“7 Movies Based on a True Story (That are Complete Bullshit)”
And before you say, “Who cares?” remember: the average person gets ALL their information about history from movies like this. 100% of it. So: care. There is no such thing as “only a movie.”
* As far as being a staunch anti-war liberal, all we can tell you is this: Cronauer, now a lawyer, is “lifelong card-carrying Republican” and was a vice-chairman for the 2004 Bush/Cheney re-election campaign.
* But far more disturbing is the whole murder thing. We’re not saying Carter committed the crime, we’ll just casually point out that by the age of 14, the Hurricane had already been arrested for assault and armed robbery. By 22, he had been imprisoned twice for “brutal street muggings.” He was booted from the military after being court marshaled a whopping four times, being described as “unfit to serve.” But, hey, nobody expects boxers to be model citizens. It doesn’t mean he killed anyone, right?
Well…
* The real MIT Blackjack Team was almost totally Asian, but you’d never know that from the film. Even Kevin Spacey’s character was based in part on an Asian professor, who has been known to dress like a woman in order to sneak into casinos.
UPDATE: Mark Shea writes:
Mostly, [the BBC’s new] [Hood] Robin is a good room-temperature UK Labor socialist who is clever and always defeats the cunning but ultimately chopfallen sheriff by robbing from the rich and giving to the poor, without any reference whatsoever to the sorts of ideas or pieties that would have animated an actual medieval.
One can, of course, reply that “it’s just a stupid TV show.” True. But that’s the point: Most people spend most of their time watching stupid TV shows, going to stupid movies, and reading stupid books. It’s what people know. And that means they don’t know anything approaching history. Nothing else accounts for the fact that a staggering percentage of people think The Da Vinci Code gives us profound insights into the origins of Christianity. No wonder they’re filming a sequel. Those who don’t know bogus history are doomed to repeat it — and brag about how much smarter they are than suckers who believe the “official story.”
