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The Lego Movie Isn’t Really about Freedom

Jeffrey A. Tucker aier.org Jeffrey A. Tucker is Editorial Director for the American Institute for Economic Research.He is the author of many thousands of articles in the scholarly and popular press and nine books in 5 languages, most recently Liberty or Lockdown. He is also the editor of

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How Gamers Are Helping Cinemas Survive

How Gamers Are Helping Cinemas Survive

The great genius of capitalism is its ability to harness human ingenuity. Socialism, as Frank Zappa wisely said, “produced bad music, bad art, social stagnation, and really unhappy people”. Even when pandemic-licensed governments do their damnedest to get their socialism on, and completely control the means of production by arbitrarily

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Reviewers Get Yet Another Film Hopelessly Wrong

Reviewers Get Yet Another Film Hopelessly Wrong

Alysse ElHage mercatornet.com Alysse ElHage is Editor of the IFS Blog, Family Studies, and a freelance writer. Prior to joining the Institute for Family Studies, she served as associate director of research at the North Carolina Family Policy Council, and as associate editor of Family North Carolina magazine. Maybe

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The Chattering Classes Got the ‘Hillbilly Elegy’ Book Wrong – and They’re Getting the Movie Wrong, Too

The Chattering Classes Got the ‘Hillbilly Elegy’ Book Wrong – and They’re Getting the Movie Wrong, Too

Lisa R. Pruitt University of California, Davis Film critics have had nary a good word to say about Netflix’s new movie “Hillbilly Elegy.” Reviewers varyingly called it “Oscar-Season B.S.,” “woefully misguided,” “Yokel Hokum,” “laughably bad” and simply “awful.” I admit to delight when I read professional critics trashing

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Why Are Stormtroopers Such Lousy Shots?

Why Are Stormtroopers Such Lousy Shots?

The blatant inability of the Star Wars’ henchmen to hit, as my Dad used to say, a bull’s arse with a handful of wheat, is as legendary as Darth Vader’s villainy. But, to quote Professor Julius Sumner-Miller, why is it so? After all, stormtroopers are professional soldiers of

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Movie Review: Druk (“Another Round”)

Movie Review: Druk (“Another Round”)

The story of Danish movie Druk (English title, “Another Round”) is predictable enough, but told so well and with such spirit (pun intended) that it just doesn’t matter. Martin (Mads Mikkelsen) is a middle-aged history teacher numbly watching his world collapse around him. His once-promising academic career has faded

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Joker Makes for Uncomfortable Viewing

Joker Makes for Uncomfortable Viewing

Maria Flood Keele University The backlash against the backlash has begun. Joker, starring Joaquin Phoenix and directed by Todd Phillips of Hangover trilogy fame, has opened to conflicting reviews and negative press. Having been hailed as a masterpiece when it first screened at the Venice film festival (and drawing an

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Total Recall at 30: Why This Brutal Action Film Remains a Classic

Total Recall at 30: Why This Brutal Action Film Remains a Classic

Ari Mattes University of Notre Dame Australia People often roll their eyes when they hear about a major Hollywood studio re-releasing a film from its back catalogue to cinemas. Director’s cuts, “reduxes” and remastered prints can seem like cynical corporate moves, re-commodifying a long dead vision of the world.

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Goodfellas at 30: Scorsese’s Massively Influential, Virtuoso Gangster Film

Goodfellas at 30: Scorsese’s Massively Influential, Virtuoso Gangster Film

Adrian Danks RMIT University It’s hard to imagine that Martin Scorsese’s GoodFellas is 30 years old. A massive influence on contemporary filmmakers ranging from Quentin Tarantino and Fernando Morales to David O. Russell and Paul Thomas Anderson, it remains one of the peaks of Hollywood genre filmmaking. GoodFellas

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Clueless at 25 — like, a Totally Important Teen Film

Clueless at 25 — like, a Totally Important Teen Film

Phoebe Macrossan Queensland University of Technology Jessica Ford University of Newcastle While many teen films fade away never to be heard of again, Clueless, a loose adaptation of Jane Austen’s Emma, has remained in the cultural consciousness since its 1995 release. Maybe it’s the catchy soundtrack, or familiar

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Psycho Turns 60 – Hitchcock’s Famous Fright Film Broke All the Rules

Psycho Turns 60 – Hitchcock’s Famous Fright Film Broke All the Rules

Ben McCann November 1959. Film director Alfred Hitchcock is at his commercial and critical peak after the successes of Vertigo (1958) and North by Northwest (1959). So what does he do next? A black-and-white made-for-TV movie hastily shot, with no big-name actors and a leading actress who takes a shower,

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