The op-ed by Todd Beamer’s father, based on the Flight 93 movie, is behind the subscription firewall at the WSJ. Cardinalpark, however, has a key excerpt up over at Tigerhawk:

This film further reminds us of the nature of the enemy we face. An enemy who will stop at nothing to achieve world domination and force [...]

It opens next week. Will you go see it?
According to advance reviews, it doesn’t suck.

In the city where it will premiere next Tuesday, United 93 is being greeted�or repelled?�almost as if it were itself some kind of terror attack. Is the movie pornography? Exploitation? Too much too soon?
Having seen it once (apparently with what [...]

Jeff Goldstein on the latest “South Park.”

As most of you know by now, Comedy Central censored last night’s episode of “South Park,� refusing to run an image of Mohammed�evidently out of cultural sensitivity to those who Comedy Central executives fear might, I dunno, key their cars? Write angry emails?
Or maybe there really is [...]

Alternate title: When social agendas collide.
Oh, dear.

Roughly 6,000 film industry voters, most in the Los Angeles area, many living cloistered lives behind wrought-iron gates or in deluxe rest-homes, out of touch not only with the shifting larger culture and the yeasty ferment that is America these days, but also out of touch with their own [...]

Heh. Looks like I’m not the only one who noticed the off-putting preachiness of last year’s Hollywood crop. Even a liberal — sorry “liberal,” as we’re putting the word in scare quotes now till we know for sure the subject’s attitude toward Locke and David Lloyd George — such as Salon’s Andrew O’Hehir has a [...]

Feeling like Hollywood has gotten more preachy lately? You might be right.
Consider Participant Productions, the makers of “Syriana,” “Good Night, and Good Luck,” and, soon, “Fast Food Nation.” The Guardian took a look behind the curtain:

Set up in 2004 by Jeff Skoll, billionaire co-founder of eBay, Participant’s express purpose is to make movies that will [...]

The most: 8.
My prediction is that it’ll win 5, since none of the actors will win in their categories.
What are your Oscar predictions?

No, not the movie kind. The real kind.
Andrew Sullivan points out a heartbreaking true story.
And to that point, I saw Brokeback Mountain recently and trust me, it lives up to the hype. Yes, I did cringe when I saw the previews, but the film is honest, sober and effective. Even that line, “I wish I [...]

…do see it.
A very revealing look into the lives of the super, super…super rich.

The trailer is up.

Looks like Jacques is trying to garner some personal favors from Hollywood…
More from Cinematical…
According to The Da Vinci Code’s Brian Grazer and Ron Howard, a meet and greet with French president Jacques Chirac last year turned into something quite different. About a year ago, the pair was in Paris trying to get permits to film [...]

Originally I talked about Syriana being THE movie to see this holiday season. Why? Well, it’s the only one that deals with the war on terrorism, its roots and what could be done about it. Some commenters and fellow bloggers said they’d pass because they felt it would be too left-wing. Fair enough, but I [...]

Well one of his masterpieces, M, is available for download (for free) at Internet Archive. I’m downloading it right now.
Do take advantage.

Fox News has the first review of what will soon be known as a highly controversial film…
Syriana is a thriller but it can be a bit confusing. The basic story is that an oil company has set up shop in the Gulf, just as a merger is going through. The local royal Arab family is [...]

Somehow, I don’t think Michael Moore considered making this documentary:

In 1948 nearly one million Jews lived in Arab lands. But In barely twenty years, they have become forgotten fugitives, expelled from their native lands, forgotten by history and where the victims themselves have hidden their fate under a cloak of silence.
A people whom legend [...]

Eerie stuff…
This script was written before anything happened in New Orleans, but now the details come to light, according to Cinematical:
As McClane is transporting an (unrelated) hacker from New York to Washington D.C., the cyber terrorists strike, and within hours, the NYC transit system, the NYSE, and the systems controlling the nation’s ATMs have all [...]

The upcoming film The Aristocrats sounds like an interesting idea for a documentary: several comedians telling their version of the same joke.
But it’s not just any joke. Its reputed to be the dirtiest joke ever.
Comedians rarely use it onstage but improvise their own lewd rendition to out-gross one another backstage.
USA Today: ‘Aristocrats’ documents the [...]

Some people are so obsessed with politics they see it everywhere and don’t understand that there are some places where it just doesn’t belong. The results often aren’t pretty. Consider what David Koepp, screenwriter for Steven Spielberg’s remake of War of the Worlds, said about his own script.
“And now, as we see American adventure [...]

And they wonder why so many Americans long for the return of silent movie stars — not films without sound, but actors and filmmakers who know how to STFU when they’re not talking about acting or filmmaking.
Jason at Libertas tracks down the quote and finds the first candidate for the sequel to “100 People [...]

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands – The Muslim extremist on trial in the slaying of filmmaker Theo van Gogh confessed Tuesday, saying he was driven by religious conviction. “I don’t feel your pain,” he told the victim’s mother.
Mohammed Bouyeri stunned the courtroom when, in the final minutes of his two-day trial he declared: “If I were released [...]