THE MOVIE: The Kingdom (9/28). When terrorists attack a U.S. base in Saudi Arabia, a team of elite FBI agents (Jamie Foxx, Jennifer Garner) tackle the bad guys.
CAST AND CREW’S POLITICAL LEANINGS: Jamie Foxx and three of the producers have each given the max donation of $2,300 to Barack Obama.
IF THIS FILM WERE A POLITICAL AD, IT MIGHT…
… help Giuliani? Michael Moore should swoon over the Saudi connection, but the globe-trotting-American-supercop story line could be ripped from a Rudy stump speech.
THE MOVIE: In the Valley of Elah (9/21). A grizzled vet (Tommy Lee Jones) discovers his Iraq-serving son has been murdered—and suspects a military cover-up.
CAST AND CREW’S POLITICAL LEANINGS: Susan Sarandon (the soldier’s mother) has already ponied up $2,000 for Obama, but director Paul Haggis (Crash) is a $2,100 Kucinich man.
IF THIS FILM WERE A POLITICAL AD, IT MIGHT…
… boost Kucinich? Dennis’s get-the-troops-home-now message might resonate with more voters once they see this nightmare scenario.
THE MOVIE: Rendition (10/12). Reese Witherspoon plays a woman whose Middle Eastern husband is abducted and interrogated, on the order of a CIA official, played by Meryl Streep.
CAST AND CREW’S POLITICAL LEANINGS: New Line head Bob Shaye split his donations among Clinton, Edwards, and Obama; Witherspoon donated to Hillary in 2003 and 2005.
IF THIS FILM WERE A POLITICAL AD, IT MIGHT…
… help Hillary? Witherspoon’s tough but sexy heroine should leave audiences feeling affectionate toward no-nonsense blondes.
THE MOVIE: Lions for Lambs (11/9). This time, Streep’s a reporter investigating how a demagogic senator (Tom Cruise) with no war experience mucked up the war on terror.
CAST AND CREW’S POLITICAL LEANINGS: Cruise’s producing partner Paula Wagner loves Hillary; MGM head Harry Sloan is a devout John McCainite who’s also given $25,000 to the RNC.
IF THIS FILM WERE A POLITICAL AD, IT MIGHT…
… buoy McCain? The trailer is anti-GOP (“They bank on your apathy,” intones Robert Redford, who directed). But McCain the war hero is the antithesis to Cruise’s all-talk, no-walk senator.
THE MOVIE: Charlie Wilson’s War (12/25). Tom Hanks is the horn-dog congressman who funded the folks we now call Taliban. Mike Nichols directs an Aaron Sorkin script.
CAST AND CREW’S POLITICAL LEANINGS: Sorkin, the most Democratic man alive, doesn’t support any one candidate—but Hanks is Obama’s most famous donor.
IF THIS FILM WERE A POLITICAL AD, IT MIGHT…
… spur a Hanks write-in campaign? Seriously, who wouldn’t vote for him? Speaking of wish lists, it could also prod Bloomberg—if only to decry the rampant corruption in this film.