Madeline Fry Schultz

The inspiration for a new play at the Museum of the Bible, “The Prayer at Valley Forge” has critics in a tizzy.

This article is part of Upstream, The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.***Pixar’s very first film came out in 1995, near the start of the dot-com bubble. Eight years before Myspace was invented, apps weren’t a thing, and the average cell phone was as big as a brick. So if kids weren’t riding their bikes or listening to cassette tapes, they were playing with toys. It’s no surprise that “Toy Story” was a massive success. Over the years, the franchise has grown alongside its viewers, with “Toy Story 2” somehow tackling the existential dread of growing up and “Toy Story 3” arriving just in time to tug at the heartstrings of parents and adult children hugging goodbye at college. “Toy Story 4” was a fairly forgettable (if successful) romp through a dusty antique store, and “Toy Story 5” arrives this weekend as one of the year’s most-anticipated films.For parents hoping to enjoy a clean summer blockbuster with their kids, it doesn’t disappoint. But for those who were expecting the introduction of an iPad-style character would meet the moment with a cautionary tale about technology, well, they might need to preach that lesson themselves.In some ways, “Toy Story 5” is the most family-friendly installment of the whole franchise. The first few movies have some terrifying moments; now, there is no Sid to threaten to blow up the toys and turn them into new, Frankenstein’s monster-style creations; no disturbingly hairy collector to steal them; no pink bear to leave them falling toward a fiery trash heap; and no 1950s talking doll who seems like she walked right off the prop shelf from “Annabelle.” Today, the villains aren’t other toys, and the stakes are simple, as they always ultimately have been: We’re talking about the thoughts and feelings of kids and their playthings. This is no small matter, at least when it comes to the kids, but it’s a welcome emotional scope considering the trailers that played just before the film. In one, a pair of friends risks losing all of their memories together; in another, the Cat in the Hat is inexplicably responsible for saving the entire world. “Toy Story” movies believe that childhood matters, which makes this newest installment so frustrating. “Toy Story 5” doesn’t take its own stakes seriously. Kids’ childhoods are on the line; shouldn’t it matter how they spend them? As the much-discussed trailer promised, the toys’ lives are upended by the arrival of Lilypad, the first piece of technology for eight-year-old Bonnie. Her parents, worrying that she’s struggling to make friends, order her a tablet. Lilypad then uses online games to connect Bonnie with friends from her dance class, who could be actual child traffickers for all we know. Somehow, the issue of parental controls never comes up. Buzz Lightyear, Jessie, and the rest of the gang may be disappointed that they’re not getting played with now that Bonnie has her nose in her tablet, but at least she’s making friends, argues Lilypad, who has just enough vocal fry to sell her mission to make Bonnie fit in with the cool girls. Though Lilypad has good intentions, her efforts at finding Bonnie friends result in the girl getting cyberbullied. That seems like a good case against tech for kids if I ever heard one. Yet somehow, this becomes framed as Lilypad’s honest mistake; once Jessie finds a new friend for Bonnie, Lilypad saves the day by connecting them online, proving that the world wide web is a tool that must be used judiciously in the hands of — elementary school students. Photo courtesy of PixarThe films have always held the tensions between the children’s and the toys’ needs: the toys’ need to be played with, and the children’s need to grow up. “Our mission on this planet is to make a child happy. To play!” Buzz tells dozens of other Buzz Lightyears, part of one of the latest movie’s most humorous plot lines. (Speaking of which, don’t leave the theater before the mid-credits scene.)Jessie finally learns the lesson every toy has to face, which is that loving and leaving children is part of the deal. “Bonnie’s growing up,” she concludes. “And we don’t get to decide when and how that happens. All that matters is we were there at the right time to help her along.” This would be a good realization, if it weren’t actually an acknowledgment from Jessie that “when and how that happens” might involve a good bit of tech. In the age of iPad kids, when some estimates suggest that as many as four in 10 kids get tablets by the age of two, this message is not just tone-deaf; it’s dangerous. “We’re not getting rid of these devices, no matter how hard we try,” director Andrew Stanton said in the lead-up to the film’s release. “I’m always going to have my phone. I’m probably going to be partially addicted to it. So it felt right for the toys to have to grapple with that nuance.”The tablet, Stanton said, is “just the next phase in Bonnie’s life.”That’s a fatalistic way to look at things, especially for someone in the business of sparking kids’ imaginations.On the upside, “Toy Story 5” is full of hijinks from the toys you know and love, and it’s sweet that millennials who grew up with the originals are now taking their own kids to the theater. But we millennial parents are also raising children during an unprecedented time in which kids’ mental health issues are skyrocketing — in part because of screens.To pretend like giving your kid a tablet will simply lead to her making new friends and then ditching the screens, which barely ever did her harm, is either hopelessly naive or has a bit of a darker motive. The cynic in me suspects the $28 Lilypads now for sale online wouldn’t make quite as much profit had she been the villain.My four-year-old came to see the movie with me, and while his favorite part was decidedly the “Buzz Lightmears” (so many of them!), his least favorite was Lilypad. She may have been designed ultimately to surprise us with her usefulness, but he wasn’t buying it. Fortunately, kids can see past the falsehoods adults tell to make us feel better about ourselves.

How Pixar stopped worrying and learned to love the tablet. This article is part of Upstream , The Daily Wire's new home for culture and lifestyle.

I would say “Supergirl” needs better marketing, but really it needs to be a better movie.

This article is part of Upstream, The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.***Milly Alcock needs media training. Since the beginning of the year, the “Supergirl” actress has been on a generational run of angering and alienating fans for absolutely no reason. Part of this can be attributed to the loaded questions journalists have asked her, but every time, she takes the bait. In March, Alcock anticipated backlash for her new role, telling Vanity Fair what she’d learned from her “House of the Dragon” acting gig: “It definitely made me aware that simply existing as a woman in that space is something that people comment on. We have become very comfortable having this weird ownership of women’s bodies,” she said. “I can’t really stop them. I can only be myself.”Two months later, she addressed the backlash from her backlash comment — fairly standard “it’s hard to be a woman in Hollywood” fare that she should have just moved on from — by doubling down. This time, she targeted hypocritical Christian dads. “And it’s from a lot of people whose profiles have no photo, who are burner accounts,” she said. “Or someone’s name and then ‘Dad of four, Christian,’ which is hilarious to me. But I mean, whose opinion do you really care about? If you’re pissing the right kind of people off, you’re doing OK.”Later on, in red carpet interviews, Alcock made other faux pas: She admitted that she’s never seen the 1984 “Supergirl” film, and she suggested that her character is bisexual. (Saying “she probably goes both ways” does imply the existence of only two genders, however; so, a win!) The 26-year-old actress has also prompted such uninspiring headlines as this one from Variety: “Milly Alcock Embraces Queer Readings of ‘Supergirl’ and ‘Loves’ How the Movie Ditches a Romance Storyline: ‘A Great Representation of a Modern Woman.’”A great representation of a modern woman? Oh my bad, I was expecting “Supergirl” to have a great representation of a trad wife. None of this inspired confidence in me that the movie would be any good — and it did not exceed my expectations. Across the board, the movie isn’t doing well with critics: “Supergirl’s Rotten Tomatoes Review Score Is A DCU Disappointment,” reads a headline at Forbes. The film amounts to a handful of superhero story tropes thrown together with the occasional good song playing in the background.A swanky rendition of “Cheek to Cheek” playing during a fight scene has the intended comedic effect; a somber cover of Jimmy Eat World’s “The Middle” during the final action sequence does not, though it’s unclear whether this is meant to be funny, or significant, or really anything with a discernible purpose.Speaking of purpose, if we’re looking at the hero’s journey, Supergirl is missing a mentor, someone to give her the wisdom she needs to make the right choices. In flashbacks to her mother, we hear her tell her daughter that she must be good, but that doesn’t mean she can’t be tough or that she must be nice. Her teenage charge Ruthye later encourages her by telling her that while she is pretty rude, she is good. This seems to be all she needs to complete her transition from slovenly alcoholic to a sober and serious hero. According to the interviews, we’re meant to accept that Supergirl is an unlikeable and messy character, but the movie never gives us much reason to like her; besides having a tragic backstory and a dog whom she loves, she does little to prove her goodness, or “save the cat.” She does, however, save her CGI dog. The villain is forgettable — I could not tell you his name without searching it and I refuse to waste any more time on this — but a bounty hunter played by Jason Momoa brings some charisma and comic relief. Speaking of which, I saw the movie in a fairly full theater on opening night, and not one single joke elicited an actual laugh. A film should more fully commit to being a drama if it can’t figure out how to tell a good joke. In one scene, Supergirl puts Ruthye in a pop-up space suit, and the dialogue goes something like this: “Don’t freak out.”“I’m not freaking out.”“You’re not freaking out.”“I’m not freaking out!”“It seems to me like you’re freaking out.”“I might be freaking out.”We get it. You’re freaking out. Supergirl is the chaotic counterbalance to Superman’s all-American charm, following the current pattern of heroes who are relatable, who curse a little, and who don’t have much to offer when it comes to inspiring young fans. What we need is a film that either fully leans into the silliness of superheroes or presents something valuable to say. “Supergirl” does neither.

This is the kind of patriotism we lack on the big screen. This article is part of Upstream , The Daily Wire's new home for culture and lifestyle.

This article is part of Upstream, The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.***A 22-year-old colonel in the British Army made a crucial mistake in the 1750s. He messed up so badly that he may have been responsible for dragging North America into the brutal Seven Years’ War. The colonel had built his stronghold, Fort Necessity, with a mind to strategy; he just picked the wrong one. Instead of providing a vantage point from which to see and fire upon enemies, the fort was easily surrounded by the French and hostile Indians, who forced a surrender on July 3, 1754.With dozens of deaths on his hands, Colonel George Washington had failed. Among those who still care about the founders of our country, there is a tendency to focus only on their virtues, a temptation that began all the way back in the Revolutionary period. George Washington never felled a cherry tree, that we know of, though the myth tells us something about the way historians wanted him to be seen: honorable, responsible, and honest. The urge to deify our first president is so strong that there is a painting in the Capitol Rotunda titled “The Apotheosis of Washington.”But the man who “could not tell a lie” had his faults like the rest of us. And in Angel Studios’ “Young Washington,” it’s these failures that turn him into the legendary general whom we know of today. Washington, played by 22-year-old William Franklyn-Miller, is nothing but potential and ambition. A colonist without a title, land, or his own fortune, he aspires to much greater things than anyone expects of him. His mother discourages him from joining the British forces, and he is initially rejected as an officer because of his lack of formal education. When he offers to be a land surveyor for the wealthy Thomas Fairfax, played by “Frasier” star Kelsey Grammer, he becomes wrapped up in the bloody French and British land disputes in a way he could never have imagined. Like Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Alexander Hamilton, Washington is “young, scrappy, and hungry,” but he’s also trusting and naive.Washington is unexpectedly undercut by a group of American Indians who use his exploratory expedition for their own purposes against the French, and, due to a translation failure, he accidentally takes credit for the assassination of a French ensign. When he tries to explain away his missteps, he gets a lesson in leadership. “To lead is to forfeit the right to make excuses,” Virginia’s lieutenant governor, played by Ben Kingsley, tells him. The film takes us through the pivotal time in Washington’s life before he grew into a great leader. He is rejected and dismissed at seemingly every turn, including by a young Sally Fairfax, whose presence adds a bit of romantic tension to the plot while underscoring that Washington didn’t, in fact, achieve everything he wanted as a young man. Yet George refuses to give up, even after his failure at Fort Necessity. “July 3rd will be etched in my memory forever,” he says. When he returns to the British forces as an aide-de-camp, swiftly returning to leadership after the death of Major General Edward Braddock (Andy Serkis), he willingly puts himself in harm’s way for the sake of his men, the Virginians. This is the kind of patriotism we lack on the big screen. This year’s semiquincentennial celebration has been largely ignored by Hollywood. Over the past few years, Americans who are ashamed of our history have scrambled to topple statues, paint over murals, and otherwise erase or belittle monuments not just to George Washington, but to other heroes of our shared past. As families gather to celebrate America’s 250th anniversary, what they need is a film to remind them of the courage and sacrifices of the men who made our country what it is today. They’re looking for films with real heroes who can inspire them to be better. (They’re certainly not going to get that from “Supergirl.”) “Young Washington,” in theaters tomorrow, is such a film. Bring the older kids: Angel Studios recommends the PG-13 film for ages 12 and up for violence and light cursing, though I’d say some older elementary school students may enjoy it as well. And all ages can benefit from the example of its young hero.The same age as the young Washington he portrays, Franklyn-Miller plays the founding father with conviction. Washington concludes that “failure is a great teacher,” and he refuses to allow even his catastrophic failures to keep him from fighting for his country. There’s a modern lesson there for anyone wise enough to heed it.

The leftists fulminating over Lindsey Graham's death wish they could have half the influence he did.

Christopher Nolan has made an epic blockbuster film from a foundational Western story. Let's enjoy it.

Some on the Right have spent the last several months complaining about Christopher Nolan’s “Odyssey.” The controversy has largely centered on two things: transgender-identifying Elliot Page playing a male soldier (but not Achilles, as rumors suggested) and the race-blind casting, particularly the choice to feature black actress Lupita Nyong’o as Helen of Troy.X owner Elon Musk tweeted in May that “Chris Nolan desecrated the Odyssey.” Earlier this month, the Twitter account Wall Street Mav, which has over a million followers, predicted “financial disaster.”Just a day after its release, “The Odyssey” is already proving haters wrong. Forget the critics’ score (though that is hovering at 95%). On Rotten Tomatoes, audiences gave the film an even higher 97% score. It earned $17.6 million on Thursday, the day before its official release, and the numbers keep growing. Online outrage doesn’t always translate to the real world. And in this instance, perhaps the legendary “Interstellar” and “The Dark Knight” director knew a thing or two about what audiences were craving. “As a filmmaker, you’re looking for gaps in cinematic culture, things that haven’t been done before,” Nolan said in an interview last year. “And what I saw is that all of this great mythological cinematic work that I had grown up with — Ray Harryhausen movies and other things — I’d never seen that done with the sort of weight and credibility that an A-budget and a big Hollywood, IMAX production could do.”In a year dominated by sequels — the year’s top films so far have been “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie” and “Toy Story 5” — Nolan’s “Odyssey” revives a classic story for a new generation who, if we’re being honest, probably were never going to thumb through a copy of “The Odyssey” (even the Emily Wilson translation favored by liberals). It’s become popular internet slang to respond to a lack of pop culture knowledge by saying “we’re losing the ancient texts.” But when it comes to stories such as “The Odyssey,” we actually are.This means Nolan’s “Odyssey” comes at the perfect time. The archetypes, the themes, and the drama of Homer — it’s all there. Nolan raised some eyebrows by marketing the film with the tagline “defy the gods.” If you know anything about “The Odyssey,” you should know that you cannot, in fact, defy the gods. But in the actual film, Nolan makes that clear. “The Odyssey” is a big, glorious summer blockbuster based on a pillar of the Western canon. It explores mercy, hospitality, vengeance, family bonds, honor, and, of course, homecoming. The score is bracing, the 60-foot puppet cyclops is nightmare-fuel, and Robert Pattinson is particularly chilling as the suitor Antinous. That said, Page’s role as Sinon (a character from Virgil’s “Aeneid”), does distract from the narrative. Nolan worked with Page on “Inception” in 2010 (a decade before she began identifying as a man), and he likes to recast actors he’s worked with before. But with just a few minutes of screen time, Sinon’s brief appearances can’t distract from the greatness of the rest of the film. The race-blind casting, on the other hand, allows for some stellar performances, mostly notably Zendaya as Athena and Himesh Patel as Odysseus’ second in command, Eurylochus. With the “Odyssey” controversy, conservatives are getting hung up on the details (some more troublesome than others) when the headline is that one of Hollywood’s best directors just made a three-hour long film about a father returning home to his family, facing terrifying monsters and deftly wielding his bow and arrows on the way. It’s beautifully shot, it has mass appeal, and there’s little in the film itself to subvert Homer’s epic tale, which is now reaching a new audience. Ignore the performative “Odyssey” hate, and go enjoy the film.***This article is part of Upstream, The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.