Free Republic

By the end of April, the new home of the Sundance Film Festival should be public knowledge with the Salt Lake City/Park City combo, Boulder, Colorado or Cincinnati bid picked as the host for the next decade. However, a bill heading toward Utah Gov. Spencer Cox’s desk that would ban the Pride flag in schools and other state government buildings might be an eleventh-hour obstacle to the Beehive State’s hopes of keeping the Robert Redford-founded shindig past 2026. “What are they thinking?” a Sundance insider said late Tuesday of the bill to ban the LGBTQ+ flag after a virtual meeting...

The classic film, "Battle of Britain", from 1969. This is a vastly intelligent movie, presenting a complex military-political situation with endless nuance - while at the same time being a superlative action movie. And an episodic tragedy. It simply hasn't been done better, not discounting the various "War and Peace" productions. Among other things you see here the outlook of the European postwar, along with it the case for NATO, presented with utter clarity. It is a whole world view distilled in two hours.

"Anora" director, screenwriter and editor Sean Baker won four Oscars at the 97th Academy Awards on Sunday night, a feat only achieved by one other person: Walt Disney. While Disney won four Oscars for four separate films in 1953 – becoming the first and only person to do so until now – Baker won four Oscars for one film, setting a new record. Disney, the most decorated Oscar winner of all time, won for best documentary (feature), best documentary (short), best short subject (cartoon) and best short subject (two-reel) at the 26th Academy Awards. He won these awards, respectively, for...

If you follow movies or TV it should be an amusing momlogue. It you don't follow you can catch a bit of some reactions by current celebrities in the audience.

When Frank Capra’s “It’s a Wonderful Life” was being filmed in 1945, just as the Second World War was closing and a few years before the Cold War was heating up, the FBI investigated it for its supposed anti-capitalist themes. A memo said:“With regard to the picture It’s a Wonderful Life, [redacted] stated in substance that the film represented rather obvious attempts to discredit bankers by casting Lionel Barrymore as a ‘scrooge-type’ so that he would be the most hated man in the picture. This, according to these sources, is a common trick used by Communists. [In] addition, [redacted] stated...

The task of offering an analysis of the movie Bonhoeffer: Pastor. Spy. Assassin has been complicated for me because the promotion for the movie shows Dietrich Bonhoeffer with a gun in his hand. My attempts to recover from this misleading portrayal have no doubt prejudiced me. I need to confess this may make me less than a reliable witness, but I am determined to give as objective a view as possible. As a lifelong reader of Bonhoeffer’s The Cost of Discipleship, I am not easily pleased with cinematic depictions of his theology.For my part, I would rather have Bonhoeffer depicted...

Clarissa Rippee, a Contract Specialist working in the General Services Administration (GSA) blew the whistle and exposed a $347 million contract for transporting unaccompanied minors. “My line in the sand moment was when I found out that GSA had awarded a contract to a company to transport unaccompanied minors,” shared current General Services Administration (GSA) Contract Specialist Clarissa Rippee, revealing shocking details about a $347 million contract awarded to the company responsible for transporting unaccompanied minors across the United States. “It felt like someone kicked me in the gut,” Rippee told James O’Keefe. Via O’Keefe Media Group: Rippee, who works...

The movie came out on January 25, 2024. There had been very little of the usual promotion. Lockshin’s name was omitted from posters. His name was absent from all marketing materials, such as they were. In any event, the movie was a sensation. The public went to see it, quickly making it the top-grossing Russian movie of all time, in the over-18 category.Furious, the state and its propagandists got to work. As Lockshin says, “a whole campaign” was launched against him and the movie. Propagandists called him a “criminal” and a “terrorist,” and demanded that the movie be pulled from...

Second gentleman Doug Emhoff’s ex-girlfriend said she was left “embarrassed and humiliated” when he slapped her so hard, she “spun around” at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival. The woman, a New York attorney identified only as “Jane,” broke her silence weeks after her disturbing claims emerged, telling the Daily Mail that she was trying to persuade a valet to give her and Emhoff special treatment when her beau struck her in the face. “As I’m talking to him, Doug got out of the line, comes up, turns me around by my right shoulder. I’m completely caught off guard, I’m not...

Andrew Garfield recently told People magazine that Mel Gibson “deserves to make films” and has “done a lot of beautiful healing with himself.” Gibson’s career in Hollywood nosedived after his infamous DUI arrest in 2006, which included the “Braveheart” Oscar winner making comments disparaging Jewish people. Gibson directed Garfield in the 2016 war drama “Hacksaw Ridge,” for which Garfield was Oscar nominated for best actor. The filmmaker landed a best director nom. “I learned a lot, actually. I learned that people can heal. I learned that people can change, that people can get help. I learned that everyone deserves respect,”...

When individuals bury themselves deeply in an echo chamber for a prolonged period of time, they begin to assume that not only their world but the entire world is the echo chamber. This is probably what happened to those who greenlit the hateful anti-Trump propaganda picture, The Apprentice.Trump-hating studio executives were approached by Trump-hating filmmakers and the project was instantly approved. Everyone they know is a rabid and baseless Trump-hater, so they assume that each of these individuals will be a willing and eager viewer. They probably thought at the very least the film would become a sensation in liberal...

Daily Wire commentator Matt Walsh released his bitingly comedic documentary, Am I Racist?, in early September to great acclaim, vexxing film critics and industry insiders who see themselves as the exclusive gatekeepers of the silver screen.The movie’s surprise success—even while facing vicious left-wing attacks—stood in stark contrast with the failure of Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis, a sci-fi political drama with an anti-Trump political subtext that opened over the weekend with neither critical nor audience acclaim—despite its bloated budget, all-star cast and abundance of Hollywood hype.This pattern may signal a shifting trend in consumer sensibilities. Prior conservative-friendly films, such as Angel...

It’s confirmed! Mel Gibson set to produce epic TV series on the Great Siege of 1565 filmed in Malta We knew he was in Malta for a good reason! Hollywood star Mel Gibson has announced plans to produce a limited television series about the Great Siege of 1565, which will be filmed in Malta. After a recent visit to the island to scout locations for his ‘Passion of the Christ’ sequel, the famous actor was captivated by Malta's rich history and impressive fortifications, confirming that the series will be shot on location, in the very fortresses where the siege took...

LONDON — Maggie Smith, who won an Oscar for “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie” in 1969 and won new fans in the 21st century as the dowager Countess of Grantham in “Downton Abbey,” has died, her publicist said Friday. She was 89. She was frequently rated the preeminent British actress of a generation which included Vanessa Redgrave and Judi Dench. “Jean Brodie” brought her the Academy Award for best actress and the British Academy (BAFTA) award as well in 1969. Smith added a supporting actress Oscar for “California Suite” in 1978.

Conservative commentator and filmmaker Matt Walsh is no stranger to controversy, and with his latest venture, “Am I Racist?” he’s hoping to take the conversation to a new level with a weapon that knows no political boundaries: comedy. The Daily Wire film, which satirizes diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, takes Walsh undercover to college campuses and corporate settings, confronting consultants and professionals in the DEI space. Unlike Walsh’s previous project, “What Is a Woman?” which tackled the absurdity of the trans movement, "Am I Racist?" isn't confined to The Daily Wire’s streaming platform but marks the media company’s first...

Is anyone surprised that the critics have absolutely savaged the new film, Reagan? I'm not. As a teenager in the 1980s, I came of age during the era when the likes of Dan Rather, Sam Donaldson, and Connie Chung savaged President Reagan on TV every single night. It was then at the pre-dawn of my political awareness that I started asking myself why such a folksy, likeable, patriotic American president like Ronald Reagan was so hated by seemingly everyone on the nightly news. Why did these talking heads despise him so much, while the actual human beings in my life—my...

The first night of the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) was interrupted Thursday when anti-Israel protesters briefly tried to interrupt screening of the opening offering. Their chants targeted Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) which is the official bank partner of the annual celebration of film. The Hollywood Reporter notes the protest came before a screening of David Gordon Green‘s opening movie Nutcrackers, starring Ben Stiller, held at Toronto’s Princess of Wales Theatre ahead of a nearby opening screening attended by the star.

Anti-grooming gang activist Tommy Robinson has been arrested under anti-terrorism legislation, his supporters claimed in a post on Robinson’s verified X account on Sunday. During a large demonstration in central London on Saturday, Tommy Robinson screened his banned film Silenced in front of supporters, following which the activist was reportedly arrested by police.

The trailer for Ridley Scott’s new epic, Gladiator II, is undeniably impressive, but then it rather had to be. Rumors that its already massive budget had ballooned to as much as $310 million — which would mean it would have to be one of 2024’s highest-grossing movies just to break even, never mind making a profit — may have suggested that the film was in trouble, but an early screening of the preview at the CinemaCon convention in Las Vegas reassured exhibitors and studios alike, with the few journalists who had seen the footage rushing to extol its scale and...

This short film documents the U.S. Department of Immigration's efforts to halt the smuggling of illegal immigrants into the country.