Free Republic

By Mary Weller for truthXchange The documentary Dead Name grips your heart from its first minutes as it tells the stories of three parents and their struggle to fight for their children, caught by the full-force push of radical gender ideology throughout our culture. Devoid of sensationalism, politicization, or manipulation this well-produced movie allows you to meet Helen, Bill, and Amy, each of whom have a son or daughter who has identified as transgender. Viewers are shown the resulting devastation this has caused them and their families. Though each story is unique, what binds the three together is the clear...

With any war movie, the safe audience bet typically favors the immediate, graphic horrors of battle. That way, when you see a title such as “Hacksaw Ridge,” you know a director (in that case Mel Gibson) will be operating with a cinematic license to slaughter. Espionage makes for subtler, trickier storytelling. “Operation Mincemeat,” now purring along, confidently, on Netflix, takes as its subject a singular feat of deception cooked up by British intelligence in 1943. How decisively the operation turned the Allied tide against Nazi Germany is up for historical debate. But the men and women of MI5 assuredly helped...

Beautifully shot yet muted as a drama, ‘News of the World’ brings the post-Civil War Southwest to life in the unlikely journey of a lost girl and a jaded veteran who helps her find home. Ten years ago, auteur filmmaker brothers Joel and Ethan Coen brought a surprisingly sincere revisionist Western to the big screen over Christmas weekend. Out last weekend in theaters, “News of the World” offers a similar throwback film without quite the edge or mass appeal. The Coens’ 2010 take on “True Grit,” a remake of the John Wayne classic, followed a grizzled U.S. Marshal (Jeff Bridges)...

If you're not too good to enjoy people falling off cliffs or getting kicked in the face, 'The Wrong Missy' will be worth your time.Frivolity has fallen out of fashion in Hollywood comedies. Laughter is now merely part of a didactic journey to an emotional crescendo. Simple slapstick for the point of slapstick is rare. It’s exhausting to continuously be fed vegetables with our comedy, even if films like “The Big Sick” and “Trainwreck” are more carrot cake than Brussel sprouts. “The Wrong Missy” is just cake. Nothing fancy, maybe a box cake, but cake nonetheless. Netflix’s new Happy Madison-produced...

At the end of the day, 'Hollywood' doesn't care about telling a compelling story about interesting people, but is intent on demonstrating the importance of representation in media. There are two excellent stories at the center of “Hollywood,” Ryan Murphy’s alt-history saga of old Hollywood. An intrepid group of friends attempt to make a big studio romance starring a talented black actress in 1947. An aspiring actor must negotiate his desire for fame with his morals, in the backdrop of a sexually exploitive agent and the omnipresent risk of his homosexuality becoming discovered.Both of these stories are technically covered in...

Paramount’s Sonic the Hedgehog has taken the top spot at the box office for the second weekend in a row. It is a win of sorts for Jim Carrey, who makes a comeback in a leading role as the movie’s villain, Dr. Robotnik. But unfortunately for Carrey, who has built a second career as a vociferous critic of President Donald Trump, Sonic is a deeply conservative film — which may explain its success. First of all, the (human) hero of the film is a small-town police officer, Tom Wachowski, played by James Marsden. The villain is a Deep State agent...

Many in Hollywood routinely mock religion and poke fun at worshippers. But an upcoming Christian film, I Still Believe, is challenging that trend by winning over the media – even before its release. The film, directed by Andrew and Jon Erwin and distributed by Lionsgate, is based on the love story of award-winning Christian singer Jeremy Camp and his first wife, Melissa. Its star-studded cast includes KJ Apa, Britt Robertson, Shania Twain, and Gary Sinise. Although the movie doesn’t hit theaters until March 13, the YouTube trailer already boasts more than 8.5 million views. It’s also making headlines as the...

‘The Call of the Wild’ Review: Arctic Meltdown A CG pooch is the liveliest part of a production that otherwise goes to the dogs. They got it all wrong in “The Call of the Wild,” a woefully inept retelling, or re-re-retelling, of the Jack London story about a comfortably domesticated California dog named Buck finding his true feral self in the Yukon during the Gold Rush. This latest iteration of Buck is so lifelike, thanks to the wonders of computer animation, and the people around him are such lifeless caricatures, that the studio should have given the pooch the gift...

While listening to the Rush Limbaugh show this past Monday, I heard guest host Todd Herman interview an Australian pediatrician and professor on the issue of gender dysphoria and children. Near the end of the enlightening interview, in which the good doctor detailed the "serious and irreversible damage" done to gender-dysphoric children given radical surgeries and hormones demanded by the perverse LGBT agenda, Mr. Herman asked the important question: "Why?" I don't recall the exact wording of Mr. Herman's question, and RushLimbaugh.com does not provide a transcript for guest-hosted shows, but it was something along the lines of this: why...

As I write this, it’s Christmas Eve. The wife and daughters – one is two and a half, the other 14 months – are asleep. Santa stopped by and wrapped the gifts he brought, also drank a couple of beers. Good times were had by all. Now that he’s gone, I have some time to reflect on another topic I’ve been thinking about. Since it’s the day after Christmas, and it’s been (thankfully) a slow week of news, I thought I’d take a break from the usual and opine on some other issues making the rounds. First off, everyone is...

‘Richard Jewell’ Posts Worst Wide Opening for Clint Eastwood With Just $4.7 Million “Richard Jewell” was a passion project for Clint Eastwood, but this weekend it became the Hollywood legend’s worst wide opening weekend in his directorial career with just $4.7 million. Released by Warner Bros. on 2,502 screens, “Richard Jewell” was projected by trackers to earn a $9-10 million opening this weekend — instead, it is opening to half that amount. To find a wide release that low in Eastwood’s career, you have to go all the way back to 1997, when “Midnight in the Garden of Good and...

...And they’re also challenging the notion that the paper ran a story with questionable sourcing. Do you have a response to the criticism?” I think the Atlanta Journal probably would be the one group that would be sort of complexed about that whole situation because they are the ones who printed the first thing of there being a crime caused by Richard Jewell,” said Eastwood. “And so they’re probably looking for ways to rationalize their activity. I don’t know for sure. I haven’t — never discussed it with anyone from there …”

In the 36-years since Bob Clark’s A Christmas Story first appeared on the big screen, the movie has become as much a part of the Christmas season as Santa himself. More than just a charming holiday movie, A Christmas Story captures a time in America where kids could be kids; free to roam, daydream, tussle, and yes, even nearly lose an eye, without them (or their parents) being thrown into handcuffs or hauled in front of a family court magistrate. But no longer. Today’s child-rearing environment, dominated by a combination of helicopter parents and overzealous nanny staters, allows no such...

Over the last few years, journalists have responded to accusations of "fake news" with arrogant proclamations that they are the misunderstood Guardians of Truth and Providers of Fact. But not every news story is a perfectly baked slice of Facts or Truth. Sometimes reporters merely recount what they heard but what they were told was wrong. We should all cringe whenever we hear the two words "breaking news." Time and again, news breaks out but the details are anyone's guess -- literally. "(ABC/NBC/CBS/CNN/Fox) hasn't confirmed this, but others are reporting ...," they say, and then they proceed to repeat rumors...

No matter what side you take on Trump Impeachment Theater, or just about any other topic for that matter -- from the politics of chicken sandwiches to climate change -- if you dare challenge the views of the reigning political priests, chances are you'll be called stupid and hateful. And someone will want to shut you up. The traditional American response to such silencing has always been: "This is a free country, isn't it?" But is it now? Or are we building a new "Animal Farm," where we are told what to think and how to think it? These are...

It's December which means all your favorite Christmas specials are set to be broadcast. On Monday, Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer will find itself in primetime. The 55-minute long special will air at 8 p.m. ET on CBS. As many know, the film spotlights Rudolph and his journey from an outsider to being the hero of Christmas and leading Santa's sleigh. It's what happens in between, though, that causes some viewers to feel uneasy. . . Early on in the episode, Rudolph finds himself needing to wear a fake black nose to hide his "different" red nose per his parent's...

Alex Gibney traces the rise and fall of dissident exiled oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky in this scalding portrait of Putin's Russia. With typically zealous journalistic diligence, prolific nonfiction filmmaker Alex Gibney digs into the curious case of Mikhail Khodorkovsky in Citizen K, providing a lucidly accessible account of post-Soviet Russia's lurching transition out of Communism into a free-market economy that became a Wild West of gangster capitalism. The short hop from there to the faux democracy of Vladimir Putin, with his flimsy "election theater" and his 18-year stranglehold on the Kremlin, is a chilling cautionary tale. Khodorkovsky is a charismatic subject...

When Anna discovers that her royal ancestors, just like probably every royal ancestor ever, committed brutalities against their neighbors, the newly radicalized princess decides to destroy the dam to make things right with the tribe—even though it means flooding Arendelle.

Heading into the weekend we were anticipating a top ten that would deliver around $110 million, as it turns out the top ten currently falls just short of a combined $100 million as Lionsgate's Midway delivered a surprise #1 finish, topping WB's Doctor Sleep, which slipped to second and well below expectations. [...] At the top of the weekend box office is Lionsgate's Midway, finishing ahead of expectations with an estimated $17.5 million from 3,242 locations. The film also scored an "A" CinemaScore from opening day audiences and should expect a strong performance over Veteran's Day tomorrow that should push...

A NEW politically correct BBC version of The War of the Worlds attacks religion and the British Empire and highlights climate change. It also creates a female lead for a character barely mentioned in HG Wells’s book.