Comments

1
Also, Fly Me To the Moon is about the Space Race? That's one hell of a stretch. Check out the trailer: it's an animated kids movie about heroic flys (as in, insects) sneaking onto a spaceship and going to space:

http://www.apple.com/trailers/independen…

I'll bet you Communists are never mentioned.
2
The title of this post is misleading, it is a painful tedious screed that would be better titled "Ode to Dan's Compulsive Obsession with the Religious Right".
3
The people on the religious right lie all the time. They lied in Michigan in 2004 to scare the hoo-ha out of ill-informed voters. And they did it again in CA in '08. They're lying in that video you posted from West Virginia. It's all they have left. And we need to point it out in order to destroy this insufferable and dangerous movement once and for all.
4
Dan, I saw you on utube with the whole "bearing false witness with your mouth" thing.
It really comes across as whiny.
And shrill.
And pissy.
And very "I'm going to tell my mommy!".
5
City of Ember is a young adult book, like Twilight.
6
Fudging box office numbers?
Scanalous!
Good thing liberal Hollywood movie makers never do that.
7
If you overlook the misleading use of numbers how do you feel as a parent about encouraging more family friendly and positive message movies?
8
I appreciate your analysis. You should release your grievances of the religious right in a bound edition. Your critique is smart, and take heart, bovine advocates (Milk) will triumph over billionaires (Batman) in the sweet by and by.
9
@7: I think that's a completely separate issue. The point is that right-wing culture warriors have for years been trying to make the (patently false) claim that conservative themes in movies and other arts are more profitable, ergo the prevalence of allegedly "liberal" themes is proof that the entertainment industry is a tool of communist propagandists more than an industry.

What is at stake here is artistic freedom, not family-friendly entertainment.
10
9
Communist propaganda?
Silly Conservatives!
Everyone knows Hollywood is a hotbed of Godless Secular Humanist propoganda.
11
#7, you mean like "Milk"?
12
I'm surprised they lumped City of Ember in with other conservative fair- the movie was about two kids who defy the cultish beliefs of Ember's citizens (that even though the city is dying, they shouldn't do anything because the "creators" would save them) and they find a way to escape the city and it's corrupt leader.

The movie wasn't half bad; unfortunately it got absolutely no marketing, and when it tanked at the box office the studio basically disowned it.
13
@7 The last thing young people need is family entertainment and a positive message. Movies, like fairy tales and see the Brothers Grimm, are a place for young people to work out their anxieties about the world and their place in it.
14
13
young people need positive role models of what they can do with their lives and of what successful family live looks like (beause a lot of them won't have first hand experience with it)
15
That really explains why Friday the 13th took in $45.2 million in one weekend. Fucktards.
16
Calgary?? Are you speaking somewhere in Calgary today?
17
It Iron Man, not Ironman. Sorry, my stack of comic books in the attick demanded I send a correction.
18
@15 You mean Friday the 13th wasn't a conservative movie where you have to be a virgin who doesn't drink, smoke, or do drugs to stay alive?
19
I'm pretty sure the youtube video of the kid snowboarding is the most entertaining on this whole list of fine films.
20
Why is it shocking that the editors of a Rupert Murdoch owned media company would allow conservative lies? I am shocked that you are shocked.
21
The great RR was never any good at reviewing movies because today's films aren't always mindless fantasies. I'd hate to see Christianity Today's review of Doubt. Yes, the RR will lie, cheat, steal. Remember the Rick Warren meme: "Whatever It Takes".
22
16-
Yeah, whatcha up to in Cowtown, Dan?
23
The "truth" is whatever they, in their glorious self righteousness, delare it to be. That's why they spent twenty million dollars on a "museum" that shows Adam and Eve, two fictional characters, dancing with T-Rex. (They wouldn't think of spending that money on starving children). And as for The Wall Street Journal, aren't they just as bad? The point is that we, the believers of truth, depend on you, the defender of truth, to keep us informed. For that I am more grateful than I can say.
P.S. Great video and nice shredding.
24
Calgary? Yes, please 'splain. Nosy Canadians from Wienerpeg to Vagina are dying of curiosty.

Aha--it's the skiing/snowboarding, isn't it?
25
italics rule
26
I did not italicize, WTF? Shit happens when Dan goes to Calgary!
27
Lies, Damn Lies, and The Religious Right. You can leave out the statistics part. There are Lies, there are Damn Lies, and there is Religious Right...in that order. Or...Self Righteous Fuckwits, if you prefer.

Jim Burroway over at Box Turtle Bulletin caught a good one from that "gay sniper" ad you posted about the other day. Went right past me at the time, but it seems that things have gotten so out of hand now that schools don't even celebrate Father's Day anymore. Can you imagine? Schools don't even celebrate Father's Day anymore. And just never you mind that Father's Day is the third weekend in June, when most schools are out for the summer anyway...

This is how the game is played. Because fighting for morality, virtue and righteousness is more important then being trustworthy, and telling the truth.

28
I saw Fly Me to the Moon and it was painfully, insultingly bad. They even got the physics wrong! You'd think that in a movie about "real" space travel (okay, it had anthropomorphic flies, but they were hitching a lift on a real space mission) they would take the opportunity to get those details right and sneak in a little educational value. But nooooo.

Aside from that, the racial and cultural stereotyping was shockingly outdated and just plain lazy. There were black flies with giant afros, the Russian flies were brutes with pointy teeth, the female characters were useless fainting idiots, and the fat fly protagonist wanted to eat all the time.

Hell, I saw it for free and I felt ripped off.

If that's the conservatives' idea of a good movie, it's no wonder they got clobbered in the last election.
29
So Dan you made it to Calgary before Bush?
But probably will not make as much money at a speaking engagement than he will.
30
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

silly ranting - lies abound in the big world from all sectors - Dan working thru disbelief in his 40 ies ... good luck
31
Read City of Ember with my son. If it's an anti-commie book, they managed to sneak that past me.
32
Why is the Crystal Skull movie considered to be biblically based? Are alien astronauts part of the christianist world view now?
33
Dan-20 got it right. WSJ editorials have always been crap, and now the Murdoch is in charge, it's just going to go downhill.

@32- What do you think angels are? That's right, Alien astronauts from the future.
34
I saw the anti-socialist (or "communist", if you're Ted Baehr) themes in City of Ember. Bureaucratic nonsense ruining the lives of the people, govt.-assigned jobs, govt. waste, govt. corruption... it was like Brazil for kids.

Ted Baehr is not really worth complaining about... the less attention people give him, the faster he'll disappear.
35
Good work, DJ. Way to rake in the cash.
36
@21: "I'd hate to see Christianity Today's review of Doubt."

Well then, don't click here.

I don't know what you're afraid of, though. The review does a pretty good job of considering the religious questions raised by the film -- which makes sense, since the reviewer probably understands those questions better than a reviewer from the secular press would. Christianity Today also published a very entertaining interview with screenwriter/director John Patrick Shanley, which certainly went to places none of his other interviews went to.
37
I'm still bewildered at labeling "The Dark Knight" a conservative film because the hero is a billionaire capitalist. Um, yeah, but he's also a radical renegade, acting as if he's above the law in order to change society as he sees fit... what did Palin & co. use to call that? Wasn't it a domestic terrorist?
38
You got to love the irony of "The Dark Knight" being labeled as a "conservative movie" when it has a cameo by that well-known hero of the right, Senator Patrick Leahy.
39
You know Dan, not all Christians lie, not all Christians hate gays. Lots of Christians just love Jesus and care about other people and go about their lives. Sounds sort of like you and your family except for all those church activities & the Jesus thing. Sure some Christians are idiots. I've met a few idiotic gays in my time as well. The point is that Christians shouldn't get to make legal policy decisions on your life, nor you on theirs.
40
@18: That was actually one of the things I found supremely awesome in Friday the 13th Part 6: in addition to the gloriously outdated 80's fashions and dialogue, it also broke the slasher flick mold by having an overtly sexual heroine who lives.
41
Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is very obviously only using Soviets as villains because too much time has passed since Last Crusade for it to realistically still have Nazis in it. Also, it contains an explicit condemnation of McCarthyism. But hey, the rightards can just do with that what they do with any verses from Leviticus that aren't about gay people: pretend it's not there.
42
34, I read the book (haven't seen the movie), and it seemed to me like the problems in their society stemmed not from the government interference (assigned jobs and such) but from the fact that their society had been set up to run on rails, not requiring anyone to think about anything, for a limited amount of time, and when that amount of time ran out, no one had any idea what the fuck was going on or what to do about it.

(Basically, for those that haven't read it, they live in a giant, city-sized bomb shelter underground. They grow a little bit of food somehow, but the city was stocked with everything they'd need, from canned food to light bulbs and toothpaste. When the story begins, the supplies have started to run out. Eventually--spoilers!--some kids figure out that they were supposed to leave the bomb shelter a few years previously, but the instructions for how to do so were lost.)

See, the people are living their lives based on instructions handed down to them from a time no one remembers or really understands. The adults in particular run into difficulties when those instructions no longer fit the actual circumstances of their lives.

So, sure, it makes a lot of sense that the religious right would like that movie.
43
And we all know where the Religiopolitical Right's ideal center of Amerikanischer Realkultur is:

None other than among the "music shows" down Branson, MO way, replete with sugar-coated conservative propaganda messages and a blatant appeal to especially the so-called "Fundamentals of the Economy" that conservative propaganda just loves idealising in the same stylee as Soviet-era propaganda about "hero workers" selflessly sacrificing their time for the Greater Glory of Communism (coal miner Alexy Stakhanov's exploitation towards such ends easily comes to mind).
44
Those are some great snowboarding skills for a 10-year-old! A talented, lucky kid.
45
This man is an idiot. We at Movieguide(R) did not list MILK as a pro-communist movie, so the comparison with the Anti-Communist category doesn't wash. Thus, for example, the overtly pro-communist CHE, a more apt comparison, earned less than $1.5 million, despite being touted by some in the leftist press, even when compared to CITY OF EMBER. And, when you add other small commie flicks like TRUMBO. and don't even use the Indiana Jones movie, the small Anti-Communist movies still beat the heck out of the small pro-commie flicks. Then, when you consider what a pro-capitalist movie like IRON MAN earned, you really begin to see that, even when there's a left-wing movie like AVATAR, the more conservative, pro-capitlaist movies still tend to earn more money per movie overall.

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