Free Republic

The Supreme Court’s 2005 ruling in Kelo v. New London was that year’s blockbuster. Literally. The Court gave its blessing to the use of eminent domain to destroy blocks of housing so that city officials could pursue their dreams of a more wondrous community by seizing private property for a planned commercial development. That taking had been challenged on the grounds that the precise wording of the Fifth Amendment’s provision allowing eminent domain – that the property had to be taken for “public use” – did not countenance takings where there was merely a purported “public purpose” in doing so....

On this day in 1972, The Godfather–a three-hour epic chronicling the lives of the Corleones, an Italian-American crime family led by the powerful Vito Corleone (Marlon Brando)–is released in theaters. The Godfather was adapted from the best-selling book of the same name by Mario Puzo, a novelist who grew up in New York City’s Hell’s Kitchen and got his start writing pulp stories for men’s magazines. Controversy surrounded the film from the beginning: Soon after Paramount Pictures announced its production, the Italian-American Civil Rights League held a rally in Madison Square Garden, claiming the film would amount to a slur...

The image of the American cowboy galloping on a horse traversing endless vistas of flat parched lands dotted with magnificent buttes and leaving behind a light dust storm, has enchanted me ever since I watched my first Western movie, in one of Beirut’s rat infested rundown movie theatres. American cinema and music made a poor childhood bearable and enriched an adolescent’s unbridled imagination. That was the beginning of my romance with America. Watching American Westerns on weekends, then discussing them and playing them out with my friends became a cherished ritual. We liked the fearless gangsters on the run, and...

In the original Aladdin cartoon it is quite clear that Jafar is gay but this is portrayed in a negative way. His mannerisms and flamboyance used to characterize him as Other. I think it would be wonderful if his Homosexuality was embraced and acknowledged as something to be proud of and not despised or reviled as villainous. It would do so much to encourage young gay and trans kids whom have watched the original and will watch the live action film, and were/are made to feel like they have more in common with the bad ones( evil villain) because of...

The End of a Beautiful FriendshipWhy America fell for Casablanca, and why the classic film is losing its hold on movie lovers.In 1957, the Brattle Theatre in Harvard Square kicked off its Humphrey Bogart series with the 1942 classic Casablanca.* Bogart himself had just died, and the response to the film was rapturous. By the fourth or fifth screening, “the audience began to chant the lines,” the theater’s then-manager told Noah Isenberg, author of We’ll Always Have Casablanca: The Life, Legend and Afterlife of Hollywood’s Most Beloved Movie. It was the dawn of the art-house era, the moment when film...

Robert James Waller, the author of best-selling book The Bridges of Madison County, has died in Texas at the age of 77, his agency said. Waller published seven books, but Bridges was his most famous, selling 12 million copies in 35 languages. The romantic novel was adapted into a 1995 film starring Clint Eastwood and Meryl Streep, who was nominated for a Best Actress Oscar in the role.

TCM’s general manager Jennifer Dorian released a statement saying, “All of us at Turner Classic Movies are deeply saddened by the death of Robert Osborne. Robert was a beloved member of the Turner family for more than 23 years. He joined us as an expert on classic film and grew to be our cherished colleague and esteemed ambassador for TCM.

Communist persecution and the deliberate famine Stalin engineered in Ukraine: In only a few years, some 6-7 million Ukrainians perished in what they call the Holodomor. Over the years we have been overwhelmed with extraordinary movies and documentaries about the Holocaust and the various atrocities of Nazi Germany. These horrific crimes against humanity deserve to be examined over and over again so they are never repeated. But we see so little about the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) which killed more people than Hitler did, rivaled the repressive state apparatus of Nazi Germany, and easily outlasted the so-called Thousand-Year...

A DeKalb County theater will not be showing the new "Beauty and the Beast" film when it is released because it features a gay character. The Henagar Drive-In Theatre posted on its Facebook page Thursday night that it would not show the film when it is released later this month, due to it featuring Disney's first gay character. "If I can't sit through a movie with God or Jesus sitting by me then we have no business showing it," a post on the theater's Facebook page said. The theater has since deleted its Facebook page.

In an interview on "The View," actor Patrick Stewart said he is applying to become a U.S. citizen in order to help fight back against President Trump. While recounting a recent visit to Washington D.C., Stewart said he had "the worst night's sleep for years and years and years," joking that President Trump might have been to blame. Stewart referenced his tweet to "The View" hosts, calling it “fairly innocent,” and saying he “did not directly insult your president." “Not mine,” Whoopi Goldberg said in response. When host Joy Behar asked if the English actor would be willing to take...

Streaming platform Netflix has been criticized in Sweden after a study of its content showed that almost all of the movies hosted there were directed by men. The Stockholm Feminist Film Festival, an annual festival which aims to improve gender equality within the film industry, carried out an evaluation of the gender equality levels of films and TV shows hosted on the Swedish version of Netflix. It found that 96 percent of all films released on Netflix Sweden in 2016 had a male director. The film festival also researched the gender balance among scriptwriters, producers and leading characters of films...

The book The Shack has sold over 25 million copies worldwide and has been translated into numerous languages, so it’s not a surprise that Hollywood has decided to cash in on its popularity with a blockbuster movie. While the book is marketed as a “Christian novel” and the movie is marketed to Christians, it simply isn’t based on Biblical Christianity. In fact, it’s full of heresy. The number of Christians who are singing its praises is evidence of the lack of discernment prevalent in American Evangelicalism. What’s even more concerning is that many Christian pastors and teachers are endorsing the...

A brief glance makes me think that the storylines in "Lion" might be a little like "Slumdog Millionaire" and "La La Land" a little like "Notebook". Wondering if either or both are worth seeing. Whaddyathink?

Bets are good that the Obama family will be watching the Oscar telecast on Feb. 26 considering what avid movie fans they are. Now that he’s gone from office, Hollywood insiders reveal the Obama White House constantly asked for access to new releases. Hollywood has a long tradition of providing films to the White House, where there’s a posh screening room. “There was never a film they didn’t request to watch,” says an executive at one studio. President Obama’s office also routinely requested awards screeners (including La La Land and other current Oscar contenders). Another source says an ask even...

Colin Hanks, Tom's son, has a new documentary out called "Eagles of Death Metal: Nos Amis." It is a moving study of Jesse Hughes, the leader of the "Eagles of Death Metal" and his band on their one-year anniversary concert in Paris after the Bataclan Islamic terror shootings. First, the band isn't particularly aptly named. It is NOT a "metal" band in the same sense as Metallica or Iron Maiden. EOD is in fact more punkish, traditional garage grunge rock and roll. I personally like some of their songs. Hughes is an emotional guy, the son of a rocker. On...

Did you ever wonder how they did the music for The Good, the Bad & the Ugly? It is so cool to see how it was made after all these years. Some of you may not be old enough to remember this classic from the '60s'. Here it is anyway. This is fantastic. Turn it up nice and loud and enjoy. For those still caught in the '60s groove -- this is the answer to how that magnificent signature tune came about...Superb....wait till the guy whistles! THE UKULELE ORCHESTRA OF GREAT BRITAIN - THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY!!

Fox News just showed Jodie Foster speaking to a group of actors and telling them NOT to give THANK YOU SPEECHES but instead to Give POLITICAL SPEECHES at the Academy Awards. LETS BOYCOTT THE ACADEMY AWARDS!!!! LETS BOYCOTT THE ACADEMY AWARDS

The film that walks away with the Best Picture statue at Sunday’s Academy Awards will earn a place forever in the history books — but perhaps not on viewers’ screens. The cream of the crop of Hollywood’s golden age gained immortality. They are rerun and ritually rewatched endlessly, and remain regular pop-culture presences. But nowadays it seems like the Best Picture winner shines for one week in February and then — much like former Knick Jeremy Lin — is mostly forgotten. Anyone watched last year’s winner, “Spotlight,” lately? Plan on revisiting 2011’s “The Artist” every year? It’s pretty clear that...

.....New York Times Co. will take what is perhaps its most significant step into big-TV advertising by running a 30-second ad during ABC’s broadcast of the 2017 Oscars ceremonies. The commercial, which marks the first time the company has purchased an ad in the event, will not hew to the company’s traditional pitch. For most of the Times’ history, ads for its flagship publication have attempted to get would-be customers to respond quickly to an offer of a subscription at a reasonable introductory price. On Sunday, a stark ad will attempt to show the audience how the Times helps to...

Richard Schickel, the longtime film critic for Time magazine who also wrote 37 books, mostly on film, and directed a number of documentaries on film subjects, died on Saturday in Los Angeles of complications from a series of strokes, his family told the Los Angeles Times. He was 84. “He was one of the fathers of American film criticism,” his daughter, writer Erika Schickel, told the Times. “He had a singular voice. When he wrote or spoke, he had an old-fashioned way of turning a phrase. He was blunt and succinct both on the page and in life.” He wrote...