Posted on 03/30/2012 3:27:29 AM PDT by Kaslin
It's more than a little shocking when someone makes a movie that deals harshly with abortion. This is Hollywood after all. Abortion is a feminist sacrament. The movie "October Baby" just debuted on 390 screens and registered in eighth place for the weekend, with an estimated $1.7 million gross.
"October Baby" is a drama loosely based on the real-life story of Gianna Jessen, born with cerebral palsy after she survived a failed abortion procedure and now a celebrated pro-life speaker. In the film, the lead character, Hannah, discovers her adoptive parents hid from her that she was never meant to be born.
Naturally, the critics just couldn't judge this movie by artistic standards. It had to be savaged because it is so politically incorrect. New York Times film critic Jeannette Catsoulis bared her ideological fangs at this improbable movie: "Not even a dewy heroine and a youth-friendly vibe can disguise the essential ugliness at its core: like the bloodied placards brandished by demonstrators outside women's health clinics, the film communicates in the language of guilt and fear."
Ouch. A celebration of life is "essential ugliness." One of the film's most powerful moments was assailed by Catsoulis as propaganda. Jasmine Guy plays the clinic nurse who assisted at Hannah's birth. "Her pivotal speech, a gory portrait of fetal mutilation and maternal distress, conjures a vision of medical hackery that is clearly intended to terrify young women -- and fits right in with proposed state laws that increasingly turn the screws on a woman's dominion over her reproductive system."
Notice how the Times couldn't focus on the movie without imagining the horror of conservative state legislators reducing a "woman's dominion" over the termination of unborn children, no matter how advanced the pregnancy.
What is it that the nurse says that is so offensive? "I didn't see no tissue, just the face of a child." This is not a Hollywood talking point.
Catsoulis concludes, "'Hate the crime, not the criminal,' a friendly police officer advises Hannah. Except that abortion is not a crime, no matter how fervently some people continue to wish that it were."
But if you do consider abortion a crime -- against God -- isn't that the kind of compassionate message Hollywood preaches regularly? Such is the militancy of this issue in Hollywood.
Catsoulis also assailed Ben Stein's anti-Darwinist documentary "Expelled" as an "unprincipled propaganda piece" that was "one of the sleaziest documentaries to arrive in a very long time." But in 2005, Catsoulis adored a documentary on America's failure to uplift the poor, cribbing from socialist author Barbara Ehrenreich, finding it "eye-opening, often heartbreaking ... neither hectoring nor sanctimonious ... brisk and unexploitative." This woman is a fervent activist disguised as a film critic.
Another recent surprise at the cineplex was "Act of Valor," a war movie made with active-duty Navy SEALs that's made $66 million at the box office. It actually won the box-office crown on its opening weekend at the end of February. Again, newspaper film critics hated it.
On the front page of the Washington Post on Feb. 24, there was film critic Ann Hornaday reporting the movie was in "the crosshairs of critics who question whether the movie crosses the line between entertainment and propaganda, and whether the military should be in the movie business at all." She wanted a congressional investigation.
The Navy didn't fund the movie, but Hornaday wrote "it could be argued that the Navy heavily subsidized it in the form of access to its assets and personnel that would have cost millions to reproduce." The Navy also didn't have creative control, but Hornaday insisted "the filmmakers admit that there was little chance the Navy would be dissatisfied with their portrayal in the film, which depicts a group of strong, brave, unassuming men who pursue their missions, not with hot-dog swagger but cool teamwork and quiet professionalism."
My God, the hate-America crowd is alive and well.
Here's the rub: Hornaday had no problem with propaganda when it shredded the Bush administration and the war in Iraq. When it came to the 2010 movie "Fair Game," which glorified Bush-hater Valerie Plame Wilson, Hornaday complained that people would fact check this propaganda, and what "audiences often fail to take into account is that a too-literal allegiance to the facts can sometimes obscure a larger truth."
In that article, Hornaday even touted Oliver Stone's ridiculous fact mangling. Stone "favors bright lines and (often wholly imagined) emblematic scenes over messier shades of gray." Stone's imagination of "history" is somehow more truthful than "Act of Valor"? Obviously not, it's just more politically satisfying.
Critics slam politically incorrect movies with lines such as "this would have been better off as a bumper sticker." But when movies conform to Hollywood's long-standing libertine and anti-military prejudices, they qualify as "resonant" and "emblematic" pieces of art.
The last two movies I went to were narnia and the passion. I will go to see this one as well.
I just saw this on Saturday. It was well done. I don’t get why the writer says that the movie deals harshly with abortion.
Pretty much all of the above.
Got Discernment?
"Discernment is a term used to describe the activity of determining the value and quality of a certain subject or event [or propaganda]. Typically, it is used to describe the activity of going past the mere perception of something, to making detailed judgments about that thing. As a virtue, a discerning individual is considered to possess wisdom, and be of good judgement; especially so with regard to subject matter often overlooked by others."
I did see Passion and also have the DVD.
Probably because the character survived an abortion
Bump
The ol' "fake, but accurate" liberal dogma.
‘a group of strong, brave, unassuming men who pursue their missions, not with hot-dog swagger but cool teamwork and quiet professionalism’
This is true of the SEALs but it doesn’t fit the Hate-America Leftist description of our Military, does it? The truth hurts, Marxists! We still have the heart and soul of America in our bones. I hope we can overcome all the hate, smoke, mirrors and blatant lies that will be coming with this election. They cannot tell the truth about themselves because they would never win and election if they did.
I had the pleasure of hearing Gianna at one of our CareNet banquets...an amazing story, an amazing talent, an amazing lady...
I agree. I saw it Sat. also. The movie is more about adoption than abortion. A failed abortion is just the vehicle for telling the story.
The real message of the movie is love, kindness, and forgiveness. I actually wish that they’d spent a little more time explaining the psychological and physical damage done to this young girl by the abortion procedure that her biological mother chose.
But, can you imagine the alarm that would be raised if they had, considering how the critics got their panties in a wad over the nurse saying, “I didn’t see no tissue. I saw the face of a child.”
We loved the movie — 4 thumbs up from this group of movie goers.
I saw October Baby last night in Columbus, Georgia. It was a great film of quality: camerawork, acting, and screenplay.
Unfortunately the theatre was empty except for my wife and I.
Gianna is amazing. Such a loving soul. Her speeches are on Youtube if anyone is curious.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cg_zhEIpTjs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5YlJ9CZ9fI
October Baby was screened at the Omaha Film Festival where I volunteer. Only two people left the movie angry and after only 10 minutes of screen time. They were two older lesbians; ranting about propoganda. The funny thing about this is at the OFF to see one of the features, you have to know about it ahead of time. We screen over a 100 films during the festival so there is no advertising budget for any specific film. I was at the ticket table when these women bought their ticket, they had to have heard about it before so to come out angry and shocked was disingenuous. Our one and only showing of the film was sold out.
It was a well done movie from the script through the technical aspects. I highly recommend it.
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