Happy 4th of July everyone (in advance)! This is my very favorite holiday.

Very heavy on Hitchcock tomorrow over at Turner Classic Movies, which is fine by me. My recommendations are below, all times are Pacific. Patriots will want to check out James Cagney as George M. Cohan in Michael Curtiz’s Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942)! This is one of Cagney’s great performances, and it’s hard to watch it and still keep your eyes dry.

6:30am Shadow of a Doubt (1943)
A young girl fears her favorite uncle may be a killer.
Cast: Joseph Cotten, Teresa Wright, Macdonald Carey. Dir: Alfred Hitchcock. BW-108 mins, TV-PG

8:30am Psycho (1960)
A woman on the run gets mixed up with a repressed young man and his violent mother.
Cast: Anthony Perkins, Janet Leigh, Vera Miles. Dir: Alfred Hitchcock. BW-109 mins, TV-PG

10:30am Vertigo (1958)
A detective falls for the mysterious woman he’s been hired to tail.
Cast: James Stewart, Kim Novak, Barbara Bel Geddes. Dir: Alfred Hitchcock. C-130 mins, TV-PG

12:45pm Birds, The (1963)
In a California coastal area, flocks of birds unaccountably make deadly attacks on humans.
Cast: Rod Taylor, Tippi Hedren, Jessica Tandy. Dir: Alfred Hitchcock. C-119 mins, TV-14

3:00pm Rear Window (1954)
A photographer with a broken leg uncovers a murder while spying on the neighbors in a nearby apartment building.
Cast: James Stewart, Grace Kelly, Raymond Burr. Dir: Alfred Hitchcock. C-114 mins, TV-PG

11:00pm Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942)
Spirited musical biography of the song-and-dance man who kept America humming through two world wars.
Cast: James Cagney, Walter Huston, Joan Leslie. Dir: Michael Curtiz. BW-126 mins, TV-G

1:15am On the Town (1949)
Three sailors wreak havoc as they search for love during a whirlwind 24-hour leave in New York City.
Cast: Gene Kelly, Frank Sinatra, Vera-Ellen. Dir: Gene Kelly, Stanley Donen. C-98 mins, TV-G

One of the previously lost scenes from Metropolis.

A major news story has broken over the past 24 hourse: a print of the original 3-hour cut of Fritz Lang’s Metropolis has apparently been discovered in Buenos Aires. This has been one of the holy grails in archival research, and I’m personally thrilled that this print has been found! For the full story on all this, check out the German publication Die Ziet (English version), and also the boys at AintItCool have been doing some nice work on all this here and here.

Apparently the first public viewing of this original cut of the film will actually be shown today in Beunos Aires. Man I wish I was there!

Essentially what’s been discovered is almost an hour of material from the film that had been lost since 1927. In my humble opinion, this is the most important archival find we could possibly have - short only, perhaps, someone finding the 40 minutes or so of lost footage from Orson Welles’ Lady From Shanghai.

What I’m going to do for LIBERTAS readers is dig up an article I did some years back on Lang’s Metropolis for the journal Neurosurgery. I’ll get that posted here as soon as possible … but in the meantime this is marvelous news!

[UPDATE: Here is the article I wrote some years back on the film: Metropolis: The Foundation of the Avant-garde.]

“They finally found us!”

John Ford’s The Searchers would be my #1.

A group called the Western Writers of America has released a list of what they’re calling the Top 100 Westerns of All Time.

I’ve put the top 25 below, and you can click on over for the rest. I don’t like this list. A lot of these films obviously belong on the list, but don’t deserve to share time with mediocrities like Open Range or Tombstone. [And I’m sorry, Costner does not deserve 2 films in the top 10 while Eastwood gets none.] But I’d like to see what readers have to say about this.

1. Shane
2. High Noon
3. The Searchers
4. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
5. Dances with Wolves
6. The Wild Bunch
7. Red River
8. Tombstone
9. The Magnificent Seven
10. Open Range
11. Treasure of the Sierra Madre
12. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
13. True Grit
14. The Shootist
15. Stagecoach (1939)
16. Unforgiven
17. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
18. The Outlaw Josey Wales
19. Ride the High Country
20. Jeremiah Johnson
21. The Cowboys
22. My Darling Clementine
23. 3:10 to Yuma (2007)
24. Rio Bravo
25. The Ox-Bow Incident

“These rings are really heavy …”

Not that this is a surprise, not that this is even news (I’m wavering on that one), but Babs has finally endorsed Obama. Took a few weeks and a few crying jags to get over Hillary’s demise, apparently. Here’s the ultimate Diva herself on Barack:

Barack has awakened in many of us the notion that we can again be hopeful, enabling us to believe that we are capable of lifting our brothers and sisters out of poverty, of providing quality education for all our children, of ending this unjust war in Iraq and bringing our troops home safely. He’s reminded us ‘yes we can’…we can make the transition from fossil fuels to green energy; we can take care of our elderly and make sure that good healthcare is not just a perk for a few, but a right for every man, woman and child. We are experiencing not just a presidential campaign, but a movement; a movement of inspired young people who have been cynical about politics for too long. For Barack, hope, change, believe…they are not just words. They are tangible ideas that make up the blueprint to building a better America for all of us. He is committed to making the road stronger for those that come after and to leaving behind something that lasts longer than his own spotlight.

I’m curious as to what people think of this.

Click on the trailer below.

Planet Earth as consumerist nightmare, blah, blah, blah …

As predicted, the controversy over the ‘worldview’ of Pixar’s new film Wall*E is spreading like wildfire (see here and here and here). I’d like to offer a hat-tip, by the way, to my old pal Greg Pollowitz at National Review for his role in kicking off this whole controversy. So far I’ve basically taken a pass on the subject, because the whole thing depresses me and I’m not eager to subject myself to the propaganda Pixar-Disney is currently doling out. [Memo to Disney: we’re all still waiting for that Path to 9-11 DVD release, by the way.]

Conservatives are understandably up in arms about what is apparently depicted in this film (Earth as Matrix-style, hyper-corporate, eco-apocalpytic wasteland), although we’ve been getting this sort of thing from Hollywood for quite some time. I think that a lot of conservative ire, however, is emerging from the mistaken impression that Pixar was somehow friendly to the conservative and/or libertarian side to begin with. Ever since Pixar’s The Incredibles came out several years ago, I’ve seen it hyped in conservative-libertarian circles to no end, to the point that people began to believe that there was actually some kind of pseudo-libertarian cabal of people who ran Pixar.

If you spend any time in Hollywood conservative circles, you know this drill well. It goes like this: someone - let’s say, an actor - will make a public comment to the effect that “actually our troops are not baby-killers.” This comment will immediately fuel speculation that said actor is ‘one of us’ and a closeted ‘Hollywood conservative,’ when actually said ‘actor’ was simply speaking off the cuff in the normal way that people do.

Folks at Pixar have been dropping hints like this for years, but never really very much substantial. [A few nods in Ayn Rand’s direction in The Incredibles, Andrew Stanton saying he’s a Christian, etc.] Lo and behold, we now find that Pixar’s actually pretty much like everybody else working in the system. To have expected anything else is really to be naive.

I’ve been telling fellow conservatives for years: avoid wish-fantasies about people/companies in the Hollywood system who are sold to you as being ‘conservative.’ These people are subject to extraordinary professional pressures that will usually compromise what they can do or say. If you want to express yourself freely, embrace independent film, digital technology, and the extraordinary opportunities those two worlds currently offer. Or else be prepared for more ‘disappointments’ like Wall*E.

There’s a little more news out now about the casting for Roland Emmerich’s next end-of-the-world epic, 2012. In the fine print of this Hollywood Reporter article you’ll note that both Danny Glover and John Cusack are now attached to the project.

This for a film that will apparently make “several brief but glaringly awkward attempts at political commentary and even what could be construed by some as a few baffling jabs at religion.”

Can’t wait. [Sigh.]

Actor.

Actor Dennis Haysbert apparently believes his portrayal of the first black president on Fox’s “24″ may have helped pave the way for Barack Obama. Who knows? Maybe he’s right. Love to hear what people think of that, since there are a lot of “24″ fans who read this site.

Also: Stephen Baldwin says he’ll be leaving the country if Barack Obama wins. He may need to anyway because of the SAG strike.

Anybody remember who started this I’ll leave the country! trend? I think it was Sarandon.

Actor.

If you’re a Tyler Perry fan, here are some details about his next film, along with the poster (above). Love the title. Click on over for more …

Apparently Guillermo Del Toro will be taking a crack at adapting H.P. Lovecraft’s extraordinary novel, At the Mountains of Madness. At the Mountains of Madness happens to be one of my favorites, and is sort of the ur-text for a lot of later science fiction like Howard Hawks’ The Thing, or Ridley Scott’s Alien.

Two script reviews (here and here) have hit the internet. Check them out to see what Del Toro plans to do with this legendary novel …

Pretty much everything is looking good for tomorrow on Turner Classic Movies. One fun note: they’ll be showing Assignment - Paris (1952) in which Dana Andrews uncovers an international Red conspiracy. Never seen that one.

Also: a 2-disc special edition is soon coming out of the original Mummy from 1932. This is no doubt being done to capitalize off the next Mummy sequel starring Brandon Fraser.

Below are the recommendations, with all times Pacific.

3:00am Action In Arabia (1944)
An adventurous reporter tangles with Nazis in the desert on the eve of World War II.
Cast: George Sanders, Virginia Bruce, Lenore Aubert. Dir: Leonide Moguy. BW-75 mins, TV-PG

4:15am Samson and Delilah (1949)
Epic re-telling of the story of the Biblical strongman laid low by love.
Cast: Hedy Lamarr, Victor Mature, Angela Lansbury. Dir: Cecil B. DeMille. C-128 mins, TV-PG

6:30am Assignment - Paris (1952)
An international correspondent digs up evidence of a Communist conspiracy.
Cast: Dana Andrews, Marta Toren, George Sanders. Dir: Robert Parris. BW-84 mins, TV-G

8:00am Witness To Murder (1954)
A woman fights to convince the police that she witnessed a murder.
Cast: Barbara Stanwyck, George Sanders, Gary Merrill. Dir: Roy Rowland. BW-82 mins, TV-PG

9:30am Whole Truth, The (1958)
A woman tries to prove her cheating husband didn’t murder his mistress.
Cast: Stewart Granger, Donna Reed, George Sanders. Dir: Dan Cohen, John Guillerman. BW-84 mins, TV-PG

11:00am Solomon And Sheba (1959)
Epic tale of the Biblical king’s seduction by a pagan queen.
Cast: Yul Brynner, Gina Lollobrigida, George Sanders. Dir: King Vidor. C-141 mins, TV-14

5:00pm Sabrina (1954)
Two wealthy brothers fall for the chauffeur’s daughter.
Cast: Humphrey Bogart, Audrey Hepburn, William Holden. Dir: Billy Wilder. BW-114 mins, TV-G

9:15pm What’s New, Pussycat? (1965)
A fashion editor seeks psychiatric help when he can’t stop beautiful women from pursuing him.
Cast: Peter O’Toole, Peter Sellers, Woody Allen. Dir: Clive Donner. C-109 mins, TV-PG

11:15pm Shampoo (1975)
A hairdresser expresses his fear of commitment by seducing his female clients.
Cast: Warren Beatty, Julie Christie, Goldie Hawn. Dir: Hal Ashby. C-110 mins, TV-MA

1:15am What’s Up, Tiger Lily? (1966)
Woody Allen dubbed in comic dialogue for this outrageous spoof of secret-agent thrillers.
Cast: Voices of Woody Allen, Louise Lasser, Mickey Rose. Dir: Woody Allen. C-80 mins, TV-PG

AMPTP Makes An Offer.

In what the media is describing as unexpected, the AMPTP has offered SAG a “final offer” as the current contract expired at midnight today. The offer emulates the deals completed with the other major guilds. For example, minimum rates would increase 10% over the 3-year contract compared to a 10.5% increase for the WGA contract. One sees other similarities in terms of pension and health benefits and new media issues. This move is calling SAG’s bluff because the SAG leadership complained recent AMPTP offers had terms worse than the other completed deals. SAG leadership appears to be rejecting this offer although the two parties will meet on Wednesday. I doubt anything will happen until July 8 when voting on the AFTRA contract ends.

[See here].

ABCNews.com is running this long feature about how the race for the White House will be spilling onto the big screen in the fall.

In the middle of the article, reporter Nancy Ramsey discusses the Liberty Film Festival and our forthcoming on-line venture.

The Internet will not be the sole province of liberals this fall. Four years ago, the Liberty Film Festival made its debut to highlight conservatives’ films. “A lot of people in the last 10, 20 years feel they’ve been denied work, with themes that were pro-military or had old-fashioned values,” Govindini Murty, the festival’s artistic director, told ABC News. “In 2004, the real catalysts were Michael Moore and Mel Gibson,” the latter because conservatives felt he was unfairly attacked.

The first festival featured 20 films and 3,000 people turned up, with “people saying, ‘This is our Woodstock,’” said Murty. “Each year, we saw our submissions doubling.” This year, Liberty’s Internet presence is increasing, with trailers, shorts, features, streamlining, DVD sales and film reviews from conservative critics.

Check out the full article for more of what’s going on in the fall. We’re particularly excited about David Zucker’s new film American Carol.

[Minor note: in the section dealing with the new LFF website, I think Nancy meant ’streaming’ rather than ’streamlining.’ ‘Streamlining’ is, of course, what Al Gore was doing to our government during his highly successful tenure as Vice President.]

Again, the LFF’s on-line presence will soon be expanding, and we’re looking for new writers to join us in this next phase of the Festival’s growth. If you have experience writing about film and are interested in writing for Libertas, please contact Jason Apuzzo at: japuzzo@libertyfilmfestival.com.

Please send us your name, phone number, and email address, a resumé, a writing sample, and links to your work. Also, you must be willing to post under your own name.

Boola boola.

The publicity for Oliver Stone’s forthcoming film W just keeps coming. The LA Times is running this huge feature on the film.

My favorite tidbit? The casting: Richard Dreyfuss as Cheney, Toby Jones as Karl Rove and Scott Glenn as Donald Rumsfeld. Yeah, this film will be fair! No doubt about it!

According to this new Vanity Fair piece, young Hollywood is supporting Obama.

Vanity Fair features the new wave of Young Hollywood in the August issue, with a cover starring Kristen Stewart, Blake Lively, Emma Roberts, and Amanda Seyfried. James Wolcott reports on the up-and-comers and writes that when it comes to politics, there’s only one candidate in this year’s election.

Although a few are coy about their preference, Wolcott writes that “the majority of our respondents, unafraid of commitment, [are] in flying formation for Air Obama…. The candidacy of John McCain seems to have drawn complete blanks, goose eggs. It’s true that McCain never had a real shot at the Hollywood youth vote, but it’s as if he didn’t even exist within their frequency range.”

Is that really true about young people in Hollywood? There’s one thing that’s generally true about what young people do in the Hollywood system: they do exactly what they’re told. All these kids know that to speak out in favor of a Republican candidate would be a career-killer for them.

I’m reminded of those polls in Iraq about what people think of our presence there. Fear is driving a lot of what people say.