Category: LFM in the News

EXCLUSIVE: Libertas Reviews the Clint Eastwood-Leonardo DiCaprio J. Edgar Hoover Screenplay

Leonardo DiCaprio as J. Edgar Hoover in Clint Eastwood's "J. Edgar."

By Jason Apuzzo. • I had the opportunity recently to read Dustin Lance Black’s screenplay for the new Clint Eastwood-Leonardo DiCaprio film J. Edgar, set for release this October. Even though the film covers a fair bit of Cold War history, in terms of the FBI’s handling of communist infiltration, due to the fact that J. Edgar covers Hoover’s full professional story – from his rise in the late 1910s all the way through to the Nixon years – I’ve decided to talk about the screenplay outside the context of one of our regular Cold War Updates!. I would love to give the screenplay an even more exhaustive write-up, frankly, but due to my own time constraints I’ll have to keep things brief – and focus primarily on what the film will be saying about the anti-communist struggle.

I’ve decided to write about this screenplay publicly because it’s covering extremely important areas of history – 50+ years of it, in fact, dwelling on issues of law enforcement and privacy that still resonate with us today – and also because we’re dealing here with an actual historical figure, with a very public record. (I’ll also try to keep things here as spoiler-free as possible – with the understanding, again, that we’re dealing with Hoover’s long public record.) People should know, frankly, how the man who founded the FBI and shaped a large part of 20th century American domestic history is going to be portrayed.

Young Hoover arrives to investigate a bombing.

There’s a lot to like about J. Edgar in its first act. Hoover’s colorful rise is set against the struggle over communist infiltration of American society during the late teens and early ‘20s – a struggle rarely covered in cinema, as most people assume (mistakenly) that Soviet agents only first hit our shores during the 1930s. The screenplay actually begins with the bombing of Attorney General Mitchell Palmer’s home by communist/anarchist saboteurs in 1919, and we see famous figures like the young FDR and Dwight Eisenhower pour out onto the street in the aftermath – as a peppy, ambitious young Hoover arrives on a bicycle and begins piecing together clues over the bombing. In fact, if you’ve seen early set photos of DiCaprio as Hoover on a bicycle (see right), those images are likely from this opening sequence of the film – a sequence that sets the tone and mood of the film with America under a constant sate of siege (first from communist agents in the 1920s, then from criminal mobs in the 1930s, and finally from Soviet agents again from the late 1930s forward). We see Hoover and his maverick team take down Emma Goldman and a violent gang of communist-anarchist saboteurs, and Hoover begins to put the policies and procedures of modern criminal investigation in place.

The communist/anarchist saboteurs in this section of the film, incidentally, are not depicted as terribly pretty people. They’re made to look dangerous and deceptive – not as victims of a witch hunt, or martyrs. In fact, with their bomb-making factories, and attempted gamesmanship of the legal system, obvious parallels will be drawn with today’s Islamic terrorists. The message here couldn’t be more plain: a robust federal investigative force is needed to face down this threat, and ensure domestic security. Continue reading EXCLUSIVE: Libertas Reviews the Clint Eastwood-Leonardo DiCaprio J. Edgar Hoover Screenplay

LFM’s Jason Apuzzo on Lars Larson’s National Radio Show

LFM Co-Editor Jason Apuzzo subbed for Govindini on Lars Larson’s national radio show Friday talking about X-Men: First Class and other current releases.

Special thanks, as always, to Lars and his staff for inviting Govindini and I on.  We always have fun appearing on his show.

Lars’ show is broadcast on over 200 stations nationwide, and runs at different times across the country, so to find his show be sure to check out his website here.

Posted on June 6th, 2011 at 2:32pm.

The 1 Year Anniversary of Libertas Film Magazine

By Jason Apuzzo. Today, May 19th, is the one year anniversary of our re-launch of Libertas as Libertas Film Magazine (LFM). Govindini and I want to thank all of our writers – including (in alphabetical order) Jennifer Baldwin, Joe Bendel, Patricia Ducey, Max Garuda, Steve Greaves, David Ross and The Joker – for their wonderful contributions of this past year. It’s a great pleasure putting this site together with you all each day, and we sincerely thank you for the insight, dedication and good humor you’ve brought to this new version of Libertas. We could not do LFM without you. Our thanks also go out to Lars Larson for featuring Govindini regularly on his national radio show and for publicizing our efforts, and also to Michael Apuzzo, and to special friends of Libertas Gretchen Brooks and Rebecca Julian for their kindness and enthusiasm.

And on behalf of all of our writers, we also want to thank our readers. If there’s any group of people who make this site go, who make Libertas an exercise in communication, it’s our readers – who contribute so much in the comments section each week, and always turn what we do here into a productive and colorful conversation. We thank you humbly for your attentiveness.

When we launched this new version of Libertas last year, we described the site in our inaugural post as having “a different emphasis from that of its predecessor … Whereas the prior Libertas spent most of its time critiquing the ideological content of Hollywood entertainment – much of which is still inimical to freedom – the new Libertas Film Magazine is focused on positively promoting films that celebrate freedom, democracy, and the dignity of the individual.”

Having launched the site with that new mission, I had one major concern: whether there would be enough films to even talk about! Little did I know what a task we were actually setting ourselves – because easily the most pleasant surprise we’ve had over the past year is how many new films we’ve been able to discuss that are infused with these basic values. This has easily been the most encouraging aspect of doing this site – what filmmakers all around the world have contributed to it, by way of their creativity. And in a sense, it’s really to them that Libertas is dedicated. Their courage, devotion and vision demand a voice – and that’s what Libertas endeavors to provide.

So again, let me thank everyone, and encourage our writers to keep writing, and our readers to keep reading and commenting … but most importantly, I encourage filmmakers out there, many of whom read this site, to keep making films. You and your inspirational efforts, ultimately, are why we’re all here.

Posted on May 19th, 2011 at 9:48pm.

UPDATED: Atlas Shrugged Producer Throws in The Towel, Blames ‘Critics’ for the Demise of the Franchise

"Sorry, Dagny, I'm quitting."

By Jason Apuzzo. After my one-line review of Atlas Shrugged, Part I I’d intended to stop talking about the film, but events keep making that impossible. Today, a mere week after bragging to The Hollywood Reporter about his great marketing plan, Atlas Shrugged, Part I producer John Aglialoro essentially tells the LA Times that he’s throwing in the towel on making Parts II and III. He’s also backing-off plans to expand Part I to 1000 screens.

Here are the LA Times money quotes, in which Aglialoro blames the demise of his incipient franchise on “critics,” rather than on his film:

“Critics, you won … I’m having deep second thoughts on why I should do Part 2. … Why should I put up all of that money if the critics are coming in like lemmings?” Aglialoro said. “I’ll make my money back and I’ll make a profit, but do I wanna go and do two? Maybe I just wanna see my grandkids and go on strike.”

So the critics who disliked his film are “lemmings.” I’m laughing at this because these “lemmings” would apparently include Kurt Loder of Reason Magazine, and a host of other like-minded critics I could name. But why bother? I’m sure we’re all just part of the vast leftist/Looter conspiracy out to get Mr. Aglialoro and his film.

Taylor Schilling with John Aglialoro.

What’s particularly galling here is that in his LA Times interview, Mr. Aglialoro indicated no plans to release the rights to Atlas Shrugged from the purgatory they currently inhabit while in his hands. As Libertas reported recently in our exclusive review of the Randall Wallace-Angelina Jolie Atlas Shrugged screenplay, so much more could’ve been made of this project – but Aglialoro’s intransigence in holding onto the rights is keeping better versions from being made.

What this currently means, of course, is that Atlas Shrugged, Part I will now join Mel Brooks’ History of the World, Part I among other unfinished film franchises – the difference being that Brooks’ was actually intended to be a joke.

[UPDATE 4/28: Now Mr. Aglialoro is telling The Hollywood Reporter that he in fact will make Parts II and III, “even though critics hate the movie and business at movie theaters has fallen off a cliff.” He also continues to claim political persecution on the part of critics. “It was a nihilistic craze,” Aglialoro said. “Not in the history of Hollywood has 16 reviewers said the same low things about a movie. … They’re lemmings,” he said. “What’s their fear of Ayn Rand? They hate this woman. They hate individualism.” Apparently these ‘nihilistic lemmings’ who ‘hate individualism’ would also include Roger L. Simon of Pajamas Media, who referred to the film as a “fiasco.”

What a farce this is. It’s quite obvious that Mr. Aglialoro felt the need to make a public pronouncement as to whether he intends to passively squat on the rights to Atlas Shrugged, now that his first film has tanked. Possibly this was a result of our pressing him on the rights matter here at Libertas, since no one else in the media has brought this up. Who knows? There is a phrase for how Mr. Aglialoro is handling all this, however: amateur hour. Expect that Part II and Part III will not be made, and the rights quietly sold away in months ahead.]

Posted on April 27th, 2011 at 10:49am.

ANNOUNCEMENT: LFM Covers The TCM Classic Movie Festival! + How TCM Changed My Life

By Jennifer Baldwin. From my earliest days as an old movie obsessive (circa, age fourteen), I’ve been obsessed with finding out how young people fall in love with old movies.

For my grandma’s generation, the love is easy to explain: These aren’t “old movies,” these are just THE movies, the ones they spent their lives seeing in the theaters.

For my mom’s generation, these old movies weren’t exactly contemporaries, but they weren’t so old and distant either. When my mom was a kid in the 1960s, the old movie stars were still around and the old movies must have still felt familiar, if a bit musty. It’s a lot like my own generation’s relationship to the movies of the 1980s. My Saturdays were filled with a never-ending supply of popular ‘80s movies on cable TV, just as my mom’s youth was filled with Rita Bell and “Bill Kennedy at the Movies.”

But how do people born in the ‘70s, ‘80s, and ‘90s become old movie buffs? How do Generations X, Y, and Z get into watching movies made in the ‘20s, ‘30s, and ‘40s?

I know how my own old-movie odyssey went, all of the influences and the inspirations. I know I owe a lot to the years 1988 to 1992, when it seemed like every summer another movie came out that was set in a 1940s Never Land – whether it was Who Framed Roger Rabbit? or The Rocketeer or A League of Their Own – and each of these new movies whetted my imagination for the old ones.

I know I owe a lot to my grandparents and their love of jazz, and how that love was transferred to me, so that for three solid years I spent my summers at the Elkhart jazz festival and never at a New Kids on the Block concert. Being a fan of swing jazz and Dixieland made it easier to love other old things, like movies.

I know I owe a lot to my grandmother and my mom, who invited me to watch these strange old movies with them, folding laundry on the couch and falling in love with Cary Grant and Clark Gable, thus beginning my own long, intoxicating affair with old Hollywood.

But how do other people of my age and generation get into the old stuff? What are their paths to classic cinema ecstasy?

I have a feeling that no matter our divergent and differing paths, we have one thing in common: Turner Classic Movies. Continue reading ANNOUNCEMENT: LFM Covers The TCM Classic Movie Festival! + How TCM Changed My Life

EXCLUSIVE: Libertas Reviews the Screenplay for the Randall Wallace-Angelina Jolie Atlas Shrugged

Angelina Jolie as Dagny Taggart?

By Jason Apuzzo. Last week, after reading my unflattering one-line review of Atlas Shrugged, Part I, an individual I will refer to as ‘John Galt’ contacted me to express his pleasure with the review – and offer me a copy of Randall Wallace’s Atlas Shrugged screenplay from 2009, to which Angelina Jolie was attached. I accepted, being thoroughly convinced that the Atlas Shrugged currently in theaters in no way represented an adequate adaptation of Rand’s landmark novel.

For those of you who may not be familiar with Randall Wallace, he is the Oscar-winning screenwriter of Braveheart, who also wrote Michael Bay’s Pearl Harbor, wrote and directed We Were Soldiers, and most recently directed Disney’s superb drama Secretariat from last year (see my review of Secretariat here). Mr. Wallace is in every sense an industry pro, and someone whose experience at telling freedom-themed stories on a large scale made him a highly appropriate choice to adapt this material.

And for those few of you who may not be familiar with Angelina Jolie … you’re probably not even reading this article, because you’re living somewhere in the Alpha Centauri system. Let’s simply say that Ms. Jolie is commonly regarded as one of the few modern actresses capable of convincingly playing the role of Dagny Taggart, the feisty and charismatic heroine of Rand’s epic novel. Jolie herself has referred to Atlas Shrugged as a “once-in-a-lifetime” project, and appears to have been genuinely passionate about playing the part.

The producing team responsible for the Atlas Shrugged currently in theaters has hinted darkly that they’ve been objects of ‘liberal persecution’ in Hollywood, and that a ‘faithful’ rendition of Rand’s novel couldn’t possibly have been made in the Hollywood system though conventional channels.

I’m here to tell you that based on the Randall Wallace screenplay I’ve just read, nothing could be further from the truth.

A look at what might have been.

Without getting into Atlas Shrugged’s complex history as a movie and TV project (about which distinguished Rand scholar Jeff Britting has written extensively), suffice it to say that in so far as Angelina Jolie was attached to Randall Wallace’s gripping, ambitious and faithful screenplay, there is no way that the producers of the current film can credibly claim that their downsizing of Atlas Shrugged was the necessary result of ‘liberal persecution.’ Sorry, but that dog doesn’t hunt.

When this kind of talent aligns around a project and it doesn’t come about, there are usually more prosaic reasons – typically having to do with scheduling, budgeting or poor management. Or, as was clearly the case here, the fact that writer-producer John Aglialoro (a first-time producer and screenwriter) was about to lose the rights to Atlas Shrugged – and therefore decided to rush the project into production with a shoddy script, and without proper funding or star power. That decision was tragic, based on the project that could have been made had Aglialoro surrendered the rights to people more capable of managing the film.

Reading Randall Wallace’s Atlas Shrugged screenplay (draft dated Feb. 10th, 2009) is, as a result, both an exhilarating and exasperating experience – given that it represents a vastly more thrilling, sexy, provocative, and genuinely epic telling of Rand’s story than the underwhelming effort currently in theaters.

For anyone who hasn’t yet seen Atlas Shrugged, Part I in theaters, or who hasn’t read Ayn Rand’s original novel, Atlas Shrugged centers around the indomitable and vivacious Dagny Taggart, who serves as the Vice-President in Charge of Operations for the Taggart Transcontinental railway. Surrounded by incompetents and worthless corporate bureaucrats, the detritus of a collapsing society – including, most poignantly, her feckless brother James – it’s the assertive Dagny who truly runs her family’s company, and in so doing keeps the nation’s railways operating. In Rand’s vast and quasi-apocalyptic story – set in an indefinite near-future, as America descends into abscesses of collectivism and fascistic rule – it is largely Dagny Taggart’s strength, persistence and resolute mind in the face of overwhelming odds that keeps the American economy from descending into chaos. At the same time, Dagny also becomes the focal point of a group of radical innovators and industrialists – led by the mysterious John Galt – whose intention is to overthrow the ‘collectivist’ forces in American society by means of a strike. Continue reading EXCLUSIVE: Libertas Reviews the Screenplay for the Randall Wallace-Angelina Jolie Atlas Shrugged