In past columns I have written about some classic films, some of which have been effectively banned or “cancelled” by our contemporary cultural gatekeepers. The case of the immortal Disney…
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Like many traditional-minded people of this era, I have become disenchanted with products of the modern movie industry which are mostly either filth, silliness, or formulaic pablum. To my fortunate…
“The Burning of Atlanta,” 82 minutes. Produced and directed by Christopher Forbes. 2020. I have written a great deal on the Abbeville Institute site in the past on the portrayal of…
21. Faulkner in Film Southern viewers must naturally be interested in what Hollywood has done with America’s greatest 20th century writer, William Faulkner of Mississippi. **Intruder in the Dust (1949). …
19. Our Speech The experts will tell you that there is more than one Southern accent. This is true, but they all gather together as a marker of Southern that…
18. World War II and Other Wars “To deliver examples to posterity, and to regulate the opinion of future times, is no slight or trivial undertaking; nor is it easy…
16. EXECRABLES. The Worst Movies about the South: A Small Selection The competition here is fierce. We can only provide a sample of some of the worst. A few examples…
15. Twentieth and Twenty-First Century Southerners: Films for the Family The major movie stars of the 1930s through the 1970s came from the East and Midwest. Nevertheless, there was a…
12. Southerners in the Late 19th and Early 20th Centuries **The Yearling (1946). This is an all-time favourite about family life on the Florida frontier and a troublesome pet deer. …
King of the Hill is loaded with all kinds of satirical southern wisdom that was both of and way ahead of its time. In many ways this wonderful show was…
11. Post-bellum and Westerns There are two interesting, important, and little noticed features of films about the South in the period after the War for Southern Independence. First, until recent…
10. Spielberg’s Lincoln (X) Spielberg’s Lincoln. Life is short. Although I am a devoted if amateur student of Hollywood’s treatment of the great American War of 1861-65, I intended to…
9. Confederate Hollywood From the beginnings to rather recent times portrayals of Confederates have been a mainstay of American cinema. After all, the Confederacy is a rather large and interesting…
8. The War for Southern Independence (continued): Fantasy and Fraud Scorcese’s Gangs of New York (2002) Martin Scorcese, in an interview, candidly described his Gangsof New York, as an “opera.” …
Symbols Used ** Indicates one of the more than 100 most recommended films. The order in which they appear does not reflect any ranking, only the convenience of discussion (T) …
Symbols Used ** Indicates one of the more than 100 most recommended films. The order in which they appear does not reflect any ranking, only the convenience of discussion (T) …
5. Spielberg’s Amistad (1997) If Amistad is not yet a household word like ET or Jurassic Park, it soon will be with the power of Steven Spielberg behind it. (When…
Symbols Used ** Indicates one of the more than 100 most recommended films. The order in which they appear does not reflect any ranking, only the convenience of discussion (T) …
A man only has room for one oath at a time. I took an oath to the Confederate States of America.” John Wayne, The Searchers “We are going to hit…
Most of us, even the youngest, have heard of the magnificent Disney film, “Song of the South,” originally released in 1946. And certainly we are familiar with its hit song,…
None knew it then, but in 1915, Southern agrarian influence on the movies was at its height. The film trade had just left Fort Lee, New Jersey, only to land…
Everyone wanted to be Southern in the 1970s. The rejuvenated interest in Southern music from bands like Lynyrd Skynyrd, Charlies Daniels, and the Allman Brothers (and the unknown Southern influence…
Not to be outdone by David Benioff and D.B. Weiss’s brilliant idea for a new post-Game of Thrones show exploring the drama and high-stakes tension of an alternate America where slavery…
Victor Davis Hanson is one of the most lauded and applauded historians of the “conservative establishment.” Honored by President George W. Bush, a regular writer for National Review, spoken of…
From the beginnings to rather recent times, sympathetic portrayals of Confederates have been a mainstay of America cinema. An astounding number of major stars without any Southern background have had…
Most of the world knows of the Hollywood Celebrity “Martin Sheen,” (born and baptized Ramon Antonio Gerardo Estevez). Much of the world knows that he portrayed General Robert E. Lee…
Like it or not, movies are the main art form of our time, the story-telling medium that reaches the largest audience and captures the attention of us all, high and…
Hollywood has struck again with another “Civil War” movie that, unsurprisingly as it may seem, does not do justice to the real Southland or the Confederacy. The latest episode is…
The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute, December 28, 2015-January 1, 2016. Topics: Southern literature, the year in review, John C. Calhoun, slavery, the Confederate Flag, Southern film, California.
You might not find Stark Young’s So Red The Rose in current recommendations of novels set during the civil war era, but Young’s novel, published in 1934, was a record-breaking…
Why in the recent “The Factory” does a serial killer from Buffalo, New York, have a Southern accent? Come to think of it, why do serial killers and vicious gang…
Review of the new film Field of Lost Shoes: I have written before here and here about the treatment of the South in film. A new entry into that dubious…
The American Enterprise magazine, a slick-paper, coffee-table arm of the neocon publishing empire, has recognized the premiere of the Civil War film epic “Gods and Generals” by devoting its March…
That is Bobby Bare on Detroit and Dwight Yoakam on Los Angeles. Sometimes there are significant movements in history that go unnoticed because they take place slowly over a long…
Recent releases of four classic films should gladden the hearts of patriotic Southerners and those viewers not yet infected by the currently-raging virus of political correctness and multiculturalism. A few…
Last in a six part series. Part 1. Part 2. Part 3. Part 4. Part 5. As we all know, in recent times, Southerners, so far as Hollywood is concerned,…
(Part 5 of a 6-part series on the South in cinema) Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4. As you know, the folks who dominate the American movie industry…
Tom Hiddleston, an English actor best known for playing Loki in the Thor and Avengers movies, has been cast to play country music icon Hank William Sr. in an upcoming…
Part 4 in a 5 part series. Part 1, Part 2, Part 3. In 1902 the Philadelphia aristocrat Owen Wister published what has been called “the first true Western novel.”…
(3rd in a 5-part series) Hollywood’s treatment of Southerners in the vast output of World War II movies is a mixed bag. There is a fair amount of favourable portrayal…
(3rd in a 5-part series) Hollywood’s treatment of Southerners in the vast output of World War II movies is a mixed bag. There is a fair amount of favourable portrayal…
In Part 1 we demonstrated how during Hollywood’s Golden Age nearly every Northern-born major star willingly portrayed a sympathetic and admirable Confederate character. That phenomenon has continued up to the…
In Part 1 we demonstrated how during Hollywood’s Golden Age nearly every Northern-born major star willingly portrayed a sympathetic and admirable Confederate character. That phenomenon has continued up to the…
Dear Civil War enthusiasts, students, re-enactors, historians, friends, Over a lifetime of reading and research, I’ve accumulated an amazing collection of short stories written about the war, a priceless treasure…
Dear Civil War enthusiasts, students, re-enactors, historians, friends, Over a lifetime of reading and research, I’ve accumulated an amazing collection of short stories written about the war, a priceless treasure…
Having passed my allotted three score and ten, I realise that I have spent too much time watching movies. I can only hope that come judgment a merciful Lord will…
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