Please Support these Most Courageous Storytellers in Hollywood

Here is an opportunity to do something active regarding changing our culture for the better.

Phelim McAleer and his wife Ann McElhinney, are the most boldly courageous filmmakers I have met. I am working with Phelim on a project so this is very personal to me. This is not just an idea or a distant and cold cultural observation.

Take a look at their trail of storytelling righteousness…

They spoke truth to the power of Big Green by making the documentary Frack Nation. This doc uncovered the malicious lies of the anti-fracking movement and “documentary” Gasland. They raised their own funds through Kickstarter to make it. It’s now on Netflix and Amazon Video. They showed the truth about fracking, that quite literally has saved our nation.

Phelim and Ann made history by raising their own funds of a couple million dollars to make a feature film (and book) about America’s worst serial killer, Hermit Gosnell. The press and everybody ignored this monster because he was an abortionist who engaged in infanticide. You read that right. Infanticide, not merely abortion. I’ve seen the movie, called, Gosnell. It’s a good movie. And it’s a courtroom drama, not a politicized piece. It has no gruesome pictures. It’s about the humanity of those who uncovered his dark crimes. But no distributor in Hollywood will touch it, because, well, Infanticide is a woman’s right to the Left. So Phelim and Ann are raising their own funds to distribute.

The New York Times suppressed their book about Gosnell from their best-sellers list, because, well, infanticide is a woman’s right to the  NYT.

When Kickstarter found out about the Gosnell project, it banned them from their website, because, well, infanticide is a woman’s right to Kickstarter. So Phelim and Ann went to Indiegogo, a more tolerant and inclusive fundraising website for their next projects… Continue reading

War for the Planet of the Apes: Cultural Appropriation and the Battle for the Social Narrative

In this fourth installment of the Planet of the Apes series we watch the next episode in how earth humans became overcome and enslaved by intelligent speaking apes.

This is a perfectly crafted well told epic that focuses on the personal journey of revenge for the leader of apekind, Caesar, played with understated brilliance by Andy Serkis. It is a moving and complex portrait of a leader who seeks peace, is pushed to revenge, but discovers mercy when he faces his own hatred. It’s what makes epics so… well, epic. War has ape characters that you can do nothing but root for, which makes you think twice, since they represent the creatures who will ultimately overthrow humanity on earth.

Are our enemies more like us than we would like to admit? Not always. But is it moral relativism to humanize the enemy? Not always.

Steven Zahn plays a comic relief chimpanzee who almost upstages Serkis with his lovably selfish personality (I’m telling you, Zahn rivals Serkis’ “good” Gollum paws down). The apes who join Caesar are loyal men—whoops—I mean apes of honor. The “humanization” of the apes is smartly captured by having Caesar’s band of assassins end up caring for a little mute human girl who steals your heart with every gesture she makes.

The visual effects are stupendous. Not one moment in the entire film did I ever think I was watching CGI. That is a compliment not only to the quality of the technology, but to the acting. War exemplifies the best of Hollywood visual effects, not in drawing attention to it, but in making it invisible. Bravo!

Unfortunately, War for the Planet of the Apes is also another example of bigoted Christophobia that seems to spill from the talented yet depraved souls of many Hollywood storytellers.

(Though, thank God, not all of them)

Human Exceptionalism: The Image of God

Continue reading

OSCAR WATCH: Hidden Figures – Fighting Prejudice with Beauty and Grace

The true story of the positive influence that African-American women had on the success of the early years of NASA’s space program.

WOW. Watching this movie made me tear up with hope over the heroic dignity of its characters more than I have in a long time. (Well, actually, Hacksaw Ridge moved me as much, but before that, not in a while).

We follow the stories of three particularly brilliant young black women: Katherine Johnson, played with graceful fortitude by Taraji Henson; Dorothy Vaughn, portrayed with courageous strength by Octavia Spencer; and Mary Jackson, played with witty womanliness by Janell Monae.

The three are friends whose mathematical intelligence is each off the charts, but whose status as black women in 1950s America does not afford them much opportunity for advancement or success, as they face the prejudices of a society that still needs change in its treatment of women and the black community.

As the women go to work at NASA, we see them face the everyday prejudice of segregated “colored” water fountains, bathrooms and schools. But also, they suffer under the compounded factor of women in a male-dominated workforce, where they just don’t have the respect they deserve. The title of the movie, being a clever double meaning of how these women, along with many others, were “hidden” in the background of the achievement of America because of social prejudice.

But this isn’t a propaganda film of the SJW grievance industry. Quite the opposite… Continue reading