Hatchet
By Lucas Roebuck
After a supremely disappointing summer of movies last year, the summer of 2008 looks more promising for moviegoers, especially now that the box office has safely buried every Iraq war movie that came out this winter.
Hollywood, stuck in the WE-REALLYHATE-IRAQ-WAR gear, decided to blow a wad of cash to produce quite a few anti-war movies over the past six months. They all were so bad that they made people’s eyes bleed.
With all these bombs coming out of Hollywood, one would think lefties there had become hawks.
OK, so I didn’t see any of the Iraq war movies, so I really don’t know if they were bad or not. But apparently no one else did either, usually a good indication that the movies reeked to high heaven. The Redford-Streep-Cruise anti-war flick “ Lions for Lambs” cost $ 35 million to make, and pulled in $ 15 million domestically. The anti-interrogate terrorist film “ Rendition, ” starring Reese Witherspoon, Jake Gyllenhal and Meryl Streep (she’s turning out to be the bad penny ) made only $ 9 million. Brian DePalma’s “ Redacted” (which does not star Meryl Streep ) couldn’t even get a wide release, earning $ 65, 000 so far.
Even action star Tommy Lee Jones couldn’t get moviegoers excited about an Iraq war movie. “ In the Valley of Elah ” only made $ 6. 7 million. The most recent anti-war film, “ Stop-Loss, ” opened at No. 8 two weeks ago and was No. 11 last weekend at the box office, for a cumulative total of just more than $ 8 million.
Unfortunately, people do go to see drivel like the “ Alvin and the Chipmunks” remake ($ 216 million ) and the Michael Bay desecration “ Transformers ” ($ 319 million ) so Hollywood has deep pockets to keep producing the money-losing Blame-America-First-We-Hate-Bush-Cheney films.
Oliver Stone has found someone to finance his Bush-isan-idiot film, “ W. ” This film (based on scripts leaked on the Internet ) opens with Bush clinking a bottle of nonalcoholic beer with Cheney’s coffee mug as they come up with the phrase “ axis of evil. ” On the movie predictions market, HSX. com, traders expect “ W” to make around $ 30 million in its opening month. That could be generous. The movie begins production soon. Stone wants to release it before Bush leaves office in January, according to the U. K. paper the Guardian.
So once the anti-war films flushed out of the system, what else should the discerning moviegoer look for this summer ? The two films I am looking forward to most are “ Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” and Pixar’s “ Wall-e. ”
Harrison Ford, who has had quite a slump over the past few years, reprises his glory days role of Indiana Jones, famous archeologist. I love the spiritual subtext of the original trilogy, and am especially attracted to the Christian references in “ The Last Crusade. ” In all three films, Jones starts out as a skeptic of religion and the supernatural power of God, and in the end, is forced to reconcile with the spiritual world.
Previews for the new film seem to hint that the object of Jones’ desire is an alien artifact, which I am unsure about. I hope the movie doesn’t turn out to be a cross between “ Close Encounters of the Third Kind” and “ Raiders of the Lost Ark, ” two of director Steven Spielberg’s earliest commercial successes.
America haters on various Internet fan boards seemed upset that Spielberg chose to prominently show the American flag in a scene in the trailer. What’s this world coming to ? Showing the American flag is now outside of political correctness ? Welcome to the Obama-nation. Still, I can’t help but wonder if Spielberg will put some lame political slaps in his revisit of the Reagan-era classic trilogy, much like George Lucas, the film’s producer, did in his latest Star Wars movie, “ Revenge of the Sith. ”
Pixar — the computer animation studio recently bought up by Disney — will release its latest family-friendly movie next month. “ Wall-e” is the story of a robot in the future who is the last functioning thing on Earth, left behind to clean up the mess. When I first heard about the film, I smelled a heavy handed environmental message. But after seeing the teasers, I’m pretty excited about seeing this film, as is my 2-year-old son, who is in a robot phase right now.
Both “ Indiana Jones” and “ Wall-e” should prove to be nice escapism movies, and should fair much better than the antiwar slate of films. We go to the movies to get away from our worries. If we want a war debate, we’ll read newspaper columns.
Lucas Roebuck is a former managing editor of the Northwest Arkansas Times and the Siloam Springs Herald-Leader.
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Clinton Smacks Obama
In Pennsylvania on Tuesday moderate Democrats had their revenge on the limousine liberals and race baiters who took over the party when Bill Clinton left office. Mrs. Clinton’s 10-point smack down of former golden boy and media dream Sen. Barack Obama does not mean her campaign is off life support, but Sen. Hillary Clinton is still alive.
At least until North Carolina, where in two weeks Obama may do a reverse smack on Clinton. But two weeks is an eternity in any campaign cycle and, at the very least, no one has momentum in the Democratic contest. However, Obama is probably losing steam. Due to his cult-like rock-star status, he will probably always be able to attract decent crowds.
But as we saw in Pennsylvania, not everyone who attends a political rally votes, and many more people who never attend a rally in support of their candidate do.
Clinton’s success is mostly being lauded by Republicans; they think she’ll be easier to beat in November than Obama. However, if Clinton does manage against amazing odds to wrest the nomination away from Obama to face presumptive GOP nominee Sen. John McCain, she will be more formidable than ever.
Don’t talk to me about negative ratings and other polling nonsense. Americans like an underdog story. They like it when people have to earn their place. At the beginning of this campaign, people assumed that Hillary would inherit the nomination as the heir of a new political dynasty, which was the Democratic Party’s answer to eight years of George W. Bush. Then Obama-mania hit the left like a Michael Moore film, and Democrats (and even some Republicans and independents ) were wowed by the messianic figure.
The heir apparent nonsense is over. If Clinton does manage to secure the nomination at this point, no one can say she didn’t earn it through one of the hardest campaigns in recent memory. She worked hard for it. Hillary has reminded us how tenacious and dogged a Clinton can be. Meanwhile, Obama’s honeymoon with the press and public is over. It is clear that he is a far-left liberal who associates with America-haters and racists.
If Clinton emerges victorious, Republicans should be worried. Besides the compelling narrative of Clinton winning the Democratic nod at the buzzer, she has also proven that she has more appeal to moderate rural voters than Obama. In Pennsylvania, Obama won the cities while Clinton won the rural areas.
In a general election, Democrats are favored in the metro areas. McCain has some appeal to the cities, but not as much as Clinton has. Meanwhile, McCain will not be able to take rural votes for granted.
Just looking at the 2004 Red-Blue map, Clinton could easily flip Ohio and even Arkansas. This should have Republicans concerned.
Clinton is also already vetted. The Republicans have a much better chance at painting Obama as the out-oftouch liberal he is than of doing anything to change public perception of Hillary. Her baggage has already been thoroughly handled.
Of course, Hillary Clinton winning the Democratic Party’s biggest prize is still doubtful, especially when you look at the polling numbers in North Carolina. Which is good news for Republicans.
A fine line exists between the best-case scenario and worst-case scenario for the GOP. They want Hillary to almost win, but not actually win. Hillary almost winning takes all the wind out of Obama’s sails going into the final stretch, and leaves many Hillary supporters feeling disenfranchised. And it forces both Obama and Hillary to burn precious campaign cash.
Republicans are happy for Hillary to do their dirty work into June. As long as she doesn’t actually beat Obama.
Lucas Roebuck is a former managing editor of the Northwest Arkansas Times and the Siloam Springs Herald-Leader.
At least until North Carolina, where in two weeks Obama may do a reverse smack on Clinton. But two weeks is an eternity in any campaign cycle and, at the very least, no one has momentum in the Democratic contest. However, Obama is probably losing steam. Due to his cult-like rock-star status, he will probably always be able to attract decent crowds.
But as we saw in Pennsylvania, not everyone who attends a political rally votes, and many more people who never attend a rally in support of their candidate do.
Clinton’s success is mostly being lauded by Republicans; they think she’ll be easier to beat in November than Obama. However, if Clinton does manage against amazing odds to wrest the nomination away from Obama to face presumptive GOP nominee Sen. John McCain, she will be more formidable than ever.
Don’t talk to me about negative ratings and other polling nonsense. Americans like an underdog story. They like it when people have to earn their place. At the beginning of this campaign, people assumed that Hillary would inherit the nomination as the heir of a new political dynasty, which was the Democratic Party’s answer to eight years of George W. Bush. Then Obama-mania hit the left like a Michael Moore film, and Democrats (and even some Republicans and independents ) were wowed by the messianic figure.
The heir apparent nonsense is over. If Clinton does manage to secure the nomination at this point, no one can say she didn’t earn it through one of the hardest campaigns in recent memory. She worked hard for it. Hillary has reminded us how tenacious and dogged a Clinton can be. Meanwhile, Obama’s honeymoon with the press and public is over. It is clear that he is a far-left liberal who associates with America-haters and racists.
If Clinton emerges victorious, Republicans should be worried. Besides the compelling narrative of Clinton winning the Democratic nod at the buzzer, she has also proven that she has more appeal to moderate rural voters than Obama. In Pennsylvania, Obama won the cities while Clinton won the rural areas.
In a general election, Democrats are favored in the metro areas. McCain has some appeal to the cities, but not as much as Clinton has. Meanwhile, McCain will not be able to take rural votes for granted.
Just looking at the 2004 Red-Blue map, Clinton could easily flip Ohio and even Arkansas. This should have Republicans concerned.
Clinton is also already vetted. The Republicans have a much better chance at painting Obama as the out-oftouch liberal he is than of doing anything to change public perception of Hillary. Her baggage has already been thoroughly handled.
Of course, Hillary Clinton winning the Democratic Party’s biggest prize is still doubtful, especially when you look at the polling numbers in North Carolina. Which is good news for Republicans.
A fine line exists between the best-case scenario and worst-case scenario for the GOP. They want Hillary to almost win, but not actually win. Hillary almost winning takes all the wind out of Obama’s sails going into the final stretch, and leaves many Hillary supporters feeling disenfranchised. And it forces both Obama and Hillary to burn precious campaign cash.
Republicans are happy for Hillary to do their dirty work into June. As long as she doesn’t actually beat Obama.
Lucas Roebuck is a former managing editor of the Northwest Arkansas Times and the Siloam Springs Herald-Leader.
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