The movies succeeded in large part because they were simply good storytelling, they were positive, and they inspired people in a way. Hell, they got Walter Cronkite in to add some comments in the doc, so significant were the movies on pop culture.
Contrast that with the left-bashing movie An American Carol and the religion bashing Bill Maher movie Religulous. These were heavily promoted movies that got an assload of free press because of their political subject matter. Carol won the battle for 9th place on their opening weekend, with 3.6 million over Maher's piece of shit which pulled 3.4 million. In comparison, that stupid chihuahua movie, which also opened the same weekend, pulled almost 30 million.
Where's my point in this? Simple. Just like with all forms of entertainment, we don't go to movies to be preached to. We don't go to be indoctinated. We go to be entertained. Whether it's antiwar movies like the troop-raping Redacted, any puke Michael Moore produces, or even the upcoming ass nugget from Oliver Stone, W. (which I predict will also give the President, and as a consequence McCain, a little bump due to pissing off the folks), these attempts to revise, rewrite, and politicize history with an agenda never do well.
You'd think Hollywood would learn this lesson. Whenever any actor or director gets too strident, the numbers of people they attract (and thus their career) suffers. Ask Alec Baldwin, if you can stand to talk to him. I will freely admit that almost all of the outspoken ones are hard lefties, but I'm talking numbers and not ideology. And playing politics with art means losing money.
Which brings me to a movie that has nothing to do with politics. But since it's the next movie I plan to go to theaters to see, what the hell. It's the latest movie from fellow lapsed Catholic and fellow Star Wars geek, Kevin Smith. I know there's a Star wars reference in it. Oh, and the word "fuck" gets used a lot. Of course, considering the title, that's no surpriseHey, I own every movie he made. I even own half the movie he acted in that he didn't direct (and I'll get Live Free or Die Hard to round out the collection later). So since he's given me plenty of entertainment (and obscene quotes to use alongside my Star Wars quotes), the least I can do is to flack for the fat bastard. Poopy Trim!
12 comments:
Since the Maher film was shown on significantly fewer screens than American Carol, on a per screen basis it was doing about three times as well as the disaster that is AC.
Fortunately for McCain, Obama is a gentleman who does not bring up McCain's past association with white-collar criminals who defrauded the United States of billions of dollars.
Obama will eat McCain alive without even bothering with the mud slinging that is the hallmark of the McCain campaign.
You clearly haven't seen Religulous. It's not religion bashing, it's a make you think movie. He talks about all religions fairly equally, at least, the big theistic one and even touches on some of the extremely small ones which aren't even religions, more like cults, which I think is the point.
Until you see it, you have no right to talk about it and bash it. You claim to have an open mind but refuse to see a movie which has 15 minutes of bringing Catholicism down to the level it should be and exposing it for what it is? Just because this movie calls out major religions doesn't mean it's religion bashing, the truth isn't bashing, it's simply the truth, like it or not. Same with Michael Moore, if it's true that Bush did nothing for a half hour on 9/11 and the Bin Laden family was the only people allowed to fly that night doesn't make it propaganda. The facts are facts and if you have a problem with someone pointing these facts out, then you shouldn't even be writing this blog. No, I know Moore, from time to time, has left parts of the story out to make his point stronger, or perhaps just due to time constraints but I have never found anything he has put in his movies to be a flat out lie. I think you would be hard pressed to find anything like that. He's not just some kid in his parents basement making Loose Change which is full of bullshit.
Now, which of Michael Moore’s movies have you seen and then confirmed them to be complete bullshit, what specifically is bullshit about them and what specifically is bullshit about religulous? (perhaps besides the fact that there are several versions of the Horus story and they are all different and to over simplify them into one story they way they did in Religulous was a stretch even though there are very similar common themes throughout all previous religions and it is fairly obvious to most people that all religions were made up and used pieces of religions which came before them.)
What the hell is an American Carol? Never even heard of it.
Oh, and sometimes I don't want to just see shit blowing up, I like movies that make me think.
That being said, I would never go see a Kirk Cameron movie.
Repack Rider:
Don't worry, if Mccain brings up a guy, who Obama has met, who did some bad things when Obama was 8 and didn't know him, Obama will unleash the Keating 5 with all his fury. If McCain goes there in the next step, be sure Obama will go there, go to Abramoff, Parsley, Hagee, etc. McCain has far more shady guys in his past than Obama. Obama has 2, one of which he barely knows the other who has never said one thing that isn't true but just happened to piss of racist white people.
"You claim to have an open mind but refuse to see a movie which has 15 minutes of bringing Catholicism down to the level it should be and exposing it for what it is? I haven't seen the movie either, Patrick, but think that saying a movie brings Catholicism down to the level it should be, shows extreme prejudice. WOW! What an open mind Toad has!
I haven't watched either movie, but I will watch "An American Carol" because it will be a relief to watch the left made fun of for a change. We get the right being made fun of every day on television.
Also, Toadbat, there is such a thing called "Movie Revues". They are designed to let us "revue" the movie (duh) and choose which one's we want to watch. We don't actually have to sit through "Religious" in order to know what it's about and that it's not our cup of tea.
Gayle:
You mean all the Gold, huge cathedrals, costumes, rituals,being one of the largest land owners in the world, teaching against condoms in AIDS infested Africa, screwing altar boys, claiming a single man as the head of a church because he is closer to God than anyone else, The largest of all Christian faiths, having their own city/country with armed guards, 1.2 billion members, conquering imperialism, claiming to be the way to heaven and all of this based on a fairytale about a virgin birth, magic tricks, talking snakes, and living inside of a whale....Do they need to be brought down a level??? Absolutely. What a closed mind you have!
It's not your cup of tea because you are afraid of facts and afraid of anything which goes against what your parents taught you. Its the same reason you never saw Sicko or Fahrenheit 911. You just say it's all lies and go on your way without having a clue and then you wonder why we are in the mess we are in now. We are in the mess we are in now because people like you, don't see these types of movies and only believe what they read in the bible, see on Fox news or what the President tells them.
If you opened your mind a bit, this world would be a better place. I don't see how someone who went to church almost every Sunday until I was 17 would have a closed mind about religion and know nothing about it.
Conservative: You had to get the partisan hackery started, didn't you? Now I have to clean up the mess. Thus you and Shaw, for pure hackery, get your comments deleted.
Repack: I'll have to take your word for it, but that does explain why AC beat it. Out of curiosity, why did it get run so few screens?
The answer to that is one of the reason politically driven movies generally don't do well.
Don't care about McCain and The Marxist (Obama) today.
Toad: Haven't seen either movie. But the fact that they're both politically charged and out on the same weekend gave me a reason to talk about them. As for the content of Religulous, it interests me less than AC, but both of them strike me as partisan movies.
Moore is a hack, plain and simple. I've heard enough from him to gauge him as a person and a filmmaker. Thus I don't waste too much of my time on him. But he's in the business of shooting out "documentaries," so he needed mentioning.
BTW, American Carol is a movie that mocks Michael Moore. You'll notice I don't give it any more love than any other movie.
And Kirk Cameron sucks. ZACK AND MIRI!!!
Also, don't care about McCain and The Marxist (Obama) today.
Gayle: You noticed Toad lacked an open mind? GET HIM!!!
Shaw: I'm tired of the fact you can't address the topic in favor of attacking and hacking.
Oh right, Ive seen ads for that.
I don't agree politically with Mel Gibson but I still saw the "blame the Jews", Jesus bloodbath movie. I can assure you that Kevin Smith does not share your political views but you have no problem with his movies.
And really, I was a tad bit dissappointed in Religulous but mainly because my brother talked it up so much and I am a huge Real Time/ Politically Incorrect /Bill Maher fan. If I hadn't hyped it up for myself I would have probably loved it.
It's a movie more about rationalism and using common sense to view the world and its existence than it is anti religion. The irrational part of it just happens to be Religion. Lets face it, he talks about this in the movie, if Jonah and the whale story was read to you as a nursery rhyme when you were a child and Jack and the Beanstock was read to you as a story in the Bible, would you be able to tell they had been swapped? The answer is probably no since they are both fiction and fairytale.
That's the movie basically.
And don't worry, he attacks Islam as being a "religion of peace" so it's got something for everybody.
Fine delete my comment! Why have comments here if you're just going to delete them?
So please take your rules of posting and stick it where the sun don’t shine.
I didn’t nor would I ever say anything as offensive as you do on a regular basis. I did enjoy your blog in the past but I’ll just have to live with out it in the future. I really don’t think that’s going to be so difficult to do. It’s very nice to have the rules laid out but too bad you’ve never learned to abide by then yourself.
It's your ball on your court, so you can do whatever you wish to
Conservative: It's your choice as to whether you continue to read my blog.
However, as other people (Shaw) have decided to dedicate every comment to McCain/Palin bashing, I decided (today) that I'm going to start cleaning out comments that have absolutely nothing to do with the subject matter being discussed. All the comments that remain did address the post. To be fair, though, if I'm going to boot one side for those comments, I'm going to do it for the other side, no matter how much I agree with you.
I'll get my rules updated to be clear on that.
Religulous isn't about Politics, so it's not partisan and since it's calling out all religions, it's not biased there either.
A non partisan movie, Why We Fight, is another movie (documentary) you guys should see. Its a little boring but its worth it. It's based on Eisenhowers farewell speech regarding the military industrial complex.
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