We do?
Brazil makes both the Daily Kos and National Review lists.
Disney always had trouble finding funding for his films in the early days; bankers would often turn him down. He also had trouble getting loans for Disneyland; he was only able to finance it when ABC-TV paid him to produce a TV show for them.
I should add, by the way, that the appearance of The Killing Fields on the liberal list is no more accurate than its appearance on the conservative list. In the context of American liberalism and conservatism, it’s silly to talk about people opposing or supporting Pol Pot, because basically no-one supports Pol Pot. Also, the devastation of Indochina that allowed Pol Pot to come to power was something carried out by both Democratic and Republican administrations, with both “liberal” and “conservative” politicians responsible for policies in the region.
Like others, i was surprised that Bob Roberts wasn’t on the liberal list. I would also have pushed The American President up from #24 to somewhere in the top 5. It’s a mainstream liberal’s wet dream, with a liberal progressive President confronted by, and standing up to, a cynical, self-serving and hypocritical conservative congressman. It contains some of the most openly didactic and explicitly liberal political dialog and speeches that you’ll find in a mainstream movie. Basically, the whole movie is Aaron Sorkin masturbating on the screen; it’s pretty much a test run for The West Wing.
I should add that i quite like the film.
Another one that i was surprised to see omitted from the liberal list was Bulworth, with Warren Beatty.
Well, there’s a disturbing mental image.
Ah, thanks.
Actually, I was referring to his purported antisemitism.
Ok, did those idiots at the Daily Kos who listed Thank You for Smoking as one of the great “liberal” movies actually see it?
Moreover, how did the people at The National Review listing the great conservative movies miss it.
Both do realize it was based on a book by Christopher Buckley, William F. Buckley’s son.
Also how can either Groundhog Day or The Shawshank Redemption considered either “liberal” or “conservative” movies.
Plenty of conservatives like Team America. Just because it has fun with certain stereotypes doesn’t mean it can’t still resonate with them.
Might as well say black people can’t like Tyler Perry.
I used to, years ago, enjoy reading the movie reviews in the arch-conservative American Spectator. I only remember one review now, though, for What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, which was praised for its themes of responsibility and sacrifice, IIRC.
It seems to me that thrillers tend to appeal to conservatives, particularly the paranoid political thriller or Clancy-style glorification of the military. Glen Beck and William F. Buckley have written them, for instance. Dunno where The Manchurian Candidate shows up on the linked lists, but the original film strikes me as Cold War conservative. Similarly, the original Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
Whose director said it could be used as a parallel to McCarthyism (though he was not intending it to be a political allegory).
I’d like to toss out a bit of a twist on this issue: Is there any part of any movie that you, speaking as a conservative or as a liberal, object to?
For example, a liberal might object to the portrayal of Jenny in Forest Gump, or Michael Moore blowing up Team America headquarters because that’s what liberals do (the blowing up, not the objecting).
Conservatives already have objected to the villain in the new The Muppets movie being an oil company and can probably come up with far more examples (of course there are whole websites but no cheating).
Oh yeah, those anti-vaxers are a plague!
I didn’t say conservatives couldn’t like it, I said it was silly to call it a “conservative movie”. Just because Xists can enjoy Y on some level, doesn’t mean Y is Xist. I’m sure plenty of conservatives liked George Carlin, Bill Hicks or Richard Pryor ; but they sure as shit weren’t conservatives themselves.
I saw it with some conservative friends, who had a great time with it regardless of the critical points it made. It is possible to enjoy satire of your own point of view. See, e.g., * A Mighty Wind*, which satirizes 1960s folk music, while clearly portraying a deep affection for it.
As a libertarian, the one that comes to mind is the thriller Deja Vu. Cliff’s Notes version, at one point the police are using surveillance equipment to watch an innocent bystander while she’s in the shower, and joking about it.
Exactly.
When i made the point that “family values” conservatives would be unlikely to praise team America, i was talking about their political perspective. I’m sure that some traditionalist conservatives might enjoy the movie as a piece of entertainment, but that’s not the same as saying that the movie’s message is traditionalist conservative.
I like reading P.J. O’Rourke, even though some of his comments that make me laugh are also quite antithetical to my politics.
In one of his essays, O’Rourke describes a liberal as (this is from memory, and not an exact quote) “someone who is happy to kill an unborn baby, but not a convicted murderer.” If this were offered as a serious piece of political commentary, i’d be all over it as simplistic and reductionist, but when i read it in the book, i laughed.
The fact that i find him entertaining doesn’t mean that it would be correct to call his books “liberal.”