Free Republic

The District is still stuck in a pandemic funk. Most days, the city, especially the core downtown blocks around the White House, looks more like a ghost town than a vibrant capital city. Before the coronavirus shutdown, visitors to Washington were often in awe of how many cranes punctuated the skyline. Now, it’s hard to find a building without a “for rent” sign. Coffee shops and restaurants are serving limited hours, if they’re open at all. Hopes were high for a revival this fall. Schools reopened. Covid cases were way down. Businesses were calling their employees back. But the city...

Rocking the box office this weekend is a film likely to be one of the year’s biggest hits, “The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1,” the third in a four-part series of movies based on the popular “Hunger Games” novels by Suzanne Collins. And tucked inside this more dramatic and human sequel in the movie series is a lesson on morality that America needs to learn if it’s to successfully confront the crises of immigration, violent jihad, race riots and more.

Once in a while, Hollywood gets it right: for example, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire. As Breitbart News has already noted, it’s a distinctly dystopian take on the future, seen from the perspective of year five of the Obama era. And as with its predecessor film from last year, The Hunger Games, this new film is a big hit. As a commentary on Obama’s America, that’s all the more revealing since movie audiences tilt young. In fact, Americans aged 12-24 represent only 10 percent of the US population, although they account for nearly a third of US moviegoers. So it’s the...