Speaking of Bombing...

Hollywood liberals are finding that it's expensive to be out of touch with reality. 

The wave of recent films set against the backdrop of war in Iraq and post-9/11 security has failed to win over film-goers keen to escape grim news headlines when they go to the movies, analysts say.

Almost without exception, however, the crop of movies have struggled to turn a profit at the box-office and in many cases have received a mauling from unimpressed critics as well.

Maybe I'm being jingoistic, but I don't think audiences are tired of war movies per se. I think audiences are tired of the US being portrayed as the bad guy. 

Here's the tally so far. 

"Rendition,"  has taken just under 10 million dollars at the box office, a disastrous return.

"In the Valley of Elah," about a father investigating the death of his son in Iraq, earned favorable reviews but less than seven million dollars following its release in September.

Even the action-packed "The Kingdom," starring Jamie Foxx and Jennifer Garner fell well below its 70 million budget with around 47 million dollars in ticket sales.

The poor returns do not augur well for more war films due for release in North America later this month, notably the Robert Redford-directed drama "Lions for Lambs" and Brian De Palma's hard-hitting "Redacted," based on the real-life rape and murder of an Iraqi schoolgirl by US soldiers.

Ah yes, the Marines as child rapists.  Good luck with that. 

Comments

[GmaninAZ]

I was given a free screening of the movie and it was a big waste of time. Do yourself a favor and pass on it.

[vet66]

I believe you are correct in stating that the majority of Americans are tired of being portrayed as the bad guy in the world today. The fact that we are the sole remaining super-power in the world today is a reason to celebrate our way of life and our culture.

Not trusting Hollywood at all, I believe their true market is the rest of the world who will buy the DVD's as the anti-American propaganda they are.

Such venues as the Palme D'Or, Cannes, and the Nobel Peace prize have become left-wing megaphones to rail against capitalism, democracy, and American ideals.

[Joe Baby]

The other problem with these films is they generally make for bad art.

Check out "The Contender," with Joan Allen. So bad it's kinda funny.

[Ann]

Our problem is we do not vote with our pocket book and use the public domain like the left. I understand the failure of these movies in pure ticket sales; but the propaganda value is worth more to them than the loss in revenue. They could not buy that kind of publicity and subtle, almost subliminal, thought influencing media without a vehicle to carry it. The trailers, the web sites, the video play all add up to hours of exposure. The loss is the cost of telling the story the way they want it told. How many millions of people did see those films, how many would have gotten that message without them?

A movie that is getting a lot of email attention lately, “The Compass”, is a direct attack on Christianity and fully intended to bring readers to the books. While the movie has been lightened up, the books are not nearly as benign. I can only imagine the clamor if such a movie was anti-Islamic. There is not enough print space and air time to capture the amount of angst, and probably violence, displayed. The producers would be called everything but human and the actors black-balled forever.

It is time we protest, openly and loudly, make our position dominant and not the passive response to very serious and overt efforts to undermine any opinion that is not that of Hollywood or the far left.

Ron Paul may be a nut job but he is on to something. Many on the right side of the spectrum are aching for a way to let out their anger and frustration. An active revolution against the dominating left and their hold on the control of public thought through the media and entertainment industry could be just the ticket.

[ron]

Since I don't spend money at the movie theaters - they can't count on me to watch them - and besides I have a personal ethic about not viewing 'R' rated movies anyway - I don't think they make PG-13 war movies.

[Julie]

Conservatives must be more motivated by what is right than what is expedient. If it's Friday night and there's only liberal drivel at the theatre, have a movie night at a friend's house and rent some John Wayne movies! And they're probably all PG-13 or better!

[Ann]

Yes Julie! We must stop taking what they send our way because the alternative might require work or thought on our part.... we are lemmings!

Think, act, do not give in! I will not go to a Sean Penn, Danny Glover, Jane Fonda, etc movie. We need to hold them accountable to the reason they have platform in the first place.

[Travis]

Better than watching war movies, remember there's a real war and send a soldier a note or a package.

It's a liberal idea to represent something in the "arts" and a conservative idea to get off our duffs and participate in REAL LIFE!

[ron]

Travis, you wrote, "

It's a liberal idea to represent something in the "arts" and a conservative idea to get off our duffs and participate in REAL LIFE!"

If you are correct, how come everytime I attend anything to do with homelessness, the majority of the people present are carrying 'liberal' credentials. I seldom see many conservatives (sometimes I even feel lonely!).

[The Klute]

Travis,

I wonder if you actually believe in this liberal charicature or if you're just say these things to keep up appearances, to try to one up everyone with a "See!?!?! See how conservative I am?".

It's like reading one of The Onion's "Kelly" cartoons:

http://www.theonion.com/content/cartoon/oct-29-2007

[vet66]

Ron; The reason is, most conservatives and Republicans have jobs and contribute to society. The leftwing nutjobs that show up for these are looking for Pew Grants and government subsidies to support their nihilist vegan lifestyles. (Hyperbole intended!) In addition, most of the so-called intellectuals inhabiting our educational institutions these days always come up with a bogey-man du jour when their latest grant is about to expire. They couldn't hold a real job in today's society because they shrink from objective accountability like vampires from the dawn.

As for the movies, interesting to see the rush to get them to the screen by Veterans Day. These people, like Redford, et al, are leeches on the society that guarantees their freedom of speech. They suffer their guilt at biting the hand that feeds them by glorifying their nihilism on film for posterity.

[The Klute]

vet66,

Like I asked Travis, do you really, truly believe this insane charicature? I mean, the flipside to your "most conversatives and Republicans have jobs and contribute to society" is most Democrats don't have jobs and contribute to it.

The artists (mostly liberal) I know have 2 jobs - their day jobs to pay the bills and their night jobs to do what they love. Or they live on the shoestring budget that being a travelling poet actually pays.

Locally, EVERYONE in the scene has a job, from a guy who is a police officer with the Phoenix PD to a guy who pours bronze in a foundry. Don't freakin' tell me we don't contribute to society and have jobs. Especially the guy who pours superheated metal into molds under the hot desert sun for just above minimum wage.

Do you know how little grant money there actually is out there and how much you have to fight other arts organizations to get it? 95% of the poets and writers I know never get a dime of mythical grants and subsidies - and I know A LOT of poets and writers, both in AZ and nationally.

I'd love to have someone pay for my plane tickets and put me up in a hotel rather than crashing in people's houses. Instead, I have to pull down 50-60 hour weeks and spend 20-30 hours doing promotion, contacting venues, etc. just to try to get a show that'll pay me $100 (if I'm lucky).

As for the movies, they're not rushing to get them for Veteran's Day, they're rushing to get them in for Oscar consideration. Of course, I know it's probably easier to couch it in terms of "us vs. them for the soul of America" and thus feed into the paranoid fantasy of Hollywood trying to destroy America.

You don't like the art? Don't watch it. Don't go to the museums. Turn off the radio. Don't buy the books. "Let the marketplace decide" as conservatives are so fond of saying.

And again, the Onion says it better than I could:

Man Who Fought For Americans' Rights Demands Americans Stop Exercising Their Rights: http://www.theonion.com/content/node/28952

[ron]

Travis,

Actually, the homeless organization with which I am actively involved is made up of retired and active professional people (you know, CEOs of small and large businesses, doctors of various disciplines (not PHDs who hang out at ASU), accountants, clergypersons, attorneys).

Not a conservative among them.

[ron]

Travis,

Please read that liberal EJ Montini in today's (11/11/07) Republic and send a check.

ron

[Travis]

I admit, I should not have taken a swipe at liberals for "only" representing things in the "arts". It is true that liberals do just as much for the less fortunate as conservatives.

I have now admitted my mistake at mischaracterizing liberals. I await the same consideration for all the smearing and misrepresenting of the conservatives by ron and Klute.

[Travis]

E.J. Montini is not worth reading for any reason.

[John Huppenthal]

Actually, the've studied that issue. Conservative, churchgoing Republicans were much more likely to perform community service and contributed a much higher percentage of their income to charity. It was a sheepish liberal who published the results.

[The Klute]

Where'd I misrepresent conservatives? Do conservatives not believe in letting the marketplace decide?

[vet66]

Klute;
I defined my demographics down to "leftwing nutjobs" which I believe most democrats rightly condemn. I could spend as much time on "Rightwing nutjobs" but their presence is limited in Hollywood.

I don't know where you stand employed in those job descriptions above. I would say that any of them are better than being unemployed. As for starving artists, I don't like my tax money going to so-called artists who think that anything they conceive of is art and worthy of support from the public trough.

When you point at others, three of your fingers point right back to yourself. Your anger does not impress me. Life is all about choices, living with the consequences, and learning from them. It is called wisdom.

[The Klute]

I'm sure they're out there, these artists who feed off the public trough and think everything they do is worthy, but I've never met one. Maybe it's a New York/LA thing.

Everyone knows when they first pick up a pen or a paintbrush that they're making a decision that could lead to a lifetime of Ramen noodles and studio apartments. Success in art, like everything else, is a delicate balance of hard work and luck.

I'm not pointing the finger at anyone. I'm neither asking for or expecting the government to subsidize the entire artistic community, because a lot of what's produced is masturbatory, self-aggranizing crap. I say without irony that the marketplace truly should decide what's "good art" and what's "bad art".

But what gets me angry is the sterotype of the lazy liberals sitting around doing nothing, collecting checks from the government, and then complaining how evil America is. I'm not discounting that there are people like that out there, but the average liberal is not a leftwing nutjob, despite the fever dreams of people like Sean Hannity.

[vet66]

Klute;

Then I suggest you tool on over to B5 or MM for the lowdown on what passes for news/editorial out of the Sacramento Bee these days. Seems as how one of their reporters set up an incident in which he took umbrage at a guard who had the temerity to see his credentials outside the Green zone.

Bobby Caina Acuna-reporter/whiner/instigator at large;

Armando Acuna -Clueless Public Editor SacBee

Just in time for Veterans Day but Acuna has instructed us not to make the linkage!

Klute, you are on the wrong team!

Happy Veterans Day to my Brothers, Sisters, and their Families on this day to celebrate

DUTY! HONOR! COUNTRY! SACRIFICE!

AMERICA! HOOORAAAH!

[The Klute]

"Just in time for Veterans Day but Acuna has instructed us not to make the linkage!"

The editor responded to an issue that's in the news in the largest, most-read edition of his paper, which happened to fall on Veteran's Day. I'm not sure how that and a reporter's Liz Habib moment adds up to a fifth column.

I'm not diminishing the importance of Veteran's Day (my dad's a vet and my cousin's currently in the Navy), but the media's got a job to do - and with bloggers like Confederate Yankee and Malkin and the rest waiting to use any example of media bias to say "OMG!1! THEY GOT BUSH DERANGEMENT SYNDROMES!", I think the media has a right to respond.

[Timothy]

I don't think conservatives want the market to decide everything, that's more libertarian. There is a "market" for human organs, but most people don't want the "market" to set the prices. But other things, like art, especially when it involves the price of publicly supported art, can really help distinguish some conservatives from others. Some want no publicly-funded art, but others think communities should build monuments that recognize, commemorate, uplift, educate, etc., the public at taxpayer expense. I'd hate to think of the second kind of conservative being called "less conservative" than the first. It's not just about markets, just mostly.

[ron]

Perhaps, Travis, you can educate me about where I was 'misrepresenting' conservatives.

Sen. Huppenthal is correct in noting that conservative, evangelicals come out ahead in the philanthropy studies. It is also interesting that the lower the person's income the greater percentage of their income in given away. (When you make $200 a week and give $20 that is a big chunk, when you make $400 a week and still give $20 that doesn't cut the same way.)

Here is the quote: "But while the rich do give more in overall dollars, according to the Social Capital Community Benchmark Survey, people at the lower end of the income scale give almost 30 percent more of their income."

Travis, just happens that in the circles I move in (it is ok for conservatives to move in 'liberal' circles, right?), I don't bump into many conserviatives leading the causes that address issues like homelessness and HIV/AIDS.

[Chad]

Ron -- Catholic charities care for about 1/2 of the aids patients in the US and do much more work in Africa. Yet, the left constantly attacks them for being "intolerant".

Conservatives give more because we believe in personal accountability. If something is to be done, it is up to us. For liberals, its the government's responsibility.

Using government to spend someone else's money is not charity. Charity comes from your own heart and pocketbook.

[The Klute]

Timothy,

I was being somewhat facetious, although it is an argument I hear all the time for anything that ails society, from disaster relief to media coverage.

I am in the camp that arts should be somewhat publicly funded. Some of the greatest works of art the world has seen from Michaelangelo's Sistine Chapel to Eisenstein's "Battleship Potemkin" have been publicly funded (from church tithes to seized funds). Movie making's generally one of those things that live and die by the marketplace. If the films that Greg's deriding aren't any good or don't resonate, they're not going to be seen. The end result is Robert Redford writing on the surface of a lake and losing money. That should be the end of it

In full disclosure, I *do* occasionally get public money to perform (thanks to the city of Phoenix and the state of Idaho), although it's not much (it's about 1/50th of my yearly net).

[ron]

Chad,

Well, in the interest of self-disclosure,I am employed by Catholic Charities - and have been for almost 10 years.

Many of the refugees we have sponsored in recent years have been persons who are HIV positive. I have weekly contact with these folks at the place of worship I worship at.

I was one of the few conservatives (maybe the only one) who serviced on the Interfaith AIDS committee in Phoenix in the early 1990s. I also presided at the funeral service of one of the first victims of AIDS in Phoenix (and he was truly a victim - a truck driver who contracted HIV through a medical procedure - left a grieving widow and a small daughter).

[Steve F.]

To direct things back on topic, I saw The Kingdom and thought it was a great movie.

Although honestly, I wonder how much was exaggerated since I did live in Riyadh for two years in the mid-80s.

Very little violence, I walked the streets of Riyadh in pefect safety. The gate guards at my compound (US Military Training Mission - Riyadh), had a MP5 submachinegun in addition to their pistols, but the mag in it was empty, as shown to me by the guards.

At least their Browning 9mm pistols were loaded.

I guess the housing compound attacks long after I left chnaged things, but probably NOT to the level displayed in the movie.

The country portrayed in the film was one step away from a revolution, but the Saudi I experienced was insanely laid back.