Andrew Bolt: Blow up the harmless Christians instead

The message is that the most savage faiths will win Hollywood’s respect.

Roland Emmerich, director of Independence Day, and The Day After Tomorrow, said he’s had second thoughts about his latest film:

For his latest disaster movie, 2012, the 53-year-old director had wanted to demolish the Kaaba, the iconic cube-shaped structure in the Grand Mosque in Mecca …

“But my co-writer Harald [Kloser] said I will not have a fatwa on my head because of a movie. And he was right. We have to all, in the western world, think about this.

You can actually let Christian symbols fall apart, but if you would do this with [an] Arab symbol, you would have ... a fatwa… So it’s just something which I kind of didn’t [think] was [an] important element, anyway, in the film, so I kind of left it out.”

But Emmerich acolytes need not fear that the film-maker is pulling his punches on 2012… – in order to highlight his opposition to organised religion, the director decided to use CGI to destroy the Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro instead.

For good measure, he also blew up the Sistine chapel and St Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican, plus, on a secular note, the White House (again).

Seems his opposition isn’t actually to organised religions generally, but just to the one that most guarantees his safety and freedom to speak.

Coward. Vandal. And the Guardian journalist who wrote that last paragraph is little better.

Source: Andrew Bolt

H/T: gramfan

Life of Muhammad to be filmed, but don’t expect to see him on screen

In Hollywood terms, it was the greatest story almost never told - until now.

With Middle Eastern money becoming an increasingly powerful cog in the global entertainment industry, it was perhaps inevitable that, sooner or later, someone would embark on a mega-budget epic about the life of the Prophet Mohammed.

That moment has arrived thanks to a wealthy Qatari media company which has put together a team featuring a crack Hollywood producer and a Muslim cleric who is banned from visiting Britain to bring the project to life.

Plans for the $150million English-language biopic were announced at the close of the Doha Tribeca Film Festival in Qatar on Sunday. The narrative will run from the years before the Prophet’s birth through to his death but there will be one conspicuous break from conventional biopic methods: in accordance with Islamic tradition the film will not represent the Prophet himself or direct members of his family.

A source close to the project said that Mel Gibson’s hugely successful (and gruesome) crucifiction film The Passion of the Christ had proved that there was a demand for religious-themed entertainment.

Barrie Osborne, a producer on the Lord of the Rings films and The Matrix optimistically envisages the film as a device that can help “bridging cultures”.

However, the press conference held to unveil the project demonstrated the risks inherent in any attempt to package the “true story” of the Prophet’s life for a global audience today.

Alnoor Holdings, a media company that has created a $200million film production fund to invest in Hollywood and international projects, has hired the cleric Sheikh Yousef al-Qaradawi as their lead theological consultant for the film.

Sheikh al-Qaradawi is one of the Sunni Islam’s most high-profile theologians thanks to his popular slot hosting a television show on al-Jazeera. He is admired by many moderate Muslims and was recently described by the government’s senior counter-terrorism official as “one of the most articulate critics of al-Qaeda in the Islamic world”.

He is also a highly controversial figure who was refused entry to Britain last year because of his views. He has reportedly condoned the Holocaust, supported the stoning of homosexuals and praised suicide bombers in Iraq, not to mention telling an interviewer that he considered Shia Islam a heretical branch of the faith.

According to the Gulf Times newspaper he told journalists in Doha that the film was a response to “the crusader-styled distortion of Islam [that] continues to influence [the] world population today.”

“I will say we Muslims have not exerted sufficient efforts to correct the fake tales as Christians have used [in] the media. The life of the Prophet Muhammad is richly documented from the cattle he raised to the weapons he used to his private life.”

The Qatari Tribune, which was also present, said that he described the world in milder language as a small village where people must know each other better and learn about other religions.

“We think that our religion is universal. Unfortunately, many people do not know about Islam and have misconceptions about it.”

Read more here,,,,

Source: Times Online

Iran wants apology from Hollywood dhimmi delegation

US actress Annette Bening, right, listens to fellow US actress Alfre
Woodard, left, as Iranian actress Fatemeh Motamed Arya, looks
on at center, during a seminar 'Acting for Film' given by Bening
and Woodard, in Tehran, Iran, Sunday, March 1, 2009.

A delegation of Hollywood dhimmis is going to Iran to open up talks with the friendly old mullahs, as Pamela reported yesterday. But here again we see that appeasement only emboldens the one who is being appeased: it isn't enough for the dhimmi stars to legitimize the oppression and brutality of the mullahs' Sharia regime; they also have to apologize for how mean, mean, mean Hollywood has been to Iran.

Apologize for 300! And The Wrestler!

There are plenty of Hollywood films that the filmmakers should apologize for, but those two are not among them.

The art advisor to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad urged a visiting Hollywood delegation to apologise for "insults and slanders" about Iranians in films, the ISNA news agency reported on Saturday.

"(Iranian) cinema officials will only have the right to have official sessions with... Hollywood movie makers when they apologise to the Iranians for their 30 years of insults and slanders," Javad Shamaghdari said.

"The Iranian people and our revolution has been repeatedly unjustly attacked by Hollywood," he said, citing '300' and recent Oscar nominated movie 'The Wrestler' as among offending films.

In 2007, the war epic '300', a smash hit in the United States for its gory portrayal of the Greco-Persian wars, drew the wrath of Iranians for showing their ancestors as bloodthirsty.

Similarly 'The Wrestler', was booed in Iran and heavily criticised for the scene of breaking and tearing of the Iranian flag by the picture's star, 2009 Oscar nominee Mickey Rourke.

"We will believe (US President Barack) Obama's policy of change when we see change in Hollywood too, and if Hollywood wants to correct its behaviour towards Iranian people and Islamic culture then they have to officially apologise," Shamaghdari added.... Read more ...

Source: AFP
H/T: Jihad Watch

Hollywood MIA on Abuse in Islam

By Gary Bauer

Hollywood rarely shies away from delving into politics, and it routinely rewards films that comport with its political worldview. It couldn’t get enough of Michael Moore’s screeds against guns and “Bush’s war,” and it warmed up nicely to Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth. This year, Hollywood celebrated Che, the sympathetic biopic about the Castro lieutenant, mass murderer and cult hero to leftwing radicals.

But Hollywood’s favorite political film this year was Milk, which chronicles the life of slain gay rights advocate Harvey Milk. For his portrayal of Milk, Sean Penn won the Best Actor award at this year’s Academy Awards. Taking the stage to accept his Oscar last weekend, Penn started in on a rant over the passage of Proposition 8, California’s marriage protection amendment. He said, in part:

“... I think it’s a good time for those who voted for the ban against gay marriage to sit and reflect on their great shame and their shame in their grandchildren’s eyes if they continue that support. We’ve got to have equal rights for everyone.”

Putting aside the ridiculousness of Sean Penn, a man who holidays with tyrants like Hugo Chavez and Raul Castro, advising others to “sit and reflect on their great shame,” there is a larger point. Given how often Hollywood sees fit to rail against this or that perceived political or social injustice, there is one area about which Hollywood has remained conspicuously silent: the brutality of radical Islam.

Not only has the film industry consciously avoided using Muslim characters in its many films about war and terrorism, Hollywood has also been missing in action when it comes to speaking out against some Muslims’ unacceptable views on gays and women. Read more ...

Source: Human Events