Free Republic

Shut up and Sing has gotten a "two thumbs up" review today from Ebert and Roeper (with Michael Philips filling in for Ebert). In his review, Roeper claims that the "rightwing blogs" were the last to jump in on the story after the media, followed with background footage rolling of Natalie blaming Free Republic. Concluding the review, Roeper exclaimed he "was proud to be from the same country as the Dixie Chicks."

Film Title: Dixie Chicks - Shut Up and Sing Programme: GALA PRESENTATIONS Director: Barbara Kopple, Cecilia Peck Country: USA Year: 2006 Language: English Time: 99 minutes Film Types: Colour/HDCAM Rating: PG SCREENING TIMES: Tuesday, September 12 6:30 PM ROY THOMSON HALL Buy tickets now Wednesday, September 13 9:30 AM RYERSON Buy tickets now Production Company : Cabin Creek Films US Distribution : The Weinstein Company Producer: Barbara Kopple, Cecilia Peck, David Cassidy, Claude Davies Cinematographer: Chris Burrill, Joan Churchill, Gary Griffin, Luis Lopez, Seth Gordon Editor: Bob Eisenhardt, Jean Tsien, Emma Morris, Aaron Kuhn Sound: Giovanni DiSimone, Alan Barker Music:...

Sean Penn is at it again, shooting off his mouth at a news conference for the Toronto International Film Festival and calling President Bush "Beelzebub." Penn used the biblical term for a prince of devils while promoting the remake of the political drama "All the King's Men" on Sunday. "One could make the argument that George Bush is a good politician," Penn said at one point. Then he added: "I think the issue is how you define politician. Once upon a time, politics was the organization of things to benefit the people." Penn said the definition has changed – much...

Last week, MTV celebrated its 25th anniversary, marking a quarter of a century after having conceived of the first actually new thing in popular television entertainment since "American Bandstand" and "Soul Train." The music video became a big deal through MTV and not only updated the old "soundies" once shown in movie theaters to feature singers and instrumentalists. It also revolutionized the making of films by acclimating its audience to the extremely fast crosscutting that had been pioneered in television commercials, where the faster the message arrived, the better. In the process, the MTV audience learned to see much more...

Hollywood director Oliver Stone dropped by Toronto’s Varsity Cinemas this week to premiere his new movie, World Trade Center, about two of the last police officers who were pulled alive from the World Trade Center rubble, post-9/11. With him was Scott Strauss, one of the real-life police rescuers. Stone says Strauss and the other 9/11 families kept him in check. That’s quite the feat, given that Stone has called the Cold War “irritating”, says nationalism and patriotism are “evil forces”, considers Fidel Castro a personal friend, and mused that if he was George W. Bush he would “shoot himself”. With...

Actor Michael J Fox has slammed George W Bush's decision to veto US government funding of pioneering studies into stem cell research. On Wednesday, the US president used his power of veto for the first time since he came to power in January 2001. Back to the Future star Fox, who suffers from Parkinson's Disease, is outraged Bush went against American public opinion that scientists should be allowed to try and find the cure for many diseases using the cells from nearly 400,000 embryos currently in storage. He said: "I regret the loss of five years when real progress...

The fallout from Natalie Maines' now infamous remarks in 2003 bashing George Bush is well documented: radio boycott, CDs publicly destroyed, a sharp decline in sales, death threats, and ridicule from the country-music industry. But what bothers Maines the most, she says, is that the American Red Cross refused a $1 million donation from the Dixie Chicks in 2003. "It has nothing to do with being taken off of the radio," says Maines, 31, by phone from New York. "It has to do with the absurdity of death threats and the absurdity of being so awful that people won't even...

Never mind that movie ticket sales are picking up and that "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest" could become the biggest hit in motion picture history. As studios slash jobs and restructure to boost profits, Hollywood's creative and executive ranks are having a collective anxiety attack. Walt Disney Co.'s move this week to lay off about 650 employees and revamp its Burbank studio to make fewer films only confirms what many in the entertainment industry have been stressing over for months: The movie business is shrinking. ADVERTISEMENT Disney's firings, which started at the top with the studio's production chief,...

Louise: "No these are not my songs." They are however downloaded right onto her computer. Louise:"I was embarrassed when they gave me a print out of these songs." She got this printout because of lawyers. She also got this letter telling her she was being sued for copyright infringement.Parents, there are other popular file sharing programs you need to know about: Morpheus: morpheus.com Kazaa: www.kazaa.com Bearshare: www.bearshare.com Limewire: www.limewire.com Louise: "I was in shock..I was stunned." The letter is part of a music industry crackdown.Singers, songwriters and music companies tired of people downloading and burning copies of music without paying....

Maybe America didn't want to see a deadbeat dad Superman who stopped fighting for "the American way" after all.A mere days after the much-hyped Bryan Singer film "Superman Returns" opened, reports are coming in that the film is struggling at the box office. In fact, Fox News reports that the box office take is dropping as word of mouth spreads about the film.The new film had upset some Superman purists before its opening, once news surfaced that the plot of the movie had the Man of Steel learning that girlfriend Lois Lane had given birth to his illegitimate son. Others...

ADVANCE advertising sales for the fall television season will probably be down for a second year in a row, reflecting the growing impact of new media outlets on broadcasters. Estimates are that the five networks will sell $8.9 billion to $9 billion in commercial time ahead of the 2006-7 season, in what is known as the upfront market. That compares with an estimated $9.1 billion sold in the upfront market last year, before the start of the 2005-6 season, and an estimated $9.3 billion in the upfront market two years ago, ahead of the 2004-5 season. "I'm surprised it's two...

The way I see it, Dan Brown should be very happy for Fandango, which allowed millions of theater-goers to see "The Da Vinci Code" before reading the reviews. Normally, movies don't crash, losing 57% of their audience in the second weekend. Especially not when the 2nd weekend is a holiday weekend and the first weekend was not. But normally people who see movies this stupid have already invested in their Jar-Jar Binks Happy Meal Action Figure. Go figure that the Happy Meal featuring a dead, naked museum curator with a pentagram scratched in his back didn't sell to well. (OK,...

'Da Vinci' shines, box office doesn't Sales still down from 2005 despite strong showing LOS ANGELES (MarketWatch) -- A record-setting showing at the box office for "The Da Vinci Code" over the weekend still wasn't enough to propel receipts past last year's numbers, preliminary figures showed Monday. It looked as if overall box office would be flat to down, as the top 12 films were off 2.8% at $153.2 million from $157.6 million last year for the Friday-to-Sunday time frame. Final figures for the entire weekend were due later Monday. While "Da Vinci Code" made an estimated $77 million in...