Movies

Rango’s Spiritual Journey

April 1, 2011
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Rango’s Spiritual Journey

By Mike Gray I haven’t seen Rango, the Johnny Depp animated feature, but Daniel Krawisz has, and he thinks there’s more depth to the film than the usual Hollywood fare: I saw Rango to enjoy the combined hijinks of Johnny Depp and other cartoon animals, and in this I was not disappointed; however, it was not at all the most memorable aspect of the experience. Rango led me to entirely unexpected places. It is not simply a cartoon about a lizard but a journey into the soul, and it depicts the trials of individuation haunted by the constant specter of death. Interleaved with this basic theme are strong libertarian overtones of the relationship of the individual to society and establishing a connection between redemption and the search for wealth. Rango is intensely metaphorical. It is full of allusions to other films and stories. From the start, the stream of allusions takes one into an associative state of mind, a state receptive to symbols. Rango takes place in an Old West–themed world with animal characters, but to me these all feel like a facade — the movie is a dream, and real action takes place in the mind of the unseen

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A Movie Villain Without Compare

April 1, 2011
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A Movie Villain Without Compare

By Mike Gray Before there was Hannibal Lecter . . . . . . before Vito Corleone . . . . . . before Norman Bates . . . . . . even before Bruce . . . . . . there was that notorious coward, bully, cad and thief . . . Dan Backslide! You can watch him here.

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“The Last Messiah”

March 28, 2011
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“The Last Messiah”

By Mike Gray Is The Coming Is Near the Iranian equivalent of The Triumph of the Will? Not hardly. Roger L. Simon agrees: The message of the short film was clear: The current crisis in the Middle East (Egypt, Bahrain, Libya, now Syria … all of it) is a harbinger that the Mahdi (the hidden one, the Twelfth Imam) was coming soon and that, in the ensuing chaos and destruction, Khomeini’s version of Shia Islam would shortly rule over the entire globe. It seemed like an Iranian version of The Triumph of the Will. Although not remotely as artful as Leni Riefenstahl’s film, The Coming was in many ways as blood-curdling, perhaps more so for its corny time-lapse photography of flowers opening and oddly stiff narration. I thought it should get as wide a dispersion as possible. And yet simultaneously I thought that was useless. The people who would most need to see this video — our liberal/left intelligentsia — either would not watch it or dismiss it as “mere propaganda” and of little significance. Nevertheless, what the film says provokes thought. If I understand it correctly, Muslims with an apocalyptic mindset believe the Mahdi will soon return to earth

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‘The China Syndrome’ — How Hysterical Media Attempted to Ruin a Vital Industry and Still Tries To Do It Every Chance They Get

March 24, 2011
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‘The China Syndrome’ — How Hysterical Media Attempted to Ruin a Vital Industry and Still Tries To Do It Every Chance They Get

By Mike Gray You could learn a lot about life from Jane Fonda — but only if she keeps her mouth shut. Just days before the reactor shutdown at Three Mile Island, Columbia Pictures’ movie The China Syndrome was released. In that fictional thriller, a reporter played by Jane Fonda accidentally witnesses an “accident” at a nuclear power plant. When she tries to report the story she finds an extensive industry cover up including dummied records. Like any anti-industry Hollywood film corporate goons even attempt to kill those trying to expose the plant’s safety problems. Unfortunately, thanks to the timing and the news media the “China Syndrome” became nearly synonymous with Three Mile Island despite stark differences. According to a New York Times magazine article from Sept. 16, 2007, Fonda was “firmly anti-nuke before making the film,” but became a “full-fledged crusader” after TMI. Co-star Michael Douglas was “converted” to the anti-nuke position after watching “eerily similar scenes from The China Syndrome” in actual news coverage of Three Mile Island. As is too often the case, the entertainment media’s concept of a nuclear disaster had a huge impact on the news coverage of Three Mile Island. Just two minutes and

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Libertarian Science Fiction from Non-libertarians

March 11, 2011
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Libertarian Science Fiction from Non-libertarians

By Mike Gray human being is endowed with free will. He can use this to choose between good and evil. If he can only perform good or only perform evil, then he is a clockwork orange — meaning that he has the appearance of an organism lovely with colour and juice but is in fact only a clockwork toy to be wound up by God or the Devil or (since this is increasingly replacing both) the Almighty State. — Anthony Burgess On the Mises Daily website, Jeff Riggenbach continues with his study of libertarian themes in science fiction: This essay is about . . . writers, none of whom was a libertarian, but each of whom wrote something back in the 1960s that made a significant contribution to the libertarian tradition. The two authors he covers here include Anthony Burgess, whose A Clockwork Orange was described by Burgess himself as “a jeu d’esprit knocked off for money in three weeks.” Riggenbach warns us Clockwork is . . . not an easy book to read, and I don’t mean because of the ultra-violence, though that is pretty sickening, certainly. What I mean when I say it’s not easy to read

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PG-rated ‘Rango’ Has Anti-Smoking Advocates Fuming

March 10, 2011
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PG-rated ‘Rango’ Has Anti-Smoking Advocates Fuming

I saw this title at Big Hollywood and fell in love with the movie instantly. Although I don’t go to movies often, given you spend $5 for the movie (twilight always) and $50 for popcorn and soda, I think this weekend Rango is getting my money. Of course I will bring a blind fold for the kids. Anti-smoking advocates are calling the animated PG movie Rango a public health hazard for its numerous depictions of smoking. The film, which opened Friday and topped the weekend box office with a gross of $38 million, includes at least 60 instances of characters smoking, said Kori Titus, CEO of the Sacramento-based non-profit Breathe California. Don’t all you Californians just breathe easier knowing Kori Titus and her merry band of busybodies are looking out for your precious lungs? Goodness knows you can’t do that yourself! “A lot of kids are going to start smoking because of this movie,” said Stanton Glantz, director of the Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education at the University of California-San Francisco. Youths who frequently see smoking onscreen are two to three times more likely to begin smoking than peers who rarely see it depicted, he said. Oh, horror

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U.S. Moral Decline and the Teaching of Darwinism

March 8, 2011
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U.S. Moral Decline and the Teaching of Darwinism

By Mike Gray “It being one chief project of the old deluder, Satan, to keep men from the knowledge of the Scriptures … it is therefore ordered … appoint one within their town to teach all such children as shall resort to him to write and read …” — From the “Old Deluder Satan Act” (1647) Everyone seems to be saying these days that, morally speaking, America—indeed, Western culture in general—is on the skids, supporting this assertion with increased rates of crime, abortion, out-of-wedlock births, and so on. If we put aside the vexatious problem of how some individuals and groups manipulate statistical data for their own ends and concede the numbers truly are accurate and do reflect reality, the question of what’s causing all this still remains. Whenever the Liberal-Progressive commentariat broaches the subject at all, it tends to assign blame to “society” in general and offer the latest Lib-Prog nostrum—normally more government intervention (no surprise there)—as a societal remedy. But can governments cure what ails people if no one knows precisely what’s causing those increased rates of crime, abortion, etc. (parenthetically, a situation that eerily parallels the “global warming” controversy)? If the problems are actually spiritual in

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‘Gnomeo and Juliet’ Tops Box Office on Oscar Weekend

March 2, 2011
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‘Gnomeo and Juliet’ Tops Box Office on Oscar Weekend

On the very weekend that all of Hollywood was preparing for the Academy Awards to celebrate the English-language cinema’s most prestigious and ambitious products (a very weak crop this year, it must be observed), audiences stayed away from the theaters (ticket sales were 20 percent lower than the same weekend last year, and it was the twelfth consecutive week of lower revenues than last year), and the top box office draw was the prestigious critically despised 3-d animated film Gnomeo and Juliet. You just have to love that.

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This Year’s Oscar Theme: Self-Aggrandizement (As Usual)

February 28, 2011
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This Year’s Oscar Theme: Self-Aggrandizement (As Usual)

By Ilana Mercer If Kirk Douglas stole the show, you have got to know that there was not much to steal. So blared an MTV online headline describing the 2011 Academy Awards. (Headline here.) Earlier this year, I watched the Grammys and came away with the conclusion that the winner was Auto-Tune, “the ‘holy grail of recording,’ that ‘corrects intonation problems in vocals or solo instruments in real time,” and without which the tartlets I watched ‘sing’ would have been even more inaudible and tuneless. (Here.) The Oscar’s self-aggrandizing crowd proved too much for me. Stutterers are the cause célèbre (because of The King’s Speech). Helen Mirren, full of airs and graces, really does believe she’s a queen, and so does everyone else. When I see Mirren’s name paired with that of Simon Schama in the Financial Times, I ask myself what a well-known historian (and superb writer) like Schama is doing interviewing a woman who makes a living imitating other people? (Here) Shouldn’t she be interviewing him? I’m not in sync with the times, I know. The unfunny shtick, the specter of the poor, palsied Kirk Douglas spluttering incoherently while the pretentious onlookers cooed: You get the picture. The

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‘Unknown’ Tops U.S. Box Office

February 21, 2011
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‘Unknown’ Tops U.S. Box Office

Taken 2—er, Unknown—finished at the top of the U.S. box office this weekend, bringing in about $3 million more than expected. The sci-fi thriller I Am Number Four did about $3 million worse than anticipated, finishing second. And Gnomeo and Juliet keeps on going strong. It’s gnome-eriffic. Why do Neeson’s crime thrillers do so well?

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Commerce in ‘True Grit’

February 8, 2011
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Commerce in ‘True Grit’

By Mike Gray Mattie Ross, the heroine of Charles Portis’s book and two films, could drive a hard bargain: Mattie: “I will take one of those ponies off your hands.” Stonehill: “What is your offer?” Mattie: “I will pay the market price. I believe you said the soap man offered you ten dollars a head.” Stonehill: “That is a lot price. You will recall that I paid you twenty dollars a head only this morning.” Mattie: “That was the market price at that time.” In a Mises Daily article, Doug French tells us the extent to which commerce was dealt with in the book and films: At least one reviewer was dismayed that everything had a price in the True Grit story. Indeed, Mattie Ross is constantly making economic calculations, while trying to make the best deals she can. She was the family caretaker. Her father was wont to chase financial schemes when he was alive and her mother was uneducated. Mattie kept the books and probably did most of the negotiating on the farm. Her negotiations with Col. G. Stonehill (“Licensed Auctioneer. Cotton Factor.” — played best by Strother Martin in the 1969 version) are one of the highlights

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Don Kirshner, RIP

January 19, 2011
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Don Kirshner, RIP

Music impresario Don Kirshner, dead at 76, may not be remembered best for catapulting Kansas to stardom in the 1970s, nor for launching the career of the Monkees and launching the animated chart-toppers The Archies in the 1960s. Those accomplishments – even to the most die-hard, discriminating popular music critics – should be enough for us to mourn his passing today.

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