Matt Drudge is linking to an Irish Times report on a documentary called Not Evil Just Wrong, which Irish filmmakers Ann McElhinney and Phelim McAleer claim “is the film Al Gore and Hollywood don’t want you to see.” The film purports to reveal “how extreme environmentalism is damaging the lives of ordinary people,” and the filmmakers have set up a PayPal account in the hopes of raising money for distribution. As the copy reads on their website, they’re “asking ordinary Americans to be part of cinematic history by making sure a documentary that finally tells the truth about their lives is shown across the nation.”
The trailer, embedded above, suggests that the Not Evil is typical reactionary propaganda, full of ominous music, quickly edited collapses in logic (such as when one man’s concern over the potential closing of an unidentified factory is followed up by an expert warning that “100s of millions of people would die”), and provocative but unfounded statements like, “They want to go back to the Dark Ages and the Black Plague!” But you know … that’s fine. Everyone should be allowed to make over-the-top, aggressively partisan cinema if it that makes them and their friends feel better about what they believe, right?
But it’s the PayPal campaign rankles, if only because of the extreme amount of cash involved. …Read more
Elliot Gould said a few words Friday night before a BAM screening of Little Murders, the 1971 film based on Jules Feiffer’s play, which Gould starred in and produced for first-time feature director Alan Arkin. The event came towards the midpoint of a retrospective at the Brooklyn theater dedicated to Gould’s 70s-era peak, and the actor seemed humbled by the thought of so many snapshots of an era lined up for quick consumption. “It’s my life,” he said wistfully. Then, with a little wave of a hand and a vigorous shake of his head, he corrected himself: “Well, it’s all of our lives, isn’t it?”
Gould noted that he’d “probably never” seen Little Murders “with a real crowd”–when the film was released in the States in February of 1971, Gould was in Sweden shooting The Touch for Ingmar Bergman, and thanks to its disappointing box office, it didn’t have much of a life for a while. Not that Gould took time out at the time to dwell on its failure. After the screening, Gould’s answers to questions from both the audience and moderator Bruce Bennett continually circled around a kind of “fear” the actor experienced at the peak of his career. After a 1970 TIME Magazine story in which he was anointed both “the urban Don Quixote” and “a star for an uptight age”, Gould worked constantly because he was afraid that if he stopped to catch his breath––or picked the wrong project and fell on his face––his allure would cool off and he wouldn’t be able to find a job.
I spent much of last week trying to avoid all that hysteria about Wall-Ebeing “left-wing, America-hating propaganda,” even though I’m absolutely positive that The Sorcerer’s Apprentice was responsible for that steep rise in an interest in black magic amongst teens in the early 50s, and also that there would be neither PETA nor any form of federal gun control if it weren’t for Bambi. But what can I say? For whatever reason, I wasn’t in the mood to hear Steve Jobs compared to Joseph Goebbels, or to sound the violins for the poor demonized corporations, any of which could surely rule our state better than any democracy. Chalk it up to the holiday, I guess!
But now, here comes Frank Rich, late to the party but determined to shoot it up nonetheless. “Wall-E For President!” his NY Times Op-Ed column shouts from the headline––the exclamation mine, but definitely implied. …Read more
I spent much of last week trying to avoid all that hysteria about 
