"13 hours," which is essentially a Benghazi themed hit job against Hillary, stumbles badly at the box office.

Courtesy of The Hill: 

Michael Bay’s action movie about the Benghazi, Libya, terror attacks stumbled at the box office this weekend, opening at No. 4 in American theaters. 

“13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi” opened with an estimated $19.6 million domestically, according to The Hollywood Reporter. 

“American Sniper,” which opened the same weekend a year prior, pulled in a stunning $107.2 million, while “Lone Survivor” opened to $37 million in early January 2014. 

 Bay's last opening as a director — for "Transformers: Age of Extinction" — brought in more than $100 million. 

“13 hours” was politicized by Republicans who slammed former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for the lapses in security at the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi. 

Ouch!

According to Gawker explains exactly what is wrong with the movie's storytelling: 

Much of what has likely inhibited the film’s performance is disagreement not only over the interpretation of the facts on which it is purportedly based but also those facts themselves. The CIA’s Benghazi station chief—now retired, but identified only by his first name, “Bob,” because his cover hasn’t been lifted yet—rejected the film’s portrayal of his actions. “I thought I would regret it if I didn’t,” Bob told the Washington Post. “So much of this information has been wrong.” 

An agency spokesman, Ryan Trapani, went even further. “No one will mistake this movie for a documentary,” he told the Post. “It’s a distortion of the events and people who served in Benghazi that night. It’s shameful that, in order to highlight the heroism of some, those responsible for the movie felt the need to denigrate the courage of other Americans who served in harm’s way.” 

Variety reports that much of that 19 million in box office revenue came from, you guessed it, red states: 

The action thriller did well in red states, generating 41% of the $19 million it stands to make this weekend from theaters in the South. Those areas out-performed blue states by 25%. Most other releases this weekend made up 33% of their grosses in these regions.

Gee, THERE'S a surprise.

Of course the makers of this movie vehemently deny they were making a politically ideological film, but seriously who are they kidding?

This was no "Black Hawk Down," and the only people who think this is a story worthy of having a movie made about it, are those on the Right Wing who think it will damage or destroy Hillary Clinton's campaign to be President.

So once again let me remind you of just how incredibly aggressive the conservatives have been in their efforts to discredit and stop Hillary.

You simply do NOT go to all this effort, and spend all of this money, unless you are TERRIFIED of a political rival.

Anybody disagree with that?

The box office hit of the weekend was Clint Eastwood's American Sniper. But a lot of Americans were not exactly blown away. (Pun intended.)

So this weekend America Sniper came out and it broke a ton of records.

However there are many who are quite put off by the subject matter.

Such as Michael Moore who sent the following tweet:

My uncle killed by sniper in WW2. We were taught snipers were cowards. Will shoot u in the back. Snipers aren't heroes. And invaders r worse
— Michael Moore (@MMFlint) January 18, 2015

Seth Rogen was less than impressed as well:

American Sniper kind of reminds me of the movie that's showing in the third act of Inglorious Basterds.
— Seth Rogen (@Sethrogen) January 18, 2015

(For those who never saw the movie, that was a Nazi propaganda film.)

Max Blumenthal was equally nonplussed:

I haven't seen American Sniper, but correct me if I'm wrong: An occupier mows down faceless Iraqis but the real victim is his anguished soul
— Max Blumenthal (@MaxBlumenthal) December 25, 2014

That is only a taste of the kind of blowback this film has attracted. But THAT blowback pales when compared to the vitriol that one attracts if they dare criticize the film or its hero Chris Kyle.

And speaking of heroic just check out the jingoistic patriotism that the film inspired in a certain segment of the population: 

TheRaganBrock, whose timeline is loaded with paeans to Kyle and who saw the film earlier, tweeted, “Ngl teared up at the end of American Sniper. Great fucking movie and now I really want to kill some fucking ragheads.” 

Reece Filon, who has since made his tweets unavailable, wrote, “America sniper made me appreciate soldiers 100x more and hate Muslims 1000000x more.” 

Harshnewyorker wrote, “Nice to see a movie where the Arabs are portrayed for who they really are – vermin scum intent on destroying us. #Deblasio #AmericanSniper” 

Another tweeter, identified simply as Tim, wrote, “Seen some Arabs walk in the theater to watch American sniper, I wonder if they think this is a horror movie? Lol.” 

In another tweet, since deleted, Dex Harmon wrote, “American sniper makes me wanna go shoot some fuckin Arabs” which was followed by artwork of three handguns.

Would not be at all surprised to see an uptick in violence against American Muslims in the wake of this behemoth. 

Full disclosure, I will NOT be seeing this film as I have sworn off all military propaganda movies for the foreseeable future. I also never saw "Zero Dark Thirty" despite the fact that it has been playing nonstop on HBO for several months.

I understand that war is sometimes necessary, but the glorification of war and of the men who are sent to kill individuals who in many cases are guilty of nothing more than living in the wrong place at the wrong time, is something I just cannot stomach.

And yes I feel much the same way about drone strikes.

Well SOMEBODY sure had a great Christmas.

Courtesy of USA Today: 

For a movie that wasn't even coming out at the beginning of the week, The Interview is ending it in style. 

 The Seth Rogen/James Franco comedy at the heart of the controversy involving Sony hackers racked up nearly $1 million on Christmas Day in 300 independent movie theaters around the country, according to Variety. The Alamo Drafthouse Cinema chain, one of the staunchest supporters of screening the film, sold out all of its Christmas screenings in its 17 locations. 

It's a decent haul for a movie that, due to threats of terrorism, was pulled by major theater chains such as AMC and Regal. 

The Interview has also done well on video-on-demand platforms since its Wednesday release. While none of the sites has disclosed download or streaming numbers, Variety reports The Interview is the best-selling film on Google Play and YouTube Movies. And according to CNN, there were also 750,000 illegal downloads of the film on Thursday. 

"The audience reaction was fantastic — the limited release, in under 10% of the amount of theaters originally planned, featured numerous sell-outs and a first-day gross over $1 million," said Rory Bruer, president of worldwide distribution for Sony, in a statement to CNN.

You know every once in awhile you recognize that you are in the middle of a pivotal moment in history. 

And we have had a lot of them recently. The first black president. The Affordable Care Act. The Climate Change agreement with China. The reopening of diplomatic relations with Cuba. The newly released Senate torture report. I could go on.

And this is another one.

It is the first time that we have seen hackers impact a major studio, or ANY large corporation, in such a dramatic fashion.

Even yesterday there was still disagreement over who exactly hacked Sony, and there was yet another hack on online gaming platforms yesterday as well.

So while The Interview may have ultimately benefited from all of the attention and goodwill that resulted from the Sony hack, it is unlikely that this is the last time this is going to happen.

I have no idea what this ultimately means going forward, but I am willing to bet that it will result in increased security and less internet freedom down the road.

The epic defeat of "The Undefeated."

You know sometimes an image is almost all that you need to make your point.

This film was doomed from the start, which anybody who was really in Alaska, and knew about Sarah Palin's time as governor, could have easily predicted.  In fact I do believe that I did.

However besides simply indicating how bad this movie was, it is also an indication of how truly inconsequential the Palin-bots have become.  After all they both begged and threatened people to get them to go see this film, and virtually NOBODY responded.

It is very hard NOT to see this as a dry run for Palin's Presidential campaign.

If she does declare in September I have little doubt that the result will look very much like the box office results pictured above. In other words, in the immortal words of my daughter, it will be another EPIC FAIL!

(H/T to Box Office Mojo.)

Update: It looks like Malia wrote something about this as well.