Tim,

I don't think this is one of those things that you should struggle to find inner meaning within. Sometimes a bad movie is just a bad movie. My suggestion is to go see Cars and be entertained for a couple of hours.

I don't think this is one of those things that you should struggle to find inner meaning within.

How touching, that you should worry so much about how I spend my time. Instead, I should be spending more time watching ... movies! Like "Cars", which, frankly, looks lame.

And: "Struggle"? Who had to "struggle"? Reviewer after reviewer noticed this theme. Promotional materials even ANNOUNCE this film is trying to teach your kids a lesson. But to you, I'm, uhhh, STRUGGLING to make it say something??? Please tell the film's producers that, mmmkay?

What is it about pointing out the obvious which is so threatening to some people?

A while ago, I wrote a review of John Carpenter's "Them". The film, which is full of humans slaughtering ugly aliens, is a thinly-veiled analogy for how many Democrats felt about the Reagan presidency. Carpenter has the aliens utter Reagan's campaign slogans, and I even produce quotes from Carpenter himself, saying that's where the film came from.

Yet commenter after commenter posts: "Oh, please, don't find this analogy in the film. Oh, no, really, it means nothing!"

Bull!

Filmmakers go on and on and on about how much positive political meaning a certain film has. Or how they'll teach your kids a good moral lesson. And advertisers spend millions of dollars on the idea that what you view in films and on TV will influence behavior.

But then allege they're teaching something negative in a film? Suddenly, people will insist there is no attempt to "teach" in said film, or that films carry no messages or cannot impact thinking or behavior.

As if every advertiser in the world -- with the thousands and millions they spend on research showing otherwise -- was completely wrong.

I wasn't trying to tell you how to spend your time. I just figured I would suggest a good animated movie to go see as an alternative to one that you have (correctly, IMO) pointed out as a dog.

Filmmakers go on and on and on about how much positive political meaning a certain film has. Or how they'll teach your kids a good moral lesson. And advertisers spend millions of dollars on the idea that what you view in films and on TV will influence behavior.

I guess I never considered that possibility since I don't have kids and I don't pay attention to what filmmakers have to say. I either like a movie or I don't. I vote with my dollars, just like everybody else who goes to the movies.

Again, I wasn't trying to belittle your opinions or observations. I take movies at face value and just thought I would suggest one that was superbly animated and very funny.

Jeff,

Hey! I certainly appreciate the pointer to a good film. (Good films are rather rare.) "Cars" looked lame to me (I only saw a short trailer), but if you're saying it's "superbly animated and very funny" then perhaps I might get around to seeing it.

It looked to me like the quality might have been slipping at Pixar. Glad to know some think otherwise.

I didn't think you were 'belitting' my observations! (And wouldn't care if you did.) I just tend to hear the same thing over and over, and your comment sounded rather close to the "how dare you point out a problem with X / get a life" narrative which typically crops up here. (Perhaps I've spent too much time listening to the incesssant whining of Quixtar IBOs!)

Sorry if perhaps it didn't apply!

Sincerely...

Oh, and for the record, I don't view "The Ant Bully" as a deliberate, conscious attempt to "teach communism" to kids, much as advertisers want us to drink more milk, or buy a particular car -- in case anyone's getting that impression.

But I do think it's yet another deliberate, conscious attempt to teach what Hollywood sees as "good moral values" -- which just happen to be economic and governmental collectivism, and just happen to be rather close to Marxist thinking (including the forced labor and all!) -- to kids.

Hollywood's elites would deny over and over, if you asked them, that they were "socialists" or especially (everyone scream "McCarthy!" now!) Communists. But if you sat down and listed socialist beliefs and policies and said: "Do you agree with this?" they'd say "yes" over and over.

Of course they have good intentions!

Just no understanding of history or economics.

It looked to me like the quality might have been slipping at Pixar.

I assume it takes a while to produce any animated film, however Disney decided to buy Pixar last January. Since at least a few of Pixar's employees were refugees from Disney, I wouldn't be surprised if morale and quality took a hit.

I don't know if the buyout and the film are cause and effect, or if the time scale even allows for that.

I think suggesting that Hollywood has an agenda of governmental collectivism is just paranoid. I wasn't aware that Washington was so entrenched into the business affairs of movie producers. Where's your evidence for this? Business people have a lot of different values, and some may be more inclined to support environmental positions more than others. That's just individual preference.

The only universal agenda of Hollywood is to make money. As a whole, executives don't care about political positions. All they care about is that their investors make a profit. The only reason why they keep making Micheal Moore movies is that documentaries are cheap, and there's a large enough audience that keep watching those films. The producers and investors make money, and everyone's happy. If he kept making flops, nobody would screen his films after a while. The same would be true for if they made Atlas Shrugged into a movie.

That's what happened with Left Behind. They got it to play in regular theaters, but it didn't rake in enough cash. Therefore, they didn't screen any of the sequels, because it was unprofitable.

There's also an argument to be made that artistic types, the people who actually make movies, might be naturally drawn to positions like environmentalism over more culturally conservative positions. They're less likely to be concerned about how logging grows the economy and more concerned as to whether or not they have a forest to inspire them. Liberal politics appeal to people who believe that society can become more compassionate, peaceful, tolerant, etc, and it might just be that that optimism may attract writers and artists, people who are generally romantic and idealistic to begin with, to that side of the political spectrum.

That might explain why Hollywood films might appear to have a left leaning agenda without there being some sort of highly orchestrated Bolshevik conspiracy behind it. That's if it really does have much of a bias though. I don't really like making generalizations like this without seeing any real hard data behind it.

I'm not really that offended at the idea of ants teaching some self centered little brat about team work either. The military and fire department rely on team work all the time. I don't really see teaching children that message as being such a bad thing. When did this stop being a universally accepted virtue in America? People simply learning to work together within a society doesn't lead to gulags and oppressive, one party systems.

Jonathan - I think suggesting that Hollywood has an agenda of governmental collectivism is just paranoid.

Except that wasn't even what Tim wrote, was it?
He wrote;
You couldn't really wish for better. What does Tom Hanks love? What does he hate? The questions have all been answered.

Way to beat that strawman, dude. Tom Hanks is not all of Hollywood or all executives. Is it really paranoid to think that ANY group of people thinks collectivism is good?

Look at it this way; Lots of stories have good guys and bad guys and struggles between good and evil. I think we can agree that this type of stock conflict is engaging and sells movies. Right? This requires the scriptwriter to choose 'good' and 'bad' characters or actions. And while there's a disincentive to choose things that are too politically incorrect, it seems a safe bet that some people might have different ideas of what 'good' and 'bad' are. None of this seems particularly paranoid to me.

As a whole, executives don't care about political positions.

If you look just a bit, you can find plenty of scriptwriters and authors who write based on their personal ideas of good and evil. Read just one interview with James Cameron about his production of Avatar.

JOHN: Mostly at the beginning when some decisions were being made about how to get started. The hardest part about writing this film was the first act, which is unusual. In this story, the second and third acts were nailed structurally right off the bat, but I had two worlds to set up and then trying to get them to collide. That was tricky and he helped. Once that was figured out, Tom was really happy with it and we went and made a lot of changes over the next two years but he was so happy with the story.