V for Vendetta?

BobY

No, sorry, the old movies don't count. The studios re-issue them because it's easy and they make money. Making money is more important than political or social ideology.

Not to say there aren't any movies espousing traditional values, but they're typically kids films (and some of them are transparent--it's usually pretty obvious when filmakers and studios don't embrace the values they are portraying). Films aimed at the teen/young adult market rarely espouse traditional values, as that audience is the best target for manipulation--they get to choose what movies they watch, they are becoming politically and socially aware and they are impressionable, idealistic and with little real experience of life.

I remember looking at the Red/Blue map of the US following Bush's election. The Red/Blue state image is totally misleading--as if to say some states are vastly Conservative and some states are vastly Liberal. Looking at the overall US map of Red/Blue *counties* showed a much truer picture of a country that is fairly evenly divided all over, albeit with a larger concentration of Blue around cities and a larger concentration of Red everywhere else. If one equates Conservatism with Red and Liberalism with Blue (this is a bit of a stretch since Red/Blue was Republican/Democrat, not Conservative/Liberal, but is probably accurate enough for my point), then to serve the market, Hollywood should make about 50% of their films with a Conservative viewpoint and 50% with a Liberal viewpoint.

Surely no one would suggest that's even remotely true, the reason being most of the screenwriters, directors, producers and studio heads are not Conservatives (but greed can overcome that ). The same reason why most journalism has a liberal bias--most of the people who decided to go into journalism (or who decided to teach journalism) are not Conservatives. We have an enormous number of Journalists who are motivated by the desire "to change the world and make it better" (according to whose value system?) and not particularly the desire to report information accurately and objectively so people can come to their own conclusions.

Jimmy Smith

Amen brother

I personally like his new plan but I worry that it might be to little too late. If Iraq has taught us anything its that a politically correct war can't be won. You don't start setting up a democracy before the enemy is defeated. You do whatever it takes to defeat them first and then set up democracy. Thats how we did it during World War 2. We didn't start setting up democracy in Normondy right after D Day we waited till the war was over. Our emeny is vicious and sneaky in order to beat them we have act tough and use our military might.

rmslives

Until Hollywood distances itself from those old movies - "Sorry, that was a different time, and we're not too proud of those films" - then I count them. To me, the movie industry encompasses film critics and historians, too, so when I see a Top 100 list and the first ten are made up of classic, older movies, I see that there are some people still saying, "This is how movies ought to be made - it was a golden era."

There are people who still want to see "movies like they used to make them" - that's all King Kong is, a tribute to one of the great Golden Era films.

Besides, if making money is more important than social or political ideology, then why are we debating how liberal Hollywood is? Surely Hollywood would make a conservative movie if it seemed to be a big money maker . . . .

SLedford

I think we need to recognize the difference between the actors & writers (who are overwhelmingly liberal) and the business people who run the movie studios.

The actors / writers are hopeless - they believe the way they believe. The business people are a different breed. Successes of movies like "The Passion of the Christ" and "Narnia" have resulted in a movie about Ester (I don't remember the name) and a remake of the Christmas story. Other family movies have also been successful and generated similar movies. Cars, Over the Hedge, etc. have been money makers and will be copied. None of these have a liberal or conservative spin - they are just entertaining. I expect (and plan to see this weekend) the new National Museum movie to fall in the same category.

Bottom line - actors / writers hopeless liberal overall. They have a right to believe the way they want, we have a right to agree or disagree with them. The business people want to make money. If they can do that by trashing conservatives they will. Ditto for trashing liberals or religion or putting out religious movies.

Of course with the slant to the left by the writers and actors, it takes a stronger wind to move the studios in the other direction.

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godson

While I partially agree with ya here this sadly enough has exposed our military for what it is,not as mighty as we all believed. This isnt Kuwait,where we were simply pushing the Iraqis outta there with our brute force,not to mention just how thin our troops are spread. Not that the troops arent trained or prepared or anything,hell I should know,but this is a prime example of having one set of eyes on too many things....theres been talk of Somalia lately also,can we afford to take troops from there? No...nor can we really afford to apply anymore troops there. I still have many freinds that went on to military careers that I stay in touch with....Ive actually had some discussion of going back. Desk jockey these days of course,but I have been seriously thinking about it.

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Breakfast, shmreakfast. Look at the score, for Christ's sake. It's only the second period and I'm up 12 to 2. Breakfasts come and go, Renee, but Hartford, "the Whale," they only beat Vancouver once, maybe twice in a lifetime.

Moks007

IMO, Our troops have great training, kick butt weapons but all it comes down to in this war is "GROUND WAR" "Do you know who, where is your enemy" This is like Vietnam.. Imagine going to a war in the Middle east and other countries in that region support terrorist, countries like Iran, Syria etc. They just use suicide bombers. "one enemy killed and 3 dead and 4 injured for the friendlys" Thats whats happening now and american troops dont even know where the enemies are."
I think we will not win this war, but I want to me optimistic. I think basically Pres Bush wants a US base ( middle east base) there and whatever his other motives (bad smelly motives) are we all already know. Yes I hate terrorist, To me all of them should DIE!!! But with so many countries supporting them, and a lot is anti Israel and anti america I really dont know where this will be going. We should just pull out and accept our mistake invading Iraq. We are just sacrificing more troops. This is just my opinion.

godson

We did and continue to have great training but lots of factors come into play here. As many on this site that have also served our training made the difference in any combat any of us may have saw...now take this into consideration,I was enlisted for 3 years before I saw combat,not the case so much today. many of these kids are going thru BT and right into combat zones. By the time the guys in class saw any combat we had years of knowledge and although nothing can simulate real combat,you still rely 100% on your training. Look at the Pat Tillman situation,its kinda of a microcosim of how troops are thrown into combat and sometimes that thrust from BT to the real deal can cause some very chaotic moments in battle. Them boys were very well trained yet accidents still happen,most of which could have been avoided. Then you factor into the mixing of our troops with support of other troops and you have an added layer of possible confusion. This has added to my desire to possibly re-insert myself into the military and hope some of my experiance in combat can help some young guy not lose his head in such chaotic times.

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Breakfast, shmreakfast. Look at the score, for Christ's sake. It's only the second period and I'm up 12 to 2. Breakfasts come and go, Renee, but Hartford, "the Whale," they only beat Vancouver once, maybe twice in a lifetime.

Jimmy Smith

If we wanted we have the power to wipe out Iran, Iraq, Syria, and North Korea. The power to kill every life-form within the borders with the touch of a button. Yet I am being told America can't beat a rag tag bunch of goat fucking terrorists. This war can be won if fought right by cutting off the terrorists supply of weapons (Iran and Syria), destroying any terrorist strong hold with carpet bombing, and off course more air power.

I can respect any individuel who believes this war isn't worth it anymore and can't be won. Though I disagree I can believe good people can have this view. I don't respect any individuel who wants us to loose and or believes this war wasn't a noble cause (those idiotic No Blood for Oil bullshit for example). This war was started for a great and noble cause and failure would be damn shame. Thats why its important for us in the home front to give the troops all the support we can.

BobY

Rmslives and Sledford-

That was kind of my point about the people at the top that run the business side of the movie industry. They'll do whatever makes money. It doesn't matter to them whether they agree with it or not. They would probably laugh at you if you suggested they should or shouldn't do something in a film based on ideology rather than profit motive.

But the old films are already made, it doesn't cost them any money to reissue them and it's almost pure profit, so it's a total no-brainer.

As far as making new films, they are kind of at the mercy of the producers, writers and directors who *are* interested in promoting their ideologies, as evidenced by many, many of the special features interviews on DVD's (which the studios are always quick to point out "do not necessarily reflect the views" of the studio)...

rmslives

I agree 100% that Saddam needed to be removed from power. I'm with you on that. But don't you feel a little angry that our President and his administration lied to the world about WMDs and then only fessed up once it was too late to change anything? It is decisions like that that make it hard to agree the war is being fought for a noble cause. When leaders lie or deliberately misinform the public, I have a hard time supporting them. Conservatives can complain about the country's latest election, but in 2004 Bush won the popular vote. The country was primed to continue voting conservative, but even conservatives feel betrayed and lied to now.

I want our soldiers to finish their job and be safe, so I support the war for them. I do not believe, after all the evidence that has been uncovered, that this war is truly noble. A noble war would be to stop some of the genocide that is happening in third-world nations. any war that was started under false pretenses and outright lies loses the "noble" claim.

Jimmy Smith

Im very dissipointed with you. You seemed smarter then this. Bush didn't lie. Not all his intelligence was 100% accurate but that doesn't mean he lied. He believed he was telling the truth. British, Egyption, and Russion intelligence said the same thing. Did Bush make up the intelligence in those countries too come on. I agree that we should stop Darfur genocide but isn't that suppose to be the job of the Star Wars Bar Scene (UN). It shouldn't always be our job to clean up the scumb of the Earth.

rmslives

Questioning my intelligence is just mean!

Bush may have believed he was dealing with the proper intelligence, but you cannot expect me to believe EVERYONE who works for our government thought the intelligence was recent. That theory has already been debunked. That is why I included his administration in my post. Bush is often at the mercy of his administration, who can feed him faulty intelligence but spin it to make it sound accurate.

You can say I am unintelligent, but the fact is, the intel was not accurate, and someone had to know about it. Either that, or I am supposed to believe that our entire government is made up of people who cannot figure out the date on intelligence reports. Believing this to be the case would, indeed, make me stupid.

So what should I believe: no one knew the intel was faulty, or people knew but kept Bush in the dark? In either case, we are either fighting a war because our leaders are amazing stupid (not noble) or because someone in our government knowingly lied to the president (not noble).

At any rate, the bottom line is I want our troops to succeed, and I want them to come home safely. I am not going to stop supporting the war because I do not like the way the war was dealt with from an administrative standpoint. I know many liberals have turned their back on the war, which I do not agree with.

Jimmy Smith

The intelligence may not have been 100% accurate but it wasn't 100% bogus either. 500 chemical warheads were found in June of 2006. Obviously his weapons were not completly disposed of. Not to mention its a fact he once had these weapons he used them on his own people in dispicable acts of genocide. In Bush's mind it was trust intelligence reports from several countries or trust the word of a madman. I have some severe disagreements with the presidents judgement but I believe he is an honest man and I have never seen him do anything selfish as President. I believes he does what he believes is best for the American people even if sometimes he is wrong in my view. I believe that "Bush lied" conspiracy is equally ridiculous as 9/11 deniers.

rmslives

Again, I did not say Bush lied. So maybe that is why we are not quite connecting. From everything I have read and seen, President Bush does seem to be a sincere, honest man. Whoever is responsible for knowingly feeding him out-of-date intel is the person (people) responsible for making the President LOOK like a liar, even though he was simply trusting his people to provide accurate information.

I don't know: there is a real gray area here. It's like when cops plant evidence, or do a search without a warrant but then find something and try to argue probably cause. On the hand, guilty people deserve to get caught. On the other hand, we expect our law enforcement and leaders to expect within some sort of restrained boundaries; otherwise, they can just do what they want and produce the evidence afterwards.

There is a reason why so many Americans were for the war when it began, and those numbers have steadily declined since then. I think it goes back to the honesty thing, and since the American people don't know who exactly to blame, they take it out on the man they see: President Bush.

Jimmy Smith

My view on this war is no matter what the end outcome this war still accomplished some good. One of the most brutal dictators and thugs of the modern era is dead and his people never have to fear his tyranical rule again. Every sane person should view this as a great accomplishment.

I believe you and the vast majority of the American people want us to win but they sick of this war and I don't blame them. Its frustrating for us to be having trouble with a threat that should be must easier if not for stupid politcal correct restrictions. I believe Americans are mostly pro-war if they see results when they don't they get frustrated.

I don't believe anyone was feeding Bush knowingly false intelligence either. Saddam's men believed he had weapons too. Saddam not being the smartest genocided son of a bitch on the planet wanted the world to believe he was more weapons capable then he was to scare off threats. This would explain how multiple independent sources came to the same intelligence results.