Movie and Television Reviews

Purchase here

Kalifornistan is about a poseur Muslim terrorist (Nick Nyon) in Los Angeles who becomes obsessed with a nameless “brown” stripper (Govindini Murty) while trying to detonate a nuclear bomb. A bounty hunter (John Barrett) employed by a Blackwater-like organization called Blackshnauzer thwarts the terrorist’s plans by taking advantage of the terrorist’s incompetent associates and weakness for women- he’s eventually nabbed while buying a Christmas present for “the girl.”

Chimpie McHitler (George Bush) sends him to Guantanamo. He escapes and returns to LA where he exacts revenge on the bounty hunter, seeks the girl, and encounters both her and her Viagra-munching White boyfriend.

Kaliforniastan is befuddling.

The trailer made me think that Kalifornistan is a comedy that mocks terrorists in the un-PC, conservative way that we never get from mainstream movies, like An American Carol. It is, partly.

An American Carol [Blu-ray]

The humor is two-note, mainly consisting of the mundane thoughts and concerns of a person with delusions of terrorist grandeur, unaware of his incompetence and relative unimportance. He streams paranoid, conspiracy-fueled hatreds of American society in general and in particular, with a focus on George Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Republicans, White people (redundant, I know), commercialism, and women. Kalifornistan also features plays on names like “blackshnauzer,” “Glorious Jihad of Kalifornistan” (GJK), and “National Agency for the Defense of a Secure Homeland Against Foreign Treachery” (NADSHAFT). Those two notes aren’t poorly-played. When the terrorist chastises his assimilating cousin for stealing money and continuously hums indistinguishable Middle Eastern tunes, it’s funny. His phallic pride combined with his fear of women is both amusing and crucial to the film’s attraction. Kalifornistan plays a murder and an attempted rape for laughs.

Jason Apuzzo chooses to tell the story through the amateur footage of the terrorist, a device used in Cloverfield and Blair Witch; and Apuzzo’s not kidding.

The Blair Witch Series

Cloverfield [Blu-ray]

It’s this aspect of the movie that confuses: Either the movie is lampooning the first-person camera technique or its one of the least-disciplined movies I’ve ever seen.

Who’s holding the camera? Why is the footage in black and white? Wouldn’t it have made more sense to distinguish between the times the terrorist holds the camera and normal action by having only the terrorist footage in B&W? Instead, the only color we see is the girl waking up. Why?

Some of the situations make no sense. The girl’s boyfriend goes after the terrorist in his car. Couldn’t he have called the police while driving? It wasn’t against the law in 2007.

When the boyfriend doesn’t arrive, the girl goes after him...and finds him! In Los Angeles! How does she know where he is? Why does she leave in high heels?

An intact film was found in radioactive rubble? Is the girl's Christianity relevant?

I’m willing to accept that he bumbles his way off of Guantanamo like the protagonists in Dumb and Dumber accidentally solve a crime, but nobody having names except for the never-seen Azam is unacceptable.

Dumb and Dumber (Unrated) [Blu-ray]

At times it approaches conventional movie-making- you know, with a real plot. The bounty hunter part of the story begins well, with him thwarting his own murder and getting releasing the assailant for a $50,000 check (the funniest moment in the film is when the bounty hunter asks, “you brought your checkbook?”). He captures the terrorist, gets beaten up upon the terrorist’s return, and then, nothing. We don’t see him again. Why focus our attention on the bounty hunter if he’s to play no role in the film’s climax or resolution? Shouldn’t he intersect with the girl at some point?
Wouldn’t it have been better if the terrorist’s captured after the girl overpowers him and then returns to exact his revenge upon her?

Only a Tarantino should even attempt such disjointed film-making.

Overall, Kalifornistan peaks at the sexual assault (not graphic) and I maintained a high level of interest up until the mentioned chase scene when the thriller aspect of the movie kind of falls apart for its lack of internal logic. Worse, I'm afraid that these lapses aren't so much an attempt as artistry as just screenwriting laziness.

With all of its faults, Kalifornistan is worth watching for two insights: that terrorists may be driven by a sense of sexual frustration. This point comes through so clearly that the Apuzzo didn’t have to give us an on-screen statistic. And, that even dumb terrorists are dangerous.

Oh, performances are fine, music’s good, and the direction doesn’t look amateurish.

Politics/Message:

The two insights above plus an indirect satire at the deranged Bush-haters those of us who follow politics suffered through for seven years.

I'm a conservative (Cu-con). Govindini and Apuzzo are Libertarians, I think. I know they're open to conservative ideas from their association with the Liberty Film Festival. I wanted to like this movie on these grounds, and did. This isn't going to be a game-changer for explicitly conservative film, however. I hope they keep making movies and come out with something fine next time.

I went to two of the three Liberty Film Festival events and read their defunct Libertas blog (now residing wherever dead blogs go upon death. This was a good one so probably blog heaven) regularly. They have a new movie out called Kalifornistan. It looks to be a comedy. The trailer definitely stretches out the joke. I'm getting the DVD because of the nice LFF memories I have and also because Govindini Murty is one one of the most beautiful women I've seen and seemed super nice to boot.

**Update: For a complete review, go here**

Govindini Murty at Liberty Film Festival

Govindini Murty after her presentation.

I attended the Heritage "First Principles" conference yesterday. It was a wonderful event- choc full of smart, nice conservatives (although the ritual sacrifice wasn't at their usual high standard). Govindini Murty, co-founder of the Liberty Film Festival and a woman as personally gracious and articulate as she is stunningly beautiful, spoke on the history and present state of conservatism in Hollywood. "What?" you ask, "That's like talking about the funk scene in seventies Salt Lake City." Well, no, apparently.

According to Murty, Hollywood was once a pretty conservative place. Not as ideologically pure as today's movie industry, but still, a city in which a guy could park his Coolidge-stickered 1924 Pierce Arrow in front of the Brown Derby and ask for a caramel macchiato (or, whatever they drank) without fear of vandalism.

1924 Pierce-Arrow

Ford, Capra, Ginger Rogers, Mayer, Heston, Jimmy Stewart, and various other studio heads and talent were conservatives. It wasn't until the sixties when conservatives became the Dungeons and Dragons geeks at Daytona Beach spring break.

In an interesting anecdote, Murty said that Communists would take the children of studio heads and other cultural leaders to the Soviet Union for indoctrination (I replied that modern-day conservatives should take studio brats to Irvine or South Carolina.).

No dice anywhere.

The best dancing Republican until Nelson Guirado

One can summarize her wonderful presentation thusly: The current state of Hollywood isn't necessarily the norm and conservatives shouldn't be satisfied with it. Conservatives have tales to tell, and since we can't rely on the uniformly liberal movie industry to tell them, conservatives have to do it independently. She gave, as evidence, success stories with which she's been involved- Border War, Obsession, and some others. She talked about alternative distribution like the internet and its facilitating technology.

Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West by Perri Knize

Border War: The Battle over Illegal Immigration

Other interesting stories:

1. In the movie Charlie Wilson's War, Andrew Sorkin was determined to show that the CIA supported Osama bin Laden, a ridiculous proposition (The United States supported what would become the Taliban's main enemy, The Northern Alliance.). He only removed the offending scene after Joanne Herring, the Julia Roberts character, threatened to sue. Sorkin also admitted that Charlie Wilson's War implicitly supported the Iraq War.

Charlie Wilson's War (Widescreen)

2. 24 has never been a "conservative" show. Joel Surnow often tussled with co-producer Robert Cochran over the political direction of the show. If they showed Muslim terrorists, for example, they'd have to show government corruption, etc. Sadly for conservatives, Joel Surnow will not be producing season eight of the show.

3. Bruce Willis couldn't get a movie made about the soldiers in Mosul.

24 - Season Six

Asymmetric particpation:

When Murty brought up the fact that Hollywood wouldn't produce a "pro"-Iraq war movie, I wondered if nobody sees Iraq movies from either perspective because such controversial movies remind people of the unpleasant argument they had at their last family reunion, and that people might prefer to find pro-Iraq war messages through proxy movies like Lord of the Rings. She correctly pointed out that if that were the case, none of the left ones like the execrable Redacted, Stop Loss, Lions for Lambs, etc. would have been produced.

The Lord of the Rings - The Motion Picture Trilogy (Platinum Series Special Extended Edition)

Redacted (2007)

Lions For Lambs (Widescreen Edition)

Stop-Loss

I also openly theorized that since people usually root for the "underdog," most movies will naturally be more liberal (That's why, for example, you'll never see a movie with an illegal alien as a bad guy or why a corporate lawyer will never be a hero.). She replied that Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and many other movies in which people with strong values overcome difficulty prove that audiences can sympathize with conservative values (Another good, explicitly conservative movie, is Sergeant York.).

Sergeant York (Two-Disc Special Edition)

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington

Prager and Goldstein at the screening. I only had my cell phone camera so I used this one from the web site.

I attended a Liberty Film Festival screening last Thursday at the Golden Theater in Hollywood and, like last years' event, had a wonderful time. Dennis Prager co-hosted the evening along with the beautiful Govindini Murty, her lucky husband, Jason Apuzzo, and filmmaker Brooke Goldstein. Murty's enhanced her hosting skills by providing my wife and me with soda and cheese. Dennis impressed the audience with his sense of humor (he occasionally googles "prager asshole" to keep himself modest and kidded about how he won't eat ham, "but shrimp, that's something else.") and graciousness towards the audience- even to the ones who were, unfortunately, sometimes quite rude to Ms. Goldstein (it always pains me to report less-than-polite behavior from people I largely agree with).

Read more »

Directed by: Pierre Rehov

Another great documentary by Pierre Rehov. Suicide killers goes into an Israeli prison to interview "failed" suicide bombers. As you might expect, the film is fascinating. It seems most of the motivation comes from the Muslim promise of paradise. The women have the same motivation except for the virgin part. I'll take off half a star for some of the psychiatrist's' comments which tended towards the kind of psychobabble that could be applied to any religious or military sentiment.