Roland Emmerich’s new end-of-the-world disaster film 2012 has a rollicking good time destroying every monument to man’s architectural genius in the world. The Sistine Chapel goes kablooie, as does the Vatican and the giant Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro. The White House gets flattened, too. All man’s most well known landmarks get turned to dust by Emmerich’s over-the-top movie effects team.

But by the time the year 2012 rolls around, director Roland Emmerich is obviously saying that Islam has already been wiped off the face of the Earth before the end came. There are no Saudi scenes of mayhem and destruction in his film. No Iranian landmarks get caved in, no destruction of Mecca and Medina are shown in Emmerich’s mashup masterpiece.

One can only conclude that Roland Emmerich has decided that Islam has been wiped out by an enraged western civilization before the year 2012. Emmerich is obviously saying that all Muslims have been put to death and all Muslim holy sites will have been erased from the earth long before 2012 comes to end all of civilization.

Well, what other conclusion can you come to when it is realized that director Emmerich has decided not to show any Muslim sites being destroyed in his film about the end of the world? I mean, if everything is being destroyed and he doesn’t show any Muslim sites getting mushified, he MUST be saying that there aren’t any Muslim sites left to mush by the time 2012 rolls around… right?

So, there you have it folks. Director Roland Emmerich is positing a total genocide of all Muslims and a complete erasure of their history from the planet before the year 2012.

Either that or Roland Emmerich is just another boring self-hating, Hollywood coward that delights in wishing destruction and death to be visited upon the very civilization that brings him fortune and fame. And, gosh… we don’t want that to be true, do we?

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Imagine this. At a time of political turmoil, a charismatic, telegenic new leader arrives virtually out of nowhere. He offers a message of hope and reconciliation based on compromise and promises to marshal technology for a better future that will include universal health care.

Actually, the up front leader is a she. And, she does make all those sorts of “we’re the space aliens, and we are here to help.” Of course, in the opening 5 minutes, a large Jesus on the Cross falls and nearly crushes a man in a wheel chair. And, in the first 15, two priests have thoughts of doubt about God, because the aliens came. The first 30 seemed more about hopenchange then the original hopenchange

The news media swoons in admiration — one simpering anchorman even shouts at a reporter who asks a tough question: “Why don’t you show some respect?!” The public is likewise smitten, except for a few nut cases who circulate batty rumors on the Internet about the leader’s origins and intentions. The leader, undismayed, offers assurances that are soothing, if also just a tiny bit condescending: “Embracing change is never easy.”

The leader offers an up and coming reporter a once in a lifetime interview. Right before it is about to start, he says he has to ask some tough questions. She says he has to show the V in a good light. He says that’s not the way it works. She says the interview is over. Then she tells him this could make his career, and that he really wants to cooperate. Unsurprisingly, he does. And, during said interview, the leader states that she wants health care for all. I actually groaned out-loud when the reporter says “you mean like universal health care?” Then I remembered something important from the original series

So, does that sound like anyone you know? Oh, wait — did I mention the leader is secretly a totalitarian space lizard who’s come here to eat us?

See, now that is the part that liberals will not like. I’d suspect that liberals are sending plenty of unhinged emails, and placing many unhinged, frothing, foaming phone calls, to ABC.

While those few nut cases are circulating rumors and banding together to fight back, the V actually attack them.

Of course, I am wondering what kind of trickery the producers, director, and writers will stick in to change the dynamics so it becomes Liberal Friendly, much as the big shots destroyed Battlestar Galactica.

To be honest, I wish they could have left the politics out of it. Ruins the atmosphere. Hopefully, they will change it up just a bit, drop the politics.

Crossed at Pirate’s Cove

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Remember how the left always asserted that George W. Bush was stupid? Remember how they were so thrilled to have the Obammessiah that spoke so well, a president that was perpetually the smartest man in the room? Well, after the many stammering TelePrompter free stump debacles during the campaign, many began to doubt this claim of his superior intelligence. Certainly by itself this is no big deal. But added with the whole here is another small dent in the perception of Obama’s overrated superiority.

Newsweek conducted a Q and A with the president at the end of which appears a few questions concerning his recent choices of entertainment. During the Q and A The One admitted he watched the reboot of Star Trek in the White House movie theater claiming that everyone was saying he was Spock. But two other things he said clanged badly: one arrogant and the other somewhat ignorant.

First the arrogant:

And the last movie you saw?

Now, movies I’ve been doing OK [with] because it turns out we got this nice theater on the ground floor of my house … So Star Trek, we saw this weekend, which I thought was good. Everybody was saying I was Spock, so I figured I should check it out and–[the president makes the Vulcan salute with his hand].

So The One likes to be called Mr. Spock, eh? That is bad enough, but the fact that he so automatically called the White House “my house” is simply as arrogant as it comes. It isn’t “your” house Mr. President. It’s the people’s! The man’s sense of entitlement is disgusting.

Next the ignorant:

Did you watch that when you were growing up?

I used to love Star Trek. You know, Star Trek was ahead of its time. There was a whole–the special effects weren’t real good, but the storylines were always evocative, you know, there was a little commentary and a little pop philosophy for a 10-year-old to absorb.

I find it amusing that the “Spock” of the White House, the smartest president evah doesn’t know the difference between “evocative” and “provocative.” By the later half of his sentence Obama clearly meant provocative, not evocative.

The word evocative simply means to provoke emotional response or memories. But by focusing on “philosophy” and “commentary” Obama obviously meant that Star Trek provoked thinking so it was intellectually provocative not emotionally evocative. Additionally, how much evoking can a 10-year-old indulge?

So, why doesn’t the smartest man in the world know the difference between provocative and evocative?

Maybe he isn’t as smart as the left would have it?

(As for me, I saw Trek last night. Fun film. Unfortunately, it never once felt like Star Trek to me. But it did evoke some fond memories with its homage to the original series!)

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Naturally all Bush’s folks are the Evil Characters

In a transparently unhinged and partisan hit job against several Bush administration officials, Newsweek thought it would be amusing to compare the Bush era and the Obama era by analogizing them with Star Wars and Star Trek respectively. Naturally Newsweek’s Bush Derangement Syndrome was given full throated expression — phasers set to kill not to stun — as the Bush administration officials were noted as representing one or the other of the evil Star Wars characters while all the Obama officials were compared to the good guys in Star Trek. What we get is the typical Old Media talking point: Bush evil/ Obama good.

Out of the 9 Star Wars characters used on the SW side to explain the Bush era, only 5 are conceivably a good guy. The rest are all the SW bad guys. But even that isn’t as it would seem on its face. It’s so bad that even when Newsweek uses any of the ostensible good guy characters from Star Wars, their caption tends to undercut the good nature of the character when coupled with a Bush official. For instance, we all know that the happy and fun character of C-3PO is a beloved Star Wars character, but in Newsweek’s hands the venerable, loyal robot becomes former Bush Spokesman Ari Fleischer. Why is C-3PO like Fleisher? Why because he’s “obsequious” and “glabrous,” of course. Hardly flattering.

It gets worse. On the Star Trek side only one of the 9 Star Trek characters used for Obama era figures is a Star Trek bad guy. Evil Klingon Commander Kor becomes… wait for it… Rush Limbaugh! That’s right, the only bad guy on Newsweek’s Obama side is Limbaugh. Every other Obama era official is compared to a Star Trek good guy and lionized in the caption.

So what is the outcome? Let’s take the Bush/Star Wars side first. Bush himself is the evil, tragic Darth Vader, Rumsfeld is the evil general Grand Moff Tarkin, Cheney is the corrupt and venal Star Wars Emperor, Rove the sneaky, uncaring bounty hunter Boba Fett, and Alberto Gonzales is a “disposable flunky” Stormtrooper.

Now, W’s dad, former president H.W. Bush, is coupled with Obi-Wan Kenobi. You might then say, well SEE, Obi-Wan is a good guy. Oh, but wait for the caption. You see, H.W. Bush is Obi-Wan because he was the “confirmed sage disappointed by the cherished disciple Vader.” In other words, he is the wise father disappointed by the failure son. According to Newsweek, then, H.W. Bush was the “good” president because Newsweek agreed with H.W.’s wrongheaded foreign policy.

Worse is the silly portrayal of Colin Powell as the Han Solo frozen in carbonite. You see, in Newsweek’s eyes Powell was a good guy that was “thwarted by Vader.” So, even as they compare Powell to one of the Star Wars heroes they pick the time in the movie series when that hero was frozen and powerless, unable to be a hero.

But what of the wonderful, bright and shining Obama era? Who are they in the Star Trek universe? Prepare to be sickened.

Naturally, Obama is the logical Spock, the smartest guy in the room, with “cool, collected” brilliance. Robert Gibbs is teamed with Lt. Uhura simply as “communications chief.” No dig at the failure that is Gibbs is given by Newsweek, of course. Ben Bernanke is Scotty because he’s warning of the troubles ahead. Tax cheat Timothy Geithner is Nurse Chapel because he’s a “dependable helping hand.” Axelrod is Checkov merely because he “sets the course.” I already mentioned Limbaugh as the eeeevil Klingon.

Now we get to the two that might be considered a jab, but only just.

VP Biden is compared to D. McCoy with this odd caption: “Salty motormouth who thinks he knows best.” This I find to be an insult to McCoy because Dr. McCoy was never in the Star Trek series the clown that Biden is in real life.

Finally, we get Bill Clinton compared to the scarred and withered version of Star Trek’s Captain Pike, the man that commanded the Enterprise before Captain Kirk did in the TV series. Bill Clinton is like Pike because he was “so talented, so promising… so damaged.” And this too is a bad analogy. Pike is nothing like the disloyal, womanizing Clinton. All Captain Pike fans should be telling Newsweek to shove it.

… of course, any Bush fans should be too.

(And this is doubly galling for me because I think Star Wars is kiddie, junk. Star Trek was the one with the intellectual heft between the two. Sigh.)

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Who Watches The Watchers? -A Comic Book As Political Commentary and a new blockbuster movie soon to hit theaters

If you thought the last Batman movie, The Dark Knight, was dark and cynical, wait until you see Watchmen, arriving in theaters on March 6, 2009. Brooding Bruce Wayne will have nothing on a “hero” that rapes his sidekick, another one that has no interest in mankind at all, one that is a megalomaniac, one that is psychotic, and one that is overweight and sexually impotent all set against a backdrop of a United States that is many shades of despair and evil. It makes Batman, The Dark Knight, seem like a festival of sweetness and light. This is the Watchmen, soon to be released by Warner Brothers. If this new flick at all follows that anti-American, nihilism of the original comic books we are in for some dark stuff, indeed.

Why do contemporary artists all seem to think the end of the world is nigh? Why has art become a thing of ugliness, instead of light? With all the beautiful things we see every day, the delicacy of a flower, the turn of a woman’s arm, the grace of a bird in flight, we are treated only to the bizarre and horrid by our artists. These days we see sculptures that look like molecular mistakes writ large. We live in architecture with the image of a jumble of blocks thrown to the ground in the midst of a temper tantrum by a gigantic, petulant child. We view paintings that appear more accidental than planned. We have movies full of violence and anti-social behavior. On the radio we hear music that celebrates all the worst in man. We even have comic books that belittle heroism, that deconstruct the good and exceptional turning their heroes as cartoonishly flawed as the most obscene head case on the Jerry Springer Show.

When did entertainment turn so dark?

In the field of comic books, a 12 part series called Watchmen, created by writer Alan Moore (original author of the story that the 2005 movie “V for Vendetta” was based upon) as a political commentary on its time, was a comic book series hailed as having “transcended its origins,” and so becoming a watershed in comics entertainment. This series, published in 1986, was at the front edge of a wave of comics in the early and mid 1980s that attempted to demolish the heroes of the past and replace them with a post-hero world of darkness and pessimism.

So why talk about a comic book from 1986 now? With a motion picture under development and Time Magazine placing the series on its top 100 novels Watchmen is being brought back into prominence, and now seems like a good time to re-visit the series. Since it is claimed that it had so changed the comic book industry, let’s give it a look with fresh, more critical eyes.

Watchmenwas a reflection of the contemporary political positions held by an influential minority, sure enough. But in the final analysis, it is so imbued with the over wrought and ill-conceived notions of the political left that it fails to wholly represent a true understanding of what was really going on in the world or what, in retrospect, we really had to worry about. Further, it is just the type of stuff being peddled to our kids (as it originally was in comic book stores) to which we should pay attention.

Graphically, it isn’t very well drafted. It does have the benefit of being created in the semi-realist style that began to be popular in the 1980s though. which instantly makes it better than today’s comics drawn in that horrible Japanese Anime/Manga style that has so pervaded the comic book industry of late. Thankfully, Watchmen’s was not yet an era infected by this regrettable, current trend in US comic art.

As to subject matter, it wasn’t “just a comic book.” It hit all the 80’s hot-button issues. Homosexuality, rape, war with Russia and “the bomb,” crooked US politicians, corruption, murder, sexual impotency, welfare mammas, and homicidal maniacs were all aspects of the story line. It even indulges in demonization of Nixon directly, and Ronald Reagan by inference. But it’s philosophy of nihilism and anarchy was its underlying message.

Obviously, the series is a commentary on the human condition as much as it is on the politics contemporary to the publishing of the work as intended by writer, Alan Moore. Moore is from a long line of political leftists and has repeatedly said in interviews that his comic series was intended to be a left-leaning commentary on political ideaology. Man is the greatest evil of all, despair is the only possible reality, and peace is but fleeting seem to be the core messages in Watchmen. And in all of this, the western world makes it even worse. Watchmen is all told on the backdrop of a fallen and corrupt western society.

But, this idea, that man will ruin everything eventually, could certainly have been told sans the ill informed and badly thought out political commentary running underneath. The basic tenets of leftist thought that forms the basic point of view in this series are proven failures and this detracts from what could have been a better story. The fact that the Left’s ideas are failures was even realizable during the era in which the book was written and not just in hindsight as we re-read it today. From the hatred of American politics, to doubt of American character, and the equalization of all ideologies to the lowest common denominator, this series fails in its political philosophy.

Further, the cynical commentary that “justice,” or “right,” and “good” themselves are so subjective as to be impossible to define runs throughout. There is a basic assumption here that there’s no such thing as heroism and that those who claim to believe in the concept or even try to put it into play eventually make a mockery of their claims of defending the innocent and punishing the guilty. That they, sooner or later, confuse the search for justice with their own selfish desires or that said search is so intertwined with their personality flaws in the first place that they only succeed in deluding themselves into imagining that justice really is being served at all by their actions.

This all reflects the author’s ideology of anarchy and nihilism. A case is being made that everything is relative and that nothing can be “known” because things are different in all situations, there is no universal “right,” no natural law. We know this battle has been fought between philosophers since man first began to wonder about his condition. It was hotly contested during the Enlightenment period of the 1700s, and once again in the 1800s, and still again in the 1900s and today. So, the lamentations in Watchmen certainly are not new.

Like I said, it’s all pretty dark and cynical.

To create his universe, Moore’s super-heroes were created specially for Watchmen and are case studies of a series of mental troubles that would make that old fraud, Freud, run for his couch.

The Comedian represents the most cynical example of anarchy in the series. His only desire is to continue to sate his need for violence, a need he cloaks in service to his country thereby making a mockery of patriotism as well as heroism. He sees no value in anything unless it fulfills his desires. One political undercurrent for this character is to display the evil of the US government, as well as the character’s degradation. This evinces itself in a US government that apparently sees nothing wrong with employing such a homicidal maniac as an undercover agent.

Unfortunately for the author’s touch with reality, he seems not to understand that such a personality is not one a government would be able to control or trust in the long run. The reality is that a certain fealty or belief in the ideals of the government in question usually makes for the better operative.

Dr. Manhattan is the only truly “super” being in the series. Whereas the others are just normal people who have certain abilities of physical strength or mental acuity, Dr. Manhattan was a man altered by a radiation experiment into a being that can manipulate molecules. But, as a result, his problem is utter disconnection with his fellows. With all his power he still lacks any real understanding of his fellow man. He is so fascinated by the workings of things, so blinded by the mechanics of the universe, he fails utterly to ask “why.” In fact, everything is so relative to him that he can see no difference between a blade of grass, a lone molecule, or a human being for most of the series. His world is unsatisfying, though. He continues to look for that “something” that even he, with all his great powers, is unable to define.

Manhattan’s politics seem to represent the ultra egalitarian “we are all the same” variety. His equalizes all of human endeavor to the same level. But, if we were to buy into this simplistic view it becomes inescapable that there really is no difference between a Gandhi figure and a Hitler. They are both “just humans,” so how can their actions be so “different”? Thus such a philosophy ends up denying any “truth” for man. This, of course, goes to the heart of undermining justice and law.

The Nite Owl, an aging tech expert, represents impotency in nearly all things. He cannot stop a crime, he cannot save New York, and he cannot even subdue a friend. He can’t even have sexual relations without some out of the ordinary stimulus. Futility seems his only ability in the end. His character screams that we are all helpless.

The main female character, Silk Spectre really has little meat to her role. She seems not to represent much of anything, seeming to act only as a foil or enabler for other characters. In fact, Moore is quoted as saying she is only in there so that they had a requisite female character. She seems treated that way, too. This makes her Mother’s rape by The Comedian seem gratuitous and all about The Comedian’s character development instead of either of the Spectres’ (the daughter takes up Mother’s superhero character). We are left with feeling that this rape story line was only added to make the story seem “adult” oriented. Of course, it could be a commentary on the supposed ill treatment of women in western society, too, but looking at the rest of this story, I doubt it was meant so by the author of the series.

Ozymandias represents megalomania at its worst, most messianic form. So sure is he that he knows better that he takes away the very thing that makes man a sentient human being an individual: choice. The ability to choose our fate, choose our reactions, and direct our own lives is overridden by Ozymandias’ “better” future.

Lastly is the character of Rorschach. As a child, this character’s prostitute mother told him that she should have aborted him. He was repeatedly abused and eventually snapped, turning violent. Once he snapped, he found that his wild violence fixed things for him and made people fear him. As an adult in his superhero life, he uses unbridled violence to elicit information from underworld figures and thinks nothing of casually breaking fingers to insure cooperation. He attacks a caner riddled old man to get info and basically roams about the city intimidating and causing harm to people. His main part in the comic is to act as an unbalanced mockery of justice.

Unfortunately, the series ends up being just another way to tear down standards, another way to complain about the old ways while offering nothing with which to replace them. That being the case, nothing new has been learned in Watchmen. The only thing “new” is the forum in which the questions are being raised: a comic book.

One wishes that writer, Moore, could have used his considerable talents to produce uplift as opposed to depression, to reach for the sublime instead of the prosaic, to inspire by taking the high road instead of the low. But, unfortunately, with the influence of the political view from the left upon him all he could do was take the low road. If all one can do is see the worst in man, claim nothing is ever worth the effort, and that western ideas have destroyed any vestige of light in man then you are doomed to stay on that low road. So, we end up with despair and darkness in our art, too many artists having taken the low road.

Just as sadly, we see that the political Left hasn’t learned much since 1986. They still see the west as causing all of the world’s problems, still see capitulation to our enemies as the right course of action, and still feel that Patriotism and right and wrong are words with meaningless distinctions or, worse, even dangerous concepts.

Moore has lamented that his work with Watchmen had “started a whole genre of pretentious comics or miserable comics,” but since he insisted on taking that low road, but what could he expect? His politics, if emulated, ends up at this very place.

But, laments aside, Moore’s epic comic book does do one thing very successfully. It reveals the empty moralizing and faulty logic of his flavor of political thinking. Nearly every leftist political point that Moore tries to sell coupled with his philosophical premises all have been tried by successive generations of humanity and with the all the same results. Utter failure has been that result. Yet, here is Watchmen subtly trying to sell the same failed concepts that have proven so dangerous to mankind — and often murderously so. In the end, we cannot help but realize that the Left, so sure that they are the ones qualified to “watch the watchers,” fail to see that it is they, rather than others, who need the watching.

–The Watchmen series is 12 issues in length and is so full of political undercurrents and topical content that this short Op Ed doesn’t do it justice. For a full review, book by book, visit our review website at – http://www.publiusforum.com/watchmen/watchmen_index.html

(image credit: DC Comics/lib.udel.edu)

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1. Jar Jar Binks. I don’t really need to explain, do I? Actually, it was George Lucas who needed to be sacrificed, but, he wasn’t an actual character in the movie. Anyhow, Jar Jar should have sacrificed himself while protecting Padme just after they came through the watery core of Naboo.

2. Anakin Skywalker in The Clone Wars. Yeah, he was pretty annoying in The Phantom Menace, but, what kids aren’t? In TCW, though, here’s a guy who is one of the most powerful Jedi around, and his powers are still growing, and he spends his time whining about all sorts of crap. He meets up with the older woman, who happens to be rich and powerful, he has been pining for for 10 years, and, what does he do? Complain in a whiny voice. I was surprised she didn’t tell him to man up. Unfortunately, sacrificing him in Episode 2 would kinda defeated everything else. Fortunately, he decides to just kill everyone in Episode 3.

3. Elizabeth in Pirates of the Caribbean 3: At Worlds End. A case can be be that she needed to meet a horrible end, possibly to a ravenous bugblatter beast of Trall, or maybe being press ganged as a pleasure girl for Davey Jones’ crew, in POTC2 when she started to realize that she wanted Jack Sparrow, but, seriously, the final straw was when she asked James Norrington about realizing what side he chose. Oh, you mean the side that was trying to eradicate people who are in to theft, rape, and murder, among other crimes? That side, Elizabeth? One commenter at deviantART wrote: Elizabeth from PotC needs to be shot, run over, exhumed, resurrected, and shot again. Yup, pretty much.

4. Hartigan in Sin City. Usually Bruce Willis is da man in movies, but, damn, what was up with the script for his character? Let’s see: he saves little Nancy, shoots the rapist psycho’s package off, gets shot a bunch of times, goes through a crapload of time in a weird jail cell, gets beat to snot multiple times, goes on a killing spree, keeps himself from dying by being hung, saves the girl, rips the guys package off with his bare hands (yeah, that was kinda nauseating), beats his head to a pulp, then, rather then going off with the hot stripper babe (who won’t take anything off) who loves him, wrote letters to him in prison, and was pining for him for a decade, he blows the back of his head off. Couldn’t Hartigan just have died early and let Nancy get on with her life?

5. Johnny Depp as Willy Wonky. Way to take what had been a pretty cool character as played by Gene Wilder and turn him in to some metrosexual weirdo freakazoid. I couldn’t even watch most of this travesty. The Oompa Loompa’s should have rebelled and strung him up then turned him in to some sort of fruity confection.

6. Louis de Pointe du Lac (Brad Pitt) ”Interview With The Vampire.” It would have been a whole lot more fun if that annoying character had just been iced by the vampire Lestat, kinda like “Dude! I’m swapping blood with another dude! Out comes his heart!” Perhaps Lestat needed to go, to. Aren’t vampires supposed to be cool and pine after some hot babe?

Special mention goes to virtually the entire cast of Independence Day, Dakota Fanning for her constant whining and screaming in War Of The Worlds, and Mike Myers as Austin Powers in Goldmember. Any character portrayed by Pauly Shore and Adam Sandler. Any character portrayed by George Clooney, Owen Wilson, and Brad Pitt.

Who are your most annoying movie characters that needed to be sacrificed early?

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“The Messenger of Peace“, to be shot around the holy cities of Mecca and Medina, was originally a 1977 Hollywood film made by Moustapha Akkad and starring Anthony Quinn.

It is often applauded by Muslims as an example of how commercial Western cinema can respect Islam.

Executive producer of the new movie, Hajja Subhia Abu Elheja, said: “Since 9/11, Islam’s image has suffered tremendously.

“Now more than ever it has become important to bridge the gap of understanding between Muslims and non-Muslims.”

Hmm. Will it explain how that gap which includes beheadings, suicide bombers, teaching kids to kill the infidel, the poor treatment of women in much of the Islamic world, stonings, hangings for homosexuals, violence against those who criticize Islam, and intolerance against most things not approved by Islam, among others?

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Entertainment Weekly’s Joshua Rich reported on the weekend’s box office returns for the latest releases on October 19 to let us all in on Hollywood’s successes and failures, because, you know, Hollywood is important and all. We find that the Chihuahua movie is still going like gangbusters ($70 million in three weeks) and the horrid movie “Max Payne” led the weekend’s receipts with $18 million. Oliver Stone’s slamfest “W,” though, earned a disappointing fourth place on its debut weekend.

So, what was EW’s excuse for this disappointing finish? According to Rich, “W” is failing at the box office because of “tough economic times.” It’s curious, though, that people have spent $70 million on the Chihuahua movie in these same “tough economic times” — and let us not forget that the latest Batman movie has made over $300 million. Still, the excuse for the fourth place finish for Stone’s pseudo-biopic is “tough economic times,” just the same.

But, Rich’s excuse is a claim that even Entertainment Weekly itself has recently disputed, at least as far as the box office goes. Only a few weeks ago, the weekend that right-wing comedy “An American Carol” debuted, the same Box Office Report column said that the “economy may be tanking, but the box office remains healthy, with probably the only year-on-year metric that’s seen an uptick.”

Amazingly, but a few weeks later, EW’s Joshua Rich suddenly finds that these “tough economic times” are responsible for the failure of the movie that maligns nearly everyone in the Bush family?

Here is what Rich said of “W.”

W. also did well given all that it had going against it. Oliver Stone’s presidential biopic was voted into fourth place with $10.6 mil in 2,030 locations — not bad for a movie opening during tough economic times about a man whom many Americans blame for said financial strains. But will the film be able to overcome its low approval rating from audiences (in the form of an impeachable CinemaScore grade of C) in the long run? Not likely.

So, on October 5th, Entertainment Weekly says that there is no economic impact at the box office then only two weeks later, the same box office report column states that “W” can’t make it because of these oh, so “tough economic times.”

That’s quite an industry wide downturn in only a few weeks, isn’t it? So, astonishing is the claim in fact, that it easily appears as an excuse to explain away why Stone’s movie is not so successful than it is any true reading of the status of the economy.

By the way, it is interesting to note that in the report of the box office take for the weekend that “An American Carol” opened, EW didn’t actually report what the box office take for the comedy was (it was $3,656,000). However, it did see fit to print how much the anti-religion movie made by Bill Maher rang up in sales.

That is pretty interesting in and of itself.

By the way, I have been told that “An American Carol” will make enough sales to repay its investment. As far as Hollywood is concerned that is a success story… just in case you are interested.

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Once again, we see the long knives sharpened against the right by employing innuendo and outright lies. This time it is against the movie An American Carol. On Tuesday, I reported that there was some concern that ticket sales for the movie were being diverted to other movies at certain theaters across the country. But, I never said there was a “conspiracy” to do so. The filmmakers also attempted to do some detective work to find out the veracity of the claims. But they didn’t call it a conspiracy either. Apparently simply asking the question, though, is too much for Wonkette and Huffington Post to handle. They had to gin it up as some wild-eyed claim of a “conspiracy” on our part.

In her inimitably profane and unprofessional style, Wonkette claimed the filmmakers are saying some great, leftist conspiracy is destroying the movie. The next day, an entry at the Huffington Post asserted the same thing. From there the lefty blogs took over to add to the din. Unfortunately for their hyperbole, the movie folks never asserted any such thing (for that matter, neither did I).

In fact, the folks that produced An American Carol went so far as to take down their page offering movie goers a place to report the incorrect ticket sales. I have been told by a spokesman from Mpower pictures that they had no intention of claiming there was some nationwide conspiracy being mounted against their film and that they will not be making any further public comments for the time being. But, there have been reports from many theaters that, among other things, fans have been handed tickets stubs from other movies instead of from the movie they came to see. It was the responsible thing to do, in my opinion, to give fans a place to report the matter if they felt they had been one of those defrauded.

The concern here is if individual theaters or their employees were purposefully crediting ticket sales to films other than what should be credited. Concerns ranged from cineplexes showing the movie not placing the title on marquees, to ticket sales being credited to other films. Also, some theaters had the rating of the film incorrect — showing an “R” rating instead of the proper “PG13″ — some theaters did not mention the film in recorded movie time phone messages even when the theater was showing the film, and tickets not being offered for sale on-line at individual theaters.

This isn’t the first time, though, such a thing has happened to politically charged products. Spike Lee has for decades complained about these sort of things, yet no one is attacking him for saying the same thing. And, we all have heard time and again the reports that books published by conservative radio and TV personalities have been hidden in books stores so that sales are hindered. Rush, Hannity, O’Reilly, they have all seen reports of this sort of thing.

Even so, no one is claiming that the booksellers are secretly conspiring to hinder book sales. What we are saying is that there are many millions of people out there that are not above taking it upon themselves to defraud or hinder the sales of politically charged products like books and movies. This is the case with An American Carol. If lone employees or individual theater owners are pulling a fast one on the film, it should be exposed. But, no one is saying there is some vast left-wing conspiracy going on.

In any case, do go see An American Carol. It’s an enjoyable romp with the right message that deserves our support. And don’t listen to these untruths emanating from people that hate the movie solely for its political motivations. Don’t forget to buy it on DVD when it comes out, too!

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Make sure you go check it out. In Hollywood, being openly right-wing is something you just don’t see. It’s considered a career killer. And all we see are films with a liberal bias, bashing America, bashing our military, bashing American traditions and values. Hollywood just loves to hate America. They also tend to side with terrorists.

And here we have filmmakers sticking their neck out, taking a gigantic risk with their careers to bring us a movie that finally represents conservative values. We all need to go see this movie and make sure it was worth the risk they took. I know I’ll be seeing it this weekend. You should be, too. Let’s get this movie to number one in the box office.

Cross-posted from Cassy’s blog.

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