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Archive for the ‘Movie Reviews’ Category
MOVIE REVIEW: CONTAGION
Saturday, October 15th, 2011‘Contagion’ all too real
Film exposes true biodefense vulnerabilities that need solutions
By Tevi Troy Tevi Troy, a former deputy secretary of health and human services, is a fellow at the Hudson Institute and at the Homeland Security Policy Institute. –
The Washington Times
Thursday, September 15, 2011
Jude Law’s character, Alan Krumwiede, wanders through an abandoned street as a horrific disease ravages the world in “Contagion.” (Warner Bros. Pictures)“Contagion” was the No. 1 box-office movie on the 10th anniversary of Sept. 11 – and with good reason. The New York Post’s Lou Lumenick called the Steven Soderbergh-directed thriller about a killer virus “easily the scariest of the disaster films” since Sept. 11, and the film keeps viewers squirming and in suspense until the revealing and harrowing final shot.
One of the reasons the movie is so frightening is that it is so realistic, and verisimilitude clearly is something the filmmakers were striving to attain. The film thanks the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Department of Defense for their assistance, suggesting that those entities did not have significant disagreements with the way the film portrayed the government’s earnest but not always effective response to the film’s fictional MEV virus. Nor should they. For the most part, the film shows U.S. officials to be smart, hardworking, dedicated and self-sacrificing, and the government plays a key role in the creation of an anti-MEV vaccine that helps humanity fight back against the deadly viral threat.
Based on my experience with U.S. biopreparedness efforts, the U.S. government’s role is depicted fairly accurately in the film. At the same time, even though the government comes off pretty well in “Contagion,” the scariest part of the film is the vulnerabilities the film highlights in our current system. Despite spending $60 billion in biodefense efforts since the 2001 anthrax attacks, we still are not fully prepared for a full-on bioevent, whether it be made by man or by nature. The film identifies at least four biopreparedness weaknesses, all of which could be addressed by smart government planning: (more…)
VIDEO – A SNEAK PREVIEW OF THE NEW MOVIE – ATLAS SHRUGGED
Thursday, April 21st, 2011A FASCINATING MOVIE – FIND WHERE IT IS PLAYING IN YOUR AREA
MOVIE REVIEW – THE KING’S SPEECH
Tuesday, January 18th, 2011NATIONAL REVIEW ONLINE www.nationalreview.com
| The King’s Speech: A Deserving Golden Globe Winner
By Gina R. Dalfonzo Posted on January 17, 2011 3:36 PM I found myself in an animated conversation about The King’s Speech with the heavily tattooed twentysomething who rang up my purchase at Borders. “That was a great movie!” he said enthusiastically when he saw the title of the soundtrack I was buying. I told my parents about this, remarking that if the movie had reached even this unlikely audience member, it was bound to be a smash hit. “So what’s the appeal?” my dad wanted to know. I had to think about it. Most of us are used to seeing people flock to movies about things that smash and crash and blow up. True, there’s always been an audience for British period dramas, but that doesn’t explain the kind of audience numbers that The King’s Speech is getting. Fueled by hugely positive word of mouth, the film – which was playing in only 700 theaters over New Year’s weekend, when I saw it — averaged a whopping $10,927 per screen. By that measurement, it blew away every other film in the top ten (Little Fockers, in the #1 slot, averaged $7,400 per screen). Since then it’s been steadily climbing the charts, shooting up to #4 this weekend after expanding to wide release. But why? Trying to tell my parents about the movie, I couldn’t come up with a description that seemed adequate. The story of a king’s struggle against a speech impediment — it doesn’t sound like a major crowd-pleaser. But the truth is, the film is about much more than that. (more…) |
TEACHERS’ UNIONS RESPOND TO ‘WAITING FOR SUPERMAN’
Tuesday, October 5th, 2010
The new film “Waiting for ‘Superman'” is getting good reviews for its portrayal of children seeking alternatives to dreadful public schools, and to judge by the film’s opponents it is having an impact.
Witness the scene on a recent Friday night in front of a Loews multiplex in New York City, where some 50 protestors blasted the film as propaganda for charter schools. “Klein, Rhee and Duncan better switch us jobs, so we can put an end to those hedge fund hogs,” went one of their anti-charter cheers, referring to school reform chancellors Joel Klein and Michelle Rhee and Education Secretary Arne Duncan. The odd complaint is that donors to charter schools include some hedge fund managers.
Or maybe not so odd. Teachers unions and the public school monopoly have long benefitted from wielding a moral trump card. They claimed to care for children, and caring was defined solely by how much taxpayers spent on schools.
That moral claim is being turned on its head as more Americans come to understand that teachers unions and the public bureaucracy are the main obstacles to reform. Movies such as “Waiting for ‘Superman'” and “The Lottery” are exposing this to the larger American public, leaving the monopolists to the hapless recourse of suggesting that reformers are merely the tools of hedge fund philanthropists. (more…)
MOVIE REVIEW – I WANT YOUR MONEY
Monday, October 4th, 2010
‘I Want Your Money’ and turnout
New documentary woos Obama foes
ASSOCIATED PRESS President Barack Obama speaks at the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation Inc.’s Annual Legislative Conference Phoenix Awards Dinner at the Washington Convention Center, Saturday, Sept. 18, 2010, in Washington.
By Christian Toto The Washington Times
September 19, 2010
Taking aim at the Obama administration‘s economic record, a new documentary is looking to ride a wave of government resentment to the unusual heights of blockbuster status.
Think “Fahrenheit 9/11,” Michael Moore‘s liberal documentary that dovetailed with Americans’ shrinking approval of President George W. Bush and growing alarm over the Iraq war, but for the nation’s center-right voters.
The makers of “I Want Your Money,” which uses animation plus interviews with conservative-leaning pundits, know their core audience and have tapped one of the few marketing companies with experience in attracting conservative-leaning voters to movies. Motive Entertainment worked on “The Passion of the Christ” and “Expelled,” films that exceeded box office expectations.
“Its all about connecting with the core motivation and value of the receiving audience,” said Paul Lauer, CEO and founder of Motive Entertainment. For “The Passion of the Christ,” that meant reaching out to faith-based groups. “I Want Your Money” is seeking out other targets – conservative talk-show hosts and “tea party” affiliates. (more…)
MOVIE REVIEW – RESTREPO
Sunday, July 25th, 2010Restrepo
BY Gabriel Schoenfeld
July 23, 2010 10:05 AM
What is combat in Afghanistan like? For those of us who have not been embedded as reporters, but want to know what our soldiers in this difficult war are up against, there is now Restrepo, a documentary film by Tim Hetherington and Sebastian Junger. The subtitle of the film is “One Platoon, One Year, One Valley,” and in 90 riveting minutes that is what it delivers. The valley in question is the Korengal, adjacent to Pakistan, where many Americans—some 50 by the time this film was shot—have perished in combat.
Restrepo is a forward operating base on high ground in the center of the valley, named after a medic who was killed in one of the firefights that constitute daily life for our forces. Whatever one makes of the war in Afghanistan, Restrepo is essential viewing for what it tells us about the nature of the Afghan war and also the character of American soldiers—who come across as astonishingly brave and high-spirited in the face of an unimaginable challenge, and tragically vulnerable as human beings, in every sense of that word.
Source URL: www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/restrepo
MOVIE REVIEW – BOYCOTT SOUTH OF THE BORDER
Tuesday, June 29th, 2010By RON RADOSH
The red carpet was rolled out this Wednesday night for director Oliver Stone at the premiere of his new documentary, “South of the Border,” at the Silverdocs Film Festival in Silver Spring, Md.
Mr. Stone told the enthusiastic crowd that his intent in making the film was to correct Americans’ negative view of the Latin American left, particularly of Venezuelan leader Hugo Chávez. Americans, Mr. Stone said following the screening, “have a false view of these countries, as they do of Saddam Hussein, Iran and any country that crosses our path.”
In “South of the Border,” Mr. Chávez is portrayed as a hero, a humble man of the people dedicated to elevating the poor who have democratically elected him time and again. The villains are all the usual suspects: capitalists and local oligarchies that are slaves to foreign interests, the Western press, the International Monetary Fund, and, of course, George W. Bush. Both the subject and the filmmaker had high hopes for Barack Obama, who is shown near the end of the film warmly shaking Mr. Chávez’s hand.
While the film’s major focus is on Mr. Chávez, it also covers Bolivia’s Evo Morales, Brazil’s Lula da Silva, Argentina’s Cristina Kirchner, Fernando Lugo of Paraguay, Rafael Correa of Ecuador, and Fidel Castro’s younger brother, Raul. By Mr. Stone’s lights, all of these heads of state should be celebrated for daring to take on our country, the imperialist giant. “It is the big story that hasn’t been told,” Mr. Stone said. “These leaders are being trashed as dictators because our leaders don’t like them.” (more…)