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Available on DVD: End of Watch (2012)
It's not a propaganda film for the LAPD, but if there were one, it would look a lot like this.
Click to read the review by Scott Nehring. -
Movie Review: The Master (2012)
Who knew insulting Scientology could be so boring?
Click to read the review. -
Available on DVD: Looper (2012)
Will you want to travel back in time and keep yourself from renting this time travel movie?
Click to read the review. -
Movie Review: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012)
The Hobbit: The Expected Self-Indulgent Director. Peter Jackson is wading into the George Lucas end of the pool.
Click to read the review. -
You Are What You See: Watching Movies Through a Christian Lens
I recommend it for anyone who wants to dig deeper into films and their meaning beyond the obvious.
- Angela Walker, ChristianCinema.com - Click to get your copy today!
Movie Trailer: Mozart's Sister
How many times have we seen the routine of the girl dressing up as a boy and despite the fact that she is OBVIOUSLY A GIRL DRESSED UP AS A BOY no one seems to notice?
There seems to be a presumption that since she is related to Mozart that she must have some genius for composing and it's just because of gender roles that she's not able to prove herself. Cuz y'know genius is hereditary...or not.
There seems to be a presumption that since she is related to Mozart that she must have some genius for composing and it's just because of gender roles that she's not able to prove herself. Cuz y'know genius is hereditary...or not.
Han Shot First
I am a fan of Bill Whittle and find that he manages to encapsulate the conservative arguments in a fresh and logical way. His latest video, Han Shot First, is his best one yet.
Besides calling George Lucas out as the hack that he is, Whittle also points out one of the most critical self-inflicted cultural wounds we have allowed to fester over the past 50 years - the death of masculine individualism.
Besides calling George Lucas out as the hack that he is, Whittle also points out one of the most critical self-inflicted cultural wounds we have allowed to fester over the past 50 years - the death of masculine individualism.
Movie Trailer: Politics of Love
She wanted to be a part of history...voting a communist into the White House.
Odd they state that voting for Obama is "taking a part in revolution".
I wonder if the Obama office will have SEIU and ACORN thugs running around. Perhaps they will have a Che poster on the wall.
Odd they state that voting for Obama is "taking a part in revolution".
I wonder if the Obama office will have SEIU and ACORN thugs running around. Perhaps they will have a Che poster on the wall.
Movie Trailer: Osombie
The opening will make you smile. The rest will probably make you yawn.
We can't have serious movies made about a conflict that has been going on for years - by serious I mean movies not meant to undermine our troops - but we get this?
Caution: The trailer below contains graphic violence.
We can't have serious movies made about a conflict that has been going on for years - by serious I mean movies not meant to undermine our troops - but we get this?
Caution: The trailer below contains graphic violence.
Weekend DVD Recommendation: Idiocracy (2006)
Reviewer: Scott Nehring
Should I see it?
Yes.
Director: Mike Judge
Written by: Mike Judge and Ethan Cohen
Starring: Luke Wilson, Maya Rudolph, Dax Shepard, Terry Crews, David Herman and Justin Long
Rated R for language
Rent or Buy This Movie Here
This is the kind of film I’d recommend, but I won’t be able to look you in the eye when I do it.
The premise of this movie is fantastic. Joe Bauers (Luke Wilson), an average guy - actually he's literally the average guy, statistically speaking. Joe is cryogenically frozen in a military experiment. Thanks to circumstance and bad luck, Joe, along with a whore named Rita (Maya Rudolph), wake up five hundred years in the future. Our future is not bright. As a matter of a fact, it is rather stupid. Joe discovers that reverse-Darwinism has taken root and the idiots of the world have out bred the smart folks. Joe wakes to find he is now the smartest man in the world.
Writer/Director Mike Judge's (Beavis and Butthead) sharp satirical talents are on clear display. While this movie isn’t as comfortable or quotable as Judge’s cable TV staple Office Space, it has the same insight. In essence, this film is a full frontal attack on the stupidity of modern American culture.
Judge, who has been mocking the idiocy of this culture since the late 1980's, is dead on with many of his salvos. The overall culture is in complete free fall. We have come to embrace the lowest parts of human nature as treasures by celebrating the inept over the helpful. We are taking climatological advice from dimwit actors and considering moral advice from comedians. Our “intellectual” class couldn’t be more useless as they battle against free thought and embrace group-think concepts like political correctness. Heck, we’ve dipped so low as to allow for journalists to decide what’s important. Face it, when low life, do nothing journalists are considered vital members of society, you’re in trouble.
To water this down, Judge argues that our culture is little more than a bunch of brain dead zombies giggling at nut shots and farts. We're a culture obsessed with the dumb, obsessed with stuff like this:
Okay, that's pretty awesome so its not the best example. Honestly, I can watch this loop for hours. The reaction of the guy holding the pogo stick is priceless.
This is due to a lack of a viable villain for the hero Joe to confront. In essence, Joe Bauer is fighting against the whole stupid world. While this may work on paper, it doesn’t translate to the screen. Judge is forced by his final act to devolve into a distracting resolution that feels clunky and certainly isn’t funny – its barely even interesting. This said, the satirical points forwarded by this movie make up for the thin script and by the time the final act rolls around the film has displayed enough good moments to cover for its lousy resolution.
Here is a tip. Watch this movie and then go down to your local Wal-Mart. The similarities are creepy.
Cautions: If you have an issue with language, you have a huge issue here. The film has plenty of foul language and sexual references - just like you get when you hang around real life stupid people.
Should I see it?Director: Mike Judge
Written by: Mike Judge and Ethan Cohen
Starring: Luke Wilson, Maya Rudolph, Dax Shepard, Terry Crews, David Herman and Justin Long
Rated R for language
Rent or Buy This Movie Here
This is the kind of film I’d recommend, but I won’t be able to look you in the eye when I do it.
The premise of this movie is fantastic. Joe Bauers (Luke Wilson), an average guy - actually he's literally the average guy, statistically speaking. Joe is cryogenically frozen in a military experiment. Thanks to circumstance and bad luck, Joe, along with a whore named Rita (Maya Rudolph), wake up five hundred years in the future. Our future is not bright. As a matter of a fact, it is rather stupid. Joe discovers that reverse-Darwinism has taken root and the idiots of the world have out bred the smart folks. Joe wakes to find he is now the smartest man in the world.
Writer/Director Mike Judge's (Beavis and Butthead) sharp satirical talents are on clear display. While this movie isn’t as comfortable or quotable as Judge’s cable TV staple Office Space, it has the same insight. In essence, this film is a full frontal attack on the stupidity of modern American culture.
Judge, who has been mocking the idiocy of this culture since the late 1980's, is dead on with many of his salvos. The overall culture is in complete free fall. We have come to embrace the lowest parts of human nature as treasures by celebrating the inept over the helpful. We are taking climatological advice from dimwit actors and considering moral advice from comedians. Our “intellectual” class couldn’t be more useless as they battle against free thought and embrace group-think concepts like political correctness. Heck, we’ve dipped so low as to allow for journalists to decide what’s important. Face it, when low life, do nothing journalists are considered vital members of society, you’re in trouble.
To water this down, Judge argues that our culture is little more than a bunch of brain dead zombies giggling at nut shots and farts. We're a culture obsessed with the dumb, obsessed with stuff like this:
Okay, that's pretty awesome so its not the best example. Honestly, I can watch this loop for hours. The reaction of the guy holding the pogo stick is priceless.
This is due to a lack of a viable villain for the hero Joe to confront. In essence, Joe Bauer is fighting against the whole stupid world. While this may work on paper, it doesn’t translate to the screen. Judge is forced by his final act to devolve into a distracting resolution that feels clunky and certainly isn’t funny – its barely even interesting. This said, the satirical points forwarded by this movie make up for the thin script and by the time the final act rolls around the film has displayed enough good moments to cover for its lousy resolution.
Here is a tip. Watch this movie and then go down to your local Wal-Mart. The similarities are creepy.
Cautions: If you have an issue with language, you have a huge issue here. The film has plenty of foul language and sexual references - just like you get when you hang around real life stupid people.
Commentary: Death to Star Wars
By Wayne Johnson
-Sir Joshua Reynolds, Discourse Seven
When we look at the work of George Lucas are we really moved to the core of our being? Or is it a self-centered idea of reliving our childish past that forces his work upon our culture?
My main point today is the never-ending squelch of Star Wars. Can it not be gone already? How is it that three totally derivative films have such a sway over our culture? Are all of the men of America in habitual youth? Can we not let go of childish things and focus on the things of the real world? Can our art not be a simple derivative of a shoddy storyteller? Can we not escape the yoke of Star Wars?
Yet again this poorly constructed film series is being sold on our shelves. How can I say poorly constructed? The revelation is in the work of the author himself. Lucas continually is changing and “fixing” his work every time it is released. Perfecting it over and over again so much that it has lost the charm of the original incarnation.
If it was so good upon it’s original release they why does he have such a need to keep fixing it? And why do people keep buying it?
Are we not ready as a culture for a new inspiration? Are we ready for a new voice to shock us out of our humdrum day? Why can’t the filmmakers and storytellers find us a way to break free of this childish fairy tale and inspire us with something more profound, something that make us reach deep down inside ourselves and pull out something we did not know we had?
Can we not look through the ages and find a tale of some truly courageous person who actually lived and bring that story to light to inspire generations of people?
Do we have to be forced to feel the wrath of Lucas’ political and social views as he pukes his ideal on us?
His wishy washy uncertainties of points of views and no absolutes!
Does not one filmmaker stand up and attempt to derail this juggernaut of homogenized silliness and show us something with some meat? Cannot the men of my generation shrug off this sick fascination from their youth and grow up!
The world is waiting for men and women of genius to inspire us, give us hope and show us true truth. How can we do this if we are always going back to the vomit of our past?
Turn it off.
Wayne's commentaries can also be found on his site New Discourses On Art.
“A Man who thinks he is guarding himself against prejudices by resisting the authority of others, leaves open every avenue to singularity, vanity, self conceit, obstinacy, and many other vices, all tending to warp the judgment and prevent the natural operation of his faculties. This submission to theirs is a deference which we owe, and indeed are forced involuntary to pay. In fact we never are satisfied with our opinions, whatever we may pretend, till they are ratified and confirmed by the suffrages of the rest of mankind. We dispute and wrangle to get men to come to us, when we do not go to them.
He therefore who is acquainted with the works which have pleased different ages and different countries, and has formed his opinion on them, has more materials, and more means of knowing what is analogues to the mind of man, than he who is conversant only of the works of his own age or country.
What has pleased and continues to please is likely to please again: hence are derived the rules of art, and on this immovable foundation they must ever stand.”
-Sir Joshua Reynolds, Discourse Seven
When we look at the work of George Lucas are we really moved to the core of our being? Or is it a self-centered idea of reliving our childish past that forces his work upon our culture?
My main point today is the never-ending squelch of Star Wars. Can it not be gone already? How is it that three totally derivative films have such a sway over our culture? Are all of the men of America in habitual youth? Can we not let go of childish things and focus on the things of the real world? Can our art not be a simple derivative of a shoddy storyteller? Can we not escape the yoke of Star Wars?
Yet again this poorly constructed film series is being sold on our shelves. How can I say poorly constructed? The revelation is in the work of the author himself. Lucas continually is changing and “fixing” his work every time it is released. Perfecting it over and over again so much that it has lost the charm of the original incarnation.If it was so good upon it’s original release they why does he have such a need to keep fixing it? And why do people keep buying it?
Are we not ready as a culture for a new inspiration? Are we ready for a new voice to shock us out of our humdrum day? Why can’t the filmmakers and storytellers find us a way to break free of this childish fairy tale and inspire us with something more profound, something that make us reach deep down inside ourselves and pull out something we did not know we had?
Can we not look through the ages and find a tale of some truly courageous person who actually lived and bring that story to light to inspire generations of people?
Do we have to be forced to feel the wrath of Lucas’ political and social views as he pukes his ideal on us?
His wishy washy uncertainties of points of views and no absolutes!
Does not one filmmaker stand up and attempt to derail this juggernaut of homogenized silliness and show us something with some meat? Cannot the men of my generation shrug off this sick fascination from their youth and grow up!
The world is waiting for men and women of genius to inspire us, give us hope and show us true truth. How can we do this if we are always going back to the vomit of our past?
Turn it off.
Wayne's commentaries can also be found on his site New Discourses On Art.
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