anitacrane.com » Filmmakers

‘Southern Exposure’ – urgent immigration documentary

Anita Crane — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 17:41:33 +0000

Posted: August 30, 2010
8:51 pm Eastern

By Anita Crane
© 2010 WorldNetDaily

As you can see by the time stamp above, WND published my interview with Stan Wald and Jerry Misner, makers of the new HD made-for-TV documentary Southern Exposure and the story’s available here: http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=195565.

Your bleeding-heart conservative correspondent is most concerned with these disturbing aspects of the crisis:

“Southern Exposure” reveals desert trails polluted with garbage, women’s underwear hanging like trophies on “rape trees” and the corpses of would-be migrant workers – burned and dehydrated by the sun.

It seems advocates on all sides of the debate agree that the majority of illegal migrants desperately are seeking gainful employment to care for their families, but few mention that these same poor people are beholden to the drug cartels’ traffickers, also known as coyotes.

Wald and Misner explained the racket. The coyotes charge migrants up to $3,000 for entry into the U.S., but they offer to cut the extortion fees if the desperados will become drug mules. Then the cartels make millions more by selling the drugs to Americans.

Chris Simcox, founder of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, one of several civilian groups that monitor the border, warns that the Border Patrol staffing levels are far too low. He and others, including USBP agents, speak of guerrilla tactics used by the traffickers.

Some lead traffickers pay decoys to distract the Border Patrol agents while hordes of other traffickers invade the U.S.; some use children to cry for help and lure agents into the line of fire; traffickers also assassinate law enforcement officers and murder ranchers on their own land.

In “Southern Exposure,” Wald and Misner show the disturbing images of the severed heads of Mexicans, images that reveal the level of crisis that exists along the Mexican border.

Misner also said that these savage crimes likely are committed by Islamists.

“There is a belief by law enforcement and former border law enforcement that there’s a nexus of some kind between Palestinians and what’s happening on the border with the drugs and the illegals,” said Misner. “Law enforcement has been studying the situation for a long time and this brutality is not endemic to Mexican criminals.”

The DVD set will be released September 15 and for sale on Amazon.com…link after trailer

Eduardo Verastegui hosts Latino ‘United for Life’ congress in L.A. on May 23

Anita Crane — Sat, 15 May 2010 06:00:10 +0000

“The threat to innocent life isn’t limited to the poorest nations. We need to be vigilant in promoting the dignity, beauty and incomparable worth of every human person right where we are.” —Eduardo Verástegui, Manto de Guadalupe

Los Angeles, Calif.—Actor, producer and human rights advocate Eduardo Verástegui is hosting the first-ever Latino United for Life Family Congress on Sunday, May 23, 2010, from 8 a.m. – 7 p.m. at the Los Angeles Convention Center.

The United for Life congress is a project of Manto de Guadalupe, an international aid organization that promotes human dignity throughout the world and brings relief to those suffering extreme poverty. Manto de Guadalupe’s work includes building homes, delivering food and medicine, and providing lifesaving assistance to impoverished pregnant women.

“The funds raised through our United for Life Family Congress will be used to open a medical center in Los Angeles that provides free, high-quality care for pregnant women and their preborn babies,” stated Eduardo Verástegui, referencing a goal of the first-ever event.

“The Guadalupe Medical Center will be located in an area that has 10 abortion facilities. Therefore, our center will be an oasis of life in the midst of a desert of death,” Verástegui observed. “Just as Latinos have had their dignity undermined by negative stereotypes in the media, so too have preborn babies had their dignity denied since the controversial 1973 Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision. It is the mission of Manto de Guadalupe to promote the dignity of the human person with a special focus on restoring honor and dignity to Latinos—from the child in her father’s arms to the child in her mother’s womb, from the embryo to the elderly.”

The line-up of entertainers includes singers Emmanuel and Alexander Acha, Mariachi Sol de Mexico, impersonator Gilberto Gless, and actress Karyme Lozano. Speakers include former Planned Parenthood director Abby Johnson and the vibrant young Australian actor Nick Vujicic. Vujicic was born without limbs, but inspires people throughout the world with his powerful witness to the goodness, dignity and beauty of life. He and Verástegui co-starred in the award-winning short film, The Butterfly Circus.

Jason Jones, founder of the Human Rights Education and Relief Organization (HERO), will speak as well. Verástegui and Jones have collaborated on many missions promoting the dignity and beauty of the human person, including bringing a message of hope and redemption to prison inmates in Texas and delivering lifesaving supplies to the poor in Darfur, Sudan.

“The threat to innocent life isn’t limited to the poorest nations. We need to be vigilant in promoting the dignity and incomparable worth of every human person right where we are,” stated Verástegui. “Join us at the United for Life Family Congress. Unity equals strength and strength is the power behind positive change.”

For more information about the United for Life Family Congress (Unidos Por La Vida) in Los Angeles on May 23, please visit MantodeGuadalupe.org. To order tickets, visit: WAN Tickets.

‘Not Evil Just Wrong’ exposes Al Gore’s threatening agenda

Anita Crane — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 21:00:12 +0000

Al Gore received a Nobel Prize and an Oscar for claiming that humans cause global warming and an “accelerated melting of the north polar ice cap.” Given such mantras, many European children fear that polar bears and civilization will be wiped out by floods. Meanwhile, millions of Africans die from malaria because the insecticide DDT is banned in their nations. Now it seems that Gore and likeminded environmentalists think carbon dioxide (CO₂), a byproduct of fossil fuels, is the new DDT.

So what does all that mean to Americans? A new documentary by the feisty Irish filmmakers Phelim McAleer and Ann McElhinney explains a lot. Not Evil Just Wrong examines the human toll of bad environmental policies with leaders such as Gore’s scientific advisor, a Greenpeace founder, human rights activist Roy Innis and green celebrity Ed Begley, Jr., among others. Therefore, the husband-wife team is urging regular people and activists to think globally and act locally. Not Evil Just Wrong premiers on October 18 with a worldwide distribution plan for everyone who wants to host screenings.

In this film, Mr. Gore has his say in a series of catastrophic messages. Then we meet John Day, the attorney who represented a parent in suing the British Ministry of Education because it had decided to show all children Gore’s film, An Inconvenient Truth. Consequently, Britain’s High Court of Justice found nine major errors. According to Day, the most egregious scientific error is Gore’s exaggeration of reports by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. He says, “Al Gore gives the impression that sea level is going rise by 20 feet in the very near future. The IPCC talks about 20-feet sea level rises over millennia – over thousands of years – thousands of thousands of years. … Now that is a very disturbing misstatement of the science.”

After that revelation, we hear from scientists who say that changes in arctic ice are a natural phenomenon, certain methods of forecasting climate change are based on false data, and CO₂, the natural gas exhaled by humans and other creatures, is essential to all life. Yet there is so much more to this stunning documentary.

Ann McElhinney said, “We were very happy to have Al Gore in our film, but he refused to be interviewed. This is a very odd way to behave if you care about truth.”

Phelim McAleer said, “If there’s such an emergency, if the planet’s going to die in five years, then get out there. Give press conferences. Talk to people. Debate with your opponents.”

They interviewed one of Gore’s top scientific advisors, climatologist Stephen Schneider of Stanford University and the IPCC. In the 1970s, Schneider warned of an immanent and devastating manmade ice age, but now he preaches immanent and devastating manmade global warming. After the interview, Schneider withdrew permission and Stanford University lawyers threatened the filmmakers not use their footage. However, they can legally reveal what he said, so they do.

Patrick Moore is a Greenpeace founder and former member (1971-86), plus an ecologist. In Not Evil Just Wrong, he guides viewers through the science and typical tactics of environmentalists. Like other scientists in this film, Moore comes to a conclusion about the motives behind popular strategies and it is quite shocking: not because the motives aren’t obvious, but because he and others have the authority to expose them.

Donald Roberts, Ph.D., a tropical health specialist and professor emeritus of the Uniformed University of Health Sciences, discusses DDT, which is probably the best weapon against malaria-carrying mosquitoes. In 1962, marine biologist Rachel Carson released the book Silent Spring, her unproven thesis that DDT causes cancer or genetic mutation in various creatures. Subsequently, DDT was banned around the globe and Roberts says that estimates of malaria infections are as high as 800 million. McAleer said the estimates of casualties are as high as 50 million. According to BBC News, South Africa stopped using DDT in 1996 and malaria cases shot up to 65,000 in 2000, so it resumed DDT use in 2001. By 2006, the World Health Organization said South African data showed that DDT can reduce malaria transmission by 90%. Thus, the WHO enthusiastically recommended DDT for the 107 countries where malaria is endemic. But Ugandans and other Africans still plead for help. In Not Evil Just Wrong, Roberts concludes, “[T]he people who say that we don’t need DDT, I would have to assume, have an agenda that is separate from the agenda of controlling malaria, reducing death and reducing disease in vulnerable populations.”

“There’s something going on right now with the scientific method – something that’s not healthy,” said McElhinney. “We look at the DDT story and it’s very interesting what happened. The people who defended Rachel Carson, like Al Gore, continue to defend her despite the science.”

McAleer added, “We showed our film to a group of African Americans in Atlanta and they went crazy when they saw the DDT section. They were angry that they didn’t know about DDT and no one ever told them about it. They thought it was a conspiracy to keep the problem.

“The point of the DDT section is that the ban has cost the lives of 30 million-plus Africans,” he said. “CO₂ is the new DDT. We’re going through the same cycle and we’re going to affect the lives of hundreds of millions – billions – if you ban fossil fuels.”

In the film, Roy Innis, chairman of the Congress of Racial Equality, stresses that the DDT bans in developing nations are a human rights issue because people have died and, furthermore, the risk of getting malaria harms the survivors’ economies. He says, “I don’t believe that the people who oppose DDT are evil people, but they’re people who are wrong.” Innis also says, “I cannot believe that Al Gore has great regard for people – real people.”

Then there’s Ed Begley, Jr., who stars in “Living With Ed” on the Discovery Networks’ Planet Green. In Not Evil Just Wrong, Begley claims that Fiji’s poor “have nothing” and they are “very happy” to live without electricity. In reality, the squalor is heartwrenching. Furthermore, Begley would have no TV career without electricity, let alone basic necessities such as a refrigerator. Still, he gets teary-eyed over green schemes, but the filmmakers catch him admitting hypocrisy.

“I wanted to look behind the word ‘ban’,” said McAleer. “I realized that when you ban something, somebody suffers. The environmental movement opposes building dams, but that deprives people of clean water.

“The most endangered species in Africa is not the lemur, not the lion. It’s a five-year-old child in a village,” he said. “You have all these people running around trying to cure AIDS in Africa with their red ribbons, but the biggest killer is diarrhea. Try having a benefit dinner to cure diarrhea. What color would the ribbon be? It’s not very glamorous, but water treatment plants would save those people.”

Of course, water purification plants require electricity, which is usually produced with hydro dams or fossil fuels.

“We have condemned the people of Africa and Asia to pre-industrial farming. Do you want that?” McAleer asked. He said many environmentalists have similar plans for America and it’s explored in the film. In fact, the process has begun with congressional bills to burden citizens with high taxes on energy. Next, the government could ban fuels that are necessary for electricity and transportation. In other words, the wrong kind of environmentalism would kill the American way of life.

McAleer said, “There’s a theme to the environmentalist push. The answer is always stop America from growing, stop big business. But America is the last hope because your people haven’t bought the propaganda. They recognize the madness of driving jobs out of America during one of the biggest recessions.”

Phelim McAleer and Ann McElhinney traveled the world in their three-year quest for answers. They said, “Not Evil Just Wrong has a very large carbon footprint – we are very proud of that.”

The worldwide simultaneous screenings premier is Sunday, October 18, 2009 at 8 PM ET in homes, dorms, clubs , churches and so on. Everyone who wants to host a screening party can order the DVD, movie poster and a red carpet by clicking on the following link: Not Evil Just Wrong – the true cost of warming hysteria.



In ‘Hurt Locker’ realism is the special effect
Anita Crane — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 17:44:34 +0000
Kathryn Bigelow and Mark Boal talk about their movie
Today, The Hurt Locker expands from Los Angeles and New York City to more cities around the United States. From beginning to end, it is an eye-opening, teeth-clenching thriller about a U.S. Army bomb squad, formally classified as Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD).


Jim O’Neil, executive director of the EOD Memorial Foundation of Niceville, Florida, endorsed this film. As a retired master explosive ordnance disposal technician and chief warrant officer for the U.S. Navy, his praise doesn’t come lightly.
Mark Boal and Kathryn Bigelow directing The Hurt Locker. (Summit Entertainment (c) 2008)
“This film is intense, but the world is intense,” said O’Neil. “EOD techs don’t give a flip about the political reasons for bombs; they just care about saving lives. These are people who voluntarily take that long walk into uncertainty.”
Director Kathryn Bigelow co-produced The Hurt Locker with screenwriter Mark Boal, Greg Shapiro and Nicholas Chartier. Bigelow’s previous films include Blue Steele, Near Dark, Point Break, Strange Days, and K19: The Widowmaker.
 What’s her take on the bomb squads? “The fact that these men live in mortal danger every day makes their lives inherently tense, iconic, and cinematic,” Bigelow is quoted in the production notes. “And, on a metaphorical level, they seemed to suggest both the heroism and the futility of the [Iraq] war.” 
“Futility”? We’ll get to that later. 
Mark Boal’s background is journalism, and impressive at that. He co-wrote In the Valley of Elah, which was hailed by reviewers as an anti-war movie.
However, that film was based on his Playboy article, “Death and Dishonor,” the tragically true story of an Army veteran who found out that his son didn’t deserve to join the Armed Forces. (While I hate Playboy, Boal’s article is free online and it actually gives a little credence to the old excuse that some men buy this magazine for the writing.)
In 2004, Boal went to Bagdad and embedded with an EOD squad; then wrote “The Man in the Bomb Suit,” also for Playboy. That story is about an Army staff sergeant who had disarmed the most bombs in Iraq.
Boal said, “It made a deep impression on me. When I got home, I thought ‘people have no idea how these guys live and what they’re up against,’ and then later I started thinking about it dramatically and doing a fictional story about men who voluntarily work with bombs.”
He said “hurt locker” is slang for mental or physical pain. Then he added, “I’ve heard people say, ‘When the bomb goes off, I’m gonna be in the hurt locker.’”
In this movie, all performances are captivating. From the moment Jeremy Renner comes onscreen as the new squad leader, Staff Sergeant William James, he gets under my skin – then earns my admiration and affection – and annoys me yet again because I never know what he will do, nor does anyone else.
Jeremy Renner and Anthony Mackey in The Hurt Locker. (Summit Entertainment (c) 2008)
Boal said, “He’s a fictional character, but I did certainly meet soldiers who were willing to take extraordinary risks. And you have to realize that the film takes place in a very specific time, 2004. It’s not representative of the entire war.”
At one key point in the film, I am baited into longing for James to have peace. However, he smiles to a song by the rock band Ministry; which is frightening to me, but energizing to Bigelow.
“As a filmmaker,” she said, “what’s very interesting is to either go against what you see or go with what you see. But we had really entered the soldiers’ psychology, especially that soldier, so that was the choice that I found to be most relevant.”
As the character Sgt. J.T. Sanborn, Anthony Mackey commands immediate respect, but in the heat of combat, he is tempted to do something evil.
Brian Geraghty in The Hurt Locker. (Summit Entertainment (c) 2008)
Brian Geraghty’s character, Specialist Owen Eldridge, is supposed to be searching and weaker than the other two, but he surprises everyone. 
Bigelow and Boal should be proud of the film’s intimate documentary feel. They shot it in Jordan, recreating war-torn Bagdad with some 10,000 photos and eyewitness accounts. They also hired refugee Iraqi actors to play Iraqis. Consequently, when James sweats bullets in his 100 lb. bomb suit, everyone – whether ally, enemy, or moviegoer – sweats bullets too.



 
On the other hand, certain characters lack depth. For example, most of Boal’s Iraqis seem menacing and no one shows gratitude for the bomb squad’s lifesaving work.



 
Boal explained, “In 2004, American troops, from the bomb squad specifically, did not have a lot of interaction with the Iraqi public. There were not a lot of translators to go around. Nobody I met in Camp Victory – no American I’ve ever met there spoke Arabic. …



 
“This isn’t about the diversity of opinions in Iraq,” he said. “That would be a great subject for a movie that someone should do. But The Hurt Locker is about the daily life of bomb squad soldiers.”



 
Furthermore, only one man, a Muslim, has faith.



 
Boal said, “One of the characters had that component. It was actually based on one of the soldiers I talked to there [in Iraq]. He was very religious and he kept an image of the Virgin Mary in his helmet. But two characters ended up on the cutting room floor, him, and me as an extra. [Laughs]”



 
As we wrapped up the interview, I asked both filmmakers why people should see The Hurt Locker.



 
Boal said, “I hope people enjoy it because it’s meant to be the kind of movie you enjoy. At the same time, it’s got some substance to it and maybe it can be thought-provoking and people will come away with some appreciation of what’s going on over there.”



 
Then Bigelow said, “Perfectly put. I would just add to that even though it’s set at a particular time, I hope it will remind people that there are still men in harm’s way. If the movie does that, it would fulfill one of our ambitions.”



 
The Hurt Locker certainly honors our heroic bomb disposal squads, but it doesn’t prove that the Iraq War is futile. Instead, as retired Master EOD Tech Jim O’Neil said, it proves that “sometimes the news isn’t the bomb. Sometimes the news is the silence.”



 
(The Hurt Locker is rated R for violence and profane language.)



 
 Copyright 2009, Anita Crane. All rights reserved. Published by SperoForum.com, RenewAmerica.com, CatholicExchange.com, TheCuttingEdgeNews.com.





‘Take my voice with you’
Anita Crane — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 10:09:41 +0000
The beauty of immutable truth commands a certain silence, and this paradox is reason to see The Stoning of Soraya M., which opens today in select movie theaters across the United States.
This film couldn’t be more timely as our good brothers and sisters in Iran struggle valiantly to triumph over evil.
The Stoning of Soraya M. was originally written by the French-Iranian journalist Freidoune Sahebjam. Iranian-American Cyrus Nowrasteh and his wife, Betsy Giffen Nowrasteh, adapted the book into a screenplay, and Cyrus directed the movie as well.
The film is set in 1986, as Freidoune Sahebjam (Jim Caviezel) is driving through Iran and his car breaks down outside Kupayeh. A bus picks him up and tows his car into town, where Freidoune meets Hashem (Parviz Sayyad) the mechanic, who is depressed and refuses to work until the next day. Later, Freidoune will know why, but he must get to the border by nightfall, so he overpays Hashem to get the job done.
A woman in black traditional dress approaches Freidoune, asking if he speaks English. She is Zahra (Shohreh Aghdashloo), the aunt of Soraya M. (Mozhan Marnò).
The mayor, Ebrahim (David Diann), and the mullah, Sheik Hasson (Ali Pourtash), rush in to chase “crazy” Zahra away and sheepishly welcome the stranger who is dressed in western garb. Freidoune tells them that he must work, so they press him. What does he do? Where does he come from? And will he dine with them?
As Freidoune sits alone in a café, Zahra is able to sneak past a watchman to throw the journalist a bloodstained fabric swatch and a hand-drawn map to her home. When he arrives, she says, “Start your machine. Voices of women do not matter in here. I want you to take my voice with you.”
Despite what you may have read elsewhere, The Stoning of Soraya M. isn’t about so-called women’s rights or any of the other buzz words thrown around by political operatives. Nor is it some screed against Islam or Iran per sé.
Zahra died three years after she met Freidoune Sahebjam, and last year, at the age of 75, he died. Now, because of them and everyone who made The Stoning of Soraya M. into a film, we have another compelling proof of the law that is written in our hearts. So, will you take Zahra’s voice with you?
Published at RenewAmerica.com, SperoNews.com, RegularFolksUnited.com, DailyEstimate.com and other sites.



Gary Sinise and ‘Brothers at War’
Anita Crane — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 20:45:41 +0000
Here’s the story published by National Catholic Register:
 
War, Family and Faith
Gary Sinise and Filmmakers Reveal Faith
BY ANITA CRANE, REGISTER CORRESPONDENT
March 15-21, 2009 Issue | Posted 3/6/09 at 7:04 AM
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Behind the new film Brothers at War, which was scheduled to open in theaters March 13, are two Catholic stories.
One is that of a Catholic family struggling with issues of war and mortality; the other, of an established actor who has found inspiration in the Catholic faith to make a difference in the lives of those affected by war and terrorism.
In the R-rated documentary, Jake Rademacher, the eldest son in a Catholic American family, seeks to understand why two of his brothers serve in the U.S. Army and put their lives on the front lines.
Gary Sinise, star of “CSI: New York,” is an executive producer of the film, which was screened in Washington on Feb. 20.
Sinise revealed to the Register his developing relationship with the Catholic Church.
In Brothers at War, the Rademachers express their own struggles and their faith in God. Army Capt. Isaac Rademacher has led several combat missions in Iraq, and he describes his service as “a calling.” His younger brother, Sgt. Joe Rademacher, is an Army Ranger and sniper who served under Isaac in Iraq. Their parents, Dr. Dennis Rademacher and his wife, Nikki, are resigned to God’s will.
The Rademachers’ faith is one reason why Sinise got involved in Brothers at War.
“It’s a very positive portrait of an American family,” said Sinise. “I visit our service members all over the world on a regular basis, and I know who these people are. And this movie will help explain that a little more to the American people who might not understand the kinds of people that we have defending this country. In a time of war, we should know who our people are and why they do it.”
Capt. Rademacher said, “The soldiers in that film are the no-kidding, frontline, as-far-as-you-can-go troops. And they’ve seen a lot of action, and after you’ve seen and experienced that action, it’s when you let go. And you know it’s not really up to you, in terms of your time to die.”
Reflecting on his Catholic faith, Capt. Rademacher said, “If your personal requirement is to confess your sins, pray, whatever it may be to prepare yourself, then that’s what you do.”
Jake Rademacher also saw another side of fighting men. Marine Chief Warrant Officer David “Gunner” Kensington, who trains Iraqi troops, impressed him with his compassion, among other things.
In the film, terrorists come from Syria, attack the Iraqi soldiers and brutally injure two.
“One of the most amazing things I’ve seen and heard was that Marine softly stroking the side of the [wounded] Iraqi soldier’s face,” Rademacher said. After the battle, all eyes are on Kensington as he praises the Iraqis for their progress. Kensington tells the soldiers that if he should be killed they must continue to defend their country. Some of the Iraqi soldiers weep, then all rush to hug and kiss him.
Sinise’s Role
At the Brothers screening, active members of the U.S. military and veterans alike thanked all the producers, but the most poignant testimonies were directed to Sinise for his outreach to the U.S. military and victims of terrorism.
Retired Navy Rear Adm. Roy Hoffmann announced that when one of his friends awoke from surgery, he saw Sinise watching over him.
One of the many projects Sinise cofounded is Operation Iraqi Children, an organization that helps U.S. troops and other Americans to save Iraqi children from squalor by providing school supply kits and other necessities.
Nahla Qader, a Sunni Muslim from Iraq, thanked him for that and more.
“You can see, Mr. Gary, that when you were in Iraq with your organization to save those children that they could say, ‘I love you,’” she said. “You could feel the gratitude in their hearts. But here I am. I’m telling you that you can touch this gratitude.” Then, Sinise ran from the stage and embraced her.
Discussing Qader’s gratitude two days later, Sinise said, “That was an amazing moment actually, for me, because I had never met her. I didn’t know her.”
As it turns out, a State Department official told Sinise about war victims in Afghanistan and Iraq. One boy’s arm had been blown off by terrorists, so Sinise paid for him to get a prosthetic arm in the United States. When Qader and her family gained asylum in the U.S., they had no credit or money, so he cosigned on their apartment lease and paid their rent. Thus, Qader said she’s teaching her children to make sacrifices for others.
Why is Sinise so generous to servicemen and people he’s never met? He said he’s grateful to all American military families. In fact, he knows what they do and what they endure because many of his family members are military veterans. Above all, he said he loves God and he’s inspired by the Catholic faith.
Sinise’s wife, actress Moira Harris, is Catholic. Therefore, he goes to Mass with her and said the Catholic faith has helped him put things into perspective. “It’s very, very positive in our lives,” he said.
“I am not a Catholic and have not practiced any particular religion, but [through] my wife, through her Catholic faith and through her devotion to the Catholic Church, I’ve become far more faith filled in the past eight or nine years than ever before.”
Copyright © 2009 Anita Crane. All rights reserved. This story may not be rewritten, republished or otherwise redistributed without prior written authority by the author and publisher, National Catholic Register.




The woman behind ‘An American Carol’
Anita Crane — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 23:44:45 +0000
By Anita Crane

Published 10/3/2008 12:08:42 AM
 
 
 



Myrna Sokoloff and David Zucker.

If you couldn’t stomach the thought of seeing Robert Redford’s Lions for Lambs or Brian De Palma’s Redacted, consider treating yourself to An American Carol, which opens in movie theaters today. This gutsy satire by David Zucker challenges Michael Moore, Rosie O’Donnell, Barack Obama, the ACLU, the Recreate ’68 movement, the Hollywood establishment and even jihadists, but that’s not the half of it. After all, this Zucker comedy was sophisticated by Republican Myrna Sokoloff.
How did this Republican woman become a screenwriter and executive producer in Hollywood? Well, that was not so easy.
Myrna Sokoloff comes from a conservative Republican family in Connecticut. Yet when she moved to New York City and took a political job during Mayor Ed Koch’s administration, she found a one-party system as she represented Manhattan Borough President Andrew Stein in real estate development to the Jewish community.
In 1986, Sokoloff worked on ABC’s star-studded July 4 TV special Liberty Weekend and wanted to switch her career, so the producers told her that she should move to L.A. There, Sokoloff sometimes reverted to politics, such as working on Jerry Brown’s 1992 presidential campaign and as a staffer for Senator Barbara Boxer.
Sokoloff was a Democrat because she thought the DNC represented the downtrodden and the poor, especially women. “However,” she said, “as time went on, it seemed to me that the only [women's] issue became abortion.” Sokoloff deeply loves her family, especially her 17 nieces and nephews. Therefore, she became disturbed that Democrats and liberal women’s groups belittle moms who stay home to raise their families.
As President Bill Clinton was being impeached, Sokoloff suffered another rude awakening. “I became incensed,” she stressed. “If a Republican president had done what he did, the women’s groups would be out there protesting and saying he had victimized a young woman–but it was all about being Democrat.”
Shunned by the liberal sisterhood for her insights, suddenly Sokoloff was lonely. In solitude, she began listening to Rush Limbaugh because he made her laugh. Indeed, reality was over the top, so why not try to cure certain ills with comedy?
By 2004, the master of questionable taste and former Hollywood Democrat David Zucker befriended Sokoloff through the Republican Jewish Coalition. (Zucker’s long list of hits includes Airplane!, all three Naked Gun flicks, Ruthless People, and Scary Movie 3 and 4.) Appalled by the far-left reaction to the September 11, 2001 attacks on America, he and Sokoloff produced political TV spots, starting with the Club for Growth’s “Kerry Flip-Flop.”
Over the course of four years, Sokoloff and Zucker then wrote An American Carol with liberal Lewis Friedman,* who was “willing to sell his soul” for longtime friend David.
An American Carol is loosely–and they mean loosely–based on the Dickens masterpiece A Christmas Carol. As Grandpa (Leslie Nielsen) celebrates Independence Day, his grandchildren plead for a patriotic story. Grandpa takes them to MooveAlong.org’s annual Hollywood extravaganza, where indie filmmaker Michael Malone (Kevin Farley) is awarded for his boisterous ode to Cuba’s commie “health care,” but depressed because Die, You American Pigs! is a box-office bomb. Consequently, Malone cannot finance his feature debut, Fascist America, or muster much enthusiasm for his latest cause celebre to abolish the Fourth of July tradition. When a terrorist cell leader and his sidekicks (take that literally) come upon Malone, whose America-bashing documentaries are intensely popular in the Middle East, they see him as Allah-sent and tempt him with $10 million to make their next suicide-bomber recruitment video.
After Malone refuses to attend his nephew Josh’s (Travis Schuldt) July 4 family picnic, the ghosts of JFK (Chriss Anglin), General George Patton (Kelsey Grammer), George Washington (Jon Voight) and the Angel of Death (Trace Adkins) offer him redemption.
Most scenes are fearlessly funny slaps at leftwing and jihadist lunacy, but they are cringe-free laughs because providence protects the open-souled. Still, two of Sokoloff’s favorite parts are seriously personal.
For example, Malone’s nephew is a Navy officer scheduled for Iraq and that character was inspired by Sokoloff’s own nephew, Josh. “I went to the real Josh’s graduation for boot camp in Great Lakes, Illinois and there were 700 young people graduating, all standing in their white uniforms, and it was so inspiring,” she recalled. “The commander who was welcoming them said, ‘You are sailors now. You are all sailors in the most powerful navy in the history of the world and we are the only thing that stands between the terrorists and our families and our friends.’ It just sent goose bumps all over me!”
In the movie, Malone sees his nephew depart for combat. Sokoloff wrote that scene to honor all American military families. The day after Zucker cut the scene, he told Sokoloff that it choked him up because the character Josh represents everything good about America. I never expected to fight tears during a Zucker comedy, but Sokoloff got me too.
There is also the matter (or should I say immaterial?) of faith in An American Carol. Sokoloff earned her degree in religion and philosophy at Boston University. “And,” she said, “I also have a master’s degree in Jewish education from Hebrew Union College’s Jewish Institute of Religion in New York. So there’s a whole other part of me that you didn’t know about.”
Thus, another one of her favorite scenes is Michael Malone’s encounter with George Washington, who tells him, “When you meet the Almighty, only truth will do.”
“We always had the whole scene in there,” said Sokoloff. “It’s a serious scene, there’s no way around it and David always had a problem with having this serious scene in a comedy. So we agonized over how to make it work. Actually, Jon Voight loved the scene and he added his own lines–the ones about freedom of speech and religion. When Washington takes Malone to St. Paul’s Chapel, it sets up Malone for the fact that he will face his own death… And unless you believe in your own death, you have no chance of redeeming yourself.”
I have a few reservations about An American Carol, most importantly the point where the ghost of Patton tells Malone that we have to give up some freedom for safety. I discussed this with Sokoloff, explaining that various acts of Congress and executive orders unconstitutionally license the U.S. government to invade our privacy, and arrest and prosecute individuals without cause. Related creepy developments include widespread video cameras and airport photo scanners that penetrate travelers’ clothing.
Sokoloff replied, “It is a concern, but in this time when things are dangerous–during the times when we were at war, under Lincoln, under Roosevelt, rights were curtailed for the safety of everyone–and I don’t mind being searched if it’s going to catch somebody with a bomb who would get on a plane with me and 300 other people.”
All things considered, An American Carol is thoroughly entertaining, just when we need some good laughs–and reason for hope.
Published by The American Spectator. Copyright © 2008. All rights reserved by author and publisher. 
*After publication of this article, Sokoloff explained that Friedman joined the screenwriting team shortly before the movie was filmed.



Behind the scenes of ‘Fireproof’ with Kirk Cameron
Anita Crane — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 02:18:14 +0000
Kirk Cameron in Fireproof. Photo by Todd Stone. Courtesy of Sherwood Pictures (c) 2008.
Most Hollywood movies disappoint us with anti-heroes, but Kirk Cameron comes to the rescue in Fireproof: Never Leave Your Partner Behind, a Provident Films/Sony BMG release due in American movie theaters on September 26.
In Fireproof, Cameron stars as Captain Caleb Holt, a brave firefighter who saves strangers from peril. Nevertheless, after Caleb nearly dies while rescuing a child, he says, “The newspaper called me twice wanting an interview. Seems I’m a hero with everybody in the world, except my wife.”
Fireproof is the third feature film written by brothers Alex and Stephen Kendrick of Sherwood Pictures in Albany, Georgia – a project of Sherwood Baptist Church where they are pastors, producers and directors. Their last film, Facing the Giants, was panned by some critics, but popular among Christians. Fireproof has a few moments characteristic of low-budget independent films, but it should duly impress everyone. It’s got gripping action, adventure, love and comedy.
Stephen Kendrick said, “We’re not going to Hollywood trying to win an Academy award. We are in the trenches, working with couples on a day-to-day basis.” So, instead of the usual fiction where boy-meets-girl, they sleep together, quarrel and somehow end up together, Kendrick said, “We decided that we wanted to take the audience on a journey of what’s really going on in marriages right now.”
Cameron makes it easy to admire the Capt. Holt, who leads his men with valor and good humor. At home, however, Caleb has spiritually abandoned his wife to obsessions such as internet porn. When she wants a divorce, Caleb’s father (Harris Malcom) challenges him to “The Love Dare,” a 40-day rescue plan for his marriage. Since Caleb thrives on challenge, he accepts the dare.
Despite the beauty of the plot, it has overtones that the husband is more to blame than the wife. However, as Caleb humbles himself to Catherine (Erin Bethea), obviously both spouses are responsible for their marriage. Day after day, Catherine turns a cold shoulder to Caleb as he nobly tries to rekindle her faith in him. Worse yet, she betrays him to her coworkers.
Thus, Kendrick explained, “The initial reaction is that people care about Caleb ’cause he’s trying, but Catherine is hardened. But we said, let’s be as real as possible and then, ultimately, at the end of the movie, does the audience care about them getting together?”
Alex and Stephen Kendrick with director of photography, Bob Scott (center). Photo by Todd Stone. Courtesy of Sherwood Pictures (c) 2008.
Kendrick has noticed that wives usually take the first steps to salvage troubled marriages, but often husbands are oblivious. He stated, “There is a male tone in our movies to help men. Alex and I are very passionate about that as we’re working with men… If the men are willing to step up and be men and pour back into the relationship – that is one of the keys to saving marriages.”
Even though this movie deals with widespread crises such as addictions to porn, Fireproof is artfully made so that adults get the big picture and children don’t lose their innocence. After all, Kendrick said, “We know that this will end up in the DVD library of families and, during nap time, a seven year old may get it out and watch.”
Former teen idol Kirk Cameron walked away from typical Hollywood productions long ago, but the role of Capt. Holt is perfect for him in so many ways.
In real life, Cameron starred as Mike Seaver in ABC’s sitcom Growing Pains. Despite the adoration of millions of fans, 17-year-old Cameron was empowered through humility. At the height of his fame, young Cameron the atheist wondered, “If I die today and find out there’s a god, is he going to be impressed with my celebrity like everyone else?” That question changed everything in his life.
He said, “It’s a whole convoluted web of twisted things in the entertainment industry. And when you try to take a stand, there’s a cost to it.”
Kirk Cameron and Erin Bethea in Fireproof. Photo by Hayley Catt. Courtesy of Sherwood Pictures (c) 2008.
That cost includes the challenge of romantic roles. Cameron said, “I love my wife. I promised to love and cherish her to the exclusion of anyone else. A lot of actors will justify a lot of stuff in the name of art. I don’t feel that way, so I won’t kiss any other woman other than my wife. I’ve had that conviction for years. And in this movie, there’s that touching and romantic scene where Caleb and Catherine come to some resolve in their marriage and Chelsea came in and played the role of Catherine in silhouette. How can you do a movie about marriage and your life without holding true to that?”
Indeed, Cameron has had that conviction for years. Once he became a Christian, Cameron wanted no part in leading anyone to sin, so he fought to remove sex scenes from Growing Pains – and often he won. Consequently, some ‘where are they now’ TV retrospectives mock Cameron as if his beliefs ruined the sitcom. Therefore, Cameron wrote his memoirs, Still Growing. Among the fascinating details, for 17 years Cameron has been happily married to Chelsea Noble, the actress who played his Growing Pains girlfriend, and they have six children.
Now Cameron is so committed to Fireproof that he volunteered his talents like the rest of the actors in this ego-free indie production. He said, “Love is not a feeling, it’s a commitment. Love is a promise and love is an action… What struck me most about Fireproof is they hit the bull’s eye on the issues that people struggle with in marriage. I think that people are going to say, ‘I’ve been there. That’s me. That’s my life. That’s my relationship on several different issues.’”
Cameron’s instincts were proven true by my friend Linda, a divorcée who saw a pre-release screening with me. As both of us wept at the conclusion, she said, “That’s exactly how it is.”
In the end, people do want Caleb and Catherine to triumph in love. As Cameron said, any man would “give his right arm” to hear what Catherine eventually tells her husband and it is profound in its simplicity – so profound that grown men cried too. 
There is much more to the story of Fireproof: Never Leave Your Partner Behind. See the preview and find a theater at FireproofTheMovie.com. 
Copyright © 2008 Anita Crane. All rights reserved. This story may not be rewritten, republished or otherwise redistributed without prior written authority by the author. First published by SperoNews.com on Sept. 25, 2008. Updated for DVD release and published Feb. 2, 2009 by CatholicExchange.com.