Allison Bricker

Synopsis:

Global warming alarmists want Americans to believe that humans are killing the planet. But Not Evil Just Wrong, a new documentary by Phelim McAleer and Ann McElhinney, proves that the only threats to America (and the rest of the world) are the fl awed science and sky-is-falling rhetoric of Al Gore and his allies in environmental extremism.   The film warns Americans that their jobs, middle-class lifestyles and dreams for their children will be destroyed if the government rushes to judgment and imposes job-killing regulations on an economy already mired in recession.

Not Evil Just Wrong exposes the deceptions about global warming that scientists, politicians, educators and the media have been force-feeding the public for years, including fear-mongering about floods and dying polar bears. The documentary shows how environmentalists are pushing the same kind of anti-human propaganda that triggered a ban DDT and condemned millions of children to death by malaria, a story recounted in the documentary. Not Evil Just Wrong asks: Is carbon dioxide the new DDT and are we taking the same risks with our future?

Source(s):

Allison Bricker

“Not Evil Just Wrong” looks to debunk the myths promoted by environmental extremists.

UPDATE: Live Chat & Screening Stream – http://smargus.com/2071

A new documentary by Phelim McAleer and Ann McElhinney entitled, “Not Evil Just Wrong” looks to debunk the various pseudo-scientific notions presented by global-warming profiteers, such as former Vice-President Al Gore. A man who looks to foster fear of environmental catastrophe amongst people, spinning emotionally charged fables of dying polar bears in a manner all too similar to former President George W. Bush’s smoking-gun/ mushroom-cloud analogy prior to the invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003.

The directors look to combat what they view as the environmental movement’s most powerful weapon, disinformation. Consequently, “Not Evil Just Wrong” charges headlong into debunking the claim of “scientific consensus” as well as the infamous “hockey stick graph” that attributed a supposedly unique increase in temperature during the 20th Century to the industrialization of human society. The film further tasks itself with disproving several of the environmental movement’s core talking points, from the hottest years on record myth, to the preposterous notion that Co2, i.e. oxygen to all plant life, is poison.

According to the group’s media contact Travis Swindle, the documentary will reach global saturation as a result of the thousands of planned DVD/theatrical premieres as well as the free internet streams set to commence on Sunday, October 18 at 8:00 p.m. EST. Both the documentary’s website, NotEvilJustWrong.com and several affiliates such as Andrew Breitbart’s collaborative blog project, BigHollywood.com, will host the free streams in order to provide a smooth viewing experience.

With traditional media networks continuing to hemorrhage viewers, the potential for a successful premiere of a feature-length documentary at least in part over the internet, may provide a glimpse to the thus far elusive new-media business model.

Joseph Marohl

“GLAAD president Jarrett Barrios, who saw the film Friday, said that ‘the movie was a well-intentioned series of sketches — some hit the mark and some hit the gay community pretty hard and reinforce some damaging, hurtful stereotypes.’” –Sandy Cohen

Brüno may seem less shocking because we already experienced that response with Borat, but I think in most respects Brüno is the better movie.

I suspect many mainstream reviewers’ meh responses are an unconscious attempt to diminish the discomfort of having to observe homophobia with neither the usual sentimental treatment of its victims nor the comforting illusion that it is entirely contained to certain subgroups in our society—this movie makes you FEEL homophobia, even if you are gay and not homophobic at all. Brüno, after all, is a homophobe’s “straw man” of a gay person: Who wouldn’t look down on Brüno?

I don’t mean to imply that people who don’t get or enjoy the movie are homophobes, but the way the Brüno character excites homophobic reactions seems more daring and more informative than the more mainstream-acceptable films that have the sweet, sensitive, misunderstood gay guy die at the end just because “some elements” in our society are not as highly evolved as others.

But Brüno shows us that lots of people on all levels of our culture—from Alabama rabbit hunters to Hollywood bigwigs—lose their shit when confronted with someone like Brüno.

That the movie also delves into America’s conflicted reactions to class, race, violence, children, and the media further complicates our responses to it.

Nobody should feel forced to enjoy this movie. That’s not my point. Certainly not. But I hope GLAAD and other respected spokespeople for the GLBT community won’t let the mainstream media use their well-qualified concerns to demonize a satirical film for doing its job without pulling punches.

Satire has a long history of condemning its society’s inhumanity, dullness, and obscenity and, for its troubles, being accused of being inhumane, dull, and obscene.

Joseph Marohl

I want to be Brüno. In my day I’ve lost a job, been kicked by a cop, spent a night in jail, and logged upward to 30 or so mean-spirited messages on my phone—all for conducting myself in perfectly legal, private, and on occasion even community-spirited ways outside the heterosexual norm. But, damn, I’ve never told a Palestinian terrorist to his face that he needs to do something with his uninteresting hair or approached protesters from Fred Phelps’ (God-Hates-Fags) Westboro Baptist Church to help me disengage from my partner to whom I’m chained and handcuffed while anally impaled by a TV remote. Sacha Baron Cohen has—and he’s not even gay.

Unlike Borat, the character Cohen explored in 2006’s quasi-documentary Borat: Cultural Learnings of America …, Brüno is not a stranger to Western culture. Borat was naïve because of geographic isolation, and Brüno too is naïve, but because of self-absorption—less because he’s gay (over-the-top über-gay) than because of his involvement in the fashion industry—a world to itself (as any watcher of Bravo knows) every bit as tribal, myopic, dim-witted, and cruel just for the sport of it as any real or fictitious Kazakhstan.

Brüno is so out of touch with the media’s concept of “real issues” as to think Hamas is hummus, Ron Paul is RuPaul (so did I, for about a month, I blush to admit), OJ is a traditional African name, Darfur is in Iraq, and John Travolta is straight. The film’s focus is on homophobia—homophobia in show business, in religion, and on the streets and among African-Americans, politicians, and good ole boys in the South. The few reviews I’ve read have attempted (from whatever motives) to downplay this aspect of the film. But the movie also deals with the West’s celebrity and fame obsession, its hair-trigger willingness to take offense, the follies of its public relations firms, its touchiness over matters relating to race and class, and, yes, post-Reagan-era gays’ simultaneous yet contradictory fixations on the outré and mainstream assimilation.

Brüno the film is, of course, not for everybody. Anybody offended by the “exploitative” and “manipulative” way Cohen’s Borat pushed real, everyday people into revealing their servility, bigotry, and foolishness is not going to like Brüno’s button-pushing any better. Anybody offended by the potty humor and near pornographic explicitness of South Park will leave the theater shaking his head in disbelief that this movie received only an “R” rating.

But, as I’ve said before, Cohen works in the tradition of Menippus, Swift, Twain, and Lenny Bruce, whose diatribes against the inhumanity, stupidity, and obscenity of their respective cultures were (and still are) accused of being misanthropic, insane, and dirty.

At least one critic has accused the movie of being disjointed, but I felt that Brüno was structurally and thematically more coherent than Borat. The film follows many of the predictable conventions of modern romantic comedy—Boy ventures out in search of love and personal advancement, ultimately finding them in an unexpected place.

And unlike another summer comedy, like, say, The Hangover—which I enjoyed very much, without once laughing out loud or caring one instant for the characters’ bizarre and increasingly outlandish escapades—I laughed quite a bit during Brüno and was strangely moved by its climax (at an already infamous mixed martial arts spectacular in Arkansas), at which insight comes to our protagonist in the midst of one of the most vicious mob scenes ever committed to film (and it’s real).

The comedy is weakest when it depends on pratfalls and buffoonery, for example, Brüno’s mishaps in a Velcro suit. The best laughs come with a good bit of cringing. And I probably flinched six times for every time I laughed. I’m not sure which gives face muscles the more exercise, cackling or wincing, but my cheeks were sore as I left the cinema (fill in your own butt pun here).

Ha, I just said “fill in your own butt”!

My recommendation? See it if you think you’re up for it. Don’t, if your idea of funny is “nice”—no doubt Patrick Dempsey and Calista Flockhart should be coming out with something really sweet and cute any day now. Brüno is anything (and everything) but “nice.”

Joseph Marohl

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I saw Away We Go yesterday afternoon with a couple of my colleagues at work. I thought the movie was rather wonderful, but my friend Kirsten didn’t much like the main male character’s cutesy boyishness or the exaggerated kookiness of the couple’s friends and family-and Steve, my other companion, mildly objected to the film’s episodic structure, bumpy even by typical road-movie standards-three valid points, however not nearly enough to diminish my enjoyment.

What do I like about Sam Mendes’ latest film? It’s my favorite of anything of his I’ve seen (including last year’s remarkable Revolutionary Road). Well, for one, it is a movie for adults-an R-rated movie that treats sexuality with honesty, even from its opening scene (which had the sort of matter-of-fact sexual frankness I have not often seen in American films since the 1970s). Not to say that the movie is a nudity fest, which it is not, but it handles sex as an ordinary, real part of love without sensationalizing it or obsessing over it. It helps that the screenplay is by novelists, husband-and-wife co-founders of the magazine The Believer, Dave Eggers and Vendela Vida.

The movie has been compared a lot to Juno (2007), a highly praised movie I didn’t much care for. As a road movie, it also has some marked structural similarity to Little Miss Sunshine (2006), About Schmidt (2002), and especially Flirting with Disaster (1996).

Another reason for me to love Away We Go is the small but memorable cameo appearances by some of my favorite character actors-Jeff Daniels, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Josh Hamilton, Allison Janney, Chris Messina, Catherine O’Hara, and Paul Schneider. Gyllenhaal shines as a trippy, wanna-be feminist earth mother, and Chris Messina is touching as a happy young husband and father. But I don’t want to say too much here. I would hate to spoil the movie’s little surprises, though, by further description.

The movie is a satire about romance, without falling into the twin traps of most movies that deal with romance and social satire: that is, sentimentality and cynicism. It is not a boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl back again sort of romance. Rather refreshingly, I thought, the unmarried couple Burt and Verona (played by John Krasinski and Maya Rudolph) are indisputably in love from beginning to end-with no fluctuations whatsoever on that score.

They are full of love, respect, desire, and understanding for each other, but what they lack is a sense of belonging to the larger world. Verona fears that they are fuckups. Besides each other, they have no strong emotional connections to family or friends. At the beginning, circumstances unfold to force them out of their isolation and onto a trek across North America in search of a new home for themselves-and their first baby who is on the way.

Like most people in this situation, they follow job prospects and personal contacts, leading them to Phoenix, Tucson, Madison, Montreal, and Miami-where they encounter variations on the idea of couple-ness-people who are self-absorbed, materialistic, shrilly despairing and desperate, pretentiously “enlightened” and judgmental, burdened with a sense of loss, and, ultimately, unloved and unloving. At one point Verona senses that nobody else loves the way she and Burt do and panics at their utter isolation from the rest of the world.

This is the satirical point of the movie-the absence of love in all our talk about love and understanding. On that level, it’s a tiny bit like Paul Mazursky’s Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice (1969), without the infidelity. Everybody else Burt and Verona meet is a foil, emphasizing the genuineness and solidness of their love and commitment, even outside of marriage. A number of reviewers, including my friend Kirsten, felt that the other characters are sometimes cruelly caricaturized. In a way they are, but no more so than the characters viewed critically in comedies by, say, Woody Allen or the Coen brothers.

In his mostly favorable review, Roger Ebert raises the possibility that they are, instead, grotesques-that is, in the Winesburg, Ohio sense, characters who have one over- or under-developed spiritual quality that destabilizes and dwarfs every other aspect of their personality. As such, they are not so much individuals as manifestations of a sick society and its warped values.

But whether caricature or grotesque, the characters are what they are because (as in all satire) the storytellers have chosen to look at the rest of the world from a precise and individual moral stance-and satirists from Juvenal to Swift to Twain to Flannery O’Connor to Sacha Baron Cohen have all likewise been criticized as misanthropes for their coarse and cruel takes on those who fall outside the limits of their unique ethical perspectives. Unlike “soft” comedy, satire embraces many of the stark qualities of tragedy, too.

In other words, without being preachy, Away We Go is a film with a serious message. The audience is never beaten over the head with the message, and I imagine different people will take different ideas away from this movie. Antagonists to this message-the enthusiasms, bitterness, and pretenses of the minor characters-are indeed portrayed in a disparaging light.

And the message is about love-though hardly the naïve or jaded views we have come to expect from Hollywood entertainments.

What can we understand about (and through) love and commitment? What is the right way to live as a couple-or, for that matter, as a loner? And what promise does love hold for us and for those we love?

This movie offers an elegant yet not simple response to this eternal theme.

The Smoking Argus

“The Century of Self: The Engineering of Consent” is the second part of the award winning documentary by British documentarian Adam Curtis. Whereas he first episode provided insight to the origin of consumerism, this second installment illustrates how  in post-WWII America, many came to believe that the basic animal instincts, as theorized by Sigmund Freud, were the root cause behind the rise of Nazism. Thus, in order to prevent the “animal” ever being unleashed in the future; academics, corporations and governments sought a way to manipulate and “domesticate” the human animal.

Sigmund Freud’s daughter, Anna, and his nephew, Edward Bernays, provided the centrepiece philosophy. The United States government, corporations, as well as the C.I.A.   used their ideas to develop techniques to manage and control the minds of the American people. However these were not merely a cynical exercises in manipulation, as those in with the reigns of power believed that the only way to make the world “safe for democracy” and create a stable society was to repress basic human instincts that simmered just under the surface of post-war suburbia.

The Smoking Argus

“The Century of Self – Happiness Machines” is the first part of the award winning documentary by British documentarian Adam Curtis. In this first installment, Mr. Curtis examines how through the writings and philosophy of Sigmund Freud  via implementation by his extended family members such as Edward Bernays, the father of “public relations” reshaped America into a land of endless consumerism. Thereby, fundamentally altering the country from a rational needs based economy into an economy built upon an individual’s emotional desires and a multitude of disposable gadgets.

If you have ever wondered where the mentality of “keeping up with the Joneses” originated or gave pause to think where does this almost addict like longing for consumable goods stem from; so much so that Americans were/are willing to plunge themselves deep into banker financed debt, this documentary might just help broaden your understanding or at least provide an alternative perspective.

The Smoking Argus

“Body of War” is a documentary by Ellen Spiro and Phil Donahue about the coming home story of  twenty-five year old Iraq Veteran, Tomas Young. After being deployed in Iraq for less than a week, Tomas was inured by a stray bullet to his spine and left paralyzed. “Body of War” provides both an intimate look into Tomas’ life as he evolves into a powerfully motivating voice against the war and as he comes to terms with the complexities of his paralyzed body.

We are also provided an inside look within the halls of Congress as the drum beats for war were growing towards a deafening echo leading up to the March 2003 invasion of a sovereign nation. A nation, while led by a despicable despot, which posed no threat to our national security, contrary to the rhetoric by the Bush Administration.

In addition to the powerful story and lessons of why our nation desperately needs to return to a humble, non-interventionist foreign policy as envisioned by the founding generation, “Body of War”, provides an unforgettable 2-CD soundtrack which includes original works by Eddie Vedder, Pearl Jam, Ben Harper, Bruce Springsteen, Tom Waits, and others.

Click picture to purchase

Finally, “The Smoking Argus Daily” would like to thank “Iraq Veterans Against the War” for making this documentary available online for viewing and distribution by the new-media. If you enjoy the documentary, please consider purchasing a DVD of which “The Smoking Argus Daily” will donate 25% of proceeds directly to “Iraq Veterans Against the War” and another 25% directly to Tomas Young and his wife, Brie.*

At a time when the new administration is promising “free” government health care for all, let us not forget that this same government routinely reneges on its promises to provide quality first-rate health care for the approximate 3% of our population, the veterans, who are willing to fight and possibly die for this government’s infatuation of policing the world.

*Legal Disclaimer -Please read prior to making a purchase(s).
The Smoking Argus Daily will provide documentation via our “Amazon Associates” invoice for all proceeds donated towards Mr. and Mrs. Young as well as Iraq Veterans Against the War. Portions will only be donated from purchases through the link on this post. Offer valid only in the 50 United States of America. Offer void everywhere prohibited by law. Offer expires December 31st, 2009.

You must be eighteen years old or have parent’s permission to purchase from Amazon.com. The Smoking Argus Daily is not liable for any DVD’s lost, stolen, or defective. Please do not send defective products to The Smoking Argus Daily, please return them following the procedures according to Amazon.com. Further, Amazon.com, its subsidiaries, affiliates, employees, board of directors, future offspring, family pets, dark galaxy overlords in no way endorse this offer.

The Smoking Argus Daily is not a 501c3, donations are NOT tax deductible. Further, The Smoking Argus Daily, makes no express or implied warranty that you will, agree with, like, appreciate or otherwise endorse this move.

The Smoking Argus

Monsanto is the world leader in genetically modified crops (GMO’s)¹, as well as one of the most controversial companies in industrial history. Since its foundation in 1901 as a chemical company founded in St. Louis, MO, Monsanto² has been party to multiple lawsuits due to the toxicity of its products. Today it has reinvented itself as a “life sciences” “agricultural” claiming to produce products to help remake agriculture into a sustainable development model with less impact on the environment. The documentary cites numerous unpublished documents and the testimonies of victims, scientists and politicians. “The World According to Monsanto” pieces together the origins of an industrial empire, built upon lies, collusion with the American government via its bureaucracies, pressure and attempted corruption. If you enjoy this documentary, please consider purchasing the DVD online to support the documentarian and to help spread the message.

Source(s): ¹Reference.com • ²Monsanto.com

Allison Bricker

Aaron Russo sat down with Alex Jones in 2007 just months before his untimely passing from cancer. What follows is the full 90-minute interview, which is more accurately described as a very intimate and personal conversation with a true patriot from the liberty movement. Perhaps best known by the general public for producing the movie “Trading Places” with Eddie Murphy and Dan Akroyd, Mr. Russo’s documentary “America: Freedom to Fascism” along with his website, RestoreTheRepublic.net, now run by Gary Franchi  have gone on to become the capstones unto his legacy.

If you enjoy the interview, please consider purchasing the high resolution DVD from the InfoWars store in order to share copies with friends and family and to help ensure we continue to have access to such enlightening documentaries.