10 Films Every Libertarian Should See

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Dogville (2003)

I don’t really get into my political leanings here at Smug Film, for the obvious reason of this being a site about movies, not politics, but also because I hate creating arbitrary ‘dividing lines’ in my work. It’s petty, and I can’t stand when others do it. For instance, I’m a huge Woody Allen fan, I think he’s our greatest American filmmaker, but I cringe whenever he peppers little jabbing jokes against the Right in his films when the story doesn’t even call for it. Those sort of winks to the audience take you out of the film momentarily, whether you agree with them or not. It’s distracting and wholly unnecessary. So rest assured, people who disagree with me politically—there will be no lazy digs, or insults, or other ‘playing to the base’ bullshit in this post whatsoever.

This list will be of particular interest to libertarians, that’s a given, but even if that ain’t your particular alignment, it should at least be a unique window in the the sort of things we, or at least I, care about, both politically and philosophically. And don’t worry, there are no propaganda docs on here; these are simply great movies, many of which (hell, probably all of which) aren’t even made by libertarians. Whether intentionally or unintentionally, they just so happen to contain, within their myriad elements, certain elements that we get a kick out of. Enjoy!
Continue reading 10 Films Every Libertarian Should See

Netflix Longies #1 (Girl Model, Kumaré, Foreign Parts, I Like Killing Flies, Monica & David)

This is basically the opposite of my Netflix Quickies series. Instead of movies I picked randomly on Netflix Instant that I tried for a few minutes and hated, these are ones I fell in love with and watched all of. So definitely check them out.

By the way, these are all documentaries, because for some reason the only stuff I’ve given five stars on Netflix lately have been docs. Just been really lucky with them, I guess.

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Girl Model (2011)
Directed by David Redmon and Ashley Sabin
78 min.
Continue reading Netflix Longies #1 (Girl Model, Kumaré, Foreign Parts, I Like Killing Flies, Monica & David)

Netflix Quickies #2 (The Imposter, Bully, Frankie & Johnny, Hiding Out, Antichrist)

Alright so whenever I go on Netflix Instant I just sorta pick random movies from my queue, try them for a few minutes, and then if I’m not feeling them moving on to another until I finally find one I don’t hate, and then I watch that one. This ‘Netflix Quickies’ thing is basically a series where I just talk about movies I decided not to watch after some amount of minutes and explain exactly what turned me off about them. Here goes:

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The Imposter (2012)
Directed by Bart Layton
99 min. (Gave up after 7 min.)
Continue reading Netflix Quickies #2 (The Imposter, Bully, Frankie & Johnny, Hiding Out, Antichrist)