NRO's Top 25 Conservative Movies

I'd rather vote on the defenses of said films than the films themselves.

300 is a conservative defence of bromance, presumably.

K-lo's film commentary is not to be missed.

brazil?!

Air Force One, Amazing Grace, An American Carol, Barcelona, Bella, Cinderella Man, The Exorcism of Emily Rose, Hamburger Hill, The Hanoi Hilton, The Hunt for Red October, The Island, Knocked Up, The Last Days of Disco, The Lost City, Miracle, The Patriot, Rocky Balboa, Serenity, Stand and Deliver, Tears of the Sun, Thank You for Smoking, Three Kings, Tin Men, The Truman Show, Witness

America in "making movies with Consservative values" shocka...

xpost yeah, Brazil apparently a vision of totalitarian govt. Which is obviously not a right wing one ohno...

METROPOLITAN?!

(that film is totally awesome btw, and I'm probably gonna vote for it just 'coz)

Are we votin' for our favourite, rescuing a movie, or voting the most 'conservative' here?

He brings us to see what is admirable and necessary in the customs and conventions of America’s upper class.

I'd say he brings us to see what is admirable and necessary about young friendship, and what is confusing, self-contradictory, mutable, funny, shameful and transient about privileged youth

Groundhog Day (1993): This putatively wacky comedy about Bill Murray as an obnoxious weatherman cursed to relive the same day over and over in a small Pennsylvania town, perhaps for eternity, is in fact a sophisticated commentary on the good and true. Theologians and philosophers across the ideological spectrum have embraced it. For the conservative, the moral of the tale is that redemption and meaning are derived not from indulging your “authentic” instincts and drives, but from striving to live up to external and timeless ideals. Murray begins the film as an irony-soaked narcissist, contemptuous of beauty, art, and commitment. His journey of self-discovery leads him to understand that the fads of modernity are no substitute for the permanent things.

"putatively wacky"

I mean there's quite a few good movies in here, but the grouping, and the definition, is grasping at best in at least half of cases here

lol i knew this was coming

Some of these are obvious, but it seems like the editor just thought "here's a bunch of movies I like" and left it at that.

ust as significantly, Greengrass provides a clear depiction of our enemies. United 93 opens as four Muslim terrorists pray in a hotel room.

Fuck those praying jerks.

The Pursuit of Happyness (2006]... They’re black, but there’s no racial undertone or subtext.

hahahahahahaha waht

The Incredibles (2004)... In one scene, son Dash, a super-speedy runner, wants to try out for track. Mom claims it wouldn’t be fair. “Dad says our powers make us special!” Dash objects. “Everyone is special,” Mom demurs, to which Dash mutters, “Which means nobody is.”

BITING

Murray begins the film as an irony-soaked narcissist, contemptuous of beauty, art, and commitment.

so he begins the film as a Republican congressperson?

Ghostbusters (1984) ... you have to like a movie in which the bad guy is a regulation-happy buffoon from the EPA, and the solution to a public menace comes from the private sector.

yup, i've said all along that ghostbusters is on some conservative/ronnie reagan shit. it's still a good film.

Juno bcz she doesn't get a gogortion, right?

surprised that there aren't any dirty harry films here, or death wish ... or are those films too nixon-era/archie bunker conservative?!?

"The film has its faults, including a number of crass moments and a pregnant high-school student with an unrealistic level of self-confidence."

I mean:

Team America: World Police

I suppose somebody's got to like it...

.. shows a respect for authority and the chain of command structure when the main character gives his commanding officer a bjob...

.. to be able to resume his position and activities...

missed opportunities:

Smokey and the Bandit. Beer, trucks, car racing, fast cars. If we ignore the running from the law part, we have fast muscle car leading the way for a big rig full of beer going back to a NASCAR race. Not to mention Fred. How many liberals would own a Basset Hound? If Michael Moore made the movie, the dog would be a poodle.

William Teach on January 15, 2009 at 4:53 PM

... that's more Clinton Democrat surely? (xp)

Bahaha "The Exorcism of Emily Rose" as an also-ran...I'm surprised that didn't make the list, the film in which it is basically determined in a U.S. court of law that god is real and loves us all.

How many liberals would own a Basset Hound?

???!?!???A??!$@!$???

Also I know this shouldn't be weird to me, but it is: how they seem to use 'conservative' and 'Christian' interchangeably.

I goggled at Brazil at first, but I suppose they're assuming its dystopian in a 1984 sense, and hence anti-communist. Which I don't think it is at all, but then the first time I read 1984 (before I knew anything about it aside from it was supposed to be good) I totally read it as a tract against the current society, which would obviously make it anti-capitalist. So I think I just read EVERYTHING as woo-woo let's be Marxists, and therefore can't really comment.

Anyway, it's between that and Ghostbusters for me, I think.

voting on the defenses given rather than the movies themselves

thus, it's 'pursuit of happyness' vs. 'united 93' b/c of those two lines i quoted upthread

surprised that there aren't any dirty harry films here, or death wish ...

exactly what i was expecting to see when i clicked on thread.

I was under the impression that the bad guy in "Ghostbusters" was a dimension-hopping evil demon named Gozer. Silly me.

Will not click on that link. What is "The Edge"?

How many liberals would own a Basset Hound?

http://www.lambiek.net/artists/g/graham_alex/graham_alex_fred_1984.jpg

The Edge is that Mamet movie where Alec Baldwin and Anthony Hopkins fly to Alaska and fight a bear.

Bahahaha what is the story behind that? xp

I'm still lolling @ "If we ignore the running from the law part" from the Smokey and the Bandit blurb. That's the whole movie's point!

(that's a fakey one, dude!)

"The Edge is that Mamet movie where Alec Baldwin and Anthony Hopkins fly to Alaska and fight a bear."

The bear = libearals

Don't you remember, Alex? There's a bear in the woods.

Some have interpreted the film as a Cold War allegory because it features a menacing bear.

Heartbreak Ridge: Clint Eastwood’s foul-mouthed Marine sergeant Tom Highway makes quick work of kicking Communist Cubans out of Grenada. And, boy, does “Gunny” hate Commies. Not only does he kill quite a few, he also refuses a bribe of a Cuban cigar, saying: “Get that contraband stogie out of my face before I shove it so far up your a** you’ll have to set fire to your nose to light it.” A welcome glorification of Reagan’s decision to liberate Grenada in 1983, the film also notes how after a tie in Korea and a loss in Vietnam, America can finally celebrate a military victory. Eastwood, the old war horse, walks off into retirement pleased that he’s not “0–1–1 anymore.” Semper Fi. Oo-rah!

Mario Van Peebles is hilarious in that film.

Some have interpreted the film as a Cold War allegory because it features a menacing bear.

that's as funny as their rationale that falco's "der kommissar" was anti-communist/conservative b/c, like, "commissar" is a russian word and shit.

Stand and Deliver?

I like how the justification for Brazil is basically the inverse for The Dark Knight.

"David's screenplay started out with him saying, 'Well, it's going to be one guy trying to kill another guy,'" remembers producer Art Linson.

Can someone post their Metropolitan explanation?

lib'rul basset owners: see Breathed, Berkeley

not-so-lib'rul poodle owners:

http://a.abcnews.com/images/International/ap_churchill_071031_mn.jpg

the last sentence is the gem:

Metropolitan (1990): Whit Stillman’s Oscar-nominated debut takes a red-headed outsider into the luxurious drawing rooms and debutante balls of New York’s Upper East Side elite. One character, a committed socialist, falls for the discreet charm of the urban haute bourgeoisie. Another plaintively theorizes the inevitable doom of his class. A reader of Jane Austen wonders what’s wrong with a novel’s having a virtuous heroine. And a roguish defender of standards and detachable collars delivers more sophisticated conservative one-liners than a year’s worth of Yale Party of the Right debates. With mocking affection, gentle irony, and a blizzard of witty dialogue, Stillman manages the impossible: He brings us to see what is admirable and necessary in the customs and conventions of America’s upper class.

a pregnant high-school student with an unrealistic level of self-confidence

This has been making me laugh. Oh, K-lo.

it's as if she's already forgotten Bristol Palin.

gotta vote for the defence of brazil for being the most hysterical cant see hand in front of my face one

Brazil (1985): Vividly depicting the miserable results of elitist utopian schemes, Terry Gilliam’s Brazil portrays a darkly comic dystopia of malfunctioning high-tech equipment and the dreary living conditions common to all totalitarian regimes. Everything in the society is built to serve government plans rather than people. The film is visually arresting and inventive, with especially evocative use of shots that put the audience in a subservient position, just like the people in the film. Terrorist bombings, national-security scares, universal police surveillance, bureaucratic arrogance, a callous elite, perversion of science, and government use of torture evoke the worst aspects of the modern megastate.

UH

"With mocking affection, gentle irony, and a blizzard of witty dialogue, Stillman manages the impossible: He brings us to see what is admirable and necessary in the customs and conventions of America’s upper class."

I'm pretty sure that's NOT what the upshot of Metropolitan is.

and what would be so impossible about it if was true?

I've already called that line out, folks

I'd say he brings us to see what is admirable and necessary about young friendship, and what is confusing, self-contradictory, mutable, funny, shameful and transient about privileged youth

― Mequophidiophobia: fear of the beer snake (country matters), Tuesday, 17 February 2009 16:41 (1 hour ago) Bookmark

irony upon irony

So, basically, any movie with a message the NRO approves of becomes ipso facto a movie with "conservative values", even if the message is "don't be such a selfish dipshit" or "oppose evil"?

7. The Pursuit of Happyness [sic]

why did you add [sic] to this

16. Master and Commander (2003): This naval-adventure film starring Russell Crowe is based on the books of Patrick O’Brian, and here’s what A. O. Scott of the New York Times said in his review: “The Napoleonic wars that followed the French Revolution gave birth, among other things, to British conservatism, and Master and Commander, making no concessions to modern, egalitarian sensibilities, is among the most thoroughly and proudly conservative movies ever made. It imagines the [H.M.S.] Surprise as a coherent society in which stability is underwritten by custom and every man knows his duty and his place. I would not have been surprised to see Edmund Burke’s name in the credits.”

"oh shit, nro wants that conservative movies blurb from me today! fuck it ill just google "conservative + movie review" and c/p the first one i see"

funnier thing is that Russel Crowe's character's exploits are partly based on Thomas Lord Cochrane, "the Sea Wolf", who was known for his political radicalism.

well you know, not funny as such, retarded.

it's spelt happiness

the movie is called the pursuit of happyness

a truly conservative film would not fuck with the oed.

NRO endorses press gangs, flogging and grog rations shocker.

Rum, sodomy and the lash?

Small Soldiers (1997): Joe Dante, who skewered permissive '60s culture in the Gremlins series (William Ayers would be right at home with these reptilian trouble-makers), returns with the heartbreaking story of the valiant Commando Elite's last, doomed mission against the monstrous Gorgonites. Each one of these grotesqueries is an allegory for modern liberal values, right down to the blasphemous, stitched-together Freakenstein (culture of death, anyone?). The heroic Elite, firm in their Republican values and voiced by conservative icons like Ernest Borganine, manage to glorify the military like few other Hollywood films, even as they courageously face the same tragic end as Tennyson's Light Brigade.

wow this is kind of amazing. like everything that's wrong and bankrupt and self-deluding about modern conservatism basically placed side by side!

voted Brazil, but i like a lot of these films!

massive inexplicable exclusion = Saving Private Ryan

Good Burger (1997): Kel Mitchell plays Ed, a dedicated young fast food employee who never takes his uniform off, even to shower. His friend Dexter, delightfully portrayed by Kenan Thompson, is a typical anti-establishment slacker, more concerned about suckling at someone else's dollar than earning an honest living. As Ed teaches young Dexter the value of hard work, the protagonists' race is never exploited, or even mentioned. A film that many African-American youth, in Obama's "gimme gimme" welfare culture, could stand to watch today.

lol where's American Beauty lol

XP Why is that not one of them? :(

Rugrats in Paris: The Movie (2000): While I'd recommend it for our list just based on its charming satire (the film's hilarious skewering of pre-Sarkozy France has to be seen to be believed), there's a deeper message at the heart of Rugrats in Paris: The Movie. Halfway through the film comes a chilling dream sequence, animated years before 9/11, where young Tommy Pickles sees Reptar destroy the Eiffel Tower, realizes the error of France's multicultural wasteland, and vows from the rubble his country will not stand for this. Remind you of anyone?

Three Kings!!!

Obama's "gimme gimme" welfare culture

The Lord of the Rings (2001, 2002, 2003): Largely filmed before 9/11, they seemed perfectly pitched for the post-9/11 world. The debates over what to do about Sauron and Saruman echoed our own disputes over the Iraq War. (Think of Wormtongue as Keith Olbermann.) When Frodo sighs, "I wish none of this had happened," Gandalf’s response speaks to us, too: "So do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us."

Meet the Spartans (2008): This comic gem, in the tradition of Naked Gun and An American Carol, shines with its depiction of the heroic Spartan military doing battle against scathing parodies of meaningless celebrities like Britney Spears, Paris Hilton, and the American Idol judges. The film, still hilarious, is even more relevant during the age of Obama than it was in its original release.

SuperBabies: Baby Geniuses 2 (2004): Conservative icon and reformed '60s radical Jon Voigt stars in this film about the dangers of the modern nanny state and an attempt to control the world's population through satellites. While the film itself is delightful, underneath all the shenanigans lies a powerful message: even though modern culture forces babies to grow up too fast, the traditional moral values of the 1950s still present the best guide to raising a child.

Braveheart taught that freedom is not just worth dying for, but also worth killing for, in defense of hearth and homeland. Six years later, amid the ruins of the Twin Towers, Gibson’s message resonated with a generation of American youth who signed up to fight terrorists, instead of inviting them to join a “constructive dialogue.” Liberals have never forgiven Gibson since.

More fun: comparing whatever shit they wrote this time against the review of the movie when it was first released

who is the film critic for NRO (IF they even have one)?!?

Roots (1977): a pygmallion-esque look at how a particular group of immigrants were rescued from a harsh environment and taught the blessings of a civilized lifestyle. One formerly uncouth savage ascends to the position of engineer on the starship enterprise without a mention of affirmative action.

The movie is a cautionary tale about the progressive fantasy of a eugenically correct world — the road to which is paved by the abortion of Down babies, research into human cloning, and “transhumanist” dreams of fabricating a “post-human species.”

hell yeah.

so the Black Knight is conservative cause Batman is being fascist there rright.

I've seen many of those, couple of great, "i never realized they were conservative"-movies I guess, but Metropolitan is the best by far :)

Red Dawn (1984): Damn straight. Wolverines!

SuperBabies: Baby Geniuses 2 (2004): Conservative icon and reformed '60s radical Jon Voigt stars in this film about the dangers of the modern nanny state and an attempt to control the world's population through satellites. While the film itself is delightful, underneath all the shenanigans lies a powerful message: even though modern culture forces babies to grow up too fast, the traditional moral values of the 1950s still present the best guide to raising a child.

― hey Ethan am I funny yet? (and what), Tuesday, February 17, 2009 7:15 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

lol

Seems like they'd be upset that the kids in Red Dawn didn't greet the parachuting Russians as liberators and even more pissed that they started a guerrilla war against them.

15. Red Dawn (1984): From the safe, familiar environment of a classroom, we watch countless parachutes drop from the sky and into the heart of America. Oh, no: invading Commies! Laugh if you want — many do — but Red Dawn has survived countless more acclaimed films because Father Time has always been our most reliable film critic. The essence of timelessness is more than beauty. It’s also truth, and the truth that America is a place and an idea worth fighting and dying for will not be denied, not under a pile of left-wing critiques or even Red Dawn’s own melodramatic flaws. Released at the midpoint of Reagan’s presidential showdown with the Soviet Union, this story of what was at stake in the Cold War endures.

Blue Velvet (1986) -- An allegory of small-town America beset by the vices of contemporary culture: sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll (the latter embodied, as it was for many of an earlier generation, by Bobby Vinton and Roy Orbison). The hero descends like Orpheus into a hades of lurid sexuality, where he is tempted by satan (in the form of Frank Booth, a knowing nod to FDR and John Wilkes Booth) but spurns him and rescues the endangered Dorothy Vallens, returning her from whoredom to motherhood. A difficult film to watch, particularly for those averse to fellatio at knifepoint, but an important account of how Ronald Reagan saved America from the depravity of the 1960s.

I don't remember Reagan starring in the movie.

Oh, Red Dawn, easy, without looking at anything else on the thread.

Terrorist bombings, national-security scares, universal police surveillance, bureaucratic arrogance, a callous elite, perversion of science, and government use of torture evoke the worst aspects of the modern megastate.

Holy God. Granted, I've seen the movie two dozen times, but how did that they miss that the government WAS the terrorist organization?

I mean, the one doing the bombings, specifically. And the torture. It's a self-sustaining loop that serves nothing but itself.

Apart from that, I'm glad the like the movie. I sure do.

A film that many African-American youth, in Obama's "gimme gimme" welfare culture, could stand to watch today. o_O

whoahhhh that is just . . . ouch.

ethan is really good at this

Brazil is a fairly Ayn Randian movie ... the brilliance and joy of the individual crushed by a useless, inefficient, totalitarian bureaucracy which favors the weak and simple over the massively powerful S.E.L.F.

I never actually saw the movie, I'm just riffing here.

"tonight, the role of Dr. Morbius will be played by burt_stanton"

massive inexplicable exclusion = Saving Private Ryan

Apparently Spielberg's reputation as a big ol' softie lib'rul outside of the film was too much to overcome.

I'd probably find a list of the NRO's Bottom 25 Conservative Movies a pretty entertaining read.

NRO's Bottom

NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO

Brazil is a fairly Ayn Randian movie

It's not, but I can see it being read that way. Just because you feel oppressed by beaurocracy and nonsensical injustice doesn't make you Randian.

NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO

I figured you would go there.

so this list is less bothersome to dan than the idea of ferret rimjobs?!?

http://www.mediabistro.com/fishbowlLA/original/jeff-gannon1.jpg

article by KLo.

Also important, VERY important, to remember about Brazil: Gilliam is British. The bureaucracy he has known doesn't really apply stateside.

Also important, VERY important, to remember about Brazil: Gilliam is British. The bureaucracy he has known doesn't really apply stateside.

unless yer talking about the DMV office

Yeah, but largely I have never felt like I was going to be wrapped in paperwork and disappear.

Gilliam is British.

Gilliam is Minnesotan.

lol I was gonna say! Born and raised in Saint Paul!

i hear that those minnesota bureaucrats are some nasty mofos.

Damnit, I knew that, too!

Well anyway, the movie has a pretty British POV.

brb, I think the egg on my face may require a full shower.

bukake kenan

Oh, must you?

ugh okay I didn't need to see the Jeff Gannon pic of him with the rifle in front of the American flag

Are you sure that's worse than the image of Kenan bukkake?

Depends on the quality of the rifle.

mad at all of you

bukakke bullets

oh noez a shirtless man!!!

grow up now plz

ws gannon btw

Master and Commander

what did I tell you people

Gannon does the gokkun glug glug glug

guess what college terry gilliam went to

British college?

No Wall Street, No Credibility.

Groundhog Day: "Yet why should poor Rita be forced to relive this miserable day just to give Phil a chance to evolve from crafty Casanova into selfless swain?...This sexual shell game, these moral tergiversations, attest to the film's queasily exploitative values. In the end, all is contrivance..." John Simon, April 12, 1993.

http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MWEyNmRkOWMzMGM4NTgzOGFhNjA1OWI4NmM0MGQxYzU=

United 93: "[R]eal art, especially art that takes on events whose wounds are still unhealed, needs to do more than stir up strong emotions in its audience. United 93 buys its power cheaply." Russ Douthat, May 22, 2006.

http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=OTcwNGNmZjk1YTYwYzRhMzVkZWMyYmYxZTA3YTlhY2U=

Team America: World Police: "The movie is not a clear success, being too crude, for one thing. (By 'crude,' I don’t mean dirty, which it is, to a revolting extent. I mean not clever enough.) In truth, the movie, slam-bang and brief as it is, is a little dull." Jay Nordlinger, November 8, 2004.

http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=OTEyY2RjMWVhZDk5MTM4Yjc5YWRjZGYzNDZhYTUzMjk=

Forrest Gump: "[T]he movie captures only the random side of [life] fully, and two and a quarter hours of randomness can wear pretty thin. If a millionaire decides to run around for a couple of years, wouldn't he at least have a backpack? I can respect an idiot savant, but not one who doesn't brush his teeth for three years. Even fantasy has to play by some sort of rules, however fanciful...[Technology] can be a lot of things, but is rarely heartwarming. Yet that is what the movie strives to be. It emerges, rather like its hero, idiot-savantish." John Simon, August 29, 1994.

http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NDJlY2FmNjEwYzA0M2M1ZTA4NjE0ODBhNThiMGZiYmE=

It's all very urban-suburban avant-garde.

oh noez a shirtless man!!!

yeah clearly my problem was with the fact that he's shirtless, not that he's humping a gun in front of the American flag

Where's that pic, I only see a picture of a shirtless man, no gun or flag?

GIS Jeff Gannon, you will find it

I was googling him for lulz and found jingoistic grossness, sorry for not reposting it here

http://www.mediabistro.com/fishbowlLA/original/jeff-gannon1.jpg

(x-post)

Ah, okay, I think Elmo thought people were shocked by the pic above.

ugh okay I didn't need to see the Jeff Gannon pic of him with the rifle in front of the American flag

how the hell could this possibly be taken as a description of the picture on this thread

I'd hit it

you googled a porn star/male prostitute and were surprised when you found a picture of naked?

no, dumbass

what about the word "jingoistic" is unclear here and how does that imply surprise

your problem is the rifle and the flag?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/filmblog/2009/feb/20/1

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

The Lives of Others? Only Conservative in the sense that it is anti-East German communist oppression. The techniques it criticizes are also highlighted in Taxi to the Dark Side ...i.e. used by GWB and defended by conservatives.

I've gotta give the National Review people props for favoring Lives of Others and Brazil over more strictly conservative movies like Die Hard and Lethal Weapon. I wonder if William F. Buckley liked American Psycho. Is American Psycho a conservative movie?

Apparently, in the source material for Master and Commander, the bad guys were Americans, not Frenchies! Dunno if that fact woulda affected their reading any...

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

I didn't realise that us Brits are lucky enough to have our own right wing culture vultures. And, hey, they're looking for "films that go against the grain" - which seems even more meaningless than the NRO list.
http://www.newcultureforum.org.uk/home/?q=node/479

Gregory's Girl.

A perfect, delightful, enriching balance of humour, yearning, disappointment and friendship.

I saw the trailer for this Mag Gyllenhaal-Viola Davis charter-school propaganda flick and wanted to puke.

http://www.salon.com/2012/09/26/wont_back_down_why_do_teachers_unions_hate_america/

everyone who appears in that movie should should have their sag cards taken away

I wonder if both leads were counting on SAG Award nominations.