Persistence of Vision

... For the shout out. We appreciate it!!

MPI's Moving Minutes--short, bi-weekly emails featuring classic freedom-oriented moments in film--are getting lots of attention from lots of good places. At Volokh.com, for example, Georgeton law professor Randy Barnett calls them his "bimonthly inspirational lift." Thanks, Randy!

Last year, as a freshman at USC, MPI 2008 intern Jonathan Willbanks founded the Southern California Business Film Festival. It was a smashing success--and Willbanks is presently spearheading the SCBFF's second year, which will take place from February 27 - March 1.

Check out scbff.com. And don't miss the special screening of IOUSA to be held on February 27 at 6:30 p.m. at the Norris Theater. A Q&A will follow with director Patrick Creadon and David Crane, Governor Schwarzenegger's Advisor on Jobs and Economic Growth. Other featured events include the Student Film Competitive Film Series, on Saturday the 28th, and, on Sunday, a RED Camera Panel.

Out in Denver, Liberty on the Rocks and the Independence Institute are launching Liberty on Film, a monthly screening of free market-oriented movies. First on the list: Indoctrinate U. If you are in the Denver area, check it out at Jackson's Hole Sports Grill Downtown, 1520 20th Street, on Thursday, February 26, at 6:30 p.m. Admission is free. RSVP here.

Meanwhile, the Documentary Channel will be airing Indoctrinate U six more times in the coming weeks:

Saturday, February 21st @ 3:00PM
Monday, February 23rd @ 5:00PM
Tuesday, March 17th @ 9:00PM
Wednesday, March 18th @ midnight
Wednesday, March 25th @ 5:00PM
Monday, March 30th @ 2:00AM

Finally--Indoctrinate U will be showing at the New York International Film and Video Festival on Tuesday, March 24th at 6:00PM at the Village East Cinema at 2nd Avenue and 12th Street. Get your tickets here.

Recently, National Review Online asked readers to nominate their favorite conservative films of all time. It's an interesting list. Here are the top five:

1. The Lives of Others (2007): "I think that this is the best movie I ever saw," said William F. Buckley Jr. upon leaving the theater (according to his column on the film). The tale, set in East Germany in 1984, is one part romantic drama, one part political thriller. It chronicles life under a totalitarian regime as the Stasi secretly monitors the activities of a playwright who is suspected of harboring doubts about Communism. Critics showered the movie with praise and it won an Oscar for best foreign-language film (it's in German). More Buckley: "The tension mounts to heart-stopping pitch and I felt the impulse to rush out into the street and drag passersby in to watch the story unfold."

2. The Incredibles (2004): This animated film skips pop-culture references and gross jokes in favor of a story that celebrates marriage, courage, responsibility, and high achievement. A family of superheroes -- Mr. Incredible, his wife Elastigirl, and their children -- are living an anonymous life in the suburbs, thanks to a society that doesn't appreciate their unique talents. Then it comes to need them. 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."

3. 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.

4. Forrest Gump (1994): It won an Oscar for best picture -- beating Pulp Fiction, a movie that's far more expressive of Hollywood's worldview. Tom Hanks plays the title character, an amiable dunce who is far too smart to embrace the lethal values of the 1960s. The love of his life, wonderfully played by Robin Wright Penn, chooses a different path; she becomes a drug-addled hippie, with disastrous results. Forrest's IQ may be room temperature, but he serves as an unexpected font of wisdom. Put 'em on a Whitman's Sampler, but Mama Gump's famous words about life's being like a box of chocolates ring true.

5. 300 (2007): During the Bush years, Hollywood neglected the heroism of American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan -- but it did release this action film about martial honor, unflinching courage, and the oft-ignored truth that freedom isn't free. Beneath a layer of egregious non-history -- including goblin-like creatures that belong in a fantasy epic -- is a stylized story about the ancient battle of Thermopylae and the Spartan defense of the West's fledgling institutions. It contrasts a small band of Spartans, motivated by their convictions and a commitment to the law, with a Persian horde that is driven forward by whips. In the words recorded by the real-life Herodotus: "Law is their master, which they fear more than your men[, Xerxes,] fear you."

Congratulations to Nick Tucker, whose sharp and funny Do As I Say has just been made an official selection of the 2009 Newport Beach Film Festival.

Sign up to bring Do As I Say to your area at DoAsISayMovie.com--and become eligible to win a free iPod Nano!

One of MPI's founding contentions is that Americans need a filmography of freedom. There is no better medium for exploring the ideal of liberty--and, quite arguably, there is no artistic medium more underused for that purpose. We're trying to change that, one film at a time. And freedom-oriented policy groups are starting to notice that film is--or ought to be--where the action is.

On March 18, the Fund for American Studies will be holding a roundtable discussion entitled "Liberty on the Big Screen." MPI fellow Chandler Tuttle--whose 2081 stunningly adapts Vonnegut's "Harrison Bergeron" for film--will be participating. Drinks are at 6:30, and the panel will begin at 7 p.m.

Freedom comes in all shapes and sizes--and sanities. And so do families. As Tolstoy so wonderfully put it, "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." There's a connection he's making there between unhappiness and individualism--and between freedom and group identity. Unhappy families are uniquely messed up because the individuals in them won't or can't subordinate themselves to the collective will of the group. Happy families are boringly alike because borgs tend by definition to lack personality.

All of these ideas are brilliantly and madly at work in the new Spielberg-supported Showtime series, United States of Tara. Tara--played by the amazingly malleable Toni Collette--is a married mother of two who just happens to suffer from dissociative identity disorder. Her alters include a sex-crazed teenager named T, a Stepford-style 1950s homemaker named Alice, a spittin and chewin and cussin Vietnam vet named Buck, and an unnamed rainwear-clad prankster described by Tara's husband Max as a "poncho goblin." All of this makes for unpredictable and vibrant television--and for some fun, head-spinning reflection on the nature of freedom, of individuality, of happiness, of family.

And judging by the show's title, that's all intended.