YouTube Restores Movie On Homosexuality

'Metadata' conflict resolved, filmmaker thanks video service

YouTube has restored a trailer promoting Christian apologist Ray Comfort’s movie “Audacity,” which challenges the belief that homosexuality is unchangeable, after a conflict over the video service’s “metadata” policy was resolved.

WND reported Monday the movie suddenly was removed amid suspicions that someone objected to its message.

Comfort told WND on Tuesday that YouTube had stated the trailer was removed “as a violation of YouTube’s policy against spam, scams and commercially deceptive content.”

“Since we found nothing in it that fit that description, we naturally concluded that YouTube didn’t like the content and yanked it,” Comfort said. “In attempting to get the trailer back online, however, we received an explanation. YouTube kindly explained that we had violated their metadata policy. We had added a list of keywords in the video description section, not knowing that was against their company policy.”

He continued: “I’m happy to say that after our team connected with YouTube and addressed the policy concern, they have fully reinstated the original video. All of the original links that were in countless locations are now live again.

“This is a good lesson for us to thoroughly research such things so we don’t violate policy and to avoid jumping to judgment. While we appreciate the many people who supported us in this incident, we offer our sincere apologies to YouTube for wrongly suspecting them of blame, and also to news organizations who kindly carried the story.”

Comfort said the trailer also is on the movie’s website.

See the trailer:

Comfort said the "foundation for the gay argument is that they (like people of color) are born that way, and like someone's race, should never be discriminated against."

"The trailer shows a number of people changing their minds about homosexuals being born that way, because I asked them two simple questions. It's pretty unnerving for the 'I can't help being gay argument,' and so they decided to censor us. Or to put it another way, they discriminated against us because of our religion."

Comfort described the trailer as a "John the Baptist," a "voice in the wilderness preparing the way for the movie."

"YouTube played Herod and brought down the ax," he said. "It's interesting to note that John's end came because he also spoke up about Herod's illicit sex."

Comfort, founder of Living Waters Publications and the author of books such as "How to Know God Exists," previously created the controversial smash-hit movie, "180."

"Audacity," he said, is "a scripted movie containing unscripted interviews showing pro-gay people changing their minds on whether or not homosexuals are born that way, because they were asked two simple questions."

In the movie, Peter (Travis Owens), is an aspiring comedian who confronts stage fright and a challenge to his moral convictions. Peter must decide whether he will stand up for what he believes, even if it means losing a friendship. And he faces a harrowing life-or-death experience.

Comfort acknowledged the topic of homosexuality is controversial.

"I didn't want to make this. After making films about abortion and evolution, people kept asking for one that addressed the issue of homosexuality – because most Christians were very uncomfortable about how to deal with it and not sound hateful. But I adamantly said that it wasn't going to happen. Anyone who spoke against homosexuality was instantly vilified, and nobody wants that."

But Comfort explained the concept for the film arose by pure chance.

"Around April 2014, I was with a friend in Huntington Beach in California, when I saw two girls walking toward us kissing each other. I asked if they would like to be on camera, and to my surprise they said that they would. These two ladies gave me an amazing 14-minute interview about gay marriage, the morality of homosexuality, and the gospel … and they ended up thanking me for not being judgmental. Yet I hadn't compromised the gospel even slightly. It was as though God had dropped the foundation for a movie into my lap."

That night he wrote a script and sent it to Mark Spence, the main editor and producer of "180," which reveals how quickly people reverse their opinion about abortion once they are given the facts.

"He wrote back, 'Wow, wow, wow!!!!' I quickly called a meeting, and after just over a year later, we have what we believe is a very timely movie," Comfort said.

Comfort understands he will be accused of "hating" homosexuals. But he believes the "frustrating" accusation provides an opening for "Audacity."

"Someone wrote to me, 'Please please please release 'Audacity' as soon as possible. Christians need to be equipped to handle the subject of homosexuality. I found an article on my Facebook newsfeed portraying Christians in an extremely negative way. … I have faith in the film, that it will help awaken people.'

"A Christian doesn't hate anyone, and yet we are being painted with a wide and nasty brush by a sin-loving world. One of these people recently wrote to me and said that it was virtually impossible to be a Bible believing Christian and not be 'homophobic.' The frustration is there because I can understand his reasoning. Scripture is very clear on the issue."

Comfort says Christians can communicate their beliefs effectively without being disrespectful.

Asked to respond to critics who call the film "intolerant," Comfort countered: "I would say not to make that judgment until they see the movie. I think that even the LGBT community is going to be surprised, because it's not what they're expecting. They are going to see that we didn't want to stereotype or vilify homosexuals."

At the same time, Comfort urges Christians to remain true to Scripture.

"My opinion is irrelevant. What matters is what God's Word says on the subject. This is another area covered in depth by 'Audacity.' The issue of homosexuality is putting a chasm between those who love God and those who don't. You cannot separate God from His Word," he said.

"But the movie goes even deeper using an opening scene that shows that those who speak the truth in love, speak the truth because they are motivated by love."

Comfort said he believes the film "has the power to change this culture (through the gospel), and even bring healing between the church and the LGBT community." -WND

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Here's Why Dallas Buyers Club Should Win an Oscar

The film and its stars are stacking up the honors, including six Academy Award nominations.

In the first minutes of Dallas Buyers Club, the astounding new film about the darkest years of the AIDS crisis, rodeo cowboy Ron Woodroof (a gaunt and barely recognizable Matthew McConaughey) is punched in the face. He has it coming. The self-serving crook has a lot of enemies.

The blood spills from his mouth and glows a bright crimson, an almost clownish contrast to his drained, ghostly pallor, which itself is evidence of a raging HIV infection he has yet to discover. Another gash on his forehead is a shocking distillation of red, and unlike most movies in which injuries disappear by the next scene, the wound remains. And remains. For many scenes thereafter, the blood on Woodroof’s forehead is in full view, a disconcerting reminder of what lies beneath, until you wish he would just put on a bandage already.

But Dallas Buyers Club isn’t interested in making the truth very pretty. A river of infected blood runs through it. So too does practically every other bodily fluid, along with bruises that won’t heal and purple skin lesions and flakes of dry, reddened skin. And that’s kind of beautiful. Because that’s what AIDS looked like in 1985, and it’s been ages since we have fully remembered it. (This movie doesn’t concern itself with the modern day notion of “living with HIV,” since having the virus in those days typically meant an AIDS diagnosis and fast and efficient death.)

I have never seen AIDS shown this way in a film. And of all the movie portrayals of the disease, from Parting Glances to I Love You Phillip Morris, nothing else has captured the ugly physicality of AIDS like Dallas Buyers Club. Even the tearful hospital-bed goodbyes in Longtime Companion seem overly romanticized by comparison.

The based-on-a-true-story film concerns Woodroof, a hard-living cowboy and drug addict who must face certain death and the cruelty of his redneck buddies when he tests HIV-positive. Woodroof also lives the sheltered life of a Southern homophobe, so watching him negotiate the AIDS community terrain of queers, transgender women, and drag queens is fascinating viewing and provides some of the surprisingly plentiful humor in the film.

But Woodroof hasn’t successfully dodged the consequences of his petty crimes for nothing. He quickly cheats the system to acquire the poisonous medication AZT, and after an eye-opening trip to Mexico, he figures out how to profit from the sale of unapproved drugs to the throngs of support group members back home. Along the way, he allows himself a guarded friendship with a drug-addicted transgender woman, Rayon, who becomes his business partner (Jared Leto in an effective and quietly humble performance) and eventually accepts, to some degree, the gratitude and generosity of the many gay and trans people around him.

Nearly everyone in the story, patients and physicians alike, is a wretched outcast, damaged by drug addiction or homophobia or loneliness or their own destructive behaviors. No one is healed, no one fully conquers his or her demons, and no one gets out unscathed. The fact that the filmmakers make you root for every one of them is a testament to terrific storytelling and a vexing main character you grow to love and admire. –HIV Plus

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Scenes Emerge From Lost Jerry Lewis Holocaust Film

Jerry Lewis

Footage from infamous project ‘The Day the Clown Cried’ uploaded to YouTube
Jewish comedian Jerry Lewis promised that no one would ever see his self-described “bad, bad, bad” Holocaust film, “The Day the Clown Cried.”

Now, the 87-year-old’s lost movie has emerged for viewing, at least partially.

A little over seven minutes of the film and behind-the-scenes clips, from a Flemish documentary, were uploaded onto YouTube on Saturday. The footage, which originally appeared on a Flemish website in 2012, has garnered almost 150,00 hits in two days.

"The Day the Clown Cried" Making Of Footage (With Subtitles!)

The 1972 movie was about a non-Jewish German circus clown, played by Lewis, who is imprisoned in a Nazi concentration camp for mocking Adolf Hitler in a bar. In the camp, he insists on performing for Jewish children, who become his biggest fans. The SS guards use the clown to help load the children onto a train to Auschwitz, but he accidentally ends up on the train. He is assigned to lead the children to the Auschwitz gas chambers, and eventually insists on joining  them in the chamber to entertain them as they are killed.

Lewis visited Dachau and Auschwitz before the film, and lost 40 pounds for the part.

In the clip, Lewis is shown performing gags with a cigar and paper airplane. But it is the footage of Lewis behind the scenes that is especially valuable.

The footage shows Lewis’s dedication to his craft. “Look at the mirror,” says the Flemish announcer in the background, while Lewis is shown applying makeup, “a picture of Jerry as clown with minute directions on how the makeup is to be applied. He has made a series of pictures of every character beforehand, and in the movie they have to correspond to this image.”

Another scene shows Lewis giving tips to his French sound engineer.

While working, Lewis answers questions from an off-screen journalist, explaining his production methods and why he chose certain background music.

He also recalls a conversation he had with Charlie Chaplin.

Lewis’s passion comes through as well. At one point, he gets frustrated with a juggling scene, and can be heard yelling at his crew.

In January, Lewis explained in Los Angeles why he spiked the movie. “In terms of that film, I was embarrassed. I was ashamed of the work. And I’m grateful that I had the power to contain it all and never let anybody see it. It was bad, bad, bad.

“It could have been wonderful,” Lewis continued. “But I slipped up. I didn’t quite get it. And I didn’t quite have enough sense to find out why I’m doing it, and maybe there find an answer. Uh-uh. It will never be seen.” -Time of Israel

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New Movie: Jesus Is Product Of Mary Being Raped

A new Hollywood film in the works that some are already calling blasphemous will portray Jesus as the product of His mother Mary being raped by a Roman soldier, and show that miracles mentioned in the New Testament were not real.

Paul Verhoeven, who directed previous hits including “Robocop,” “Total Recall” and “Basic Instinct,” is basing the movie on his 2008 book, “Jesus of Nazareth.”

According to Deadline.com, Verhoeven’s take on the life of Jesus discounts all the miracles mentioned in Scripture, including the virgin birth and the resurrection, as Verhoeven doesn’t believe any of them actually took place.

Perhaps the most controversial of Verhoeven’s notions is that “Jesus might have been the product of his mother being raped by a Roman soldier, which Verhoeven said was commonplace at the time, and that Jesus was a radical prophet who performed exorcisms and was convinced he would find the kingdom of heaven on earth, and did not know he would be sentenced to die on the cross by Pontius Pilate,” Deadline reported.

“He is treading on territory that Christians universally would label as blasphemous,” says Mike Fleming of Deadline. “The film seems to have landed in the appropriate place, as a gritty and controversial independent film.”

WND reader Dale Ulmer is among those already outraged, saying, “Anyone involved in the production of this film will face the wrath of God. I will NOT watch this film and I would personally like to write to these people and tell them they are treading in waters with no life preserver unless they cancel  this film because God’s judgment will be harsh if they choose to mock him. They have no real proof of what they are suggesting, however the Bible has never failed in its record of historical events. Archaeologists and scientists are discovering proof of biblical accounts, just as it was written.”

In a previous interview with Fleming, Verhoeven spoke of Jesus in these terms:

“If you look at the man, it’s clear you have a person who was completely innovative in the field of ethics. My own passion for Jesus came when I started to realize that. It’s not about miracles, it’s about a new set of ethics, an openness towards the world, which was anathema in a Roman-dominated world. I believe he was crucified because they felt that politically, he was a dangerous person whose following was getting bigger and bigger. Jesus’ ideals are about the utopia of human behavior, about how we should treat each other, how we should step into the shoes of our enemy.”

Muse Productions will reportedly be producing the new film, and Roger Avary, who won an Oscar for co-writing 1994′s “Pulp Fiction,” is on board to adapt the book into a screenplay.

No date has been mentioned yet for when the film is targeted for release.According to Deadline.com, Verhoeven’s take on the life of Jesus discounts all the miracles mentioned in Scripture, including the virgin birth and the resurrection, as Verhoeven doesn’t believe any of them actually took place.

Perhaps the most controversial of Verhoeven’s notions is that “Jesus might have been the product of his mother being raped by a Roman soldier, which Verhoeven said was commonplace at the time, and that Jesus was a radical prophet who performed exorcisms and was convinced he would find the kingdom of heaven on earth, and did not know he would be sentenced to die on the cross by Pontius Pilate,” Deadline reported.

“He is treading on territory that Christians universally would label as blasphemous,” says Mike Fleming of Deadline. “The film seems to have landed in the appropriate place, as a gritty and controversial independent film.”

WND reader Dale Ulmer is among those already outraged, saying, “Anyone involved in the production of this film will face the wrath of God. I will NOT watch this film and I would personally like to write to these people and tell them they are treading in waters with no life preserver unless they cancel  this film because God’s judgment will be harsh if they choose to mock him. They have no real proof of what they are suggesting, however the Bible has never failed in its record of historical events. Archaeologists and scientists are discovering proof of biblical accounts, just as it was written.”

In a previous interview with Fleming, Verhoeven spoke of Jesus in these terms:

“If you look at the man, it’s clear you have a person who was completely innovative in the field of ethics. My own passion for Jesus came when I started to realize that. It’s not about miracles, it’s about a new set of ethics, an openness towards the world, which was anathema in a Roman-dominated world. I believe he was crucified because they felt that politically, he was a dangerous person whose following was getting bigger and bigger. Jesus’ ideals are about the utopia of human behavior, about how we should treat each other, how we should step into the shoes of our enemy.”

Muse Productions will reportedly be producing the new film, and Roger Avary, who won an Oscar for co-writing 1994′s “Pulp Fiction,” is on board to adapt the book into a screenplay.

No date has been mentioned yet for when the film is targeted for release. –By Joe Kovacs/WND/June 25, 2012

Hitchcock Knocks Welles Off Top Of 'Greatest Film' Poll

Alfred Hitchcock's "Vertigo" has been named the greatest movie of all time, knocking long-time favorite Orson Welles' "Citizen Kane" off the top of a once-in-a-decade survey of critics from around the world.

Hitchcock's thriller, starring James Stewart and Kim Novak, came top of Sight & Sound magazine's poll of 846 film experts more than 50 years after the movie was first released -- to little critical acclaim -- in 1958.

Sight & Sound has compiled a list of the 100 greatest films every 10 years; the results, announced with great fanfare, are awaited with bated breath by cinephiles across the globe. But over the decades the composition of the top 10 has remained relatively consistent, with "Citizen Kane" retaining pole position for half a century.

This time around, though, Orson Welles' 1941 masterwork slipped to the number two slot, ahead of Yasujiro Ozu's "Tokyo Story" (1953) at number three, Jean Renoir's "La Regle du Jeu" at number four.

Sight & Sound's editor Nick James said the surprise result in the critics' poll reflected changes in the culture of film criticism, away from "films that strive to be great art, such as 'Citizen Kane,' and that use cinema's entire arsenal of effects to make a grand statement" towards those with "personal meaning to the critic."

"Vertigo is the ultimate critics' film because it is a dreamlike film about people who are not sure who they are but who are busy reconstructing themselves and each other to fit a kind of cinema ideal of the ideal soul mate," he said in a statement.

F.W. Murnau's "Sunrise" (1927) rounded out the top five. Murnau's first Hollywood movie was one of a record three silent films to make it into the top ten, alongside Dziga Vertov's "Man with a Movie Camera" (1929) and Carl Theodor Dreyer's "The Passion of Joan of Arc" (1928).

And while the rest of the top ten does include films familiar to more mainstream moviegoers -- Stanley Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey" and John Ford's "The Searchers" -- there is little room in the poll for today's box office hits.

Hollywood's big-budget blockbusters, such as "Avatar," "Titanic," and "The Avengers" do not register in the upper reaches of the poll. You'll find no Harry Potter or James Bond -- the most successful film franchises of all time -- and you'll have to look beyond the top 20 for a film made beyond the 20th century.

"2001: A Space Odyssey," dating from 1968, is the most modern film in the top 10; more recent offerings from Wong Kar-Wai -- 2000's "In the Mood for Love" -- and David Lynch -- 2001's "Mulholland Drive" make their debuts lower down the list, at 24 and 28, respectively.

Women, too, are poorly represented -- just two female filmmakers are included in the top 100 -- Chantal Akerman for "Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce 1080 Bruxelles" (at 35) and Claire Denis for "Beau Travail" (at 78).

Filmmakers also got to have their say: A separate poll of 358 directors from all over the world, including Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese, Woody Allen and Quentin Tarantino, picked "Tokyo Story" as their top movie, ahead of "Citizen Kane" and "2001: A Space Odyssey" in joint second place. "Vertigo" was placed seventh on the directors' list.

And there's hope for the likes of James Cameron, Christopher Nolan and Peter Jackson -- Hitchcock's "Vertigo" was not considered "great" at the time of its release. Its gradual rise up the Sight & Sound poll (it was first included in 1982, at number 7) parallels an increasing recognition of Hitchcock's film-making prowess. -By Neil Curry and Bryony Jones/CNN Entertainment/August 2, 2012

Harry Potter Theme Park To Be Built In Japan

Harry Potter is heading for Japan for the next theme park modelled on the Hogwarts Castle experience - the first to be built outside the US.

The third Wizarding World of Harry Potter is to be built at Universal Studios Japan, in Osaka, with work starting in the next few weeks and the park scheduled to open in late 2014, the operator of the park announced on Thursday.

Universal's first wizarding attraction, in Orlando, Florida, has already attracted millions of Potter fans, while a second theme park is to open in Los Angeles.

But the Japanese have had a soft spot for the bespectacled boy hero who grew up under a staircase in Little Whinging, Surrey.

The eight movies grossed more than £550 million in Japan, making the franchise more popular in the Asian country than in Britain. More than 78 million people have seen the films in Japanese cinemas.

To date, the seven Harry Potter books have sole an estimated 450 million copies worldwide and the films have taken some £4.78 billion globally. -By Julian Ryall in Tokyo/The Telegraph/May 10, 2012

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