Free Republic

NICOLE Kidman has made a public stand against terrorism. The actress, joined by 84 other high-profile Hollywood stars, directors, studio bosses and media moguls, has taken out a powerfully-worded full page advertisement in today's Los Angeles Times newspaper. It specifically targets "terrorist organisations" such as Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Palestine. "We the undersigned are pained and devastated by the civilian casualties in Israel and Lebanon caused by terrorist actions initiated by terrorist organisations such as Hezbollah and Hamas," the ad reads. "If we do not succeed in stopping terrorism around the world, chaos will rule and innocent people...

Not quite three weeks after the film's release we can say one thing for sure: the First Crusade was much more successful than Ridley Scott's movie. I was stunned to hear Islamic anti-defamation groups condemn Scott's "Kingdom of Heaven." The Muslims appear much nobler than the Christians in the film, and on the Christian side the only remotely sympathetic characters are at best agnostic. Jonathan Riley-Smith, an expert on the Crusades, described the movie as "rubbish" for just this reason - the film, he says, is "not historically accurate at all" in its depiction of "the Muslims as sophisticated and...

Last week riots broke out in Afghanistan and Pakistan over an unfounded rumor, irresponsibly published by Newsweek magazine, that an American interrogator had flushed a Koran down the toilet. In response, the administration has been anxiously assuring the Muslim world that we indeed respect their religion and begging them to please like us. Meanwhile, in last Friday's sermon televised on Palestinian Authority television the paid employee of the PA described the Jews as an AIDS-like virus responsible for all the world's evils, blamed their economic sabotage of Germany for the Holocaust, and predicted the future triumph of Islam over America,...

These days it seems that whenever Hollywood meets history, history gets the squeeze. Last year "King Arthur," "Troy" and "Alexander" were put through the revisionist wringer. Today it's the factually challenged movie "Kingdom of Heaven" whose historical content appears to have been schmushed. "Kingdom of Heaven"'s director Ridley Scott recently took a cue from Cecil B. DeMille and chose the Crusades as the subject of his latest epic. This is the same fellow who brought us "Gladiator" and "Blade Runner," which makes me wonder: How did a talented filmmaker like Scott get stuck with an incoherent script like this? It's...

The lucrative summer moviegoing season suffered its worst start in years on Sunday, as the costly Crusades epic "Kingdom of Heaven" crawled into the No. 1 slot at the North American weekend box office with meager ticket sales of just $20 million. The film, which cost nearly $150 million to produce, stars Orlando Bloom -- "Hollywood's No. 1 pretty boy," according to Rolling Stone magazine -- as a humble French blacksmith who takes on the Arabs during the 12th century. It was directed by British filmmaker Sir Ridley Scott, who had better luck with such films as "Gladiator" and "Hannibal,"...

Ridley Scott's new Crusades film 'panders to Osama bin Laden' By Charlotte Edwardes (Filed: 18/01/2004) Sir Ridley Scott, the Oscar-nominated director, was savaged by senior British academics last night over his forthcoming film which they say "distorts" the history of the Crusades to portray Arabs in a favourable light. The £75 million film, which stars Orlando Bloom, Jeremy Irons and Liam Neeson, is described by the makers as being "historically accurate" and designed to be "a fascinating history lesson". Sir Ridley Scott Academics, however - including Professor Jonathan Riley-Smith, Britain's leading authority on the Crusades - attacked the plot of...