist churches, and the truth is that both sides claim to believe in these things. . . they just see them differently. It’s in that difference where we need to look to decide whether a film is conservative.

To bottom-line it, conservatives believe in the individual over the collective but temper their belief in individuality by requiring people to act according to a code of conduct based on traditional morality.  Liberals believe in the collective over the individual and, where they allow individuality, they disdain traditional morality or personal responsibility.  Thus, uniquely conservative values tend to be centered around:

(1) faith in individual rights over collective rights,

(2) an acceptance of cause and effect, and a willingness to let people bear the good and bad consequences of their actions,

(3) an unwillingness to excuse misbehavior as something beyond the control of the individual, i.e. society made me do it,

(4) the idea that respect and dignity are earned, not a right, and must be maintained through appropriate behavior,

(5) a belief that truth is absolute, not relative,

(6) an acceptance of human nature as it is and not as something that can be changed by government tinkering, and

(7) support for rule of law over nebulous concepts of supposed “fairness.”

Hence, a film that advocates individual rights over collective rights will generally be conservative (e.g. 1984 or 1975’s Rollerball…. yes, Rollerball), as will films where characters learn they have to earn the respect of others (Drumline??) or where they accept individual responsibilities (The Blind Side).

But don’t look for just one aspect in isolation. To be a conservative film, a film must have conservative values deeply ingrained throughout the film.  The positive characters must act according to those values and they must be rewarded for it.  The film can’t mock conservative values or treat them as social outliers, and it can’t reinforce the leftist propagandized view of the world, e.g. minorities can’t succeed without the government, religion is a tool of oppression, capitalists are evil, etc.

And the key to deciding if a film does this is to look at how the film defines good and bad, i.e. what gets rewarded, what gets punished, and what does the film say about how we are supposed to solve our problems.

For example, a film about a character taking responsibility for their own life is probably conservative, especially if they are breaking out of a history of dependence on government to regain their lost human dignity. That’s a pretty powerful conservative message.  But if the form of “responsibility” they choose is to become a thief, and the film rewards that behavior, then it’s not a conservative film.  Even a film about a pedophile priest can be conservative, if they do the right thing with it.  Showing how the priest has betrayed the true meaning of his religion could send a powerful conservative message, but slandering the religion because of the conduct of the priest would not.

Liberal films, by comparison, tend to be anti-conservative-bogeyman films (Avatar) or involve characters pushing for collectivist solutions (Norma Rae), usually government intervention (Erin Brockovich), and will excuse personal failure as somehow the result of societal pressures (Friday).

And don’t be fooled by the packaging. Liberal films often blur what their hero really wants to make their goals seem more conservative because audiences would react poorly to a character who is simply trying to get the government to step in. Hence, they present their heroes as brave individuals struggling single-handedly against all-powerful organizations (The China Syndrome) and they end the film the moment the hero is told they have won (Philadelphia). Yep, a real triumph for the individual! Only, what the victory actually entails (the part they don’t show) is that swarms of government bureaucrats will now descend and regulate the “all-powerful” organization. Thus, what they sell as David beats Goliath, is really David calls in Super Goliath to control Goliath.

"Help! My antagonist is winning!"

Finally, don’t underestimate the importance of this issue.  Hollywood defines modern American culture.  There’s no escaping that.  It influences the way people see the world, how they solve their problems and whom they look to for solutions.  It is the parent that so many parents are not.  And unless conservatives want Hollywood raising a generation of reflexive liberal thinkers, we need to depoliticize the film industry.  The only way to do that is to support conservative films and reject liberal films to re-establish a balance.  To do that, we must understand when a film is or is not conservative.

So what are your favorite conservative films? And what makes them conservative?

Like many Americans, on October 3, 2008 my world changed. That afternoon, Congress had passed the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, also known as the Wall Street Bailout.  Like many Americans, I had written Congress, had called the Congressional switchboard, had done everything I could to let my voice be heard. But my government had not listened. I grew up in the 80s, at a time when kids were still taught America was a good idea, because we were a free people with a voice. That Friday I discovered, along with many other Americans, that I no longer had a voice in my government. Somehow, now I was no longer a member of We The People. On paper I was, but in the unwritten evolving “Constitution” of Congressional precedent, Wall Street and special interests were The People who mattered now. Standing there in my kitchen, washing my dishes, watching my kids play in the dwindling daylight, I felt small before the face of my government, and I felt a deep solidarity with all those people who had called the Congressional switchboard with me.

But unlike many Americans, I happen to be a college professor who researches how to understand and model complex systems. My doctoral work dealt with how metaphor and narrative model complexity in economics and neuroscience. All very wonkish to be sure. This work earned me an invitation to research and lecture at the Joint Forces Staff College, Norfolk VA, on how military commanders can lead, understand, and model complex operational environments in real time.

It was my days working in development and movie production in Indie Hollywood that first convinced me of the power of narrative. Narrative is not only found in literature books, or movies themselves, but in days on set, in the hundreds of production details, in shot choices, in schedules, in actor issues, and all financial decisions that go into making a feature film. Complex systems are understood through narrative.

During the week that followed the passage of TARP, I reviewed the news coverage of the Bailout and sensed parts of the story were missing. DC and the media all said that TARP was necessary, but was it? Really? Why had TARP encountered so much opposition in the House when all the power brokers supported it? Why had the Bailout failed on the Monday vote? Why did it pass so easily in the Senate? What changed the minds of those who flipped their votes to support it? Who were the people on the inside who were actually fighting the bill? What did the power brokers do to stop them? And why aren’t those who fought the Bailout getting to tell their side of the story?

The more I researched the data, spoke with eyewitnesses, and reflected on what I know of the way complex systems behave, the more a conviction arose in me that a complex political battle had been fought inside Congress, one that did not easily fit parties or political organizations. In an atmosphere of great panic, a powerful few, with much to lose, used the system of American government to save themselves. Those who fought them were actually taking the stand that we, so many of us, were asking them to take.  Given my background in both film production and complex systems, I realized I had the available resources to understand this battle and work with other filmmakers to bring the inside story of this monumental event to the big screen.

Now, after two years of extensive research, including off-the-record interviews with the eyewitness congressman, staff members, and other witness, my production company is partnering with Advent Film Group, a Virginia based production company, to produce RED SEPTEMBER, a theatrical feature film recounting the inside story of the fight against the 2008 Bailout of Wall Street. As George Escobar, founder of Advent Film Group explains, “Other movies about the Bailout are focused on Wall Street. RED SEPTEMBER is the only film centered on Congress. It shows clearly how Congress, not Wall Street, caused the financial crisis. Going into the 2012 election year, this movie will be a powerful rallying cry for voters who seek to rein in Congress and the President.”

Consistently, in off-the-record interviews, I heard the fight against this bill was the most bi-partisan cause that Congressmen could remember. RED SEPTEMBER tells the story of this great bi-partisan fight for our country. Current polls show that the debt is the most important issue on the minds of 2012 voters. Recently Democrat and Republican leadership negotiated to cut 38 billion dollars from the budget, but it turned out that actual cuts, without the funny math, amounted to only a few hundred million. Another budget cutting proposal currently offered by Republicans will cut 6 trillion from the budget, but that 6 trillion is only from what President Obama wants to spend over the next ten years, not from the actual budget. Given the looming debt crisis, many are wondering why the government is not taking decisive action to get its financial house in order. Even Standard & Poors is threatening to downgrade the rating on US sovereign debt. After watching RED SEPTEMBER and seeing how many of these officials behave under pressure behind closed doors, the current political absurdities will make a lot more sense.

The production of RED SEPTEMBER will be fashioned after two classic films: APOLLO 13, depicting the intensity of a crisis, and MR. SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTON, demonstrating the courage necessary in doing what’s right for the people and by the people.

My partners and I expect RED SEPTEMBER to resonate with the Tea Party and many independents. We’ve been careful not to water down the economics of the Bailout or the financial crisis. Like the recent film INCEPTION, RED SEPTEMBER respects the intelligence of the audience. Some in the media have popularized a caricature of the Tea Party as an anti-intellectual, anti-academic, hick movement, but the concerns of the Tea Party are far more intellectually defensible, and I think the film will show that.

Michael Snyder, Advent co-founder, has said, “This story is critical because the Bailout gave rise to the Tea Party. The Bailout is also widely recognized as America’s watershed moment toward overt socialism. It opened the door to trillion dollar deficits that now plague our economic future. RED SEPTEMBER shows what we must do to reverse our course.”

Nevertheless, this project has caught the attention of conservative activists, actors, and investors. They’re attracted to RED SEPTEMBER because it shows the solution and the choice for the next generation: either restore America to what the forefathers intended for their children, or sell it and enslave them. “Investors have been calling even as the final offering paperwork is still being finalized,” Snyder explains. “We’re on a fast-track schedule to get funding in place for a summer 2011 production start. We want RED SEPTEMBER to be a tipping point for electing true leaders in 2012 who will defy the corrupt forces of Washington and defend American liberty.”

The 19th Century political philosopher Alexis de Tocqueville wrote, “A democracy cannot get at the truth without experience, and many nations perish for lack of the time to discover their mistakes.” What Tocqueville observed almost two hundred years ago is equally true today. When democracy forgets its experience, it forgets the truth it discovered. The ramming of the 2008 Bailout of Wall Street through Congress, against the loud protests of the American people, slap-startled American democracy to the reality that Washington no longer represents the People. Rather, it steals from them. This knowledge led to protests and a change in the balance of power in Congress in 2010. But the momentum toward corruption, big government, entitlements, bailouts, etc, is so great, that only the concentrated effort of the American people over time can change that momentum. But democracy can forget its experience. If it does, no matter the party in power, momentum against these evils will halt, and America will return to her self destructive course. To sustain a long war, we must remember why we fight.

We need leadership.

Who in our government has the courage to look directly upon the festering face of our debt crisis? Upon the complex vascular structure of political issues that feed it? Who has the courage to lead us clear of it? America has had great leaders before. What would that kind of leadership look like today?

The first step is to remember our history. This is why I believe RED SEPTEMBER is so important at this moment in our history.

Historical fact supports that George Washington was a great leader. We need not be suspicious of that even though we live in a cynical age. There really are great women and men. If we want great leaders, we must be faithful to remember the faithfulness of great leaders who have gone before us. Especially given the cultural importance of history and of accurately remembering our history. History is a story, and our history is our story. Because our history is a story, and because our current reality flows out of our real past, it is vitally important that we tell it right.

This is because values are meaningless without stories.

Courage. Justice. Sacrifice. Faithfulness.

Without stories, all virtues are just words. Look at them. To see them each on a page, followed by a period, makes the eye stumble. Each is nothing without a person acting, and a person acting with courage, or faithfulness, is part of a story. Values are not intelligible without stories. To destroy our nation’s values, an adversary must change our traditions and history, and, specifically, make our citizens either forget our history or believe the values of our forefathers no longer apply.

Those who would undo and overtake our nation are doing both. It’s not enough to preserve the memory of our history. Cynicism in the present will make us treat our true past as mere legend.

In September 2008, America learned irrefutably that we no longer have a government by the people and for the people, and we will live with the consequences of that month for years to come, as this film illuminates. But what America doesn’t know, is that in that great struggle, we did have leaders with the character of our forefathers. Leaders who were willing to put their security and sacred honor on the line for the People.  The nation needs to see that our national character is not a legendary folk story. There are people like that today. And if we are faithful, we can be that nation again. But we need to see what that character looks like in the 21st Century.

And there were people who demonstrated that character in real recent history. If we want to be a nation of people with this kind of character, we must remember with esteem those people who demonstrate the values and character of our founders. And if we who love America, and the values of our founders, do not call “honorable” those who live out those values, who will?

Those who name win.

If we cannot name this kind of virtue and character as “honorable” in our present day, we by our silence cede the initiative to those who want to “change… our history….” If we let our values only be the stuff of legend, we rob them of their power to give a spine to our next generation, and we make men without chests. As C.S. Lewis writes, “We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst.” It goes without saying that honor is worthy of praise. But when many shame what is honorable, noble character is all the more praiseworthy.

Motion pictures are irrefutably the most vivid way to mass-communicate narrative. And narrative (history) establishes values. If we want to have people like the founders, like Washington, in the future, we need to show our nation, especially our young people, in the way that resonates with our culture, what that kind of moral character factually looks like in the present, and that it’s possible to lead as that kind of character-driven leader in the real world.

If you want America to have those kinds of leaders then believe in RED SEPTEMBER.

To learn more or for interviews, visit: www.RedSeptemberMovie.com or contact Michael Collender at 626-214-8920, or email producer@3-r-productions.com. Mike Snyder can be reached at 540-338-8023, or email mike.advent@gmail.com.

While Mr. Rove has been defined by the media and Hollywood elite as a partisan attack dog and nicknamed forebodingly as “The Architect,” he came off as anything but and emphasized that conservatives should be careful to work with our current president in a respectful manner.  When he mentioned President Obama’s name, a few overzealous members of the audience shouted out their less than positive feelings about the man; and Mr. Rove quickly and gently reminded them that our president has made some decisions that conservatives should applaud. From the surge in Afghanistan to military tribunals, Mr. Rove explained that President Obama has taken the right steps in regards to some very important issues that face our nation.  

As Mr. Rove stated, “We have to love our country enough that when [President Obama] is right, we are his best and strongest defenders.”  After eight years of BDS, conservatives should know better than to reflexively disagree with our current President on every issues just because he has a (D) in front of his name.  This does not mean that we must ignore the President when he is wrong, which is his tendency, but rather that we must also, as Rove explained, “disagree with him thoughtfully and carefully.”

The point is that whether or not we agree with those on the other side of the aisle, we must respect our nation enough to treat every issue that we face with careful reasoning, and intelligent discourse.  Too often, we forget that these debates are not about political victories but instead, are about finding the best way forward for our nation.  As Mr. Rove said, “our country exists and prospers because of values…that have meaning.”  By tearing a man down solely because of his political affiliations, win or lose the battle, we are degrading these values and thus our nation. We should honor our past and the fact that the United States was founded by men who put “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” before ego and power.  

Americans are exhausted by the continual battles between Republicans and Democrats; as these two parties continue to sling mud back and forth.  This is not to say that Americans are looking for bi-partisanship, which usually results in wishy-washy legislation that only panders to voters’ short term happiness.  Instead, I believe, that Americans are desperately seeking leaders who will remind them of what makes our country great: the audacity of the human spirit to accomplish great things when released from the grip of oppressive government; the need to sacrifice in order to protect our great tradition of liberty, and the duty we have to help our neighbor instead of relying on our government to do so.  If we, as conservatives, base our message on these values, we will give Americans a true message of hope that is based in the values of our past, but that will also lead us to our future.

I find it funny that Hollywood leftists are the ones who’ve been pushing this ideal down our throats with one hand, while simultaneously producing the most brutally vile, “creative content” with the other. Libs love to paint Middle American conservatives as “Gun toting Neo-Cons with a thirst for violence,” yet more often than not, it’s those people who boycott their gratuitous, self-indulgent, crap-fests that they call films. Does anyone here honestly think that “Seung-Hi Choi” went on his Virginia-Tech shooting spree after getting fired up at an NRA rally? His pre-massacre phone-pictures showed him mimicking poses that he’d seen in “Tomb Raider” for crying out loud. Only in the United States could an entity such as Hollywood coin the term “Torture-Porn” for their content one moment, only to condemn a righteous war the next.

The truth is that Hollywood only has a problem with violence when it’s carried out with a distinct sense of right and wrong. Awesome 80’s cartoons like “G.I Joe” cease to exist because they were too “black and white.” Teaching children that the men of our military are “American Heroes” is part of an archaic ideal and apparently dangerous.

As soon as the little tykes hit their mid-teens however, they can look forward to a myriad of films combining the adrenaline rush of murder, with a simultaneous endorphin-release from sexual arousal. It’s totally cool though because we don’t know who the bad guy really is. It’s not a shoot-em-up… It’s a study of humanity, don’t ya know.

Folks, let me just re-iterate something that everyone already knows; When it comes to tyrants, violence is the only answer. Period. We should use this most recent example as a tool to teach our children the Dirty Harry philosophy in that there’s “Nothing wrong with a little shooting… As long as the right people get shot.”

The world is full of bullies, and rather than do our children a disservice by dancing around the truth, we should teach them how to beat these jerks to the punch (literally). When my kid comes home with his first bully problem, I won’t be leaving him ill-prepared for the world by giving him the old sissified, “Well, you need to use your words” speech. I’ll lay it down for him bluntly (as my dad did for me and as all parents should):

“Listen, son. You can go tell your teachers, but they won’t do very much and the kid’s probably just going to bully you even more. The same goes for the school Principal and the PTA. What you need to do, is walk right up to that punk, and punch him in the nose as hard as you possibly can. Now come, let me teach you a couple of take-downs.”

Preaching the wonders of properly-employed use of force to our kids is not only honest… It’s our duty in preparing them for the real world. If you think I’m wrong… Well, you’re probably a pansy, so what do I care?

And you’d have been much, much smarter to invest in Kirk Cameron’s small, independent, Christian film Fireproof: it cost a half-million dollars to make and brought in $33.1 million, a return of more than sixty times its budget.

That’s the conclusion of an interesting article on E! Online about movie returns on investment. Of course, it’s not possible to predict precisely what films will have greatest audience appeal before they’re even made, but a few things are clear and have remained true for years: