Posts Tagged ‘movies’

Five Thoughts Under the Fedora: Coyote vs Acme’s a Winner, The Spin Cycle on Iran is Ending, China Says Jump Canada’s Carney Says “How High?”, Oil for the tanks of Trump, Goodbye Dolly

Posted: August 31, 2026 by datechguy in Always look at the bright side of Trump, economy, entertainment, politics, trade, Uncomfortable Truths, under the fedora
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It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a movie that’s actually is popular both with the critics and the fans. Coyote vs Acme is one of them. I went to see it with my sons and my priest and amazingly it was even better than the hype.

That they decided it was incapable of making its cost back is a tad of a surprise but $70 million isn’t peanuts.

I have believe that it was held back because the last thing the left wants is people watching old movies and cartoons that bring people back to saner times.

The attempt to spin the Iran war online seems to have intensified. Likely because with a secure corridor for shipping and the continuing pipeline advancements the ability of Iran and their allies to stop oil from flowing is almost nil.

Add to that the phony mines and the strikes to interdict their resupply the only cards they have are talk and social media.

But once that oil reaches the market you will see prices come down & when that happens in October it will be bad news for the left and even worse for the Democrats.

But yeah believe the online folks who claim that Trump is a fool.

Canada’s decision to cover for China’s attempt to dump steel into the US through them speaks a lot to what the Canadian left has done to the country.

Personally I think it’s less about China protecting their steel exports then it is the hope that this hurts the GOP in the midterms.

Iran, Canada, Russia, China and the Democrats would all like to see the midterms go bad for Trump.

They know where their bread is buttered.

Apparently Trump has made a deal with Venezuela that will be refilling our strategic oil reserve as a “gift” to our country.

This is another blow to the “Trump is an idiot” , “Trump is a failure”, “Trump doesn’t know what’s he’s doing” narrative, but more importantly it puts the US in the single best position in the west with full tanks at a time when others energy supplies are failing.

All of this without a giant hit on our treasury. How much winning can one president manage?

Finally the reaction to the death of Dolly Parton has been a huge surprise to me. Not that people have celebrated her, but that it has been universal and international. People who have been pushing the most vile murderous ideologies have nevertheless recognized her goodness and her actions on behalf of her fellow man which was practiced without favoritism.

It was so universal that her unwillingness to attack her own people, a people despised by the elites everywhere, were not enough to bring down their opinion of her.

It would not surprise me if some of those in media complementing her don’t mean it, but they’re smart enough to know there is no percentage in trying to play those cards.

Dolly as a villain just isn’t sellable, at least not at this time.

Must See Movies: All Through the Night (1942)

Posted: September 24, 2024 by datechguy in entertainment, fun
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The first in a series of occasional posts on forgotten movies that you should watch.

When you think of the names of Humphrey Bogart , Peter Lorie and Conrad Veidt in a motion picture naturally the classic movie Casablanca (1942) is the first picture that comes to mind and rightfully so as it is one of the greatest movies of all time. However if you go back to the beginning of that year, you will find another movie where the three of them appear that is worth your time to see. All Through the Night

Bogart plays “Gloves” Donahue who in addition to fixing bets and various swindle is known for his love of cheesecake and not just cheesecake but Miller’s Cheesecake. So when Mr. Miller disappears and turns up dead and a strange alluring woman (Karen Verne) turns up and disappears shortly afterward looking for him Donahue finds himself on a 24 romp that cumulates in murder, manhunts and finally reveals a Nazi 5th column in the heart of NY run by a man named Ebbing (Veidt) assisted by aides Pepi (Lorie) and Madame (Dame Judith Anderson).

The movie moves quickly and features a who’s who of soon to be comedy greats from William Demarest (his Lieutenant) to Jackie Gleason (one of his men) to Phil Silvers (The waiter) ably assisted by Frank McHugh whose attempt to enjoy his wedding night are stymied at every turn and Jane Darwell one of the grand dames of Hollywood who plays Bogart’s character’s mother who constantly has a feeling about things.

They’re plenty of fun, chases and suspense with a fair amount of danger thrown in. The writing is crisp and acting is strong and the one liners are very solid.

This is a movie that deserves to be watched and enjoyed by more people. I suggest you become one of them.

A fresh look at the movie Hillbilly Elegy

Posted: July 21, 2024 by John Ruberry in culture, election 2024, elections, entertainment, media, News/opinion, opinion/news, politics
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By John Ruberry

With the nomination of Sen. J.D. Vance as Donald Trump’s running mate, of course there is renewed interest in his memoir, Hillbilly Elegy, and the Ron Howard movie based on it.

I’ve yet to read book, but I saw the movie in 2020 on Netflix, which distributed the film, and I thought it was a captivating look at Vance’s life. 

Both the book and the movie draw on Vance’s upbringing in the southwestern Ohio post-industrial city of Middletown. His maternal grandparents were from Jackson, Kentucky–in the Appalachian portion of the state, which is where Hillbilly Elegy begins. The young Vance (Owen Asztalos) gets a quick lesson in the importance of family loyalty after losing a fight. The Vances, unfortunately, are quite the dysfunctional family, particularly his drug-addicted mother, Beverly (Amy Adams). Eventually, Vance ends up in the care of his grandmother, Bonnie “Mawmaw” Vance (Glenn Close), a chain-smoking, cussing, mean, but ultimately loving authority figure.

The movie contains many flashbacks as the adult J.D. (Gabriel Basso), a US Marine veteran who is a Yale law student, finds his promising future tangled up with his troubled past. His girlfriend, Usha (Freida Pinto), provides him much needed emotional support.

As I said earlier, this is a captivating film, and Howard, a gifted director, makes skilled used of imagery, including perhaps his favorite, water, and a stunning symbolic use of the Middletown rail bridge tunnel.

However, by 2020, Vance was vocal about his conservative beliefs, and he had moved from the Never Trump camp of the Republican Party to being a supporter of the 45th president. Which, in my opinion, led to movie critics, a group which politically consists mostly of leftists, to offer a large dose of negative reviews of Hillbilly Elegy. The Chicago Sun-Times’ Richard Roeper was a notable exception, he gave the movie a four-stars-out-of-four review.

An even worse response came from the 2021 Golden Raspberry Awards, better known as the Razzies. The bad movie answer to the Academy Awards nominated Hillbilly Elegy for three Razzies: Worst Director (Howard), Worst Adapted Screenplay (Vanessa Taylor), and Worst Supporting Actress (Close). However, Close, was also nominated for a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for the same role, and Hillbilly Elegy also garnered a Best Makeup and Hairstyling Oscar nomination.

Was this hatred was triggered by Vance’s politics?

I am certain of that, because also that year, Razzie “winners” included the documentary Absolute Proof, which questioned the results of the 2020 presidential election. Mike Lindell of My Pillow fame “won” Worst Actor for his role in that movie, and Rudy Giuliani “won” for Worst Supporting Actor for his brief role in Borat Subsequent Moviefilm.

Voters for the Razzies are not required to see the movies they vote on. Other “winners” of Razzies, not surprisingly, include other conservatives, among them are Ronald Reagan, Dinesh D’Souza, and Jon Voigt.

I apologize for that brief diversion, but the Golden Raspberry Awards needs a serious and prolonged slapping around.

To summarize, don’t believe the critics. Unless you are an unhinged leftist suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome, Hillbilly Elegy is well worth your time.

The lessons from Hillbilly Elegy are conservative ones. Family bonds, hard work, and perseverance, while not a guarantee of success, make success more likely. 

I suspect that left-wing critics will have one more group lash-out at Hillbilly Elegy.

And from the only presidential term of Joe Biden comes another lesson: Don’t believe the media. Even movie reviewers can’t be trusted.

Hillbilly Elegy is available for streaming on Netflix, where as of this writing is ranked #4 in the movie category. It is rated R for violence, drug use, and foul language.

John Ruberry regularly blogs at Marathon Pundit.

Jonathan & Jesus Let’s Talk REAL Pressure

Posted: January 8, 2024 by datechguy in catholic, entertainment
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Abraham Lincoln: [speaking to a old freed slave who dropped to his knees before him] Don’t kneel to me, that is not right. You must kneel to God only, and thank Him for the liberty you will enjoy hereafter.

Richmond April 4th 1865 surrounded by a group of newly freed slaves

This trailer dropped from the folks at the Chosen:

In one respect this isn’t odd, you might recall from your movie history Cecil B DeMille’s silent movie King of Kings, the first movie adaption of the Gospels. It’s available at Youtube:

At the Turner Classic movies the lengths that DeMille took to keep things on the “right” path:

Cecil B. DeMille did not want to take any chances with the film. His two stars, ‘H. B. Warner’ and ‘Dorothy Cummings’ , were required to sign agreements which prohibited them from appearing in film roles that might compromise their “holy” screen images for a five-year period. DeMille also ordered them not to be seen doing any “un-biblical” activities during the film’s shooting. These activities included attending ball games, playing cards, frequenting night clubs, swimming, and riding in convertibles.

and Turner also reports that DeMille had some serious damage control to do:

Lead actor H.B. Warner, who played Jesus, was involved in an off-camera scandal with anonymous woman who was determined to blackmail Cecil B. DeMille by ruining the production. It is believed that DeMille paid the woman on the condition that she leave the U.S.

IMDB.com claims the woman was made to back off after being threatened with arrest. It also states that the pressure that Warner felt playing Christ was so intense that it brought back his drinking problem.

Now consider, this was one movie released in 1927 at a time when movies were not universal. Warner was already an established actor with a ton of credits behind him and decades of credits ahead of him (you might best remember him as Mr. Gower the druggist in It’s a Wonderful Life)  

The Chosen has now been around for over four years. It has been seen by hundreds of millions all over the world. It is a global phenomena. Furthermore if you look at IMDB you will find that while Jonathan Roumie has credits dating back to 2001 you will see nothing in a significant staring role that might cause him to be memorable before the Chosen. His entire fames comes from playing Jesus and there are, I suspect, many particularly in a post Christian culture that have not known the Gospel before and are rediscovering faith for the first time, for whom he is the only Jesus they have ever known in their lives.

Imagine the pressure of playing the son of God under those conditions and add to that the aditional pressure when you consider Jonathan Roumie is a devout Catholic who is very conscious of the dangers of the sin of Pride and that his performance and how he carries himself in public could have a huge oversized effect on people trying to find God. An actor might worry about the effects of his words and actions hurting a production, a devout Christian would worry about his actions and their effect on souls.

And we haven’t even touched on those who despise this message and the messengers who deliver it, both natural and supernatural. I’ve written and spoken about how the clergy and particularly the higher ups are targets for the devil, that comes with the job. Jonathan Roumie is an actor. I suspect that Satan has painted a target on his back bigger than the one on any Bishop.

That he is able to function at all, let alone as a man of faith and devotion speaks volumes and by the time the final season of the Chosen has wrapped, if he didn’t have a complete understanding of redemptive suffering he’ll know it first hand.

I admire him for this task which I would not want for all the gold in the world.

I haven’t watched this documentary yet, but you can bet I’m going to.

Update: Apparently it’s in four parts and available on Amazon. Watching now

Speaking of Gold in the world this is the final day of Christmas and thus the final day of our fundraiser: We remain stuck $2345 away from our goal. I suspect we won’t manage that today but I’d be really delighted if we could get that number below $2000 before I get home. If you would like to help please hit DaTipJar below or to the left:

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