Earlier this week, I recommended 10 movies for Democrats to watch. So, to balance things out and hopefully show a lack of bias, I’ve now selected 10 recommendations for Republicans, too. This was actually the more difficult task, because there are so many classic films that display conservative values — and in the 1980s alone, I think there were about a billion films promoting relatively right-wing lifestyles and ideas. Therefore, I’ve limited my picks to the last two decades, except for one underrated gem that left me with quite an impression as a boy.

• The Dark Knight (2008)
  Some said Batman is Bush, others said Cheney, but either way this past summer’s superhero blockbuster resonated with certain conservatives who saw the film as something of an argument about — if not apology for — the actions of the current administration. Similarly, this summer’s Hancock and Iron Man have been read as being particularly relative to Republican politics.
  …Read more

• While I was out, AJ Schnack wrote a couple of amazing, insightful posts about the minor tragedy that is the Academy’s Best Documentary shortlist. Those posts have produced a flood of generally well-thought out responses: see, for starters, Danielle DiGiacomo, Dan Eisenberg, and shortlisted director Tricia Regan on Agnes Varnum’s blog.
• Twitch reports the very good news that Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Syndromes and a Century, which was banned in its home country of Thailand, is coming to DVD in the US on January 15.
• The Reeler joins us in berating Variety for that stupid headline about “art films”: “It’s obviousness-stating time for Pamela McClintock and her headline-writing colleagues…And if you’ll kindly turn to page 10, editor-in-chief Peter Bart has the latest on Watergate.”
• At NewCritics, I’m a Lebowski, You’re a Lebowski, a new tome dedicated to the fan cult surrounding the Coen Brothers’ epic stoner comedy, has Dennis Cozzalio feeling a little like Garbo: “I closed the back cover wanting…to have been left alone with my own perceptions, about the movie and the cult. In this way, the Coens reticence to offer DVD audio commentary or any kind of ascension to the various theories floating around about their work, this film included, can be seen as the ultimate respect for fans of their movies—they are willing to let us do all the heavy lifting when it comes to assessing what those movies mean to us.”
• Death of a President, that terrible faux-doc about what hypothetically might happen if a hypothetical George W. Bush was hypothetically assassinated, just won an International Emmy. Sometime Spout Guest Blogger Chris Campbell accidentally ambled past the ceremony.