Michael Medved has a somewhat humorous editorial in USAToday.

Why would Hollywood release a controversial feature film about alleged Mormon terrorists of 150 years ago while all but ignoring the dangerous Muslim terrorists of today?

The movie industry has pointedly avoided harsh treatment of modern Islamic radicals, but September Dawn (to be released nationally Aug. 24) portrays the 19th century Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as a deeply corrupt cult led by an all-powerful, blood-thirsty mass murderer.

Medved opines that Mormons aren't likely to kill the producers and their families, which is true, but doesn't really explain why a 150 year old massacre among so many of the time, merits big-screen treatment.

The answer seems pretty simple to me--Mitt Romney's candidacy is generating lots of media coverage, and thus free publicity for any project involving Mormons and Mormonism. This produces a bit of a problem though--all the really salacious stuff about Mormons is really old, I mean really old. Polygamy was officially discontinued in 1890 and simply isn't that interesting in a world where two divorces are socially embarrassing, but one is a shoulder-shrug.

I just think its going to be pretty hard to make anyone care about this movie.

Many of you will be too young to remember LiveAid, the music industries mega-concert designed to raise funds for starving Ethopians. Geldof's own forgettable music career has long been overshadowed by his role as principle organizer, and while the concert was declared an unqualified success, it is also an object lesson on how well-intentioned, but stupid lefties can kill more people that the entire U.S. army has in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

Between the BBC documentary, other news stories, and the Live Aid concerts, nearly a billion dollars flowed into Ethiopia during the '80s. Most of it came from various foreign governments; Geldof's efforts represented nearly a quarter of total.

Along with the cash, thousands of western workers and journalists began to enter Ethiopia. Mengistu knew a good thing when he saw it and used the combined tidal wave of money and sympathy to prop up his regime. He required that relief workers convert their western tender to the local currency at a rate favorable to his junta, which tripled its foreign currency reserves, allowing it to buy arms and materiel. Mengistu's troops also commandeered aid vehicles and fed themselves on the incoming foodstuffs. As Wolf notes, "it became clear that a significant proportion of the relief food in Tigray--the epicenter of the famine--was consigned to the militia. The militias were known locally as 'wheat militias'."

The money allowed Mengistu to string out his war efforts for six more years. Between starvation and outright murder, the war cost more than 100,000 Ethiopian lives.

What do you want to bet that the global warming gig ends in similar fashion?

Its amusing in a horrifying way. No report about whether former contributor to beach drama topological diversity, Pam Anderson is an Obama supporter, but Dateline Hollywood is revealing that Anderson and former Paris Hilton sex-tape participant Rick Solomon, had to wait four days for their blood test results:

In a surprise decision, Nevada state health officials approved the marriage license application of Pamela Anderson and Rick Solomon on Monday after blood tests revealed that both are infected with every sexually transmitted disease known to man.

“Usually we wouldn’t let somebody with gonorrhea, hepatitis C, HIV, genital warts, and 39 other STDs get married, but in this case, there’s no harm if they infect each other,” concluded deputy health commissioner Nathan Schiffrin.

Eleven staffers had to work four days to document all 43 know STDs in the couple.

OK--its not actually true, something that becomes obvious when you see the joint statement of the couple.

“We’re both so thrilled to have found a spouse who won’t judge us for our potential to infect them with dozens of disgusting illnesses,” Anderson and Salomon said in a joint statement.

The irony here is that the satire works because you almost believe it. Paris Hilton's tragic failure to pay a storage bill resulted in the revelation that she has STDs. The pantyless, cocaine-sniffing lifestyle of the Hollywood slut brigade allows room to believe just about anything these days.

This doesn't surprise me.

It doesn't matter how many Oscar winners are in front of or behind the camera — audiences are proving to be conscientious objectors when it comes to this fall's surge of antiwar and anti-Bush films.

Both "In the Valley of Elah" and, more recently, "Rendition" drew minuscule crowds upon their release, which doesn't bode well for the ongoing stream of films critical of the Iraq war and the Bush administration's wider war on terror.

"Rendition," which features three Oscar winners in key roles, grossed $4.1 million over the weekend in 2,250 screens for a ninth-place finish. A re-release of "The Nightmare Before Christmas" beat it, and it's 14 years old.

A rainy Saturday last weekend led to contemplating a movie, but with nothing but lame liberal political statements to watch, we thought better of it.

This has been going on for a while. I actually picked up "The Good Shepherd" at the video store, took it to the counter and had the clerk strongly advise me to reshelve it.

Rush baby? [kids who grew up listening to conservative talk-show host Rush Limbaugh--an explanation for our non-American readers of which there are many...]

Hardly. The guy's objection to the film was instructive--the movie was simply "boring" He was maybe 20 years old at the most.

The Democrats are operating under strong delusion, which is not to be unexpected in a party that exists in a perpetual state of fulmination. Hollywood thinks the whole country is on "their side" so they make not one, but a whole whack of movies critical of the war, the administration and the United States.

...and no one cares.

That's the problem with the Crats--they believe their own press.

Its a good thing Mark Cuban is a billionaire. If he was hoping to make a profit on Redacted, he seriously miscalculated.

De Palma's picture about US soldiers who rape a 14-year-old Iraqi girl, then kill her and her family. The message movie was produced by NBA Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban, who insisted on deleting grisly images of Iraqi war casualties from the montage at the film's end. Cuban offered to sell the film back to De Palma at cost, but the director was too smart to go for that deal. “Redacted" - which “could be the worst movie I've ever seen," said critic Michael Medved -took in just $25,628 in its opening weekend in 15 theaters, which means roughly 3,000 people saw it in the entire country. “This, despite an A-list director, a huge wave of publicity, high praise in the Times, The New Yorker, left-leaning sites like Salon, etc.

I am not exactly sure what the implications are of Hollywood's failed gamble on anti-war movies--other than red ink for the studios (Valley of Elah, Rendition and Lions for Lambs were all "disappointments, or "dogs" if you prefer...)

We are constantly told by the left and the MSM that the country is overwhelming opposed to the war in Iraq, so why didn't a series of films whose premise the country alleged agrees with, do far better at the box office? I personally didn't see these films because I have an aversion to propaganda, but surely the Kos kids must have spent eight bucks to see it?

I am guessing here, but I think it probably has more to do with the American character. When I spent some time in France back in the late seventies, I was fascinated at how so many people still wanted to talk about the "la guerre" (WWII). My father-in-law served during the war, but the only time he will discuss it is if he is asked about it. Americans don't live in the past, and I believe that for many if not most, Iraq is no longer a current issue. Ironically some of this is undoubtedly due to the lack of media coverage.

Without the passion that infused the debate, what is left to draw people to a movie?

Precious little, and in the case of Redacted, nothing at all.

No one is going to be making war movies in Hollywood anytime soon.

Hollywood's anti-war movies bombed--all of them, and while I'm glad, I don't really know why.

Roger L. Simon think he knows. Inauthenticity.

This problem is particularly true for Hollywood because the evils of Islamofascism – notably extreme misogyny and homophobia – are justifiably big no-nos to people in the Industry. In fact, they are close to the biggest no-nos of all for them in their daily lives. Who is worse than a sexist pig? Only a violent, murderous sexist pig who wants to take over the world. It then becomes a complex balancing act indeed to make a movie that ignores or downplays this in order to criticize the US as the larger villain. No one has been able to come close to pulling off this balancing act in a film. In fact, it may well be impossible because it is fundamentally dishonest.

Or they could be just bad movies.

What made them bad movies is that they aren't telling stories of unimpeachable personal truth, but rather claiming objectivity about the subjective.

Bush lied us into war. Soldiers are rapists and baby killers.

These are represented as facts when what they really are is opinion. It is by definition--propaganda. I think what turns people off is the arrogance of Hollywood to think that they can represent our reality for us. Its like asking people to pay to watch commercials about penis-enlarging pills or how much Shell oil cares about the environment.

The insular nature of Hollywood probably precludes them from understanding that we were there. A film about Iraq isn't like Braveheart--a fabulist account of the distant Scottish war for independence. Because it is a current event, it is essentially a personal story for everyone, and ultimately that is why they failed--you can't run over people's personal truth, and Iraq and more generally, the War on Terror, is one of those rare issues that is personal for everyone.

Its not that you can't do a movie about Iraq--I think you can. Consider the example of "World Trade Center". 9/11 was an event that affected everyone in the country to some degree. Everyone remembers where they were that day, so telling the story in film is problematic for reasons I've discussed. Yet the movie was successful because the director chose to tell one story, not everyone's.

Of course this still presents a problem because the lefties aren't in Iraq. They are safely ensconced in the New York lofts, intellectually circle-jerking at the Daily Kos. The New Republic of course tried their hand at the first-person lefty-view of Iraq, but it turned out to yet another phony leftie soldier (at least he wasn't AWOL...).

As the milblogs attest to, there are thousands of personal stories that would make great movies. Sadly they don't fit the right ideological frame to actually get the go ahead.

The question:

In the eighties, John Rambo took on villains who were the real villains of the day: ruthless, invading Russian commie b—-rds hellbent on global communism. So I always assumed that if Rambo returned he’d be taking on the real villain of this day: extreme, radical Islamist b—rds hellbent on worldwide jihad. It seems like all of today’s movies have [wimped] out on making Islamofacists the bad guys even though they are clearly the bad guys in the real world right now. Why is Rambo [wimping] out on this mission? Has he become politically correct?

Stallone’s answer:

I thought the idea of Rambo dealing with Al-Qaeda, etc. would be an insult to our American forces that are actually dying trying to rid the world of this cancer. To have at the end of a 90 minute movie the character of Rambo seizing Osama bin Laden in a choke hold then dragging him into the Oval Office then tossing him in the President’s lap declaring “The world is now safe, Chief” would be a bit insulting. We’ve seen today every film that deals with the Middle Eastern situation has failed because it is a subject people find incredibly painful to sit through while it is ongoing. Maybe ten years in the future a good film will be produced on the subject.

My daughter was watching a bit of the Academy Awards this evening, otherwise I would have missed it completely (and not have had a moment's worry over it...)

The show is basically unwatchable. Big star comes out, reads lame jokes from a teleprompter, announces winner of best catering, or some such vapid category for a statuette. Even worse, hardly anyone saw these movies. "No Country for Old Men" won best picture, but I didn't see it or Death Wish one through eight (OK, I saw Death Wish 1 and 2...). Do we just have to love it because its a Coen production?

I didn't see a single one of the winners and some, like "La Vie en Rose", I didn't even know existed unless I saw the Academy's outtakes before Marion Cotillard was annouced as the winner. Marion who? The local movie review website doesn't even have it listed. Small wonder--a 150 minute movie about French chanteuse Edith Piaf and her self-destructive life ended prematurely at age 47, isn't exactly box office mojo.

Another yawner.

Best Picture: "No Country for Old Men"

Actor: Daniel Day-Lewis, "There Will Be Blood"

Actress: Marion Cotillard, "La Vie en Rose"

Supporting Actor: Javier Bardem, "No Country for Old Men"

Supporting Actress: Tilda Swinton, "Michael Clayton"

Director: Joel Coen and Ethan Coen, "No Country for Old Men"

I found myself deeply impressed by Angela Jolie's Washington Post editorial.

Today's humanitarian crisis in Iraq -- and the potential consequences for our national security -- are great. Can the United States afford to gamble that 4 million or more poor and displaced people, in the heart of Middle East, won't explode in violent desperation, sending the whole region into further disorder?

What we cannot afford, in my view, is to squander the progress that has been made. In fact, we should step up our financial and material assistance. UNHCR has appealed for $261 million this year to provide for refugees and internally displaced persons. That is not a small amount of money -- but it is less than the U.S. spends each day to fight the war in Iraq. I would like to call on each of the presidential candidates and congressional leaders to announce a comprehensive refugee plan with a specific timeline and budget as part of their Iraq strategy.

As for the question of whether the surge is working, I can only state what I witnessed: U.N. staff and those of non-governmental organizations seem to feel they have the right set of circumstances to attempt to scale up their programs. And when I asked the troops if they wanted to go home as soon as possible, they said that they miss home but feel invested in Iraq. They have lost many friends and want to be a part of the humanitarian progress they now feel is possible.

It seems to me that now is the moment to address the humanitarian side of this situation. Without the right support, we could miss an opportunity to do some of the good we always stated we intended to do.

Stop Loss has received mostly glowing reviews and nobody cares. The 25 million dollar investment by MTV has returned a paltry $4,555,117 in its opening weekend. If it follows the general pattern of the half dozen other anti-war, anti-Bush movies, it will lose big money. Rendition allegedly cost 50 million, but the byzantine Hollywood accounting practices generally don't take into account the marketing and distribution costs, which can represent anywhere from a third to 100% of the production costs. Even then, the magnitude of the loss to investors is distorted by the off-the-top cuts for big name movies stars. The end result could well be a 50-60 million dollar loss for investors on each an everyone of these glossy, costly and self-indulgent moonbat orgasms.

"Are you entertained? Are you entertained?"

No, we are not.

Lindsay Lohan's career strategy.

The 21-year-old, who previously played a pole dancer in the box-office flop I Know Who Killed Me, has reportedly agreed to "full frontal" nudity in her role as a nymphomaniac waitress in the drama.

An insider told The Sun: “Lindsay doesn't care she's getting paid peanuts. She wants to remind people she can act and that she is worth hiring.”

Another source added: “She is fully aware of the potential of her body. Lindsay wants to build up an image as a mature, responsible actress.”

That's funny, I always associated female nudity with immature, fading and desperate actresses.

For the conservative woman who has everything? HT HotAir. This stuff looks pretty froufrou to me, a designer arsenal? Like the peacock feather look, though am not sure about the Gucci chainsaw. Maybe it's like those jeweled crosses Madonna wears. Guns as fashion statement.

Somehow I don't think it'll catch on on the Left Coast. (The Electric Chair's a dead giveaway.) Perhaps a tasteful mother's day gift for your gun totin' mama.

Sean Penn is in Cannes to judge at the film festival. Apparently, in his judgment, Barack Obama is not radical enough. First night premiere, Blindness. Telegraph:

”I don't have a candidate I'm supporting and I'm certainly interested and excited by the hope that Barack Obama is inspiring,” he said, but went on to accuse him of a “phenomenally inhuman and unconstitutional” voting record.

”I hope that he will understand, if he is the nominee, the degree of disillusionment that will happen if he doesn't become a greater man than he will ever be,” Penn said. “This is the most important election, certainly in my lifetime, and maybe ever.”

Based on a true story, "Good Morning, Vietnam" starred Robin Williams as Adrian Cronauer, an anti-war funny man, disk jockey who regaled the soldiers with his amusing rants against the establishment and how ugly Lyndon Johnson's daughters were while playing classic rock and roll.

Welcome to the liberal-left reality show, where "based on a true story" means it may vaguely--very vaguely resemble the truth.

In real life, Adrian Cronauer served his term out in Vietnam, played some rock music, became a lawyer and chaired the Bush-Cheney reelection committee. Hardly anti-war, Cronauer has been a life-long Republican.

Jeff Kelly documents seven Hollywood films that are complete bull. Worth the read.

I only watched his show once or twice, but I remember geeky Living with Ed timing his wife in the shower, and climbing up on the roof to squeegie his solar panels. Not how I would want to live. Things got serious in Studio City when Bill Nye the Science Guy moved in to the neighborhood. Huffpo gawks:

Nye trumped Begley's old solar panels with a system that shows when he's making more power than he's using. Begley pushed to offset his wife's 20-minute showers with rain barrels to water the plants.

Begley long ago installed an Astro Turf lawn to save on water. He composts his garbage, cooks in an outdoor solar oven and grows his own produce. His sprinkler system electronically checks the forecast and shuts down if it's supposed to rain.

Instead of using pesticides, Begley lures slugs and snails away from his plants with trays of beer that kill them. Nye, who also has plots overflowing with produce, keeps raccoons away with an electric fence powered by a matchbox-sized solar panel.