Jasper Journal

Two weeks ago I saw a sci fi movie, Splice,  that stretched the boundaries in many different areas.  It was not horror/slasher, it was  science fiction with a scare. Along the way  it raised ethical and philosophical questions that we sometimes don’t want to address. If you read  the reviews, people either love it or hate it. I found it immensely interesting and thought provoking.  I recommended it to another reader who saw it tonight and felt compelled to write this review. I am  including it as I think it shows the kind of reaction one can have from a well developed sci fi movie.  I don’t think it will be around long, and it is not for everyone’s taste. But read the review here, and if you are intrigued, catch it before it leaves theaters.  You you will not forget the questions raised.  Whatever you do this weekend, enjoy ,and we’ll see you on Monday..

“Splice” ….Disturbingly Delicious    by Patti from New York

 The highest form of art should function to change one’s perspective for the better or at least  make the viewer or listener examine their perspectives.  “Splice”, a new science fiction thriller starring Adrien Brody did just that and more.  It was disturbing, as one could see the horrors of cloning, abortion, animal experimentation, etc. and delicious in that it told the horrors of cloning, abortion, animal experimentation, etc… We are forced to think about these very disturbing realities, but, yes, also forced to figure out ways to stop them.

 In “Splice” also starring Sarah Polley, two genetic engineers specialize in splicing DNA from various creatures which results in incredible hybrids.  The next step is to combine human DNA in their next hybrid that might assist in finding the cures for various diseases. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is retold in an all too real setting illustrating horrific events resulting from genetic combinations of different species brought to life and then, of course, one in particular. 

 This movie may appear low-budget and a bit ghoulish, but is worth seeing in that it has made me examine my perspectives very carefully.  (As I suggested, one of the highest forms of art should accomplish this.) Also,there are scenes of a sexual nature which were not explicit but were important to show just how much can go wrong when one makes decisions that are against all valued codes of ethics.

 Questions that I asked myself during and after viewing the movie are as follows:

Do we have the right to cause any living creature suffering for any purpose other than in self-defense?

Do we have the right to create something in a laboratory that is born to suffer only to please the ego of mankind’s furtherance of technology?   (There are other manners of scientific experimentation that do not depend upon the suffering of others for the furtherance of science, important as that is.)

Don’t all creatures have souls?  Many believe the fetus does as do I. 

 The Nazis conducted cruel experiments on Jews because they wished to further their scientific knowledge and they were sadistic and barbaric.  We are experimenting on innocents  in labs.  Are we any less guilty? The characters in the movie realized their guilt and lost their moral compass early on.  We need more movies and books like this to remind us not to lose ours

Taking a break from the intense political environment by seeing a  movie is good for the soul; there’s just so much angst one can take. Sometimes  though, the movies leave a lot to be desired.  I saw Night Train with Lee Lee Sobieski this weekend, and up to the last thirty seconds, I liked the movie. What it left to be desired was an ending. So unless you are an avid existentialist or nihilist or both, this may not be for you.

My Friend Paul from Virginia sent in the next review  for your consideration.  Thanks Paul.

If you see a movie that you would like to recommend or review,  please forward the info or add it to the movie post. 

Ghost Writer, reviewed by Paul

My wife and I recently saw “Ghost Writer,” which had received very good reviews.  It was a suspenseful, well-acted film which keeps you on the edge of your seat.  At times the main character does not appear too bright, but he’s a likable chap.

Unfortunately, the movie falls prey to the stereotypical Hollywood conspiracy theory.  I won’t ruin the film, but suffice it to say that a U.S. Government agency orchestrates international events, including murder to eliminate those who have discovered its secret.

Throughout the film, we are given to moralizing about torture, illegal rendition, war crimes, breaking of international law, etc, to include a swipe at former President Bush and his Cabinet.  There is only one mention of the fact that terrorists are out to destroy us, provided in an elegant short soliloquy by Pierce Brosnan.

What makes all this moralizing especially hard to accept is that the film was directed by Roman Polanski.  Here’s a man who, at the age of 43, plied a 13-year-old girl with alcohol and Quaalude, then proceeded to have sex with her multiple times despite repeated protests on her part.   Of course, celebrities (idiots?) like Whoopi Goldberg state that it was not “rape-rape.”  If this is not the definition of rape, then there is no such thing as rape. When Polanski faced jail time (on reduced charges), he fled to Europe, where he continues to make movies.

Now we can be entertained by sermonizing from a convicted fugitive pedophile (Where is Dog the Bounty Hunter when we really need him?). It is grotesque and obscene.  Had I realized Polanski made this movie I would have boycotted it.

Right before the Oscars were given out, National Review On-Line came up with their list of the top 25 conservative movies in the last 25 years. I agreed with most but found some of their selections intriguing.  I also would have come up with a different order. Since another weekend is just about here, I am attaching the list for your perusal.  This is their list. If you have your own for inclusion, please leave a comment. Also, please note the section at the bottom of also rans.

 

1. The Lives of Others“I think that this is the best movie I ever saw,” said William F. Buckley Jr. upon leaving the theater (according to his column on the film). The tale, set in East Germany in 1984, is one part romantic drama, one part political thriller. It chronicles life under a totalitarian regime as the Stasi secretly monitors the activities of a playwright who is suspected of harboring doubts about Communism. Critics showered the movie with praise and it won an Oscar for best foreign-language film (it’s in German). More Buckley: “The tension mounts to heart-stopping pitch and I felt the impulse to rush out into the street and drag passersby in to watch the story unfold.”

2. The IncrediblesThis animated film skips pop-culture references and gross jokes in favor of a story that celebrates marriage, courage, responsibility, and high achievement. A family of superheroes — Mr. Incredible, his wife Elastigirl, and their children — are living an anonymous life in the suburbs, thanks to a society that doesn’t appreciate their unique talents. Then it comes to need them. In one scene, son Dash, a super-speedy runner, wants to try out for track. Mom claims it wouldn’t be fair. “Dad says our powers make us special!” Dash objects. “Everyone is special,” Mom demurs, to which Dash mutters, “Which means nobody is.”

— Frederica Mathewes-Greene writes for Beliefnet.com.

3. MetropolitanWhit Stillman’s Oscar-nominated debut takes a red-headed outsider into the luxurious drawing rooms and debutante balls of New York’s Upper East Side elite. One character, a committed socialist, falls for the discreet charm of the urban haute bourgeoisie. Another plaintively theorizes the inevitable doom of his class. A reader of Jane Austen wonders what’s wrong with a novel’s having a virtuous heroine. And a roguish defender of standards and detachable collars delivers more sophisticated conservative one-liners than a year’s worth of Yale Party of the Right debates. With mocking affection, gentle irony, and a blizzard of witty dialogue, Stillman manages the impossible: He brings us to see what is admirable and necessary in the customs and conventions of America’s upper class.

— Mark Henrie is the editor of Doomed Bourgeois in Love: Essays on the Films of Whit Stillman

4. Forrest Gump It won an Oscar for best picture — beating Pulp Fiction, a movie that’s far more expressive of Hollywood’s worldview. Tom Hanks plays the title character, an amiable dunce who is far too smart to embrace the lethal values of the 1960s. The love of his life, wonderfully played by Robin Wright Penn, chooses a different path; she becomes a drug-addled hippie, with disastrous results. Forrest’s IQ may be room temperature, but he serves as an unexpected font of wisdom. Put ’em on a Whitman’s Sampler, but Mama Gump’s famous words about life’s being like a box of chocolates ring true.

— Charlotte Hays is co-author of Somebody Is Going to Die If Lilly Beth Doesn’t Catch That Bouquet

. (1994):. (1990): (2004): (2007):

Warner Bros. 

5. 300 (2007): During the Bush years, Hollywood neglected the heroism of American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan — but it did release this action film about martial honor, unflinching courage, and the oft-ignored truth that freedom isn’t free. Beneath a layer of egregious non-history — including goblin-like creatures that belong in a fantasy epic — is a stylized story about the ancient battle of Thermopylae and the Spartan defense of the West’s fledgling institutions. It contrasts a small band of Spartans, motivated by their convictions and a commitment to the law, with a Persian horde that is driven forward by whips. In the words recorded by the real-life Herodotus: “Law is their master, which they fear more than your men[, Xerxes,] fear you.”

Sony Pictures 

6. Groundhog Day (1993): This putatively wacky comedy about Bill Murray as an obnoxious weatherman cursed to relive the same day over and over in a small Pennsylvania town, perhaps for eternity, is in fact a sophisticated commentary on the good and true. Theologians and philosophers across the ideological spectrum have embraced it. For the conservative, the moral of the tale is that redemption and meaning are derived not from indulging your “authentic” instincts and drives, but from striving to live up to external and timeless ideals. Murray begins the film as an irony-soaked narcissist, contemptuous of beauty, art, and commitment. His journey of self-discovery leads him to understand that the fads of modernity are no substitute for the permanent things.

7. The Pursuit of Happyness (2006): Based on the life of self-made millionaire Chris Gardner (Will Smith), this film provides the perfect antidote to Wall Street and other Hollywood diatribes depicting the world of finance as filled with nothing but greed. After his wife leaves him, Gardner can barely pay the rent. He accepts an unpaid internship at a San Francisco brokerage, with the promise of a real job if he outperforms the other interns and passes his exams. Gardner never succumbs to self-pity, even when he and his young son take refuge in a homeless shelter. They’re black, but there’s no racial undertone or subtext. Gardner is just an incredibly hard-working, ambitious, and smart man who wants to do better for himself and his son.

8. Juno (2007): The best pro-life movies reach beyond the church choirs and influence the wider public. Juno was a critical and commercial success. It didn’t set out to deliver a message on abortion, but much of its audience discovered one anyway. The story revolves around a 16-year-old who finds a home for her unplanned baby. The film has its faults, including a number of crass moments and a pregnant high-school student with an unrealistic level of self-confidence. Yet it also exposes a broken culture in which teen sex is dehumanizing, girls struggle with “choice,” and boys aimlessly try — and sometimes downright fail — to become men. The movie doesn’t glamorize much of anything but leaves audiences with an open-ended chance for redemption.

9. Blast from the Past (1999): Revolutionary Road is only the latest big-screen portrayal of 1950s America as boring, conformist, repressive, and soul-destroying. A decade ago, Hugh Wilson’s Blast from the Pastdefied the party line, seeing the values, customs, manners, and even music of the period with nostalgic longing. Brendan Fraser plays an innocent who has grown up in a fallout shelter and doesn’t know the era of Sputnik and Perry Como is over. Alicia Silverstone is a post-feminist woman who learns from him that pre-feminist women had some things going for them. Christopher Walken and Sissy Spacek as Fraser’s parents are comic gems.

10. Ghostbusters (1984):This comedy might not get Russell Kirk’s endorsement as a worthy treatment of the supernatural, but you have to like a movie in which the bad guy (William Atherton at his loathsome best) is a regulation-happy buffoon from the EPA, and the solution to a public menace comes from the private sector. This last fact is the other reason to love Ghostbusters: When Dr. Peter Venkman (Bill Murray) gets kicked out of the university lab and ponders pursuing entrepreneurial opportunities, a nervous Dr. Raymond Stantz (Dan Aykroyd) replies: “I don’t know about that. I’ve worked in the private sector. They expect results!”

New Line Productions 

11. The Lord of the Rings (2001, 2002, 2003):Author J. R. R. Tolkien was deeply conservative, so it’s no surprise that the trilogy of movies based on his masterwork is as well. Largely filmed before 9/11, they seemed perfectly pitched for the post-9/11 world. The debates over what to do about Sauron and Saruman echoed our own disputes over the Iraq War. (Think of Wormtongue as Keith Olbermann.) When Frodo sighs, “I wish none of this had happened,” Gandalf’s response speaks to us, too: “So do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.”

12. The Dark Knight (2008): This film gives us a portrait of the hero as a man reviled. In his fight against the terrorist Joker, Batman has to devise new means of surveillance, push the limits of the law, and accept the hatred of the press and public. If that sounds reminiscent of a certain former president — whose stubborn integrity kept the nation safe and turned the tide of war — don’t mention it to the mainstream media. Our journalists know that good men are often despised by the mob; it just never seems to occur to them that they might be the mob themselves.

— Andrew Klavan is the author of Empire of Lies.

13. Braveheart (1995): Forget the travesty this soaring action film makes of the historical record. Braveheart raised its hero, medieval Scottish warrior William Wallace, to the level of myth and won five Oscars, including best director for Mel Gibson, who played Wallace as he led a spirited revolt against English tyranny. Braveheart taught that freedom is not just worth dying for, but also worth killing for, in defense of hearth and homeland. Six years later, amid the ruins of the Twin Towers, Gibson’s message resonated with a generation of American youth who signed up to fight terrorists, instead of inviting them to join a “constructive dialogue.” Liberals have never forgiven Gibson since.

— Arthur Herman is the author of How the Scots Invented the Modern World.

14. A Simple Plan (1998): A defining insight of conservatism is that whatever transcendent inspiration there may be to moral principles, there is also the humble fact that morality works. Moral institutions and customs endure because they allow civilization to proceed. Sam Raimi’s gripping A Simple Plan illustrates this truth. Bill Paxton plays a decent family man who lives by the book in every way. But when he’s cajoled into breaking the rules to get rich quick, he falls under the jurisdiction of the law of unintended consequences and discovers that simple morality is not simplistic, and that a seductively simple plan is a siren song if it runs against the grain of what is right.

15. Red Dawn (1984): From the safe, familiar environment of a classroom, we watch countless parachutes drop from the sky and into the heart of America. Oh, no: invading Commies! Laugh if you want — many do — but Red Dawn has survived countless more acclaimed films because Father Time has always been our most reliable film critic. The essence of timelessness is more than beauty. It’s also truth, and the truth that America is a place and an idea worth fighting and dying for will not be denied, not under a pile of left-wing critiques or even Red Dawn’s own melodramatic flaws. Released at the midpoint of Reagan’s presidential showdown with the Soviet Union, this story of what was at stake in the Cold War endures.

— John Nolte blogs at BigHollywood.Breitbart.com.

20th Century Fox 

16. Master and Commander (2003):This naval-adventure film starring Russell Crowe is based on the books of Patrick O’Brian, and here’s what A. O. Scott of the New York Times said in his review: “The Napoleonic wars that followed the French Revolution gave birth, among other things, to British conservatism, and Master and Commander, making no concessions to modern, egalitarian sensibilities, is among the most thoroughly and proudly conservative movies ever made. It imagines the [H.M.S.] Surprise as a coherent society in which stability is underwritten by custom and every man knows his duty and his place. I would not have been surprised to see Edmund Burke’s name in the credits.”

17. The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe (2005):The White Witch runs a godless, oppressive, paranoid regime that hates Santa Claus. She’s a cross between Burgermeister Meisterburger and Kim Jong Il. The good guys, meanwhile, recognize that some throats will need cutting: no appeasement, no land-for-peace swaps, no offering the witch a snowmobile if she’ll only put away the wand. Underlying the narrative is the story of Christ’s rescuing man from sin — which is antithetical to the leftist dream of perfected man’s becoming an instrument for earthly utopia. The results of such utopian visions, of course, are frequently like the Witch’s reign: always winter, and never Christmas.

— Tony Woodlief writes for World magazine and blogs at tonywoodlief.com.

18. The Edge (1997): Screenwriter David Mamet uses a wilderness survival story about friendship, betrayal, and forgiveness to present a few truths rarely seen in movies: Knowledge has its limits, fortitude is a weapon against hardship, and honor can motivate even the shallowest man to great sacrifice. Some have interpreted the film as a Cold War allegory because it features a menacing bear. The main characters (played by Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin) understand that there is neither wisdom nor nobility in waiting for others to save them, and that they must take responsibility for their own lives and souls. Life is unfair, but to challenge life on its own terms is an exhilarating reward, no matter the outcome.

19. We Were Soldiers (2002):Most movies about the Vietnam War reflect the derangements of the antiwar Left. This film, based on the memoir by Lt. Col. Hal Moore (played by Mel Gibson), offers a lifelike alternative. It focuses on a fight between an outnumbered U.S. Army battalion and three North Vietnamese regiments in the battle of Ia Drang in 1965. Significantly, it treats soldiers not as wretched losers or pathological killers, but as regular citizens. They are men willing to sacrifice everything to do their duty — to their country, to their unit, and to their fellow soldiers. As the movie makes clear, they also had families. Indeed, their last thoughts were usually about their loved ones back home.

20. Gattaca (1997):In this science-fiction drama, Vincent (Ethan Hawke) can’t become an astronaut because he’s genetically unenhanced. So he purchases the identity of a disabled athlete (Jude Law), with calamitous results. The movie is a cautionary tale about the progressive fantasy of a eugenically correct world — the road to which is paved by the abortion of Down babies, research into human cloning, and “transhumanist” dreams of fabricating a “post-human species.” Biotechnology is a force for good, but without adherence to the ideal of universal human equality, it opens the door to the soft tyranny of Gattaca and, ultimately, the dystopian nightmare of Brave New World.

21. Heartbreak Ridge (1986):Clint Eastwood’s foul-mouthed Marine sergeant Tom Highway makes quick work of kicking Communist Cubans out of Grenada. And, boy, does “Gunny” hate Commies. Not only does he kill quite a few, he also refuses a bribe of a Cuban cigar, saying: “Get that contraband stogie out of my face before I shove it so far up you’re a** you’ll have to set fire to your nose to light it.” A welcome glorification of Reagan’s decision to liberate Grenada in 1983, the film also notes how after a tie in Korea and a loss in Vietnam, America can finally celebrate a military victory. Eastwood, the old war horse, walks off into retirement pleased that he’s not “0–1–1 anymore.” Semper Fi. Oo-rah!

22. Brazil (1985):Vividly depicting the miserable results of elitist utopian schemes, Terry Gilliam’s Brazilportrays a darkly comic dystopia of malfunctioning high-tech equipment and the dreary living conditions common to all totalitarian regimes. Everything in the society is built to serve government plans rather than people. The film is visually arresting and inventive, with especially evocative use of shots that put the audience in a subservient position, just like the people in the film. Terrorist bombings, national-security scares, universal police surveillance, bureaucratic arrogance, a callous elite, perversion of science, and government use of torture evoke the worst aspects of the modern megastate.

— S. T. Karnick blogs at stkarnick.com.

Universal Studios 

23. United 93 (2006):Minutes after terrorists struck on 9/11, Americans launched their first counterattack in the War on Terror. Director Paul Greengrass pays tribute to the passengers of United 93 by refusing to turn their story into a wimpy Hollywood melodrama. Instead, United 93 unfolds as a real-time docudrama. Just as significantly, Greengrass provides a clear depiction of our enemies. United 93 opens as four Muslim terrorists pray in a hotel room. Several hours later, the hijackers’ frenzied shrieks to Allah mingle with the prayerful supplications of United 93’s passengers as they crash through the cockpit door and strike a blow against those who would terrorize our country.

24. Team America: World Police (2004): This marionette movie from South Parkcreators Trey Parker and Matt Stone is hard to categorize as conservative. It’s amazingly vulgar and depicts Americans as wildly overzealous in fighting terror. Yet the film’s utter disgust with air-headed, left-wing celebrity activism remains unmatched in popular culture. As the heroes move to stop a WMD apocalypse, they clash with Alec Baldwin, Tim Robbins, Susan Sarandon, Sean Penn, and a host of others, whom they take out with gunfire, sword, and martial arts before saving the day. The movie, like South Park itself, reveals Parker and Stone as the two-headed George Grosz of American satire.

— Brian C. Anderson is editor of City Journal and author of South Park Conservatives.

25. Gran Torino (2008):Clint Eastwood directs and stars in the ultimate family movie unsuitable for the family. He plays Walt Kowalski, a caricature of an old-school, dying-breed, Polish-American racist male, replete with post-traumatic stress disorder from having served in the Korean War. Kowalski comes to realize that his exotic Hmong neighbors embody traditional social values more than his own disaster of a Caucasian nuclear family. Dirty Harry blows away political correctness, takes on the bad guys, and turns a boy into a man in the process. He even encourages the cultural assimilation of immigrants. It feels so good, you knew the Academy would ignore it.

— Andrew Breitbart is the proprietor of BigHollywood.Breitbart.com.

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