Here are today’s dispatches from the FM&C Hot List.

1. How not to make a pro-life movie. New Jersey state Senate candidate and ex-judge Kenneth Del Vecchio premiered his latest film The Life Zone, in association with his Justice For All Productions, on Saturday at the Hoboken Film Festival, which he co-founded and chairs. The movie, an anti-abortion twist on the Saw franchise, centers around three women “kidnapped from abortion clinics…being held for seven months — until they all give birth.” More @ The Village Voice
IMHO: Granted I’ve only seen the trailer (available here) but I’m pro-life and find this absolutely hideous. It actually looks more like a movie created by those seeking to make abortion opponents look like nuts but, alas, the guy who made this dreck of a trailer is apparently serious. If you really want to move hearts and minds, try engaging the subject seriously, without judgment and with genuine compassion.  Also, present the simple facts and allow people to make up their own minds.

2. Reese Witherspoon delivers positive message @ MTV Awards. With controversial shows like “Skins” and “Jersey Shore,” MTV isn’t exactly known for promoting wholesome values. However, actress Reese Witherspoon proved to be a refreshing change during the network’s 2011 MTV Movie Awards on Sunday, when she sent some words of wisdom not only to her female fans, but her fellow screen stars too.
“I get it, girls, that it’s cool to be a bad girl,” the 35-year-old told the audience as she accepted the MTV Generation Award at the Los Angeles-taped show. “But it is possible to make it in Hollywood without doing a reality show. When I came up in this business, if you made a sex tape, you were embarrassed and you hid it under your bed.”
…The “Walk the Line” star then ended her speech by vowing to make “good” behavior a predominant Tinseltown trend. “So, for all the girls out there, it’s totally possible to be a good girl,” she urged. “I’m going to try to make it cool.” More @ FoxNews.com

But then there’s this…

3. Sexual harassment: Hollywood style? Director Michael Bay has a new toy in “Transformers: Dark of the Moon” — British model Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, who replaces Megan Fox as the love interest for Shia LaBeouf’s human hero in the center of the warring-alien-robots franchise.
Huntington-Whiteley is equipped for Bay’s brusque shooting style in a way that Fox (who in the media likened her director’s on-set behavior to Napoleon and Hitler) was not, according to LaBeouf.
“Megan developed this Spice Girl strength, this woman-empowerment [stuff] that made her feel awkward about her involvement with Michael, who some people think is a very lascivious filmmaker, the way he films women,” LaBeouf said. “Mike films women in a way that appeals to a 16-year-old sexuality. It’s summer. It’s Michael’s style. And I think [Fox] never got comfortable with it. This is a girl who was taken from complete obscurity and placed in a sex-driven role in front of the whole world and told she was the sexiest woman in America. And she had a hard time accepting it. When Mike would ask her to do specific things, there was no time for fluffy talk. We’re on the run. And the one thing Mike lacks is tact. There’s no time for [LaBeouf assumes a gentle voice] ‘I would like you to just arch your back 70 degrees.’” More @ The LA Times

IMHO: Hollywood should follow Reese Witherspoon’s lead and present self restraint and self respect as positive attributes to be developed and not failings to be embarrassed about.  At the same time, the industry should acknowledge the unseemly sexual pressure it sometimes places on young actresses. Obviously, some parts require a degree of sexuality but, come on, Transformers is based on a kids toy!  You’d think the film would be safe for kids and modest actresses alike.

4. Backlash from videos revealing Hollywood’s political bias. An organization of politically active TV heavyweights is in turmoil over partisan remarks that some say smack of discrimination, all related to videos The Hollywood Reporter revealed on its website last week. Two members, Lionel Chetwynd and Norman Powell, have already quit the Caucus for Producers, Writers & Directors, an honor society founded in 1977 by Norman Lear, James Komack, Aaron Spelling, Richard Levinson and others to promote creative freedom and quality and diversity in television…
…Powell, who once ran CBS Entertainment Productions, hasn’t made his resignation letter public, but he emailed his thoughts to The Hollywood Reporter. “Certainly the fact that our industry has a liberal bias is no surprise,” he said. “What is troubling is that now it seems discrimination is an acceptable practice to stifle divergent opinions. More @ Hollywood Reporter

5. Mrs. O urges Hollywood to show support for military families. Michelle Obama is hitting Hollywood on June 13 to drum up support for her campaign to draw attention to military families. The First Lady will meet with AFTRA, the DGA, the PGA, SAG and the WGA  at the Writers Guild Theatre, the White House announced on Friday. More @The Wrap

6. Demi Moore teams with CNN on child trafficking doc. “Nepal’s Stolen Children,” which will air June 26, will feature Moore’s interviews with kids as young as 11 who have been forced into prostitution. More @ Hollywood Reporter

7. Sarah Palin was right about Paul Revere.You may have heard recently something about that Sarah Palin telling a reporter that Paul Revere warned the British on his famous rousing revolutionary ride. Now, that so many Americans have wallowed in their smug confirmation that Palin is an idiot unqualified for anything but repeating sixth-grade history, how far, wide and fast do you think the contradictory news will spread that the former governor of Alaska was indeed correct?
…The well-known fable is Revere’s late-night ride to warn fellow revolutionaries that….the British were coming. Less known, obviously, is the rest of the evening’s events in which Revere was captured by said redcoats and did indeed defiantly warn them of the awakened militia awaiting their arrival ahead and of the American Revolution’s inevitable victory.
Palin knew this. The on-scene reporters did not and ran off like Revere to alert the world to Palin’s latest mis-speak, which wasn’t.
Like a number of famous faux gaffes in American politics, the facts of the situation no longer really matter. More @ The LA Times

8. Herman Cain’s music video. An African-American tea partier could pose unique political challenges to both Sarah Palin and President Obama.

9. Is the World Wide Web killing the planet? If the Internet was a country, it would be the planet’s fifth-biggest consumer of power, ahead of India and Germany. The Internet’s power needs now rival those of the aviation industry and are expected to nearly double by 2020. More @ The Vancouver Sun
IMHO: Nobody move! It’s the only way to save the planet! Seriously, reasonable environmentalism is terrific but let’s stop guilting ourselves out over every move we make.

10.  Quote of the Day: “If they (NBC, CBS, ABC, The New York Times) did fair and balanced news, we’d be out of business.” – Fox News boss Roger Ailes (to Newsweek’s Howard Kurtz) accusing the MSM of liberal bias while responding to Rolling Stone’s allegation that he has “built the most formidable propaganda machine ever seen outside of the Communist bloc.” More @ The Hollywood Reporter

Encourage one another and build each other up – 1 Thessalonians 5:11