[Editor’s Note: the post below appears today on the front page of The Huffington Post.]
By Govindini Murty. A pair of new films this week offers a critique of capitalism sure to gladden the heart of any Occupy Wall Street protester. This weekend’s Tower Heist depicts a group of employees who plot to rob a Madoff-style financier who cheated them, while the new sci-fi film In Time portrays a dystopian future in which time is literally money.
In Time in particular implies that time and nature are sources of tyranny equivalent to the capitalist system. The film depicts its hero, Justin Timberlake, as a proletarian Prometheus who robs the financial gods in order to redistribute their ill-gotten gains to an oppressed humanity. In In Time‘s near-future dystopia, human beings have been genetically-engineered to stop aging at 25, after which biological ‘clocks’ on their arms determine how long they have to live. Time on these clocks is spent like currency; people pay with hours or days of their lives for everything from a cup of coffee to their monthly rent. The wealthy store up hundreds if not thousands of extra years, while the poor live with only a few extra hours at any time. If they run out of time before they can earn more, the clock runs down to zero and they die.
Will Salas (Justin Timberlake), a young man from the ghetto, teams up with Sylvia Weis (Amanda Seyfried) – the disaffected daughter of wealthy banker Philippe Weis – to rob her father’s time banks and redistribute the time stored there to the poor. They justify this by telling themselves “it isn’t stealing if it is already stolen.” And given the exaggeratedly cruel and unjust world that In Time portrays, who could disagree?
In its desire to equate time with money and denounce capitalism, however, In Time ignores the basic fact that in the real world money is malleable, time is not. Money can be earned, stored up, and passed on to others; by providing a portable form of wealth, it frees people from the barter system and feudal economies of centuries past when human beings were tied to the land like slaves. In short, money offers us a chance at freedom and self-sufficiency, depending on one’s willingness to work and the opportunities one is given.
By Govindini Murty. One of the reasons we champion independent film here at Libertas is because of the crucial role it plays in incubating talent. One of the first indie films we talked about when we launched Libertas Film Magazine was The Infidel, a quirky little British comedy that screened at the Tribeca Film Festival in the spring of 2010. The Infidel tells the hilarious story of a middle-aged Muslim man, Mahmud, who finds out that he was actually born Jewish – at the very same time that he also discovers that his son is about to marry into the family of a radical Islamic cleric.
One of the reasons we liked the film so much was because of the lead performance of Omid Djalili, the Iranian-British comic who plays the hapless Mahmud. You can read Jason’s review of The Infidelhere, and you can see a number of Djalili’s hilariously un-PC comedy skits on YouTube. One of my favorite Djalili skits is “Arabs at the airport” (Djalili describes getting freaked out when he sees Arabs at the airport), and I also like his satires of immigrant Iranian life – they remind me of the earthy and very funny ethnic humor of Nia Vardalos’ My Big Fat Greek Wedding. Check out Djalili’s “Iranian in UK,” a satire of Sting’s “Englishman in New York.”
Now Deadline Hollywood reports that NBC is developing a TV series to be based on The Infidel. The series would star Djalili, who would also produce the show with his wife. This seems like a timely idea to me. A comic of Iranian descent succeeding in mainstream American TV while satirizing radical Islamist mores would send a great message to the rest of the world – one that advocates for moderation over extremism in the Muslim community. It would also be a rebuke to the repressive Iranian regime, which, as we’ve documented numerous times here, jails and abuses it own leading filmmakers and film artists in one of the most anti-art dictatorships on earth.
Finally, a TV series based on The Infidel is a good idea because it would also just be funny. I don’t find a lot of today’s comics very amusing, but Djalili is one of the few who seems to have a natural ability to make people laugh based on character and timing – not just gross-out jokes. This is a great thing, whether or not it leads to world peace and understanding. I hope the NBC series stays true to the courageous, un-PC spirit of the original film. I find the Brits are a lot braver in their satire than Americans, and I truly hope that NBC doesn’t water down the comedy of the original Infidel or reverse its message. Check out the trailer for The Infidel above and I think you’ll see why we welcome this becoming a TV series.
By Govindini Murty. I’m pleased to announce to Libertas readers that I’ve been invited to blog at The Huffington Post. I will continue to edit and write for Libertas, of course, but this is a great opportunity to reach a new readership as well. My first post at The Huffington Post just went up this afternoon, and was featured both on the front page and on the Entertainment page. There’s already a lively debate underway in the comments section, and I hope that Libertas readers will join in.
I’ll be cross-posting select posts so you can read my posts here or at The Huffington Post.
After months of controversy over Kathryn Bigelow’s planned bin Laden movie, Variety has reported that Sony is postponing the release of the film until likely after the 2012 election. This is a wise decision on the part of the studio.
Director Kathryn Bigelow.
Sony’s bin Laden movie had come under a firestorm of criticism earlier this summer when Maureen Dowd wrote in the New York Times that director Kathryn Bigelow and screenwriter Mark Boal had been given special access to information on the bin Laden raid by the Obama White House, and that the film’s planned release in October 2012 was “perfectly timed” to help President Obama with the election. Not surprisingly, Republicans reacted to this news with outrage. Rep. Peter King of New York called for an investigation into the film, and Rep. Lynn Jenkins of Kansas announced plans for legislation titled the “Stop Subsidizing Hollywood Act” to prevent the filmmakers from accessing government information on the bin Laden raid. A movie that should have been a nonpartisan account of a great American victory — the Navy SEAL mission that killed the world’s most infamous terrorist — was in danger of being overshadowed by a cloud of partisan controversy.
The dispute over the bin Laden film didn’t just threaten to undermine the film itself — it also potentially diminished support for a number of other film and TV projects in the works that aim to portray the American military positively in the War on Terror. These projects range from Jerry Bruckheimer’s Navy SEALs TV series for ABC and Relativity’s Navy SEALs movie Act of Valor to movies like Peter Berg’s Lone Survivor and Christopher McQuarrie’s Rubicon that depict Navy SEALs fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan. While liberals in the industry are supportive of these films after the success of the bin Laden raid, conservatives paradoxically have become convinced by the dust-up over Sony’s bin Laden movie that all these other projects must be thinly disguised pro-Obama propaganda as well. (See the comments section of my recent article in The Atlantic, where conservatives responded with skepticism to news of these War on Terror projects.)
As a result, a movie that should have been a unifying depiction of an American victory in the War on Terror has become a political hot potato. Kathryn Bigelow and Mark Boal released a statement in August saying that their film would depict the killing of bin Laden as “an American triumph, both heroic, and non-partisan.” Nonetheless, Sony needed to change the release date to truly show that their bin Laden movie was not intended to influence the election. Continue reading ANNOUNCEMENT: LFM’s Govindini Murty to Blog at The Huffington Post
By Govindini Murty. As our regular Libertas readers know, Jason and I have worked for over seven years to promote a greater diversity of voices in Hollywood. We’ve promoted hundreds of pro-freedom, pro-American, and conservative-friendly films, both through the Liberty Film Festival and the original Libertas blog, as well as the new Libertas Film Magazine. As I’ve said numerous times, we don’t do this because we want Hollywood dominated by conservative political propaganda any more than we want Hollywood dominated by liberal political propaganda. We do this because we care deeply about film and the arts and we feel that having a diversity of voices in our culture is crucial to maintaining the democratic values that make America great.
Chris Evans as Captain America.
However, Jason and I have been very concerned over the years by the conservative establishment’s refusal to seriously engage in film and the arts. By “engagement” I don’t mean reviewing a film here or there or supporting the odd conservative political documentary. I mean genuinely and passionately engaging in film and the arts: funding and supporting filmmakers, artists, and creative people, devoting a significant portion of their media platforms to supporting the arts (even when they don’t directly tie into the conservative political agenda), taking real pleasure in creating beautiful, profound, and arresting artworks that imaginatively inspire people. Conservatives have enormous resources at their disposal to have a greater voice in the culture if they want to. That they fail to seriously engage in the culture year after year is deeply troubling. It undermines both the growth of the conservative movement, as well as the vibrancy of our culture, which needs both sides engaged in order to create art and entertainment that represents all Americans.
So, I’ve written a piece in The Atlantic today (see below) that examines the issue of why conservatives are so reluctant to support conservative-friendly films. As our readers know, when Jason and I relaunched Libertas, we were determined to positively promote films and creative artists. We were tired of just complaining about Hollywood. Conservatives have complained about Hollywood for years, and it never seems to accomplish anything. We decided that rather than give the site over to partisan politics and to obsessing over every left-wing Hollywood affront, we wanted to dedicate our time to promoting films and artworks that broadly affirm freedom and individualism. We were inspired by the genuine change we had seen in the film industry in the last two to three years, in which a greater number of pro-freedom films are suddenly being made. There’s plenty of room for hope and excitement, and yet I don’t see this hope and excitement translating into the rest of the conservative world. Conservatives in the media certainly know about these films because they do cover them (often with snarky and dismissive reviews) – they just refuse to take them as a positive sign of change that should be embraced.
Dominic Cooper promoting "The Devil's Double."
I hope my Atlantic piece (see below) will inspire some honest debate amongst conservatives. I didn’t write a partisan piece – I wrote a piece that objectively deals with the issues as they appear. I truly appreciate all of our conservative, libertarian, independent, and liberal readers here at Libertas who have shown their commitment to supporting the idea of freedom in film. You’re the good ones – you get it. I hope the message spreads to the rest of the public as well, because the culture is too important to be treated as a partisan whipping post. It deserves to be treated honestly, objectively – and always with respect for the artists who create the works that give our culture meaning.
The recent news that MGM’s remake of Red Dawn may finally reach theaters should be reason for conservatives to celebrate. The Los Angeles Timesreports that MGM is in talks to sell Red Dawn to Film District (the company behind Ryan Gosling’s Drive), who will likely release the film in 2012. The original Red Dawn is one of the iconic films of the cultural right. Written and directed by John Milius, the 1984 film depicted a group of plucky teens who fight off a Soviet invasion of the U.S. This new Red Dawn, of which I’ve seen an early cut, features a similarly patriotic storyline—and stars one of Hollywood’s hottest young leading men, Chris Hemsworth (Thor). And even factoring in some controversial re-edits that change the villains from the communist Chinese to the North Koreans, the new Red Dawn seems like exactly the kind of pro-American action fare that should please cultural conservatives.
But will conservatives actually support Red Dawn when it comes out?
After years of feeling burned by Hollywood, today’s conservatives seem reluctant to go to the movies, even to see films promoting their own values. A number of right-of-center-friendly movies have been made in recent years—ranging from big-budget studio fare like the Transformers movies or art-house films like The Devil’s Double, to overtly political documentaries like The Undefeated—yet conservatives have responded with little enthusiasm to such films. Indeed, at times conservatives seem more interested in debating left-leaning works like Avatar or Fahrenheit 9/11 than in supporting movies friendly to their own cause.
From "Mao's Last Dancer."
Witness the conservative public’s tepid response to two recent films on “conservative” subjects: the movie adaptation of Ayn Rand’s novel Atlas Shrugged, and the Sarah Palin documentary The Undefeated. Both films received extensive media coverage earlier this year. Fox News and the Fox Business Network ran numerous segments on each film (with John Stossel devoting an entire show on Fox Business to Atlas Shrugged), and both films were widely discussed on talk radio and in the print media. Yet when the films were released, they fared poorly at the box office. Atlas Shrugged made only $4.6 million on a reported budget of $20 million, and The Undefeated made only $116,000 on a reported budget of $1 million. Granted, both films received mixed reviews, at best. Nonetheless, as conservative film critic Christian Toto pointed out in a recent Daily Caller article titled “Why don’t conservatives support conservative films?,” the popularity of Rand’s original Atlas Shrugged novel and of Sarah Palin as subject matter should presumably have led to greater enthusiasm among conservatives for these projects. Yet they didn’t.
Stranger still, even when offered more popular or critically acclaimed films, many conservatives still seem reluctant to support them.
For example, a well-reviewed film recently appeared in theaters that offers an implied justification for the toppling of Saddam Hussein’s regime. The Devil’s Double tells the true story of Uday Hussein, Saddam Hussein’s gangster-like son, and his reluctant body double, Latif Yahia. Both roles in the film are played by rising star Dominic Cooper (Captain America), whose electric performance has made him one of Hollywood’s most sought-after leading men. The Devil’s Double depicts the Hussein regime pillaging and demoralizing Iraq’s people—and even includes flattering footage of George H.W. Bush and Dick Cheney. And despite its seemingly right-of-center politics, the film was screened to rave reviews at Sundance, with Roger Ebert even calling it a “terrific show” and praising Dominic Cooper’s “astonishing dual performance.”
>>>Read the rest of the article at The Atlantic here.
Posted on October 12th, 2011 at 5:32pm.
[Editor’s update: Many thanks to Kevin Roderick for mentioning Govindini’s Atlantic piece in his article “Left coast writers splash in the Atlantic” on LA Observed. Kevin runs one of the great LA sites and I urge you all to check it out.]
[Many thanks as well to Michelle Malkin’s Hot Air for linking to Govindini’s Atlantic article. Hot Air is always on top of the most interesting news and analysis, so be sure to check them out.]
[And of course, a big thank you as well to our friend Lars Larson. Lars is one of the best-informed and most articulate talk radio hosts out there (and rapidly rising, with his radio show carried in over 200 markets). Lars posted Govindini’s article on his site and he has always been supportive of Libertas Film Magazine and the cause of freedom in film.]
Humanistic reconciliation: Emma Stone, Octavia Spencer, and Viola Davis in "The Help."
By Govindini Murty.The Help has been a truly surprising hit this summer. In a season full of alien invaders and spandex-clad superheroes, audiences are flocking to see a female-driven domestic melodrama. Based on Katherine Stockett’s best-selling novel (with over five million copies sold to date), The Help dramatizes the plight of black maids working for white families in the racially divided society of early ’60s Mississippi. The film features engaging performances from a talented cast that includes Viola Davis, Octavia Spencer, Emma Stone, Allison Janney, Jessica Chastain, and Cicely Tyson. What truly makes the film appealing, though, is its heartfelt, optimistic spirit, which ultimately suggests that reconciliation is possible even in the midst of the worst racial intolerance.
The Help is a welcome real-world antidote to the extravagant CGI fantasy films of this summer. It may not depict earth-shaking cataclysms, but the real life injustice the film depicts is just as consequential. The Help shows what happens when people allow themselves to be co-opted by group pressure into acting in inhuman ways. The white women in The Help may not all be naturally evil, but through social pressure they acquiesce to evil behavior. Their weakness, malice, and cowardice is motivated by the most mundane of reasons: the desire to be included in a bridge party, to get a medal from a women’s organization, to have the best dress or the best cook in town. Yet the decisions they make have a catastrophic effect on their fellow black citizens, depriving them of their civil rights, their livelihoods, their dignity, and even their families and their freedom.
Not your traditional Southern belle: Emma Stone as Eugenia "Skeeter" Phelan.
The Help centers on the story of Eugenia “Skeeter” Phelan (Emma Stone), a well-to-do white girl who returns home to Jackson, Mississippi after graduating from college. Unlike her childhood friends who have gotten married and had children, Skeeter dreams of pursuing a career as a writer. She’s applied for a job as an editor at Harper & Row in New York, but when she’s turned down, Skeeter interviews at the local newspaper and is assigned the task of ghost-writing a house-cleaning column. Skeeter’s desire to write bewilders her mother and her friends, all of whom are apparently satisfied with their lives as decorative society wives. Skeeter’s wish to have her own career is one of the most appealing aspects of the film, one that pretty much any woman can identify with. It doesn’t hurt that the New York publishing world is depicted in such a glamorous way in the film, with the editor Skeeter writes to, Elain Stein (Mary Steenburgen), living a life of independence with a fabulous office and apartment, dressed in sleek black cocktail dresses and surrounded by handsome, well-tailored young men.
In any case, since Skeeter knows nothing about housecleaning, she turns for advice to the black maids who work for her friends. Skeeter starts talking to Abileen Clark (Viola Davis) and then meets Abileen’s best friend Minnie Jackson (Octavia Spencer). As Skeeter gets to know the maids, she witnesses first-hand the humiliating way they are are treated by the women who are her friends. In particular, Skeeter sees that her childhood friend Hilly Holbrook (Bryce Dallas Howard) has become a hectoring full-time racist who uses her position as head of the Junior League to bully the young women of Jackson into treating their black maids abusively. Skeeter is deeply pained by this. You see, Skeeter herself was raised by a black maid, Constantine, who was actually more of a mother to her than her own mother Charlotte. Constantine has mysteriously disappeared, and part of Skeeter’s quest to record the lives of the maids is motivated by her own wish to make sense of the central role that Constantine played in her life – and to figure out why Constantine would have left her family.
Viola Davis as Abileen Clark.
The Help thus explores the central dichotomy that faced many black women in the South when they were forced to work as maids because of a lack of any other opportunities. These hard-working and dignified women did the valuable work of raising the white children in their communities, yet were treated as third-class citizens who couldn’t sit on the same bus seats, eat in the same restaurants, drink from the same water fountains, send their children to the same schools, or walk in through the same entrance in a movie theater as the whites they had raised.
Such black women were exploited by a monopolistic white power structure in the South that apparently couldn’t survive if it allowed free competition and free enterprise in the black community. Thus, black Americans who could have succeeded on their own merits were systematically restricted to low-paying, menial labor, physically assaulted if they attempted to register to vote, denied loans to send their children to college or to start businesses, subjected to police brutality, and robbed of their constitutional rights. This was contrary to both the founding principles of America and to the Enlightenment ideals that form the backdrop of our Western political tradition. Continue reading LFM Review: The Help and The Importance of Individual Conscience
By Govindini Murty. • There’s been a lot of interesting news today, so let’s dive right in. At the weekend box office, The Help continued its impressive run, becoming the #1 film in America this past weekend with a $20 million gross that brings its twelve-day total up to an excellent $71.3 million. I’m delighted, because The Help is a warm, humanistic drama with a terrific cast of strong actresses that shows that you don’t have to rely on computer-animated creatures to draw in audiences during the summer. Of course, that isn’t true of the second-place film, Rise of Planet of the Apes, which very much prefers its computer-animated apes to its human characters. Its $16.1 million take shows that for a certain segment of the audience, misanthropic themes are always in. (Perhaps the film was also aided by its recent endorsement by PETA?)
However, the Conan remake, which made a terrible $10 million, and Fright Night (starring Colin Farrell), which only made $8.1 million, were major box office disappointments. I’m surprised these both did so poorly, since it seemed that they both had a certain built-in genre audience. Fright Night even got reasonably good reviews. Perhaps people are just tired of ’80s remakes?
Also under performing was Anne Hathaway’s romantic drama One Day, which made only $5.1 million (though on half the number of screens as Conan and Fright Night). I have to tell you, I saw the problems with One Day coming a mile away, even though I’m a big fan of romantic dramas. The problem from the trailer was that you couldn’t tell what the story was really about and Jim Sturgess’ character came across as a complete cad. It was hard to understand what Anne Hathaway’s character would see in him. That’s a problem because for any good love story to work, you have to fall a bit in love with the characters yourself. That just didn’t seem possible with One Day.
• In other important news that I know will greatly interest our Libertas readers, Kim Kardashian got married over the weekend. There’s apparently been a lot of controversy both over her dress and her hairstyle. Did Kim play it dowdy and safe, or does she look va-va-voom? You be the judge.
Another Kardashian ties the knot.
• Turning now to another brunette siren, someone has written yet another article claiming that Angelina Jolie is thinking of retiring from the movies and devoting herself to humanitarian activities. That’s wonderful, but isn’t it also a humanitarian activity to make good movies? Jolie has acted in a lot of well-made films, but she’s yet to make a truly great film. She should take the time now to search around for good scripts and try to make at least one unforgettable film so that her legacy is secure before she retires – if she really does intend to retire, that is.
• Then, there’s movie news about a truly great lady – one whose fame is not based on something as fleeting as being a Hollywood movie star, but on her work as a courageous democracy activist suffering under one of the most brutally repressive regimes on earth. I’m referring to the Burmese democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, winner of the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize. Despite the fact that the party she leads, the National League for Democracy, won 59% of the national vote in Burma’s last open national elections in 1990, Suu Kyi has spent fifteen of the past twenty-one years under house arrest by that country’s ruling military junta. Aung San Suu Kyi has long been a personal heroine of mine. I admire strong, principled women like her who are willing to risk everything to stand up for freedom.
Michelle Yeoh as Burmese democracy activist and Nobel Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi
Now it seems that Luc Besson has taken a break from his usual action movie fare to make a movie about Aung San Suu Kyi titled The Lady. The film stars Michelle Yeoh and will be screening at the upcoming Toronto International Film Festival. I think Yeoh is an excellent choice to play Suu Kyi. Yeoh is a striking physical match for her, and she also conveys the grace, strength, and intelligence that have characterized Suu Kyi’s conduct through her multi-decade ordeal on behalf of democracy. If The Lady has the kind of pro-democracy message we hope it will, then we’ll be strongly promoting the film here at Libertas. Continue reading The Help Rules the Box Office, A Kardashian Wedding, Angelina Jolie, Aung San Suu Kyi + The Wachowskis Return to Sci-Fi
