Posted by
Brian Peters on Sunday, September 07, 2008 2:24:53 PM
I haven't been a big fan of Hollywood since the Clinton years. So many Hollywoodista's started standing on their soapboxes and proclaimed their political beliefs to the World, usually in the in-your-face mode. Many people realize that Hollywood has been producing more and more 'smut' and psuedo-pornographica style movies and TV shows. Which is why more and more people are watching non-Hollywood produced TV shows via cable television. As well the rise of popularity of the 'game shows' openly displays the public's distaste for most of the Hollywood productions. The TV shows that do well are usually more 'conservative' in nature and theme and if they are comedies, no comedy is king no more in 2008, they all....'suck'. They only have their cult followings which keeps them on the air.
Now today I saw a headline from Venice, Italy. The whole World came to the Venice Film festival and voted on what they felt are cinematic works of art, best of the best so to speak. Here's the list:
PRIZES OF THE 65TH VENICE FILM FESTIVAL
INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION JURY
GOLDEN LION "The Wrestler,” (Darren Aronofsky, US)
SILVER LION “Paper Soldier” (Aleksey German Jr., Russia)
GRAND JURY PRIZE "Teza," (Haile Gerima, Ethiopia-Germany-France)
ACTOR Silvio Orlando (“Il Papa di Giovanna,” Italy)
ACTRESS Dominique Blanc ("L’Autre," France)
BEST SCREENPLAY Haile Gerima (“Teza,” Ethiopia-Germany-France)
TECHNICAL CONTRIBUTION (Cinematography) Alisher Khamidhodjev, Maxim Drozdov (“Paper Soldier,” Russia)
MARCELLO MASTROIANNI PRIZE FOR YOUNG PERFORMER Jennifer Lawrence (“The Burning Plain,” US)
SPECIAL LION FOR BODY OF WORK Werner Schroeter (Germany)
OTHER JURIES
LUIGI DE LAURENTIIS LION OF THE FUTURE “Pranzo di Ferragosto,” (Gianni Di Gregorio, Italy)
VENICE HORIZONS “Melancholia” (Lav Diaz, Philippines)
VENICE HORIZONS DUCUMENTARY “Below Sea Level,” (Aleksey Fedortchenko, Russia)
VENICE HORIZONS SPECIAL MENTION “Un Lac,” (Philippe Grandrieux, France)
VENICE HORIZONS SECOND SPECIAL MENTION “Women,” (Huang Wenhai, China-Switzerland)
Label Europa Cinemas – Venice Days 2008 Prize ““Machan,” (Uberto Pasolini, Sri Lanka-Germany-Italy)
FIPRESCI (INTL. CRITIC'S ASSN) COMPETITION PRIZE "Gabbla” (“Inland”) (Tariq Teguia, Algeria)
FIPRESCI HORIZONS AND CRITICS’ WEEK PRIZE “Goodbye Solo” (Ramin Bahrani, US)
SHORTS
Corto Cortissimo Prize “Tierra Y Pan,” (Carlos Armella, Mexico)
Corto Cortissimo Special Mention “The Dinner,” (Karchi Perlmann, Hungary)
UIP Prize for Best European Short “The Altruists,” Koen Dejaegher (Belgium)
Granted a US film took top honors, but these films are often not of the norm produced by Hollywood. Out of the hundreds of films released this year in the US, we see 3 films that made the grade for the international community. While U.S. films get a lot of foreign attention and play, they are often short lived and forgotten soon after they leave the theater to become copies on DVD for sidewalk vendors in Bangkok, Kiev, Cairo.
and one of these movies is called 'Avatar' being directed by James Cameron, who has made some great films. But I did some internet searching via Dogpile, and found some storylines about Avatar being a sci-fi movie about an injured former marine who goes to a new planet and ends up helping the inhabitants fight the humans who seem bent on taking over the planet. So from what I have read, I think it's a disguised story of European Americans (Christians) coming to American and fighting the Native Americans and evntually taking over America. So it's anti-Conservative-Euro-American, anti-Corporation, anti-Capitalism, in it's theme. Namely, a typical Leftist Liberal Hollywood movie. Like all movies of this genre and theme, it will 'bomb' since only the anarcist that we saw destroying private property in St. Paul this past week, will be the only ones who will go see it. The 'blame' for the failure of this movie will fall on the 'right wing media' and George Bush, as usual per DNC party mantra.