Tag Archives: disney

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Daily Broadside | Sleeper Hit “Sound of Freedom” Makes Its Money Back While Championing A Cause Hollywood Ignores

Happy Monday. Hope you had a good weekend.

My wife and I went with another couple to see Sound of Freedom, the movie starring Jim Caviezel (The Passion of the Christ) that outperformed Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny in it’s opening day sales.

Elsewhere, and in nearly 2,000 fewer theaters than Dial of Dud (2,850 compared to 4,600), Sound of Freedom, AKA the Little Christian-Themed Indie That Disney Dumped, hauled in another $15.2 million. By Monday, this $14.5 million budgeted movie — THAT DISNEY DUMPED – will have grossed close to $40 million.

Sound of Freedom — THE MOVIE DISNEY DUMPED – came in number three at the box office and – UNLIKE DISNEY’S DIAL OF DUD — is already making millions in profit. In its second weekend, Sound of Freedom trounced the opening weekend of Joy Ride, a woke comedy—he wrote as though “woke comedy” is not an oxymoron—that belly-flopped in 2,850 theaters with just $6 million.

How’s that for justice? Disney acquired 20th Century-Fox in 2019 and immediately shelves Sound of Freedom, which wrapped in 2018. Why would Disney shelve a $14.5 million Christian-themed film when Christian-themed films make money? Easy answer: it’s a Christian movie. Also, Sound of Freedom sounds an alarm about child exploitation, and as we now know, Disney is pro-child exploitation.

I’d call the film a “docudrama” because it is based on a true story but it is more drama than thriller, and there’s no doubt that Sound of Freedom is a compelling movie. It’s based on the true story of Tim Ballard (Caviezel), a U.S. Homeland Investigations agent hunting pedophiles who quits his job in order to rescue children from global sex traffickers.

As a visual experience, the cinematography is excellent. The acting throughout is believable, and of particular note is the performance of Bill Camp (12 Years a Slave; Joker) who plays Vampiro, a former cartel boss trying to expunge the evil he has himself engaged in by rescuing trafficked children.

POSSIBLE SPOILER AHEAD

The story is provocative and gripping (although a bit choppy in the beginning), even though it depicts nothing explicit. The violence and cruelty are all implied, allowing it to keep its PG-13 rating (language, smoking, drug and sexual references). Even a scene of hand-to-hand combat that ends with the death of a trafficker is mostly done in the shadows and we’re only shown his lifeless legs.

That reticence to more fully depict violence leads me to my only real complaint about the film: it feels “flat” because there’s no real emotional rhthym of build and release. Caviezel shows plenty of tears, but his character portrayal comes across as a strictly one note grim, with only one notable moment of humor to break the monotony.

The subject matter is sobering and tough to watch, but the gut-wrenching agony of losing a child and the terror of what they have been through would seem to elicit more grief from the parents and the children. The prospect of being reunited with a child thought to be lost would also seem to generate overwhelming emotion, but it remains very reserved throughout.

END POSSIBLE SPOILER

None of that is to dissuade you from seeing the film; far from it. Not only does it tackle a topic that Hollywood largely avoids, it has the noble purpose of trying to raise awareness of a global business that does $150 billion in transactions annually. This despite the film being completed in 2018 and then being shelved by Disney. Freedom only gained its freedom after a crowd-funding effort.

That’s too bad because there’s obviously an audience for it. While some film critics have been unnecessarily harsh in their reviews (looking at you, Rolling Stone), at least one recognized that one doesn’t have to be a Christian to appreciate what the film tries to accomplish.

In a largely positive review, Variety‘s Owen Gleiberman wrote, “Let’s assume that, like me, you’re not a right-wing fundamentalist conspiracy theorist looking for a dark, faith-based suspense film to see over the holiday weekend. (The movie opens July 3.) Even then, you needn’t hold extreme beliefs to experience ‘Sound of Freedom’ as a compelling movie that shines an authentic light on one of the crucial criminal horrors of our time, one that Hollywood has mostly shied away from.” Other critics seemed to agree, giving “Sound of Freedom” an impressive 92% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

Go see it. And take someone with you.

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Daily Broadside | The House of Mouse is a Sleazy Trap for Children

Daily Verse | 1 Kings 11:6
So Solomon did evil in the eyes of the Lord; he did not follow the Lord completely, as David his father had done.

Thursday’s Reading: 1 Kings 12-14

Thursday and the Pied Pipers of the Deranged Left continue forcing on our country their latest insanity and insisting that we all skip along behind them lest they shout “racist!” or “transphobe!” at us and cancel our very lives.

We’re all aware of the woke Lefties who run Disney Corp. and who were recently found to be actively and intentionally promoting the LGBTQUERTY+ sexual deviance in their products—products that are primarily aimed at young children.

When Rufo, who’s done a yeoman’s work on this issue, got pushback from fake conservative publication The Bulwark, he brought the receipts.

At the same time, there’s an effort in our public schools to … how to say it? … GROOM our children into the perverted world of deviant sex. To show you how far it’s gotten, here’s a report on a Denver middle school that has created a “trans closet.” What’s a trans closet, you ask?

The closets are specifically designed for students to hide their clothing from their parents, and the school is facilitating that deception (and charging the parents for it through their property taxes). But if you thought that these closets are just filled with clothes, there are more pernicious things inside like breast binders and instructions on how to tuck your penis. (One closet I found offered tutoring in this area, but it was not in a school but in a church—which is equally inexplicable.) Both of these practices, binding and tucking, are extremely damaging to the body and can cause lifelong injury. All of this is paid for by your tax dollars, housed in a school you paid for, and causing harm to your kids by usurping parental authority and encouraging children to lie to you and trust agents of the state—whose salaries you also pay. Don’t forget, these are the same schools that won’t give your kid an Advil without your written permission. Are we having fun yet?

This is in a middle school, my friends, with children about ages 11-15, depending on which grades are handled by which schools (sixth grade for me was still in elementary school).

I’m with Allie Beth Stuckey:

And now there’s a war of words over the word “groomer.” You may remember that there was a popular social media meme of the words “OK, boomer” that dismissed the attitudes associated with baby boomers. Some on the Right have adopted a reworked version of the phrase: “OK, groomer.”

The idea of grooming a child has always been connected to pedophilia, and now fake conservative and NeverTrump liberal Christian David French is whining about the nuances of the term “groomer” and how anybody using it is guilty of “pure malice” that’s “incredibly dangerous.”

Really, pastor French? You’re gonna slap a Christian camp horror show on us while we’ve got pink-haired teachers with nose rings out in the field who pledge to chat up our children as young as five-years-old about their sexual preferences and identity and ALL YOU’RE CONCERNED ABOUT IS THAT THE WORD “GROOMER” MIGHT NOT BE TECHNICALLY ACCURATE?

What a putz.

This woman, who detransitioned, gets it.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again now: the only thing these large corporations understand is the bottom line. If their earnings tank, heads roll and extremes are reeled back in.

Not only that, nobody NEEDS Disney. You do realize that, don’t you? Disney is a discretionary spend. No one “needs” to visit the Magic Kingdom. No one “needs” to purchase the latest Disney DVD. No one “needs” a Disney plush toy.

Disney is not life; only Jesus is that.

I think it’s hard for some parents to let go of the idealized family vacation to the Magic Kingdom, maybe because they went as a kid and they want their kids to have the same experience. But the House of Mouse isn’t what it used to be. If you don’t believe me, scroll through Rufo’s Twitter account and look at all the ex-Disney employees who have been prosecuted for being child sex predators, plus all the reporting that CNN (¡CNN!) did on that subject.

I personally think that our culture, which is so immersed in entertainment, could use a good detoxification so that we would all know that there’s more to life than sitting slack-jawed and passive in front of the screen, even if it is Disney.

Do it for the children.