Hi folks. LIBERTAS will be taking a brief summer hiatus. Thanks for your patience.

We’ll back soon, bigger and better than ever.

What’s Gort’s carbon footprint?

The trailer for the Keanu Reeves version of The Day Earth Stood Still is now online, and you can see it below. It looks terrible.

Also, it’s become clear that the film is yet another parable against global warming - because, you know, Hollywood’s really been ignoring that subject lately!

Check out this script review from over at AintItCool:

Turns out that…because of Global Warming (and the destruction of our own planet with industrial waste and pollution)….the other galaxies deemed that we are not fit to survive. The glass spheres they sent down were to collect land and sea animal specimens to take back to their planet for study.

Plus, here’s an interview the director did with MTV News:

“I think that this film in some ways is an attempt to address a number of issues that are amongst the most pressing issues for the human race. The original being a Cold War film was addressing what was clearly the greatest threat for the human race at that time, mutual nuclear destruction, and that’s not the most pressing threat that we face now. It’s also man vs. man. We are destroying each other as well. Our country’s at war right now. There is certainly the issue being addressed in the movie of our treatment of one another on the planet. I think it’s a movie about human nature as much as anything else and how human nature is acting itself out in the world right now.”

I believe the textbook term for this would be: “babble.”

Here’s the trailer:

This is so depressing. So depressing.

Q: You told Larry King, “I’m a total, total, total liberal and proud of it.” Are you excited about the election?

A: I am. I’m a big Barack person. What I find really hard to take is the way the media behave. … They seem to pick on Barack much more readily than they do on McCain. They suddenly say he’s this kind of politician, he’s not what we thought, dah-dah-dah-dah. … I don’t understand why these anchors say, “We’re not supposed to take a side, we’re supposed to just give the news,” but they don’t just give the news, and they don’t tell the truth, excuse me. I only listen to Keith Olbermann. To hell with the rest of them. I’m an MSNBC type now.

Sometimes stars really should just fade away, before too many good memories get ruined.

Mission statement for American Saga’s parent company.

According to Variety a group of investors has apparently put together something called ‘American Saga Productions,’ that is designed to portray ‘the best in America.’

The company’s goal is to finance five projects a year, none longer than four hours, at production costs that range from a low of $12 million to as high as $25 million for a lavish historical epic.

The website of Sentinel America makes it clear that its toppers don’t like much of the content in current TV programming. American television, the company says, “both overtly and subtly demeans, assails and belittles American patriotism and traditional values and standards.”

Their first project right out of the box will apparently be a $12 million production called “The Line,” a four-hour thriller about violence along the U.S.-Mexican border. Robert Duvall is set to star and direct.

You’ll forgive me if I’m a little skeptical about this. The reason? Here at the LFF we’ve heard about a lot of these things over the years. Most of these ventures have not worked out, for a variety of reasons. One of the primary reasons is their tendency to rely on the usual Hollywood suspects that this outfit seems intent on relying upon:

American Saga hopes to lure name actors and directors, Leighton said, by sharing a portion of those aftermarket profits with them.

Memo to American Saga: ‘name actors and directors’ won’t want to do the type of films you’re pitching. That’s how they got to be name actors and directors in Hollywood in the first place!

We’ll keep an eye on all this.

The weekend box office chart is above. Will Smith seems to be the only guy left in Hollywood who can consistently deliver the kind of bland, family-friendly action films that Hollywood needs each summer to pay its bills.

Indiana Jones just tipped over the $300 million mark domestically, by the way, joining Iron Man as the only films to do so thus far in 2008.

Just bought this great new Sophia Loren box set that features some Sophia rarities on video: “Carosello Napoletano” (1954) set in Naples, which is one of my favorite cities; the sword-and-sandal epic “Attila” (1954) also starring Anthony Quinn; “Madame Sans-Gene” (1962) in which Sophia plays the ex-laundress of Napoleon; and “Sunflower” (1970). Most of these films are presented in widescreen (enhanced).

A lot of sword-and-sandal/peplum fare tomorrow on Turner Classic Movies. Here are my recommendations:

3:15am Sinbad The Sailor (1947)
The Arabian Nights hero sets off to find the lost treasure of Alexander the Great.
Cast: Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., Maureen O’Hara, Walter Slezak. Dir: Richard Wallace. C-117 mins, TV-PG

5:15am Son Of Sinbad (1955)
The legendary pirate’s son fights an evil caliph over a magical secret.
Cast: Dale Robertson, Vincent Price, Sally Forrest. Dir: Ted Tetzlaff. C-93 mins, TV-PG

7:00am Captain Sindbad (1963)
Sinbad takes on an evil wizard to save the princess he loves.
Cast: Guy Williams, Heidi Bruhl, Pedro Armendariz. Dir: Byron Haskin. C-85 mins, TV-PG

8:30am 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea (1954)
A renegade sea captain uses a pioneering submarine to force peace on the world.
Cast: Kirk Douglas, James Mason, Paul Lukas. Dir: Richard Fleischer. C-127 mins, TV-G

10:45am Hercules, Samson & Ulysses (1963)
When two legendary Greek heroes are marooned, they’re pushed into conflict with the famed Biblical strongman.
Cast: Kirk Morris, Richard Lloyd, Enzo Cerusico. Dir: Pietro Francisci. C-86 mins, TV-PG

12:15pm Terror of Rome Against the Son of Hercules (1964)
A legendary hero tries to save a young Christian woman’s life.
Cast: Mark Forrest, Marilu Tolo, Elisabetta Fanti. Dir: Mario Caiano. C-100 mins

Happy 4th of July everyone (in advance)! This is my very favorite holiday.

Very heavy on Hitchcock tomorrow over at Turner Classic Movies, which is fine by me. My recommendations are below, all times are Pacific. Patriots will want to check out James Cagney as George M. Cohan in Michael Curtiz’s Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942)! This is one of Cagney’s great performances, and it’s hard to watch it and still keep your eyes dry.

6:30am Shadow of a Doubt (1943)
A young girl fears her favorite uncle may be a killer.
Cast: Joseph Cotten, Teresa Wright, Macdonald Carey. Dir: Alfred Hitchcock. BW-108 mins, TV-PG

8:30am Psycho (1960)
A woman on the run gets mixed up with a repressed young man and his violent mother.
Cast: Anthony Perkins, Janet Leigh, Vera Miles. Dir: Alfred Hitchcock. BW-109 mins, TV-PG

10:30am Vertigo (1958)
A detective falls for the mysterious woman he’s been hired to tail.
Cast: James Stewart, Kim Novak, Barbara Bel Geddes. Dir: Alfred Hitchcock. C-130 mins, TV-PG

12:45pm Birds, The (1963)
In a California coastal area, flocks of birds unaccountably make deadly attacks on humans.
Cast: Rod Taylor, Tippi Hedren, Jessica Tandy. Dir: Alfred Hitchcock. C-119 mins, TV-14

3:00pm Rear Window (1954)
A photographer with a broken leg uncovers a murder while spying on the neighbors in a nearby apartment building.
Cast: James Stewart, Grace Kelly, Raymond Burr. Dir: Alfred Hitchcock. C-114 mins, TV-PG

11:00pm Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942)
Spirited musical biography of the song-and-dance man who kept America humming through two world wars.
Cast: James Cagney, Walter Huston, Joan Leslie. Dir: Michael Curtiz. BW-126 mins, TV-G

1:15am On the Town (1949)
Three sailors wreak havoc as they search for love during a whirlwind 24-hour leave in New York City.
Cast: Gene Kelly, Frank Sinatra, Vera-Ellen. Dir: Gene Kelly, Stanley Donen. C-98 mins, TV-G

One of the previously lost scenes from Metropolis.

A major news story has broken over the past 24 hourse: a print of the original 3-hour cut of Fritz Lang’s Metropolis has apparently been discovered in Buenos Aires. This has been one of the holy grails in archival research, and I’m personally thrilled that this print has been found! For the full story on all this, check out the German publication Die Ziet (English version), and also the boys at AintItCool have been doing some nice work on all this here and here.

Apparently the first public viewing of this original cut of the film will actually be shown today in Beunos Aires. Man I wish I was there!

Essentially what’s been discovered is almost an hour of material from the film that had been lost since 1927. In my humble opinion, this is the most important archival find we could possibly have - short only, perhaps, someone finding the 40 minutes or so of lost footage from Orson Welles’ Lady From Shanghai.

What I’m going to do for LIBERTAS readers is dig up an article I did some years back on Lang’s Metropolis for the journal Neurosurgery. I’ll get that posted here as soon as possible … but in the meantime this is marvelous news!

[UPDATE: Here is the article I wrote some years back on the film: Metropolis: The Foundation of the Avant-garde.]

“They finally found us!”

John Ford’s The Searchers would be my #1.

A group called the Western Writers of America has released a list of what they’re calling the Top 100 Westerns of All Time.

I’ve put the top 25 below, and you can click on over for the rest. I don’t like this list. A lot of these films obviously belong on the list, but don’t deserve to share time with mediocrities like Open Range or Tombstone. [And I’m sorry, Costner does not deserve 2 films in the top 10 while Eastwood gets none.] But I’d like to see what readers have to say about this.

1. Shane
2. High Noon
3. The Searchers
4. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
5. Dances with Wolves
6. The Wild Bunch
7. Red River
8. Tombstone
9. The Magnificent Seven
10. Open Range
11. Treasure of the Sierra Madre
12. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
13. True Grit
14. The Shootist
15. Stagecoach (1939)
16. Unforgiven
17. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
18. The Outlaw Josey Wales
19. Ride the High Country
20. Jeremiah Johnson
21. The Cowboys
22. My Darling Clementine
23. 3:10 to Yuma (2007)
24. Rio Bravo
25. The Ox-Bow Incident

“These rings are really heavy …”

Not that this is a surprise, not that this is even news (I’m wavering on that one), but Babs has finally endorsed Obama. Took a few weeks and a few crying jags to get over Hillary’s demise, apparently. Here’s the ultimate Diva herself on Barack:

Barack has awakened in many of us the notion that we can again be hopeful, enabling us to believe that we are capable of lifting our brothers and sisters out of poverty, of providing quality education for all our children, of ending this unjust war in Iraq and bringing our troops home safely. He’s reminded us ‘yes we can’…we can make the transition from fossil fuels to green energy; we can take care of our elderly and make sure that good healthcare is not just a perk for a few, but a right for every man, woman and child. We are experiencing not just a presidential campaign, but a movement; a movement of inspired young people who have been cynical about politics for too long. For Barack, hope, change, believe…they are not just words. They are tangible ideas that make up the blueprint to building a better America for all of us. He is committed to making the road stronger for those that come after and to leaving behind something that lasts longer than his own spotlight.

I’m curious as to what people think of this.

Click on the trailer below.

Planet Earth as consumerist nightmare, blah, blah, blah …

As predicted, the controversy over the ‘worldview’ of Pixar’s new film Wall*E is spreading like wildfire (see here and here and here). I’d like to offer a hat-tip, by the way, to my old pal Greg Pollowitz at National Review for his role in kicking off this whole controversy. So far I’ve basically taken a pass on the subject, because the whole thing depresses me and I’m not eager to subject myself to the propaganda Pixar-Disney is currently doling out. [Memo to Disney: we’re all still waiting for that Path to 9-11 DVD release, by the way.]

Conservatives are understandably up in arms about what is apparently depicted in this film (Earth as Matrix-style, hyper-corporate, eco-apocalpytic wasteland), although we’ve been getting this sort of thing from Hollywood for quite some time. I think that a lot of conservative ire, however, is emerging from the mistaken impression that Pixar was somehow friendly to the conservative and/or libertarian side to begin with. Ever since Pixar’s The Incredibles came out several years ago, I’ve seen it hyped in conservative-libertarian circles to no end, to the point that people began to believe that there was actually some kind of pseudo-libertarian cabal of people who ran Pixar.

If you spend any time in Hollywood conservative circles, you know this drill well. It goes like this: someone - let’s say, an actor - will make a public comment to the effect that “actually our troops are not baby-killers.” This comment will immediately fuel speculation that said actor is ‘one of us’ and a closeted ‘Hollywood conservative,’ when actually said ‘actor’ was simply speaking off the cuff in the normal way that people do.

Folks at Pixar have been dropping hints like this for years, but never really very much substantial. [A few nods in Ayn Rand’s direction in The Incredibles, Andrew Stanton saying he’s a Christian, etc.] Lo and behold, we now find that Pixar’s actually pretty much like everybody else working in the system. To have expected anything else is really to be naive.

I’ve been telling fellow conservatives for years: avoid wish-fantasies about people/companies in the Hollywood system who are sold to you as being ‘conservative.’ These people are subject to extraordinary professional pressures that will usually compromise what they can do or say. If you want to express yourself freely, embrace independent film, digital technology, and the extraordinary opportunities those two worlds currently offer. Or else be prepared for more ‘disappointments’ like Wall*E.

There’s a little more news out now about the casting for Roland Emmerich’s next end-of-the-world epic, 2012. In the fine print of this Hollywood Reporter article you’ll note that both Danny Glover and John Cusack are now attached to the project.

This for a film that will apparently make “several brief but glaringly awkward attempts at political commentary and even what could be construed by some as a few baffling jabs at religion.”

Can’t wait. [Sigh.]

Actor.

Actor Dennis Haysbert apparently believes his portrayal of the first black president on Fox’s “24″ may have helped pave the way for Barack Obama. Who knows? Maybe he’s right. Love to hear what people think of that, since there are a lot of “24″ fans who read this site.

Also: Stephen Baldwin says he’ll be leaving the country if Barack Obama wins. He may need to anyway because of the SAG strike.

Anybody remember who started this I’ll leave the country! trend? I think it was Sarandon.

Actor.

If you’re a Tyler Perry fan, here are some details about his next film, along with the poster (above). Love the title. Click on over for more …