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Don’t Cry for Roman Polanski

By Selwyn Duke

Even if time does heal all wounds, it certainly doesn’t make us forget all crimes. And, finally, after 31 years on the run from U.S. authorities, Roman Polanski, director, producer, writer, actor, and rapist, may be brought to justice.

On September 26, Polanski was arrested at Zürich Airport in Switzerland on an outstanding international warrant as he tried to enter the country to attend an event. The Polish-born director had long avoided countries that might have extradited him to the United States, remaining mainly in France (where he holds citizenship), Germany, Poland, and the Czech Republic. However, American authorities had learned of Polanski’s trip to Switzerland in time to negotiate for his arrest with Swiss law enforcement.

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Bruno: Some Dare Call It Art

By Selwyn Duke

If art imitates life, then life is starting to seem an awful lot like death. This occurs to me when I think about Bruno, the latest film disgorged by English comedian Sacha Baron Cohen.

Cohen, known for doing mock interviews as the characters Ali G and Borat Sagdiyev, has always specialized in outrageous, often politically incorrect humor. In Bruno, however, critics tell us that he has created not just the outrageous but an outrage, a movie so vulgar that some wonder how it managed its R-rating.

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Bob Hope and Politics
This short clip is from the 1940 movie The Ghost Breakers. If you watch it, I don't think you'll be disappointed.

Ah, how I long for the days when common sense could still be found in Hollywood.

Movie Review: Angels and Demons

By Selwyn Duke

This weekend I saw Angels & Demons, the controversial film directed by Ron Howard and based on Dan Brown’s book by the same name. The movie is a sequel to the equally controversial The Da Vinci Code, also directed by Howard and written by Brown.

The film is as fanciful as it is controversial. As it begins, we learn that the pope has just died, and a Conclave — an assembly of cardinals who will elect a new pope — is soon to commence in Vatican City. Unbeknownst to the crowds and media gathered in St. Peter’s Square, however, a great evil lurks among them. The four preferiti, the cardinals most likely to assume the papacy, have been abducted by the shadowy Illuminati and are to be systematically murdered, one every hour starting at 8 p.m. Even more ominously, the conspirators have also stolen a canister of antimatter from the CERN particle physics laboratory near Geneva, Switzerland, and have hidden it in Vatican City along with the preferiti. And, once the mechanical canister’s battery runs down — which is expected to occur at 12 midnight — the antimatter will cease being held in suspension, come into contact with matter, and detonate, creating a five-megaton blast that will destroy the holy city. The clock is ticking.

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Valkyrie: The Real Col. von Stauffenberg

By Selwyn Duke

On a sultry July day in 1944, a man walks into the "Wolf's Lair" carrying a briefcase. He is initiating a bold plot, one that aims to assassinate one of the world's most ruthless and powerful men, Adolf Hitler, and topple the whole of his Nazi government. Integral to this ambitious coup is what lies in his briefcase, a bomb.  It is set to detonate ... the wheels are in motion. It is only a matter of time now.

The man was Claus Philipp Maria Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg, the driving force behind what became known as the July 20 plot and the main character in Valkyrie, the recently released movie about the event. The film seeks to acquaint the audience with this hero and the conspiracy of which he was part, yet it depicts the machinations better than the man. And this is a shame, because quite a man he was.

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JBS Piece: Anti-Islamist Film "Fitna" Released Amidst Controversy and Condemnation

By Selwyn Duke

Weathering a maelstrom of controversy, Geert Wilders' cinematic warning about Islamism has finally made it to cyberspace. The path it's taking may be more interesting than the film itself; Wilders' domain www.fitnathemovie.com was frozen by Network Solutions, the movie was removed from host Liveleak.com's servers after threats against its staff and then restored, the Dutch courts were reviewing a petition claiming that Wilders is guilty of hate speech, and Dutch firms are threatening a lawsuit against the embattled legislator if they're hurt by a boycott of their products. Yet, while most find fault with what the film explicitly presents, I take issue with something implied.

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Perversion

By Selwyn Duke

J. K. Rowling, the moderately talented author who penned the Harry Potter series, has announced that beloved character Albus Dumbledore is a homosexual.  This revelation was in response to a question from a "young fan."