Culture
Discussions
of how the arts, entertainment, education and other aspects of culture
reflect and affect us
Movie Review: In
the Valley of Elah
The script is aptly written, but the
characters are pigeon-holed into archetypical stick figures twisted to
conform to an agenda. What makes the movie unworthy of recommendation
is the implausibility of a plot that is fundamentally a grossly
ill-informed caricature of Hollywood’s viewpoint of American military
presence in Iraq.
Fiction
-- TIMELINES: Low Tide
A
bit of fiction I've been playing with.
Movie Review: American Dreamz
From
the very beginning, it becomes clear that one must be more than
sympathetic to a certain political perspective in order to obtain
maximum enjoyment of American Dreamz. We are given saturation doses of
the film makers’ clichéd Leftist portrayals of the Bush
administration. If Janeane Garofalo sets your political agenda, you
will howl at the sledgehammer-subtle renderings of President Staton
(Dennis Quaid) as a well
-meaning, but ignorant boob who is puppet-mastered from sun to sun by
the evilly manipulative Vice-President Sutton (Willem Dafoe.)
Apparently
the
ill-advised heat is coming to Oliver Stone from all sides in the United
States, so he is abandoning us to our galling ignorance. Quoting the
clearly exasperated director from a recent New York Post article: “The
gays lambasted me for not making Alexander openly homosexual and in the
Bible Belt, pastors were up in the pulpit saying that to watch this
film was to be tempted by Satan.”
Chronic
teasing,
name-calling, threats and
violence at a middle school are causing a California school district to
face litigation for the second time. According to his father, a seventh
grade boy has endured over 120 incidents of name-calling since starting
the sixth grade at Ingrid B. Lacy Middle School in Pacifica, Calif.
last
year.
Battle
for Children's Minds Fought on All Fronts
A
little known youth-media
educational organization’s
activities illustrate in microcosm a larger effort to influence
children’s
hearts and minds with a certain agenda. Although parents are mentioned
as being among the intended audience, the resources are geared mainly
for
professional educators and youth organizations. It merits a closer look:
The
Power Grab of the NEA
(published offsite)
In the
book Power
Grab, we find that the National Education Association (NEA) has
sued
teachers for revealing its political activities to their colleagues.
Teachers
who are reluctant to participate in strikes sometimes face violence.
One
found her cats and dog dead near her home. Strikebreaking substitute
teachers
have been pelted with eggs, spat upon, and had their vehicles damaged.
While on the way to class, a 12-year-old Los Angeles girl was struck by
a rock meant for a ‘scab’s’ car.
The
ACLU Attacks the Boy Scouts, Defends NAMBLA
Does
the U.S. Constitution protect free speech and allow people to organize
based upon a common value system? Given the American Civil Liberty
Union’s
actions, the answer apparently depends upon who is involved and what
values
are promoted.
The
Educational Establishment and The
Homosexual Agenda
(published offsite)
With an
eye for the future,
the battleground for gay activists is in the schools and children are
the
targets, a new book, The
Homosexual Agenda reveals. Developments in at least one state
capital
seem to bear the authors out.
Author and former Accuracy
In Academia director Dan Flynn at AIA's June 2003 Conservative
University
conceded that the title of his latest book “Why the Left Hates America”
is provocative. It is deliberately so, he said. He then proceeded to
back
his assertion with example after example and to explain the Left’s
hatred.
Now,
Voyager (1942)
Format: VHS -NTSC
Starring: Bette Davis, Paul Henreid, Claude Rains
Director: Irving Rapper
A classic late
bloomer/ugly duckling story based upon the novel by Olivia Higgins Prouty. Charlotte Vale (Bette
Davis) is the unwanted
youngest daughter of a hypercritical, controlling Boston matriarch.
Concerned about Charlotte’s escalating anxious
reclusiveness, other family members summon a psychiatrist (Claude
Rains) to surreptitiously evaluate her. The empathetic Dr. Jaquith
quickly perceives the unhealthy situation and whisks the frumpy auntie
away to a sanitarium set on a sprawling, bucolic campus.
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