Given that this blog will be dedicated exclusively to what I hope to be a serious analysis of film and that the first series of films into which I intend to dive is the work of Will Smith, it might be interesting to note that the second installment of "I Am Legend" scheduled to be released in either 2012 or 2013, I believe, will be entitled "The Awakening". I can't speak for anyone else, obviously, but that title gives me both hope and chills.
I now see that I'm one of millions of Americans that I'll refer to as the "forty-somethings" - those people who came of age in a common-sense 1980's America, one led by the greatest of presidents - Ronald Reagan - and who were raised by common sense, responsible parents. I'll take a general guess that it was probably some time during the course of the first decade of the 21st century that this group of people began to wake up and to stir; they generally began to notice that something was amiss. That sense that that "something" was beginning to have an effect on America could probably be adaquately summarized in this brief clip:
By the time I had completed my education in May of 1993, I had earned a BA and a MA in English in addition to a minor in film studies. Writing and drawing had always been talents, and I was a voracious reader. During my undergraduate years film study became a real interest, but I knew that there would never be any financial future in that pursuit for me. I contented myself by becoming an English teacher and satisfying my film interests by doing visual analyses of my favorite films and television shows.
After the attacks on 9/11, I understandably became more interested in the much larger world events around me, in particular the manner in which our elected officials were handling the fact that our way of life was now under attack. My son had just turned three years old at the time, so the quickly-changing nature of the world had my undivided attention.
It was by the middle of the first decade that three things began to pique my interest more and more: the never-ending, relentless and vile attacks on President Bush, the control of the Congress being turned over to the Democrats in 2006, and what I perceived as the "name saturation" of an up-and-coming political star: Barack Hussein Obama.
Of course, merely the nature of this candidate's name got my attention, for obvious reasons, and I began to do some research. The more I learned about him - or, better said, what there was available to learn about him - the more my research became intense research. It became obvious to me, by the time I was done merely reading about the man, that he was probably a communist.
Going all the way back to my undergraduate years, I began to see that the Democrats were plainly a party of sell-outs; they exchanged entitlements for votes. I mean, anybody who bothered to look could see it, and the thing that always made me curious about people who professed to be Democrats was that they were the ones who, for some odd reason, hated President Reagan and had a general dislike for America.
Once all of this came together in my mind - and, of course, with a lot of additional life experience and maturity - a much larger, disturbing picture began to coalesce in my mind, one that plainly explained to me the reason that the uber-Left had spewed such venomous hatred at President Bush for eight years. It all suddenly struck me as more of a coordinated attack than it did as merely the natural political currents of the country.
The campaign and subsequent election of Barack Obama to the Presidency sealed what would become my life over the next several years, and probably well into the future. Never again would I take our way of life for granted, assuming, of course, that it's not too late. I became a writer for a prominent conservative blog, and I even wrote my own book (which is still available on Amazon). It's been during these last several years, however, that I've begun to notice a trend in some of the major motion pictures emerging from Hollywood, a trend that will no doubt surprise the average, everyday American person. There are a lot of conservative films emerging from Tinseltown these days, and some of the actors and actresses in them are very high-profile. From my way of thinking, there are only two possibilities: either these entertainers are decidedly conservative in their outlook on America and what She is supposed to represent, or these people are the epitome of liberal hypocrites (not that they'd be the first Liberals to live lives of complete hypocrisy), as they evidently agree to work in films with decidedly conservative messages simply because they pay well. The "proles", after all, apparently love those simplistic films and will pay top dollar to cheer for the good guys. Personally, given that it seems to be the same actors and actresses who appear in these films, I tend to believe that it's the former and not the latter.
During the course of the past six months or so, I proposed the idea of writing such a book to several fairly well-connected people in the political realm but was basically shot down, as it seems that these people feel that there wouldn't really be a market for it. Perhaps they're right. That leaves me with this avenue for now, as I think it's important that more and more people begin to see that the people that they "idolize" the most and through whom they seem to (sadly) live their lives - entertainers - are apparently trying to tell them something in their films.
With that, let me just say that I hope you enjoy what I have to say on this blog and begin with one of my favorite clips from a movie emblematic of that about which I'm writing, An American Carol.
