May 09, 2008
Weekend Box Office: Three New Releases, Three Headaches
I don't recommend any of the new releases at movie theaters, this weekend. All of them gave me a headache. I did not screen "Redbelt."
* "Speed Racer": This non-animated feature taken from the Japanimation series of the same name was more concerned with sets, costumes, and CGI backdrops than its substandard, boring, predictable story. Every second was manic dayglo and brightness everywhere. I was considering putting on my sunglasses in the dark theater. And it stars Susan Sarandon as Mom Racer. That's annoying in and of itself.
Since there were many little kids at the theater and it's being promoted as a kids' film, I had to wonder why this movie contains the F-word, the S-word, and a little kid--Spritle Racer--giving the one-finger salute. Also hard to jibe that a movie aimed at little kids features bad guys putting a guy's arm into a tank of hungry Piranhas to be eaten and a scene in which a man's finger is eaten by them.
The story: Speed Racer, played by Emile Hirsch, grows up after watching his brother racer, Rex Racer, crash and burn and die. Or did he? Speed becomes a great racer and is offered a big endorsement deal by the evil Royallton Corp (always those evil big businesses). Will he take it? Will he win the cross-continent road rally? And who is the mysterious, masked racer helping him out?
More importantly, do we care? In my case, for the entire 2 hour, 10 minute movie, the answer was a big, fat, "NO."
* "What Happens in Vegas": What Happens in Vegas should stay off the movie screen, if this is any indication. This movie was stupid, formulaic, tasteless, and a waste of time. Plus, it features four of the most annoying actors in Hollywood, including Ashton Kutcher and Cameron Diaz. It was supposed to be a comedy, but the jokes--for the most part--weren't funny. Groanworthy, more than anything.
Diaz plays a woman just dumped by her fiancee and Kutcher a juvenile, immature man just fired by his wealthy father. Both of them fly to Vegas from New York and meet each other on a fluke. They get drunk, get married, and win $3,000,000 at the slot machine, just as they were planning their divorce. Then, they are sentenced by Judge Dennis Miller (yeah, that's believable, plus his name is "Judge Whopper"--haha, funny) to live together as a married couple for six months before he divides the winnings. While scheming against each other, they predictably fall in love. Schocking. The end.
A cheesy chick-flick not worth your time. Certainly wasn't worth mine.
* "Then She Found Me": This movie was directed by and stars Helen Hunt. But Hunt is so anorexically thin and gaunt, you keep thinking she just arrived from Auschwitz and can't pay attention to the horrid story. While wishing she ate more than half a bean for dinner--and in her case, the camera simply didn't add those ten pounds--you try to pay attention to the bizarre, way-too-quirky plot about a stereotypical Jewish woman whose biological clock is ticking and badly wants to have kids. She marries, then is quickly left by the immature Matthew Broderick. She meets and falls for an English man, but finds out she's pregnant with the ex's kid. She is adopted, and learns that her birth mother is the weird talk show host, Bette Midler. But wait, it gets worse. Her gynecologist is played by . . . Salman Rushdie? Hmmm . . . now, we're getting close to the reason for the fatwah. (Just joking, no e-mails please--of course, I abhor the Muslim death-sentence fatwa against Rushdie.)
Skipworthy.
Posted by Debbie at 01:07 PM
May 07, 2008
Hilarious: "Harold & Kumar" Do PC Absurdity
Every major city in America has what I call the "hometown pimp and ho rag." It's the free newspaper that's insufferably far left and which makes its money with hooker, er . . . "escort" classified ads and the like in the back.
Detroit's version is "The Metro Times." My friend, Corey Hall, is one of the bright (and very liberal) movie reviewers for the MT. Corey is very insightful, and I enjoy sitting next to him at movie screenings to hear his comments and asides about the movies we're reviewing, even if I disagree with his politics.
But Corey's politics are not this ridiculous. Check out the absurd political correctness--quite clearly not his and very likely his editors' (though I haven't asked him)--that changed his movie review and garnered a letter to the editor by an Indian in response. Again, for the record, I did not ask Corey about this and he hasn't mentioned it, but I happened to notice, and knowing him, I think this is what happened.
Corey Hall reviewed the horrid "Harold & Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay." It stars Kal Penn as an American whose family comes from India. In his review, Corey apparently wrote, in the April 30th issue:
The best political argument here is that we've reached the point where a Korean and an Indian can star in movies just as stupid as any white guy . . . but in a perfect world they wouldn't have to.
But it appears that when PC copy editors got ahold of it, they changed the un-PC word "Indian." Here's how it ran:
The best political argument here is that we've reached the point where a Korean and a Native American can star in movies just as stupid as any white guy . . . but in a perfect world they wouldn't have to.
That drew this letter to the editor, from an American who family's heritage is from India--a letter truly best meant for the Metro Times' uber-PC editors:
Re: Cory Hall's review of the film Harold and Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay (Metro Times, April 30) and his observation, "The best political argument here is that we've reached the point where a Korean and a Native American can star in movies just as stupid as any white guy . . . but in a perfect world they wouldn't have to."I'm not sure if this quote from the Harold and Kumar review was meant to be humor or not. Granted, the movie was dumb. But if you really want to present yourself as an "artsy" educated person or news source with discerning taste, you might try and learn the difference between Indian and Native American.
Indians are from a country in Asia called India; Native Americans are indigenous peoples from North or South American [sic]. My friends and I got quite a laugh out of your mitake. Maybe it comes from your Michigan public school education. I don't know.
What I do know is you might need to step up your game. I live in Boston and from time to time I visit your Web site; I mean I think it's good, but this is not making people from Michigan look any more educated than people outside Michigan already think you are.
Good luck. - Michael Jain, Boston, Mass
Like I said, Corey's a smart guy. He knows the difference between Indians from India and Indians referred to with the PC-term, "Native American." This is likely an editor's uber-PC-stylebook taking the place of good sense.
But the letter led the Metro Times to realize their hyper-PC screw-up. This week, in the May 7th issue, the review was re-run, using the hyphenated term, "Indian-American."
Oh, the hopelessness of the political correctness crowd.
Posted by Debbie at 06:20 PM
May 02, 2008
Weekend Box Office: "Iron Man's" Good, But Tainted By Defense Contractor/Islam "Message"
The only movie I recommend, this weekend, is "Iron Man." It's a great movie, made less so by its message that defense contractors/weapons-makers are evil and that Islamic terrorists work at their behest. HUH?!
* "Iron Man": This is a well-made movie, one of the best superhero movies I've seen in the last several years. But the message--while true to the Iron Man comic book series--is the usual one Hollywood loves to promote, ie., that defense contractors are evil, war-mongers who kill innocent people and enable despots to do so (rather than defending free people, which their weapons mostly do).
And while I loved scenes in which Iron Man sets Islamic terrorists on fire and also blows some of them up--I applauded and cheered them as did the rest of the audience, that is lessened when we discover that the terrorists are working with an evil defense contractor exec. Do we really believe that execution videos, like the one we saw of Nicholas Berg, are really done at the behest of, say, General Dynamics or Northrup?
Robert Downey, Jr. plays Tony Stark, a brilliant single, immature, playboy billionaire CEO of a high tech weapons making company. He is well-cast in this role, originally modeled on Howard Hughes in the comic book. His loyal assistant, Pepper Pots, is dully-performed by Gwyneth Paltrow, who has a quiet, unrequited crush on him.
The story: Downey, captured by Islamic terrorists in Afghanistan, is kept alive with an implanted, visible electromagnet, which prevents shrapnel from damaging his heart and killing him. While in captivity, he builds the prototype Iron Man uniform powered by the electromagnet, which enables him to escape. After he's freed, he decides he will no longer make weapons because they kill innocent people. His evil co-founder doesn't like that and fights him. Meanwhile, Downey, as Iron Man, flies around killing Islamic terrorists and saving innocent people.
The movie starts out too slow, with too much emphasis on all the big-boy toys and expensive accoutrements that Downey has. But it quickly improves into an exciting action film. The technology and gadgetry on display here is well done. Iron Man is cool, exciting, and heroic. But the peacenik, anti-weaponry message is a turn-off. Ditto for the claim that Islamic terrorists are only as bad as they are because they work in tandem with evil defense execs.
Still, we're making progress. In a stunning, exciting, big-budget movie, the terrorists are finally Muslims. It's a start.
My other objection to the movie is that at the end--and this is not a spoiler--he tells a press conference full of reporters that he's "Iron Man." Aren't superheroes supposed to keep their identities secret? Would love to see how they forget this in the upcoming two sequels of the trilogy of "Iron Man" movies scheduled to be made.
* "Made of Honor": I hated this movie, possibly the most annoying chick flick I've ever seen. It was almost a carbon copy of "My Best Friend's Wedding," only way worse and with a ton of tasteless, graphic oral sex jokes and other groaners. Blech.
Patrick Dempsey plays a playboy who finally realizes that his female best friend is the woman of his dreams. But he waited too long, and now she's marrying a millionaire Scotsman. She asks him to be her "Maid of Honor." He agrees, so he can try to sabotage the wedding. You know what happens--sooooo predictable. And slow and boring. A guy being a "maid of honor"? 'Nuff said. Skipworthy, big-time.
* "The Life Before Her Eyes": This bizarre, New Age melodrama was way too confusing, not to mention, pointless. Flashbacks and flash-forwards are confusing and repetitive . . . and unnecessary. Due to a scheduling miscommunication, I came 20 minutes late to the screening and missed nothing. Two best friends, a slut and a devout virgin are caught in a Columbine-style high school massacre. One lives . . . or does she? We see he life now, 20 years later. Or do we?
Not worth your time. Skip it.
Posted by Debbie at 02:41 PM
May 01, 2008
"Defiance"--Movie I Can't Wait To See: Daniel Craig Stars As Jewish Resistance Leader Who Fought & Killed Nazis; Gun Control vs. the Jews
Earlier today, a reader made the misinformed comment that the Jews "willingly" went to their slaughter at the hands of the Nazis, "without even trying to fight back." That couldn't be farther from the truth. There are many books (like "They Fought Back," by Yuri Suhl), documentaries, etc. that document the Jewish resistance efforts. My own great-uncle died in the resistance, fighting the Nazis.
Since it's Holocaust Remembrance Day, I'm happy to present this trailer of "Defiance," starring the hot Daniel Craig ("James Bond") as one of the Bielski Boys, three Jewish brothers who lived in the forest, set up a militia, saved 1,200 Jews, and killed hundreds of Nazis. They also destroyed lots of Nazi weapons and munitions. There were among many other groups of Jewish partisans and resistance fighters who did, in fact, fight back--and kill--lots of Nazis. The movie comes out in December.
You must understand that there was strict gun control in Nazi Europe. Jews were not allowed to own guns to defend themselves. Those that did, did so illegally. But many did fight back.
I've written about many of these Jewish militias and spoken about it, including twice at the National Rifle Association annual convention (until I was banned by Islamist NRA board member, Grover Norquist). My own grandfather, the late Isaac Engel, Blessed Be His Memory, a Holocaust survivor and Rabbi by training, proudly owned several guns and used them to protect himself and his business in a bad area of suburban Detroit. He always recounted several instances of when the guns saved his life, including when he was a "shoichet," a kosher slaughterer.
My grandfather told me of Jewish efforts to form an underground army fighting Nazi tyranny and how his brother--my great-uncle--lost his life fighting in such an effort. My grandfather and my late father, H.L. Schlussel, MD, would also recount how on the eve of the Holocaust, the late Zionist leader Vladimir "Ze'ev" Jabotinsky visited Europe from his home in then-Palestine. "Yiddin Learnin Shissin!"--Jews Learn to Shoot!--he would tell them in Yiddish. And he told Jews to get guns, the only way to protect themselves. But when he came back to Europe, Jabotinsky lamented that Jewish efforts to learn to shoot and to obtain guns were too little, too late.
But that wasn't the case for all. There were the heroic Bielskis, portrayed in "Defiance." And there were so many other courageous Jewish efforts of resistance as depicted in the blue Jewish stars on this first photo from the brochure, "Holocaust And Resistance," which documents 79 instances in which Jews resisted and/or killed Nazis.
This second photo also documents Jewish resistance efforts and is from the Partisans section of "Encyclopedia Judaica". The encyclopedia documents the efforst of Jewish Partisans, like the courageous Robert Gamzon, founder of the Jewish Maquis which aided in the fight against the Nazis. Gamzon's group helped the Allies in the landing on French shores, attacking the restreating German forces and capturing an armed Jewish train.
Gamzon's group was part of the Organization Juive de Combat (OJC)--Organized Jewish militia--which carried out 1,925 actions, including 750 instances of sabotaging Nazi trains, destroying 32 Nazi factories, and blowing up 25 bridges. It also executed 152 Nazis and Nazi-allied soldiers and agents, including a German spy. In 175 other actions, it killed 1,085 Nazis, and blew up seven German planes, 286 trucks, and more than 2,000,000 liters of gasoline.
Jews comprised 15-20% of the French resistance, and 2,000 Jews were in the Slovak partisan movement. That's aside from the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, and many other Jewish partisan groups and Jews who participated in other resistance groups.
Jews did, indeed, fight back against the Nazis. They were brave and courageous. And "Defiance" shows just one group--the Bielski Brothers--who saved lives and slowed the Nazis from their final solution.
I can't wait to see it.
Read more about the heroic Bielski Brothers in "The Bielski Brothers: The True Story of Three Men Who Defied the Nazis, Saved 1,200 Jews and Built a Village in the Forest" and "Defiance: The Bielski Partisans."
Posted by Debbie at 12:36 PM
April 28, 2008
More Zohan: Israel's Greatest Mossad Agent Ever
I've already written at length about Adam Sandler's upcoming, early June release, "You Don't Mess With the Zohan." As I noted, it's about an Israeli Mossad agent who gets tired of fighting Islamic terrorists and fakes his own death to realize his dream of becoming a hairdresser in New York. But soon, the terrorists catch up with him. Reader Andrew--who knows actors in the film--sent this new trailer, below.
If you look closely, that's a Mariah Carey t-shirt Zohan's wearing when he kicks Islamic terrorist butt. She plays herself in the movie. I can't wait to see it, but I have the sneaking suspicion that, like every other Sandler comedy, the best jokes are in the trailer and the rest of the movie stinks. Hope I'm wrong here, since it looks hilarious. The new trailer is followed by the earlier trailer, which I reposted. Oh, and one other thing: Some anti-Israel cretins are punking YouTube viewers pretending by posting the "Zohan" trailer laced with spliced in anti-Israel propaganda. Not funny.
Past writing on the details of "You Don't Mess With the Zohan":
* I Could Watch This All Day: Adam Sandler Does the Mossad - HILARIOUS!
* New Adam Sandler Mossad Agent Hairdresser Comedy Sounds Funny
Posted by Debbie at 02:34 PM
April 25, 2008
Weekend Box Office: Skipworthy "Selection" of New Movies
While there are several new offerings at theaters, this weekend, I can't recommend any of them. They are all skipworthy. Rent something, or try to see "Flawless," "The Bank Job," or "The Counterfeiters," all already in theaters. I did not screen "Young at Heart," due to scheduling conflicts, and I did not screen "Deception," as I was told it was not being screened for critics, a bad sign.
* "Harold & Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay": As my friend, Sirius Patriot Channel host Mike Church (on whose show I do movie reviews every Friday morning) says, the audience of young, stupid frat boys, etc. that will go to see this movie, are the same crowd that are working for and will vote for Barack Hussein Obama. And whatta coincidence!--star Kal Penn is spending his time campaigning for Obama.
As I predicted, this movie is more Gitmo Trutherism from Hollywood and other similar political BS. No, Americans aren't held at Gitmo, nor are aliens taken from American soil to that detention facility. So, right off the bat, this vulgar comedy is entirely BS. This very raunchy movie was completely disgusting, full of bathroom humor and constant gratuitous vagina, penis, and breast shots . . . so many it could have been a porn movie. Plus it made a political statement: that our counterterrorism policy is a racist, degrading over-reaction carried out by complete idiots. Well, at least, they got the last part right.
This sequel to "Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle" takes place the day after the setting of that movie. Harold and Kumar are traveling to Amsterdam, where they can realize their dream of smoking endless legalized pot. But Kumar sneaks a make-shift bong on the plane, and it is mistaken for a bomb. They are accused of being terrorists by the Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security, who is a complete idiot (yes, it does resemble real life in certain ways) and a racist. The two pot-smoking Americans of color are sent to Gitmo, where all inmates are forced to perform oral sex on the guards. That's how they are, er, "fed." Gross.
They escape and try to get to Texas, where their acquaintance, a son of one of President Bush's close buddy, can help them get out of the terrorism charges. Problem is, he's also about to marry the woman of Kumar's dreams and he wants to stop that. Meanwhile, Homeland Security is tracking them, and they run into their old friend, Neil Patrick Harris (of "Doogie Howser" fame).
There isn't one good White person in this entire movie. Even a biracial TSA screener is a "bad guy." All White people in the movie are stupid, hickish, inbred, racist, evil, or some combination thereof. President Bush is a major pot-smoking hypocrite (well, they, again, get the second part right). The movie also makes fun of Jews as cheap and money-grubbing, but, hey, it's written by self-hating Jews, so I guess that means it's okay (by Hollywood "standards"). All White Americans are to be mocked and disrespected--that's the message of this highly annoying and sickening movie.
While it has its very funny moments, skip this movie if you have any taste or class whatsoever. Or if you have a conscience. Cinema for the sub-human.
* "Baby Mama": The former SNL-team of Tina Fey and Amy Poehler star in this flick about a career woman and exec (Fey) at a Whole Foods-esque supermarket chain who suddenly decides she wants to become a single mother but can't conceive. She decides to enlist a surrogate mother (Poehler), a hick from a nearby Philly neighborhood, to have her child. Unfortunately, the surrogate moves in with her and "hilarity" ensues.
This movie wasn't as bad as I thought it would be--Steve Martin is hilarious as a silly, new-aged CEO of the organic supermarket chain--but it isn't great either. It has its funny moments, but mostly, it's just stupid. And it's very predictable. It doesn't completely glorify becoming a single mother, as I thought it would, though.
* "Chicago 10": Almost 40 years after Yippie protesters disrupted the 1968 Democratic National Convention, this inane, annoying, and phony documentary attempts to glorify these 8(7) men who made life hell for Chicago police, residents, convention delegates, and a federal judge. The movie literally gave me a headache. And it doesn't explain why the "Chicago Seven" (originally, "Chicago Eight") are now called the "Ten." Either someone did so many drugs then, he can't add, or he's adding the two prosecutors.
I admit that I walked out on this so-called "documentary," which alternates between animated re-creations of the Chicago 7 trial and news footage of real-life interviews with them at the time they planned and carried out their violent "non-violent" protests. With the constant loud music, bad accents (from Boston, etc.) using the voices of B-movie actors, and the one-sided presentation of the motives, behavior, and results thereof of the Chicago 7, this movie was a boring, aimless piece of propaganda and a waste of my time.
Take my lead, and don't waste your time.
* "The Grand": This over-the-top comedy that is supposed to parody the real-life "World Series of Poker" was mostly very stupid and not funny. It stars, among others, Woody Harrelson. If you love poker, you might like this, but probably not. A waste of time.
* "The Visitor": This debuted in New York and L.A. a few weeks ago and is in nationwide release, this weekend. The premise--that Muslim illegal aliens brighten up Americans' lives and are unfairly treated by our country and its policies--is absurd. Heavily marketed to the Islamic and Arabic communities in America, I will be posting a full column review of this high quality Bin Laden cinema, very soon. Stay tuned.
Posted by Debbie at 03:32 PM
April 24, 2008
Dirty Harry is Dead
No, Clint Eastwood is not dead. He's still very much alive.
But "Dirty Harry," the character that made him a big star, is very much dead. Rigor mortis long ago set in, when Eastwood began his years-long repentance tour around Hollywood for having played the conservative, no-nonsense law and order cop.
When Eastwood made the pro-euthanasia, bait-and-switch "Million Dollar Baby," Dirty Harry went into a coma. When he made the anti-American "Flags of Our Fathers," Dirty Harry's heart stopped beating. And with "Letters from Iwo Jima," which showed American soldiers on the WWII island battlefield as heartless killers, Dirty Harry was dead. When Eastwood told USA Today, he thought there might be some "great stories" from Al-Qaeda's point of view to tell onscreen, rigor mortis set in to the body of Dirty Harry.
Now, Eastwood has decided to make a sixth Dirty Harry film, "Gran Torino," to be filmed in Michigan (now that suffering Michigan taxpayers will be subsidizing the film under a stupid new law). But, aside from Eastwood being a gazillion years old, there's a great reason not to make this film.
With Eastwood's liberal, anti-war politics--which he's adopted to do penance to Hollywood for daring to play Dirty Harry in the first place--Dirty Harry is dead. Gone. Forever.
Don't go ahead. Don't make my day. I don't feel lucky.
Dirty Harry is Dead. DO NOT RESUSCITATE.
Posted by Debbie at 03:38 PM
April 21, 2008
Meet "Qaeda Morgan": Where in this Fantasy is Osama Bin Laden?
You've heard of Tokyo Rose. You've seen Hanoi Jane. You've joked about Baghdad Bob.
Now meet Qaeda Morgan.
Osama Bin Laden has found in Morgan Spurlock the embodiment of all the previous enemy propagandists. Except this one has a major film production deal.
The fake-umentary maker who lied about McDonald's in "Supersize Me," lies about Islam, America, Israel, and Jews in "Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden?" in theaters, this past weekend.
In 2005, Spurlock made a pro-Muslim episode of his F/X series, "30 Days" for which he won predictable awards and accolades from the pan-terrorist Muslim Public Affairs Council and CAIR. I was asked by Spurlock's people to be in it, but I refused and wrote about it in the Wall Street Journal. Carefully orchestrated, Spurlock already decided his favorable conclusion about American Muslims, before he even began filming. He's making the same case for extremist Muslims worldwide in this deceptive movie and working with the same crew of propagandist filmmakers.
In this silver screen version of slant, Spurlock presents Osama Bin Laden and other Al-Qaeda terrorists as animated baseball players on cards and in music videos, and terrorism as some sort of video game. And it is, indeed, all a game to him. His fellow left-winger, vegan chef girlfriend is pregnant with his kid, and he's worried about his kid being born into an "unsafe world." Therefore, feels the need to track down Bin Laden. Whatever. For the first ten minutes of the movie it's all "me, me, me." We watch Spurlock go through myriad stupid counterterrorism training and exercises while donning a wife-beater tank top.
And it's all downhill from there.
In this so-called documentary, the most hostile people are not Muslims, but Israeli Orthodox Jews. The most menacing terrorist threat in Israel is . . . a bikini. Almost all Muslims love America and Americans. They only dislike our foreign policy. They are just like us with the same hopes and dreams for their children, and they almost universally deplore Bin Laden. Terrorists and terrorism are created not by Islam or Bin Laden, but by America propping up pro-American dictators, instead of letting, say, the Muslim Brotherhood take over Egypt democratically to become the latest Al-Qaeda state. Christians are not persecuted in the least in any Islamic country (except Saudi Arabia).
Oh, and America must force Israel to acquiesce to the Palestinians and give them a state (which they de facto already have) to "take away an argument" from Al-Qaeda. Plus, HAMAS doesn't really have anything against Jews, per se, just Israel. And terrorism--as we were also told by everyone else after 9/11--that's not Islam.
Uh-huh.
These and other fantasies and Brothers Grimm material make up the crux of Morgan Spurlock's foray into high quality Bin Laden cinema. And although Spurlock's deliberate selectivity and prompting of Muslims to say what they think will please Americans on film, a minor detail he forgot to edit out was very telling and subtly betrayed his message to the few who know better.
In denouncing the fence that Israel has been forced to erect to try to keep Islamic terrorists out, Spurlock shows carefully edited shots of graffiti on the fence that make the Palestinians look sympathetic. The irony of part of the graffiti he showed was lost on him. It was a picture of a young, beautiful Muslim woman in a kheffiyeh with the quote underneath: "I Am Not a Terrorist."
Problem is, that picture, near the Ramallah checkpoint, is a photo of Leila Khaled, a Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) terrorist group. The famous picture of her doesn't include the AK-47 she actually held in the real-life portrait. Khaled, carrying grenades, hijacked TWA Flight 840 in 1969 and tried unsuccessfully to hijack El-Al Flight 219 in 1970 (also with grenades). Even though she failed to hijack the El-Al flight, her hijacking partner shot El-Al flight crew member Shlomo Vider at least five times, seriously wounding him.
As I've noted on this site, Khaled planned the hijacking operation in 1970, which included the successful hijacking of three other planes, and she uttered the code "go" phrase, "Labnah Sandwich," which set off the attack. Details of the hijacking operation are well laid out in the book, "Terror in Black September," by David Raab, which I am currently reading and which will be reviewed soon on this site. Raab was a hostage on one of the flights that was successfully hijacked by Khaled's gant.
One of the reasons Khaled was so attractive was that she had massive plastic surgery to conceal her identity in order to carry out more Palestinian terrorist attacks. Her face has graced pro-Hezbollah rallies in Dearbornistan, and she has the dubious distinction of being the first known female Islamic terrorist.
Now, she's "Not a Terrorist"?
That's symbolic of the lies and fraud throughout this movie. Everywhere Spurlock goes--whether it's Egypt or Jordan or Gaza or the Palestinian Authority or Aghanistan or Morocco or Pakistan, everyone is nice and friendly, hates Bin Laden, and loves Americans . . . again, just not our foreign policy. We are shown a HAMAS city councilman from Gaza, who apparently never read the HAMAS Charter calling for the elimination of all Jews. He claims that he and the rest of HAMAS aren't against Jews. They just don't like Israel. Riiiight.
The only bad places in this movie are Saudi Arabia . . . and Israel. The most hostile people Spurlock encounters in the entire Middle East are ultra-Orthodox Jews in the religious Meah Shearim section of Israel. Unlike the friendly hijab-encrusted Palestinian Muslim women and HAMASniks and even extremist Saudi Arabians (the only Muslims Spurlock portrays accurately), these men won't talk to Spurlock. And he shows endless footage of them refusing his inquiries. Smart men. But, of course, as we know, there are plenty of Israelis who would talk to him. They just didn't make it on film because that wouldn't serve Spurlock's propaganda purposes (but for an anti-Israel far left Israeli journalist, Yair Lapid, whom he briefly interviews). One of the Orthodox men shouts
Get out of here, you filth.
My sentiments on Spurlock, exactly. Great minds think alike.
Oh, and that's after he shows a "frightening" bomb scare in Israel. After showing us the alleged damage Israelis did to Gaza and denouncing the fence bordering it, Spurlock shows us scared Israelis and a robotic team out to defuse a bomb. The "bomb" turns out to be a bikini in a plastic box. Spurlock shows lots of Israelis laughing at the "over-reaction" (to what is often actually a bomb, not a bikini, in Israel), and then starts talking to the robot, inserting C3PO sound effects. Haha, funny.
You get the point. Terrorist "attacks" against Israel are just bikinis and comedy. In contrast, the poor "Jew-loving" Palestinians are prisoners of these bikini-blower-uppers. And then, we are told by Spurlock that, even though giving the Palestinians a state won't end terrorism, we should do it, anyway to "take away an argument" from Bin Laden. Hokay.
And in case you didn't know--just as the Muslim propagandists and Bin Laden say--so does Spurlock. He wants you to know that Israel built the fence between it and the Palestinians, not to protect against terrorists. Nope. He wants you to know that it was
built to expand the Jewish presence in the region.
Hmmm . . . giving up the Sinai, Gaza, many Jewish settlements from which Jews were evicted from their homes in the West Bank. If that's "expanding the Jewish presence," someone got their addition and subtraction confused.
And don't forget: Palestinians hate Bin Laden. Forget about the hundreds of them you saw dancing in the street on 9/11, including that lady passing out candy on the streets of Ramallah and the rest of them honking their horns in celebration of the extermination of 3,000 Americans. That wasn't real. Because Morgan Spurlock, er . . . Qaeda Morgan, says so.
But these poor, peaceful Palestinians, despite their support for terrorism--which we don't see a lick of in Spurlock's whitewash, are "terrorized" by Israeli tanks patrolling the perimeter of Gaza. He implores us:
Imagine living like that and having that come near your house every day.
Um, imagine the tanks not being there and those people rushing through the fence from Gaza to brutally attack and murder Israelis. That's what would happen. He shows a bombed out classroom in Sderot, but doesn't seem to have a clue that the missiles that constantly hit the poor, working class Jewish suburb come from Gaza where those "awful" tanks are patrolling. Hello . . .?
Spurlock interviews Father Nabil Haddad of the pan-Islamist Greek Orthodox Church, who says, "I have no problem [being a Christian] in Jordan. We all worship Allah." That should tell you all you need to know. Christians are particularly oppressed in Jordan, our "moderate" ally. Anyone who says otherwise on camera is living a fairy tale (or worried about living another day if he says the wrong thing). Ditto for Christians, who've been mass murdered and forced to flee their homes throughout the Islamic world. Figures that Spurlock chose not to interview the few Chaldeans left in Iraq, or the few remaining Christians in Afghanistan, Gaza, etc.--all of whom live in fear for their lives.
America is evil, Mid-East Scholar Spurlock tells us, because we propped up the Shah and didn't give the Iranians democracy. Aren't you glad they have democracy now? Spurlock doesn't address the splendid post-Shah, Khomeini-esque consequences. And he interviews many Egyptians who are mad that we support Hosni Mubarak. Because a terrorist-ruled state would be so much better there, right? Spurlock forgot to mention that the Muslim Brotherhood--out of which HAMAS, Al-Qaeda, and Arafat all emerged--is the most popular political group there. Just as he declines to mention and inclines to gloss over so much else. That's what a propagandist does.
This movie--1.5 hours of Al-Jazeera lite--is old hat. We've heard and debunked the myths that dominate this movie, for the last 6.5 years. Ditto for Spurlock's claim that economics drives Muslims to become terrorists. How many times must we point out the rich families from which Mohammed Atta and his 18 colleagues, many Palestinian homicide bombers, and assorted others of the 72-virgin-obsessed club, emanate?
And how many times will our military contine to participate in helping anti-American propaganda films like this. It was bad enough when then-Marine Josh Rushing (who now works for Al-Jazeera) sympathized with the enemy in "Control Room" (the pro-Al-Jazeera documentary). But our soldiers in Afghanistan hang with Morgan Spurlock, risk their lives to take him on interviews with Muslims, and even let him waste a rocket-propelled grenade to see what it's like to shoot one. Why are American tax dollars helping this guy make an anti-American movie?
In the end, Spurlock tells us his pre-conceived conclusion to which he carefully tailors this movie:
We want the same things for our family [as Muslims do]. We [America] create these demons, and we create these visions [of Islamic terrorists] that, you know, are so beyond reality. What kind of world do we want to live in? What kind of world do we want it to be?
I want it to be a world where propagandists like Qaeda Morgan aren't funded by Hollywood film producers, and where America stops patronizing celluloid BS like his.
Ironically, Spurlock ends the movie with the Elvis Costello song, "What's So Funny 'Bout Peace, Love, and Understanding?"
Unfortunately, anti-American, anti-Israel, anti-Semitic propaganda isn't funny at all.
It's an outrage.
One more thing: Spurlock doesn't find Bin Laden. Shocker.
Posted by Debbie at 05:35 AM
April 18, 2008
Weekend Box Office: Bin Laden's American Propaganda Film, Semi-Porn Crap, Al Pacino's Tortured Nadir, Great WWII Nazi Counterfeiters Flick
This weekend, like last, has a lot of very awful new releases and one good one that is, sadly, restricted to arthouse theaters. But the worst of the films out this weekend is the one put out by Bin Laden's new PR-man, Morgan Spurlock. I've never seen such a false movie in my life, as that of "Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden?". It is so bad that I'm saving my complete review in a different column, to be posted later. For now, I'll only write a brief blurb of a review, in addition to complete reviews of the rest of the new movies. I did not screen Jackie Chan's "Forbidden Kingdom." Sorry. Ben Stein's PR people did not return repeated calls requesting a screener of "Expelled." Dumb move.
* "Forgetting Sarah Marshall": This latest Jud Apatow movie is completely disgusting and totally juvenile. Starting with the very beginning of the movie, we're exposed to so many shots of writer/lead actor Jason Segel's penis, I thought I'd accidentally stepped into an XXX pay-per-view. Sadly, this movie--with the most graphic dialogue I've ever heard in an R-rated movie--is being heavily marketed to young teens, including a special promotion on NBC, last night, during "The Office."
Kristen Bell plays a TV star on a CSI-style detective show. She's dating a dull, nerdy, girlie-man played by Jason Segel, who does the musical score for her abysmal TV show. She soon announces that she's dumping him (while we're "blessed" with many in-your-face shots of his penis). He decides to sulk at a Hawaiian resort, where lo-and-behold, his newly ex-girlfriend is with her new love, a kooky British rock star. As he basks in misery, while watching them enjoy their time there, he meets and falls for the beautiful hotel concierge (Mila Kunis). Oh, and he's writing a dracula puppet musical.
Like I said, this movie is extremely crass and graphic, and while there were elusive moments that it was funny, mostly it was just gross and groanworthy. Not sure what the point of the movie was, actually, except to give cameos and supporting roles to all of Judd Apatow's friends from his previous hit movies. Possible other motive of the movie producers: to stretch the bounds of R-ratings and well-bankrolled, drunken frat-boy-style stupidity.
Extremely skipworthy. Rated TT for Truly Tasteless. Yet another exercise in defining deviancy--and American culture--downward. "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" is forgettable in every aspect, save it's high level of depravity.
* "Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden?": I will post my complete, extensive review of this, later. The guy who lied about McDonald's and easily got Hollywood lefties (redundant) to bankroll it, now get them to bankroll his celluloid lies about the Middle East, terrorism, and Israel. This anti-Semitic, stupid, completely false movie is the most fertilized thing I've ever watched onscreen. Again, stay tuned for my complete review column, later.
* "88 Minutes": Even though my good friend from college--former University of Michigan and pro hockey player Brad Turner--is in this movie (as "Fireman #2"), I couldn't stand this waste of time movie. So much for truth in advertising. This inane, absurd pointless exercise in torture porn and a paycheck for Al Pacino is far longer than 88 minutes. But even that would have been too long.
It's been a long fall from the days when he magnificently played Michael Corleone. No such high-level skill or script here. Instead, Pacino plays a poofy-haired (like he stuck his finger in the socket) FBI psychiatrist and college professor. He helped put away a serial rapist/torturer/killer, who is set to be executed by day's end.
Soon, though, women from Pacino's life turn up tortured, raped, and killed just like those of the death row prisoner. And Pacino starts getting calls telling him he has 88 minutes to live. He tries to solve the murders and find the killer, as well as stay alive. Several women who work with him or are his students are suspects, as is a guy in a leather jacket.
In addition to showing the torture killing of the women and their bodies hanging from pulleys, the movie is torturous in its unbelievable and ridiculous plot and "twists". The script is lame and silly. So many characters and you barely know anything about them . . . or care. The whole thing is hardly thrilling. Just completely dumb and disconnected.
Pacino must have really needed the paycheck.
* "The Counterfeiters (Die Falscher)": This subtitled foreign language Academy Award winner is a great movie about the true story of Jewish concentration camp inmates during the Holocaust. They were allowed to live and treated relatively better because they were counterfeiters charged with creating good phony British Pounds and American Dollars (to flood and destroy the Allies' economies). The great thing about this movie is the moral dilemmas these men faced. On the one hand, they wanted to sabotage the Nazis.
On the other hand, if they sabotaged the counterfeiting efforts for too long, they would be gassed and replaced by new counterfeiters. But they knew that if they succeeded, they'd help the Nazis and hurt the British and American war efforts, counter to their goal of ending the war and defeating the Nazis. Also, if they succeeded too quickly, they'd also be executed, as their lives would no longer be necessary to the Nazis. What to do? This movie tells the story of what they did, how they coped, and what happened in a Nazi death camp as some Jews tried to live while also trying to defeat the Nazis.
One of the year's best movies (even though it was technically from 2007). If it is playing in your area (mostly at arthouse theaters), go see it. If not, try to see it when it's on DVD. Very Well Done!
Posted by Debbie at 03:19 PM
Disgusting: Look Who's Writing the Next "Muppet Movie"
Later today, I'll post my reviews of this weekend's new motion picture releases. One movie, "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" is written by and stars Jason Segel. It's absolutely disgusting (and stupid), and features very graphic/explicit dialogue straight from a bad porn movie. There are multiple gratuitous, up-close shots of Segel in full frontal nudity. I almost thought I was watching the "Deep Throat" sequel.
This morning, I heard an unduly gushing interview with Segel on the Detroit-based morning radio show, Drew & Mike. While the hosts verbally drooled over him, Segel told them the graphic details about how he had to worry about keeping his penis flaccid, because otherwise the movie would have gotten an NC-17 rating (which it well deserved).
While, now, guess what? This schleppy full-frontal "model," writer of very graphic and disgusting dialogue, and graphic discusser flaccidity versus the erect is . . .
What the heck was Disney thinking? Keep your kids away. Having this pervert write the next Muppet movie is absurd.
Just because you have a muppet named "Miss Piggy," doesn't mean you need an actual pig writing the script. Somebody tell the Disney execs that Kermit is a frog character for kids, not a horny toad.
Oh, and by the way, there are Muppets in this awful, perverted movie, "Forgetting Sarah Marshall." Forget the next Muppet movie.
Posted by Debbie at 01:03 PM
April 11, 2008
Weekend Box Office: Bad Movies All Around--Violent Bad Cop v. Worse Cops Flick, Plus Two Dullards
This weekend, there's really nothing new at the box office worth seeing. Best to rent something like "Idiocracy," or to see "21" or "Flawless"--two great movies still at theaters. "Prom Night" was not screened for critics, a sure sign it's a bomb. And while "The Visitor" is out in limited release in New York and L.A., this weekend, I'm saving my complete review of this propaganda flick for a column, separate from this rundown of this weekend's new features, and am giving you only a brief note on that film.
* "Street Kings": I really wanted to like this Keanu Reeves vehicle because I like movies about cops and street gangs. But this film was preposterous. Extremely violent and bloody for no reason, the plot was confusing, silly, and so completely convoluted and cockamamie, it was simply not to be believed. A total mess.
Although it's supposed to be about a cop fighting bad cops, "Serpico" it ain't. Al Pacino is turning over in his . . . Oh, wait. He's sort of still alive, and hopefully, for his continued health, he doesn't go see this "Serpico Way, Way, Way Lite."
Reeves plays a bad cop who is played as a hero in the media because his commanding officer (Forest Whittaker) and fellow cops cover for him. But the members of his unit tell him that his former partner is telling Internal Affairs everything.
Soon, he finds himself implicated in the gang shooting of his former partner, and it's up to him to lobby the IA officer to see things "his way." But, soon, after he wins ove the IA guy, he suddenly becomes the good bad cop fighting really bad, bad cops. Make sense? It didn't to me, either. Scenes, in which the IA detective is going with him on crime busts did not bear any resemblance to reality in a major city police department, where IA men are separate and don't mix in this stuff.
If lots of shooting at close range, bloody shot up bodies and faces, and decaying heads wearing grills a/k/a "gryllz", is your thing, then this movie is for you. But if you're looking for any sort of exciting plot--actually any plot--keep looking.
Aside from that, any movie with the annoyingly silly Jay Mohr playing a cop with a mustache and trying to play it seriously, is simply unconvincing. I laughed each time I saw his mug onscreen. Ditto for Sarah Jessica Parker's former "Sex & the City" love, John Corbett, trying to play a rough cop. He needs to go back to Carrie and her gazillion pairs of stiletto-heeled shoes, because the badge and gun ill fit him. Double ditto for Hugh Laurie of FOX's "House." I've never thought he carried off the fake American accent well, and his Internal Affairs position is a caricature, if anything.
The only highlight is Cedric the Entertainer playing a drug user and low-level dealer. That should be a hint about the caliber of this flick. (Rappers Common and The Game are also in minor roles.)
There's no street (and very little king) in Street Kings. It's the king of stinkers. Skip this utter disappointment whose sole point is to shoot 'em up on screen.
* "Smart People": Since I'm a big fan of Dennis Quaid, I wanted to like this movie, but just couldn't. Quaid, who dons a beard and a fatsuit to play a washed up, bitter college professor and widower, has a chance meeting in the hospital with a doctor who used to be one of his students. The doctor (Sarah Jessica Parker) used to have a crush on her professor, and upon learning about it, he asks her out. But being the pompous, full-of-himself Victorian lit prof that he is, she has to tell him off to get him to change. Soon, they are dating, but can it work? And do we care? I didn't.
In the meantime, his annoying "Young Republican" daughter (aren't all Young Republicans "annoying" in Hollywood? And by the way, if you're still in high school, it's "Teen-Age Republican"; "Young Republicans" are in their 20s, 30s, and 40s) is trying for a perfect SAT score and makes all the perfect gourmet dinners for her dad. She has no life, and is way too snarky and smart for her own good. The prof's adopted, druggie, loser brother (Thomas Haden Church, who steals the show in this movie) comes to stay with them, and he's the most normal. And very funny. The end.
It figures that critics would rave over this depressing, pointless movie. And that, once again, they'd rave over the most over-rated actress in Hollywood, Ellen Page (from "Juno"), who plays the Young Republican daughter. She always plays the same annoying role--the young Janeane Garofalo. That's what she sounds and looks like. And she's equally annoying. Picture Garofalo 20 years ago playing a caricature of a high school Republican. That's this movie. Or at least enough of the movie to make my mind keep saying to me, "Please, make it stop."
Pointless and a waste of 1.5 hours and ten bucks. Smart People will avoid "Smart People." It's simply a dumb idea. Sorry, Dennis.
* "The Year My Parents Went on Vacation": It's 1970, Pele is Brazil's soccer star on the verge of winning the cup. And a young Brazilian boy's leftists parents are on the run from the junta that takes power.
The boy is dropped off to stay with his grandfather in an Orthodox Jewish neighborhood in Sao Paolo. But his grandfather died of a heart attack, and together the Orthodox Jewish Holocaust survivor senior citizens take care of this boy, whom they learn is not a Jew (he is uncircumcized and his mother was not Jewish). We watch the Orthodox men, in beards and black suits, and their women watching and cheering on Brazil's soccer team on TV, along with the young boy--a huge soccer fan.
While it has it's charm--the Jewish neighborhood's warmth and appreciation for this boy, whom they treat like one of the family--it's also schlocky. And it's kind of pointless and not really worthy of 2 hours and $10. And as a religious Jew, I can tell you, they got a lot of technical stuff wrong (such as a decorative, lacquered coffin at the Orthodox funeral of the grandfather; Orthodox Jews use plain, unvarnished wood caskets, so they will disintegrate into the earth as quickly as possible--"ashes to ashes, dust to dust"). But, hey, why would Hollywood be interested in accuracy? (Technically, this foreign language film wasn't made by Hollywood, but it's promoted by them, and you get the point.)
* "The Visitor": Stay tuned for my complete review column on this movie. In the meantime, I can tell you that it must be Washed-up-pompous-White-male-widower-college-professor-with-no-meaning-in-life Week at the movies. Like Dennis Quaid's character in "Smart People," the lead in this film is a washed up college prof and widower who is sleepwalking through life, but as in "Smart People," he's woken up and his life given meaning--not by an attractive young female doctor, but by two Muslim illegal aliens squatting in his apartment, who give him joy and culture and life. Yup, I have a lot more to say about this inaccurate propaganda film. Like I said, stay tuned.
Posted by Debbie at 03:09 PM
April 04, 2008
Weekend Box Office: Boring, Inaccurate Non-Football Football Flick; Charming Kids' Adventure, Etc.
I wasn't particularly thrilled by any of the new releases at the box office, this weekend, but a kids' movie seems to be the best of them. I did not review the Martin Scorsese Rolling Stones documentary, "Shine a Light," because I am not a Stones fan and am tired of films glorifying aging stoner hacks. A guy who snorts up his father (Keith Richards snorted his father's cremated ashes) doesn't need my review. Also, below are a couple of movies, "Run, Fat Boy, Run," and "Married Life," which I was unable to review, last week.
* "Leatherheads": If you're a football fan, and you're looking for a football movie, go rent "Brian's Song." This isn't it. The movie is barely about football. In fact, contrary to the deceptive trailers and TV marketing of this film, there's only one major scene showcasing any extended moves on the field. And that one's amid muddy chaos, so you can't tell the teams apart.
What's more, the movie--co-written by Sports Illustrated columnist Rick Reilly--isn't even accurate. A major part of the story is the machinations of the agent of a star NFL football player in 1925. But, in those days, there were no agents in pro football. The NFL wasn't popular, and playing in it was a mere side hobby of working class American men. Contrary to the movie's portrayal, NFL players didn't get endorsement deals or make major money. The emergence of sports agents in the NFL is largely a phenomenon of the late 1960s and early '70s when the players union became a force, negotiated a collective bargaining agreement and certified "player agents."
Then, there's the NFL Commissioner, appointed by Congress in the movie. But Congress never appointed an NFL Commissioner. And while this movie takes place in the mid-1920s, there wasn't an NFL Commissioner until 1941 (Elmer Layden). And he didn't have the power, as the fictional commissioner does in this movie, to order a major Chicago newspaper to retract a story.
Since this Clooney-directed vehicle contained so many factual deceptions, what does that say about his other "work"? "Syriana," anyone?
Rather than football, "Leatherheads" is really about romance and corny 1920s- or '30s-style comedy. And the fare is very light and thin. I found the movie to be very boring and even fell asleep. It's slow, and the plot is barely a plot at all.
The story: It's 1925, and George Clooney plays an aging NFL player. The league struggles to survive and his Duluth, Minnesota team disbands. But he discovers a star Princeton football player who is also a war hero and very popular. He convinces the player--via his agent--to leave Princeton and join his team. At the time, college football is far more popular than pro football, which goes begging for fans. But an ambitious Chicago newspaper reporter (Rene Zellweger) is promised a promotion by her editor if she reports on the phony war hero story and takes the new star player down.
I thought the movie was silly and tired of it early on. But, like I said, it's light. And there's nothing objectionable about it. It's just not a great movie. Just fair . . . and mostly dull. Oh, and again, historically inaccurate.
* "Nim's Island": This is a charming kid's movie that--while not fantastic--was not bad. I liked the way it portrayed science and the study of it as an adventure and exciting. That's well needed in today's America, where science is seen as "nerdy" and unimportant, and we are well behind the other Western nations in that discipline.
Abigail Breslin is Nim, a young girl who lives with her scientist father alone on a secret, secluded island near Tuvalu in the South Pacific. Her father studies aquatic microbes and they live in a cool jungle-style house, sharing the island with friendly wildlife and a volcano. With self-generated power, I was wondering who their Internet Service Provider was--they have a very fast online connection.
While Nim's father studies the water, she reads the adventures of her favorite swashbuckling explorer, Alex Rover, who fights off pirate Arabs in Arabia (PC groups are upset by this, which is a reason you should support this movie and take your kids to see it) and other cretins elsewhere. Little does Nim know, Alex is really Alexandra Rover (Jodie Foster)--a strange, neurotic, psychosomatic, cloistered author in San Francisco with agoraphobia and a million other phobias which prevent her from leaving her home for months. The explorer, "Alex" Rover, is just her alter ego and imaginary muse.
Nim's father gets lost at sea, during one of his scientific expeditions to find new microbes. In the meantime, Alex--struggling to finish her latest adventure--e-mails Nim's father for information on an article he wrote about the volcano. Nim responds, and with her father missing and upon getting an injury, gets Alex Rover to overcome her phobia and come to the island. But, as we see, Nim, is actually the true swashbuckling adventurer, not the fictional one she reads and fantasizes about.
The story is more exciting and charming than I'm telling it here. And the movie's great--and not too scary--for kids. It wasn't a GREAT movie. But it was good enough. And very entertaining. A kid's adventure, slightly lite.
* "The Ruins": This movie was not "officially" screened for critics, and after seeing it, last night, I know why. Supposedly a horror/thriller flick, it was more hilarious than it was scary (thought it tries hard to gross you out--a man's legs are cut off, lots of blood, etc.). The plot is preposterous and not at all believable. Four 20-somethings and a German guy (with a horridly fake accent that spanned the range of various points in Scandinavia to podunk Iowa) they meet while on vacation in Mexico, go to Mayan ruins and find themselves atop a pyramid. Soon they are being enticed by flesh-eating vines, whose flowers emultate human voices and cellphone rings.
One by one, as they try to survive, they are eaten by the plants, which grow inside them. This was like "Little Shop of Horrors" trying to be serious and get us to believe it's real. Hilarious (though unintended). I kept waiting for a vine to shout, "Feed me, Seymour, Feed Me." Entertaining enough for escapism and light amusement. But not a great horror flick by any stretch.
* "Run, Fat Boy, Run": Directed by "Friends" star David Schwimmer, this movie was highly predictable, but funny and entertaining enough. An English loser leaves his beautiful bride--pregnant with his child--at the alter. Five years later, she's about to marry an American man who's rich, smart, better-looking, etc. But the loser realizes the mistake he made on his wedding day and wants her back. He decides to train for and run a marathon to prove his love and newfound maturity. Amusing.
* "Married Life": I enjoyed this psychological thriller set in the 1950s. A wealthy businessman (Chris Cooper) is tired of his wife because she only wants sex and isn't into love and romance. He decides he wants a woman who will love and adore him, and he's having an affair with that (younger) woman (Rachel McAdams). He wants to marry his mistress, but doesn't want to hurt his wife, whom he loves. So, he plots to murder her. But Cooper's friend--Pierce Brosnan--wants the mistress, too. And he gets in the way of it all. The intrigue and "Telltale Heart"-esque thoughts and suspense made this period piece timeless and enjoyable. Light and entertaining.
Posted by Debbie at 02:13 PM
March 28, 2008
Weekend Box Office: Thrilling Blackjack & Diamond Capers, Dreadful Anti-War Flick From MTV
This weekend's new releases are a study in contrasts--this year's two best movies--"21" and "Flawless"--and one of its worst, "Stop-Loss." Due to a movie-screening conflict, I was unable to review, "Run, Fat Boy, Run" (will try to see and review it later). "Superhero Movie" was not screened for critics, a sign that it's probably a dud.
* "21": Whether or not you like--or approve--of gambling, you will like this movie. It has a moral message. And, regardless, it's a fun, entertaining, non-political adventure. It's getting panned by most critics, but I loved it--one of the year's two best, so far.
Based on the novel, "Bringing Down the House," about Jeff Ma and some fellow M.I.T. students, it's the story of how the students count cards at the blackjack tables at Vegas casinos. While Ma says that card-counting only increases your chances at winning in blackjack by 3%, that 3% makes a big difference. In the movie, we watch students organized by their cunning professor (Kevin Spacey) making hundreds of thousands of dollars a pop. But it comes with a price.
In the movie, there is no Jeff Ma. Instead, Jim Sturgess, a British actor, plays a working-class MIT student who can't figure out a way to pay for Harvard Medical School. After he's discovered to be a whiz at numbers Spacey and his students, including the beautiful Kate Bosworth, recruit Sturgess.
Soon, he blows off his nerdier MIT friends for trips to Vegas and big money, which will pay for med school. But he soon discovers that professor Kevin Spacey is a vindictive, violent creep. Far-leftist Spacey's real-life love-fest with Venezuela's nutty dictator, Hugo Chavez, definitely came in handy for the thug he plays.
It's really more of a caper movie than a movie about gambling. I enjoyed it a lot.
* "Flawless": This is another caper movie and also one of the year's two best, so far. It takes place in 1960's London, where Demi Moore plays a bright American executive at "Lon Di," the London Diamond Corporation--Europe's largest diamond broker. The only woman executive in a world of males, she is passed over for promotion after promotion, even though she is more qualified. Soon, she learns from the building's janitor, Michael Caine, that she will be fired. Moreover, the company has poisoned the well against her, as she tries to look for another job in the finance world. But, she hasn't been fired yet. She goes along with Caine's plan to rob diamonds from Lon Di.
This movie was fun, exciting, nail-biting, and escapist. And it was charming. The acting was so good, you forget that it's Demi Moore in the lead role. She even gets right the fake semi-English accent that American expatriates to England sometimes engage in (Madonna, originally from the Detroit area, comes to mind). And the clothing, building architecture, and design are perfect to the period--the '60s. The set designers and wardrobe people did their job, here.
While the ending is a little too neat and somewhat cheesy and some occurrences challenge credulity, I highly recommend it, as the rest was pure gold. Mrs. Ashton Kutcher is back. And now she's graduated to great acting in great movies.
* "Stop-Loss": This movie is exactly what I predicted--on this site--that it would be. Produced by MTV Films (and that's "'nuff said" right there), it's a movie against the war in Iraq, against our military, and against its policies. And worse than that, it's a movie that portrays middle-American soldiers--in this case from Texas--as complete hicks from jingoistic, uncultured families, with nothing going on.
The ex-Mr. Reese Witherspoon a/k/a Ryan Phillippe must've figured that since his ex did an anti-war bomb in "Rendition," that it was his turn to produce the same with "Stop-Loss." And that he did. This movie is as boring as "Rendition," maybe more so. It was so slow, I kept wanting to go to sleep. But I perked up when it showed us the "hick" soldiers shooting bottles in the woods and then catching a rattlesnake, which we saw skinned alive and cooked in a stew of tomatoes for dinner.
And we hear a whole lot of non-stop whining and watch a whole lot of Phllippe and his Texas soldier buddies engaging in violence, drunkenness, relationship dysfunction, crying, flashbacks, and--ultimately--suicide.
Sgt. Phillippe (of Delaware, in real life), with his bad Texas accent (everyone in this flick has a bad Texas accent, so deep and exaggerated it's like an SNL skit), finds out--after returning from a hellish terrorist attack in which he lost several of his men--that he's been "stop-lossed," that the day he's scheduled for an honorable discharge from the Army, he's been ordered to serve another tour of duty back to Iraq several days later.
The rest of the movie--aside from focusing more on the "hick" culture and behavior of Texans, especially American soldiers from Texas--shows us the long, feudal, boring attempt of Phllippe to escape Texas and challenge his stop-loss order in Washington and his non-stop whining and crying about it. (Along for the trip is Australian actress Abbie Cornish, who sounds like an Australian trying to do a Texas accident, but failing badly. She's the woman who reportedly broke up the Phillippe-Witherspoon marriage.)
Phillippe encounters dead ends and obstacles. And *****SPOILER ALERT*****, he ultimately returns and goes back to Iraq. The end.
There are only a few points made in this movie with which I agreed. Phillippe quotes one of his fellow soldiers, telling him:
You're always saying that this war is so snakebit, that they won't let us fight it the way we need to win it.
At another point, another soldier says:
We ought to throw a bomb on a city there, every time there's a terrorist attack against us.
And at the beginning of the movie, we watch the soldiers go door-to-door/apartment-to-apartment, looking for terrorists, who kill them one by one.
This is never how we will win or how we will show the terrorists we mean business. I agree that we're not fighting it the way we need to win it. We are being too nice, too humanitarian. And it will be the death of us, if not there then in the future elsewhere. Had we fought it in a tough manner and dropped bombs, we'd be outta there by now and there would be no need for stop-losses. That ought to be a movie. Not this lackluster, whining screed.
Other than those brief moments of truth--which are not at all the point of the movie--this film is a boring, depressing, complete waste of time. Rated "P" for Propaganda. Skip at all cost.
Posted by Debbie at 01:41 PM
March 21, 2008
Weekend Box Office: Hilarious Geeks-Fight-Back Flick, Depressing Anti-Christian Waste of Time, Etc.
While there are several movies I detest at the movies, this weekend, there's one I thought was hilarious. Tyler Perry's "Meet the Browns" was not screened for critics, usually a bad sign:
* "Drillbit Taylor": This comedy is getting panned by the critics, but I loved it. Finally, a Judd Apatow movie I like. I couldn't stop laughing--the funniest movie I've seen in a long time. It's the story of three nerds who are bullied and terrorized by an Eminem-style fellow student in high school. They pool the little money they have--including Bar Mitzvah money--to hire a bodyguard. The problem is, the bodyguard is really just a homeless Army deserter, Drillbit Taylor (Owen Wilson), who is scamming them for money and property.
The thing is, Drillbit soon finds he enjoys impersonating a substitute teacher, mingling with the upper middle-class non-homeless, and cares a little bit about the welfare of his "protectees". And he gives the kids the pride to fight back.
This movie is hilarious, fast-paced, and very entertaining and fun. While it's aimed at teens and college students, adults out of that age group will enjoy it, too. My one reservation was some of the language, as in a scene where the kids rap, and the rap is very crude. It could have been left out, since it adds nothing to the movie and takes away from the movie's suitability for younger crowds. They won't be offended, but their parents will, rightfully, be (and they might object to some of the other language in this movie, too).
This is the only movie I recommend, this weekend. If you liked "Revenge of the Nerds," chances are you'll like this.
* "Snow Angels": This movie was not only very overtly anti-Christian, but it was depressing, pointless, and a statement against small-town/middle America. This is a template for how Hollywood sees Christians and mainstream America.
The story: Kate Beckinsale plays a mother and waitress who formerly babysat another character, a high school student--and that's the only connection between two almost completely unrelated, but equally boring and uninteresting stories in the movie. Beckinsale is having an affair with a loser married man in her hometown. Meanwhile, her loser estranged husband, a devout Christian, is an unemployed drunk. Beckinsale's daughter wanders off and dies in a frozen pond. Her estranged husband, while still making prayers to G-d, murders her and commits suicide. The end. Oh, and did you forget--he's a Christian?
Skip this bigoted, dark waste of time at all cost.
* "Shutter": A newly-married young American photographer (Joshua Jackson) and his wife (Rachael Taylor) move to Tokyo, Japan, where he is a fashion photographer. They get into a car accident and hit a Japanese girl. Soon, they start seeing her image in all of there photos. They learn that she is dead and is haunting them.
This movie, a remake of a Thai horror film, was so silly and absurd that the test audience who saw it when I did laughed repeatedly (as did I) when we were supposed to be scared. The story is preposterous, as is the ending.
You know "the ugly Americans"? This one shows them in spades. No thanks.
* "Paranoid Park": Don't let the cool, ominous-sounding title of this flick fool you. It's neither cool nor ominous. Just flat out dull. Moves slower than paint drying, and far less exciting than watching it dry.
Sadly, I think this film may be the future of movies. It doesn't have an ending or resolution, and it barely has a plot. But, hey, it's about slacker skateboarder losers whose split-up parents are covered in tattoos, so it must be gold, right?
The "story": A slacker skateboarder who frequents the skater park, called "Paranoid Park," is questioned by police in the death of a trainyard security guard. The slacker skateboarder did it by accident, and we're shown the disgustingly graphic scene in which the guard falls under a train, is split in half and--while still alive--crawls with one of the halves. Disgusting.
Other than that, we just see the skateboard slacker moping around, going through the motions of this empty life, and skateboarding. The crime isn't even solved. The end.
Extreme sports? This movies is also extreme . . . Skipworthy to the extreme.
* "Doomsday": This debuted, last week, and wasn't screend for critics. After seeing it on my own, now I know why. It starts out well enough, with all of Scotland infested by a deadly virus, quarantined, and left for dead by the rest of Britain. But 30 years later, a female cop who escaped from there as a child goes back in to find new life and how it survived, since the virus has now spread to other parts of Britain and the Prime Minister (played by a Muslim Arab--how prophetic) seeks a cure for political reasons.
I walked out on this movie, after I watched scary humans bite off and eat the ears of a cop (yes, this is far more gruesome stuff than the Ear of Evander (Holyfield) that Mike Tyson bit), and saw a scene where they were about to cut up and eat alive another cop.
Skip this movie, which was made only to shock and gross you out. We have enough dehumanization in our world. Sick.
Posted by Debbie at 03:35 PM
Bait & Switch @ The Movies
My weekly movie reviews will be up, shortly (I LOVED "Drillbit Taylor"). But first, check out this Gelf Magazine feature about something I've been miffed about for some time--the misleading and false quotes movie posters and movie marketing materials use to promote movies. (Gelf Mag is a very interesting site with cool articles and features about pop culture and politics.)
As Gelf points out, movie studios often use "positive" quotes from movie critics that are actually from movie critics who HATED the movie. There's a great rundown on the crappy movies that suck you in and how they do it by twisting critics' words.
Not noted in the piece, but a warning from me: another hint a movie stinks--it has a comment praising it from "Earl Dittman, Wireless Magazine." No joke, this guy is not a critic, but praises any and every movie. He's like "Mikey" in the old "LIFE cereal" commercials. He likes it, no matter what.
In my view, you should never believe the movie critics anyway . . . unless, of course, the critic is me.
Also interesting on Gelf, Kosher Jordan Comes Home, an interview with the "Jewish Michael Jordan," Tamir Goodman--hoops player extraordinaire . . . in a yarmulke.
Posted by Debbie at 03:19 PM
March 18, 2008
"21": Best Movie of the Year, So Far
I'm prohibited from reviewing "21" until it comes out at the end of the month. But it's simply the best movie I've seen, so far, this year.
It's based on the true story of MIT students who won big money at Vegas casinos by counting cards at the blackjack tables. Even if you don't like gambling, you will like this. It stars Kevin Spacey, Laurence Fishburne, Jim Sturgess (the lead), and Kate Bosworth. Here's the trailer:
Stay tuned for my complete review when the movie debuts in theaters.
Posted by Debbie at 04:07 PM
March 14, 2008
Weekend Box Office: Violent Karate Kid Rip-Off Starring Hot Guy, German Torture Porn Reproduced by Naomi Watts
Unfortunately, I could not review "Horton Hears a Who!" as the only screening for critics was held on Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath. "Doomsday" was not screened for critics, usually a sign that it's a bomb (may see and review later). But here's what I did screen:
* "Never Back Down": So, a guy in high school moves across the country with his working-class single mom to a new town in a sunny environ, where he and mom live in an apartment and his classmates are rich kids in mansions. He sees a blonde girl he likes. But she's dating the cocky, most popular fair-haired jock in high school, who is a martial arts champion and keeps beating the new guy up. So the new guy trains with an immigrant with a foreign accent on how to fight back and beat the nemesis and win the girl.
Sound familiar? If it sounds like the plot of "The Karate Kid," you're right. But it's also the plot of "Never Back Down," an updated version of the charming 1980s hit movie.
This one is more cheesy and far more violent and bloody than "The Karate Kid." Ultimate Fighting/Mixed Martial Arts has replaced calm and "wimpy" karate here. Another big difference is that, instead of wimpy Ralph Machio, the new guy in this one is the steaming hot Sean Faris who is already a fighter and a tough guy in his original Iowa hometown, when he moves to Orlando with his mother and tennis champ brother. And his fights are all over Youtube, where all the new kids see and drool over him and the resident hometown tough guy yearns to beat him--and does, several times.
Also gone is the late Pat Morita and his Mr. Miyagi, with the instructions of "Wax On, Wax Off." Instead, there is Djimon Hounsou, who runs and lives in an ultimate fighting gym 365/24/7. And in this case, instead of the hot blond nemesis, Billy Zabka, the less appealing unknown Cam Gigandet plays the violent antagonist.
The message of the movie, amidst the violence, is a good one: Our hero doesn't want to fight, but now he must train to beat up the bully who repeatedly picks fights with him, so he won't have to fight again. Yet, it's not consistent, as Faris fights and messes up three innocent motorists who make the mistake of beeping their horn repeatedly.
While I liked this somewhat cheesy guilty pleasure--seeing this hot guy in various states of shirtlessness and undress, what red-blooded girl would not? (Studio reps asked me to interview Faris when he was in town recently, and I regret that I turned it down.)--I could have done without the excessive violence and the gratuitous lesbian kissing scene in a hot tub. This movie is marketed to young teen girls and guys, and that irrelevant act spoiled it.
"The Karate Kid" was far superior and original, but this updated version wasn't too bad, though more for eye candy reasons than for substantive ones.
* "Funny Games": In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, last week, German writer/director Michael Haneke--who already made this exact movie in German 11 years ago--said the point of this movie is
to show the viewer that he is an accomplice in the violence.
Um, no. The only accomplices to the violence in this disgusting, two-hour torture-porn fiasco are Haneke and stars Naomi Watts and Tim Roth.
Shame on Watts, who also produces this horrid, painful, violent movie that makes "Saw" look like Shakespeare in comparison. On her appearances, this week, on late night talk shows like "Jimmy Kimmel Live," Watts told Kimmel the purpose of the movie is to warn us against the violence in movies, but she seemed unsure as she tried to say so. That's because this movie promotes and further escalates violence with no purpose and further depraves and desensitizes Americans. We didn't need this movie, nor did we need these two foreigners to "warn" us about the act that they perpetrated against us by making this garbage.
The "plot": An upper class couple (Watts and Roth) and their young son and dog are terrorized, tortured, and slowly murdered by two preppy, pseudo-gay young men in tennis whites. The end.
There's nothing funny about "Funny Games." The only joke is on you, if you shell out the ten bucks to see it.
Posted by Debbie at 01:59 PM
March 11, 2008
New Indiana Jones Movie Will Explore Extraterrestrial Aliens
Interesting. A new poster for the latest Indiana Jones installment shows a skull of an outer space creature. Apparently, the movie is not just about fighting Soviet Union Communists, but also explores the myths of Roswell, New Mexico:
The new poster for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull confirms something alien is afoot.The first poster for the film (due May 22) featured part of the title relic, but there was always something odd about the eye socket. In the follow-up, also by sci-fi/fantasy movie artist Drew Struzan, it's clear the skull is not at all human. Add to that the recent trailer, with its shot of a crate labeled "Roswell, New Mexico 1947," and you don't need to be a professor of archaeology to put the pieces together.
Other clues: Looks as if our hero will face his least-favorite animal and the locals at some Maya ruins. Karen Allen (who also was in 1981's original) seems to be enjoying herself, though.
The movie is predicted to be the only big hit of the summer. But it's, sadly, easy to forget what a hypocrite Harrison Ford is on the topic of the Cold War. Previously, he portrayed a "nice" Communist Soviet submarine commander against the "evil" Americans in a big bomb of a movie. Remember "K-19: The Widowmaker"? In promoting it, he espoused this view of Communists versus America. I remember how upset my late father was by absurd statements Ford made on TV about what nice people the Soviets were and how bad we evil Westerners were.
And don't forget, he's portraying ICE agents in a bad light, this summer, in "Crossing Over" a/k/a "ICE, The Movie." Stay tuned for more on that, very soon.
Posted by Debbie at 01:51 PM
March 07, 2008
Weekend Box Office: Okay Trio of New Movies, Nothing Special
Of the new movies out, this weekend, none of the three I reviewed were bad. They were all okay. Two are set in London, and one is set far off in ancient times. I did not screen, "College Road Trip." The reason: three words - Martin Lawrence, Raven. Translation: Life is short. I liked "The Bank Job" the best, although its violence and blood toward the end ruined it for me.
* "10,000 BC": While there was nothing objectionable in this movie, and even the minor killing was such that you could take your young teens to it, I just found this movie dull. It wasn't interesting. It wasn't exciting. There wasn't any suspense. And the story was very simple and old hat. The special effects were so-so, while the costumes were good. And that's about it. There was no spark or charm. It was kind of boring, actually. The "scary monster animals" were simply laugh-inducing giant dodo birds, more comical than scary.
This movie was like "300" lite--way, way, way lite. And the part about the captured peoples working as slaves, building pyramids in an Egyptian-like heat, and at first not wanting to rebel and leave, seemd kind of ripped off from the Biblical story of the Jews' slavery in Egypt.
The story: It's 10,000 BC and a small community living in a tundra climate survives by hunting Wooly Mammoths. One of them, D'Leh (pronounced "Delay"), is the son of a great hunter who left the tribe. He aspires to be a great hunter like his father and to win over both the prized white spear and the girl with the blue eyes, Evolet (whom we last saw in the remake of "When a Stranger Calls").
But the tribe is invaded and many of the men and Evolet captured by a more advanced neighboring community of a sweltering hot climate. They are made into slaves who build pyramids for shaman-like blind pygmies with blue eyes. D'Leh leads some of the remaining tribesman into the wilderness and then into the enslavers' community to rescue them.
* "Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day": Although this is basically a chick flick, I liked its throwback to the late 1930s/early 1940s London. Yet again, the talented Amy Adams shows her versatility as floosie gold-digger/fame-seeker Delysia Lafosse in this period piece. And although the movie was a little too cutesy for me, it reminded me of old movies, of which its basically a color replica. The costumes got the most attention in this script. Still, it was hard to take 1.5 hours of Adams' giggly, sigh-filled interactions. But that is the style of this kind of movie and I liked the moral message. Could have done without seeing a guy's naked butt in my face toward the beginning of the film. That was the only objectionable part.
Frances McDormand is Guinevere Pettigrew, a homeless English woman around the start of World War II, searching for a job in London. She can't keep a job as a governess, but she steals a lead on a job with a new employer. Soon she learns that the new employer, the young Delysia Lafosse, is looking for a social secretary, not a governess, and she plays the part.
Lafosse is an American who is kept by a wealthy club owner she doesn't love, and is also sleeping with the son of a musical producer, in whose play she wants to star. But, alas, she truly loves a third man, an ex-con piano player who can't offer her anything but love and happiness. And she can't see it.
Although Pettigrew is basically a homeless woman not accustomed to Lafosse's station in life, her sound, moral advice is soon taken as gospel and respected by Lafosse and all of her high society friends. Some of them, though, start to look into her past.
Oh, and guys, don't let the sexy movie poster for this one fool you. There is no scene in which these two women are looking up at barely clad women with those expressions. Instead, they are at a lingerie show--1930s lingerie. The poster is just a way to get you in the door with your girlfriends. This movie has nothing to do with what's implied in the poster. Sorry.
* "The Bank Job": Also set in London, this time in the early '70s, this is based on the true story of a bank heist, set up by MI5, the British intelligence agency. I liked this clever, cunning caper movie, until it degraded into violence and blood towards the end. That ruined it for me, but you might like it despite that. It wasn't that violent or bloody, but enough for me to turn me off.
A has-been model tells her petty thief, married former love interest about a London bank safe, the security of which will be temporarily turned off for technical reasons. She tells him how easy it would be to dug a tunnel into the safe and get millions in jewels, gold, and cold hard cash from the safety deposit boxes. Since he needs money to feed his family, and he still pines for her, he's convinced and gets his gang of common criminal friends to join in.
But the model is actually working for MI5, which wants pictures in one of the safety deposit boxes because they show members of British royalty, intelligence, and government in compromising positions. And who has the photos is also interesting. A Black Muslim from the caribbean is into blackmailing to make money for his phony liberal "civil rights" group.
The intrigue in this film, with so many groups involved, at first seems confusing, but you soon figure out what is going on. It's interesting and captures your interest until the end, when, again, it degrades into some limited violence and blood. Definitely entertaining. And mostly well done. Though I didn't exactly like the ending.
Posted by Debbie at 03:16 PM
March 06, 2008
On Patrick Swayze's Cancer: Pray for the Hero of "Red Dawn"
**** UPDATE: Video Added - "Red Dawn" Trailer and "She's Like the Wind"; SCROLL DOWN ****
On this site, I've been extremely critical of actor Patrick Swayze over the years. That includes his drunken piloting of a plane and then covering it up when it crashed, his claim that he knows the Arab world because he raises Arabian horses (in his critique of the Iraq war), his defense of Mel Gibson's anti-Semitic comments, and his promotion of the Islamic Arab Gulf States (including his project to star as and sanitize the true story of an Arab Muslim Sheikh who was kidnapped from his Anglo parents and forcibly converted to Islam). While I was critical, I felt he did these things out of utter ignorance, not malicious intent against America, like, say, Alec Baldwin, Angelina Jolie, or Sean Penn.
That said, despite my utter disagreement with his misguided, ill-advised activities and statements, my prayers are with him as he tries to fight pancreatic cancer. Having just lost my beloved father, H.L. Schlussel, MD--Blessed Be His Memory--to this aggressive and largely terminal form of cancer, I know what it is like to watch someone you love know that he will certainly die very soon from this horrible illness.
As an optimist, I hate to be pessimistic on this kind of thing. Anything is possible, and only G-d knows the future. But, even though Swayze's spokespeople dispute tabloid reports that he has only five weeks to live, the fact is that almost all of those stricken with pancreatic die within five years. And most die within five or six months.
My father, fortunately, outlived that amount of time, which he was given by doctors as the prognosis for the length of the rest of his lifespan. But he, too, died far too quickly and much before his time. Sadly, there is a Jewish gene, which makes it more likely that Ashkenazic Jews (those generally of European heritage) will develop pancreatic cancer in greater percentages than the general popularion.
I remember that, 24 years ago, Patrick Swayze starred in the great 1984 movie, "Red Dawn," which showed us what would happen to America in a Communist invasion. That movie, which only recently came out on DVD, was vastly underrated and panned by liberal mainstream media movie critics. But it could easily be remade into "Green Dawn" or "Black Dawn," an accurate portrayal of what would happen--and may very well happen--when Muslims take over America, as is their declared goal. Hard to believe that movie is nearly a quarter century old.
At the time it came out, we were in the midst of fighting the Soviets and other forces of Communist hegemony in the Cold War. That's why despite universal critical panning, the movie was a box office success, with Americans paying to see it in droves. It was an important film that embodied the fight Ronald Reagan was preventing in our future by fighting--and beating--it during his Presidency. If only President Bush had done the same in the last 6.5 years, instead of kowtowing to it. Unlike Ronald Reagan, his actions insure that "Black Dawn" will not just be a movie.
The handsome, talented Swayze was magnificent as the hero who stood for freedom in "Red Dawn." And he not only starred in big hits like "Dirty Dancing" (which recently celebrated its 25th anniversary), "Ghost," and the hockey movie, "Youngblood," but he was a talented, accomplished dancer and singer (don't forget his hit song, "She's Like the Wind," which others pan as cheesy, but which I still like; last year, it was remade into a hit by hip-hoppers). And I loved him as a Confederate soldier in "North & South," the '80s ABC Civil War miniseries (remember network miniseries?). He was definitely a showman.
Perhaps his affliction with pancreatic cancer will draw much needed attention to this form of cancer, which has no obvious symptoms, no cure, and does not get the attention other more "sexy" disease, like breast cancer and AIDS, do. There has been very little advance in treatment of pancreatic cancer because it afflicts to few and, therefore, gets little money for research and advancement in finding cures and effective treatments.
Pray for Patrick Swayze. It's very sad. I hope he recovers and that this is not an obituary. But, unfortunately, the odds are against him. Maybe he will beat them.
**** UPDATE: Trailer from Patrick Swayze's "Red Dawn" and Patrick Swayze Video/"She's Like the Wind":
**** UPDATE #2: Reader Ari says this comment about pain, from "Roadhouse," is the best line ever delivered by Patrick Swayze:
Posted by Debbie at 12:21 PM
February 29, 2008
Weekend Box Office: The Other Uday-Qusay Hussein Girl, Silly Will Ferrell Flick, Anti-American Abu Ghraib/Gitmo Diatribe, Etc.
I didn't particularly like any of the new releases at the box office, this weekend. Of them, the best is "Penelope," but even that is a chick flick that had a lot of shrieking in it. Interestingly, it and "The Other Boleyn Girl" are about social-climbing parents try to shove off their daughters on rich bluebloods solely in the interest of selfishness and station in life.
* "The Other Boleyn Girl": This is the story of two sisters, Anne and Mary Boleyn, who were among the many conquests and wives of King Henry VIII in the 1500s. Based on the book of the same name, it's about how the girls' social-climbing, ambitious father plotted with his brother-in-law to farm the two girls out to the married king for sex, in the hope that one of them would bear him a male heir who would be king, which would improve the family's social and financial standing.
While Anne (Natalie Portman) is slutty, scheming, evil, and wants the married king ("Munich's" phony Mossad agent, Eric Bana), Mary (Scarlett Johansson) is good and kind and devoted to her husband, and not too happy when she is a forced concubine to the king. The movie is full of treachery--with their father and uncle repeatedly plotting how to get one or the other of them in bed with the king. It all ends in tragedy.
This is basically a chick flick with nice period-piece costumes. But you'd never see this kind of stuff even in today's trashy soap operas. True, these things happened. But, as I watched this sickening movie--filled with not only a father and uncle whoring out two girls, but instances of incest--I thought to myself, gee, in 2504, will there be a movie, "The Other Uday and Qusay Hussein Girl," in which fathers whore out their daughters--or married daughters are forcibly seized against their will--as they were for Uday and Qusay Hussein and their father Saddam? Or will we see a movie, today, about Islamic kings and leaders who did the same at that time?
And as I watched this movie, I couldn't help but note that in Britain today, and everywhere else around the Western world, these kinds of things do not happen anymore, except in the Muslim communities therein. Non-Muslim men cannot seize women, even if they are pigs with a crowns on their heads. Non-Islamic fathers cannot run prostitution rings farming out their daughters.
But there is one place where this stuff of the uncivilized does occur on a daily basis: The Islamic World. If King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia or some other Prince or Sheikh wants your daughter, she's seized to become part of his concubine harem. It goes on every single day. And then, as in this movie, her "virtue" is taken and no-one else will marry h er. In the Islamic world, every single day, fathers willingly whore out their daughters or are forced to at swordpoint to Islamic "nobles".
As I've repeatedly noted on this site, in Shia Islam, men take on temporary marriages (for the period of a few hours up to a few days or a year or so) with no divorce settlements, for the purpose of sex only. It's the only society that still believes openly and full force in polygamy (even the Mormon Church has ruled out polygamy and only a few extreme sects practice it).
But you'd never see a "The Other Beydoun Girl" or "The Other Al-Khalifa Girl" movie. If the characters in this movie were Muslim, it would resemble modern times. And if the characters in this movie were Muslim, CAIR et al will be screaming "bloody murder."
So, it's okay to remind us of the way the English nobles lived 500 years ago, but hell hath no fury if we show how Muslims live today in "modernity."
Not for kids.
* "Semi-Pro": Since I like Will Ferrell, I really wanted to like this movie. But I didn't. After the far superior "Talladega Nights: The Legend of Ricky Bobby" and less so "Blades of Glory," I really think Ferrell should give up on the pro sports theme in movies. He's now done three in a row, this one is the worst of 'em, and he needs a new shtick.
Ferrell plays Jackie Moon, bi-racial, barely-hip owner, coach, and player of the Flint Tropics in the American Basketball Association (ABA). It's the mid-'70s, and--as really happened in real life--the ABA is merging with the NBA, which will only absorb a few successful ABA teams. Moon, desperate to keep his failing team alive, wants it to be one of the chosen teams. The ABA commissioner reluctantly agrees that if Moon's team is in the top four in wins by season's end, it'll join the NBA. Moon goes to great lengths to increase the number of spectators at games and wins. He brings in Monix, a former NBA player (Woody Harrelson).
While I laughed, it was way too infrequently. Most of the jokes in this movie are groaners. Not funny. Was it funny to watch Ferrell wrestle a bear, attempt an Evil Knievel-style jump over 20-some cheerleaders in bikinis, rip-off fans in promotions, and wear exaggerated plaid bell-bottoms of the '70s? Yes. But the jokes only went so far. The best thing about this movie is the BS banter of the sportscasters calling the game. Other than that, yaaawn.
This movie was like a Saturday Night Live skit that goes on for two hours. It was bearably funny for like five minutes, mildly entertaining for a few more, and incredibly stupid for the rest.
The movie poster for this claims, "Putting the Funk into the Dunk." More like "Putting the Clunk into the Dunk." Semi-Pro: Not Even Semi-Bearable.
* "Penelope": A girl (Christina Ricci) from an aristocratic family is subject to a family curse and is born with a pig's snout for a nose. Her parents, desperate to marry her off and also to avoid tabloid exploitation of her nose, are trying to get a fellow blue-blood to marry her. If one does, the legend says that the curse will wear off and her nose will be normal. But every guy that sees her runs like hell. Add to that a photojournalist from a tabloid who's trying to get a photo for the paper.
You'd think that, in the age of plastic surgery, this movie would be easily resolved with a quick nose job. But they've thought of everything, fellow cynics. It's discovered that her carotid artery runs through her nose, so an operation is out of the question.
While this movie was charming and entertaining enough, it's also a little bit too quirky and offbeat. And it's basically a very predictable chick flick. In the end, everything works out. Reese Witherspoon, who co-produced this movie, makes a cameo as a very annoying working-class motorcycle messenger. The very stereotypical way she played the woman--as an ignorant, coarse hick--grated on me and spoke volumes about how she sees the average American. I was also annoyed by the even mix of Brits and Americans in the cast. It's as if, they didn't want to tell you where this movie was set, lest they upset either country's audience.
Would have been much more interesting if the movie was about a Muslim girl born with a pig snout. Now that would be a great study in tolerant our "Religion of Peace" friends really are. An okay movie, but no big whoop. You can definitely take kids to see this.
* "Bonneville": This coming of old-age movie, in which three aging women--two of whom are Mormons--take a roadtrip was neither new, fun, nor exciting. A pointless exercise in the waste of 1.5 plus hours, it's about new widow Jessica Lang's road trip with Kathy Bates and Joan Allen to transport the ashes of her late husband to his snobby, adult daughter from a previous marriage. Her husband wanted his ashes to be scattered to the various sites they liked to visit and vacation in, but if she doesn't give the ashes to her step-daughter, the daughter will take her home. The late husband didn't make a new will, and the old one leaves everything to the daughter.
Not only did I find this movie boring and a rehashed muddle of a million other roadtrip and 50-something chick flicks, but as a lawyer, it was flawed. Under the law of most states, a wife of twenty years, as in this case, would be entitled to at least half of her husband's property upon his death, even if he willed it to someone else. And she might even be entitled to the home outright, depending upon how the title recorded ownership.
Best suited for Oprah followers and the cat ladies who watch PBS. Skipworthy.
* "Taxi to the Dark Side": No shocker that this rehash of stuff from 2002-2004 about U.S. prisons for Islamic terror suspects in Bagram (Afghanistan), Abu Ghraib (Iraq), and Guantanamo Bay (Cuba) won the Oscar, last Sunday, for Best Documentary. There's nothing new here. It's the same stuff we've been hearing from the left for years--ie., that a woman letting her hair fall on the back of a Gitmo prisoner was sexual "torture" (so says his lawyer) because Muslims believe in modesty (right--like they did when they patronized prostitutes and a strip club right before 9/11. Uh-huh.)
I'm not sure how it constitutes a "documentary" when you make stuff up. We're shown an artist's drawing of a Muslim man, with a computer-generated face of a women and the word "WHORE!" on the picture in between them. For a second, I wondered if I was watching "The Vagina Monologues."
We're also told that the way America treated Mohamed Al-Qahtani--the 20th 9/11 hijacker--was "torture" because they called him "gay" and only let him sleep four hours a day. Hmmm . . . There are a lot of housewife-mothers and working men who get that amount or less sleep, and I don't hear them saying America is torturing them. Donald Trump brags he only sleeps four hours a day. "The Apprentice: Torture Edition"?
Oh, and here's another example the movie gives us of how we "tortured" Gitmo prisoners: Interrogators sang, "G-d Bless America" to Qahtani. Horror of horrors! They also "scrambled his sense of time" (by using light and dark and "sensory deprivation") and wouldn't allow him to go to the bathrooom, so he peed in his pants. Hmmm . . . Adam Pearl and Nicholas Berg choking on their own blood as they were sliced alive into pieces versus urinated pants. Which one is torure?
The only "witness" this movie uses for what's happening in Gitmo is the already discredited Moazzam Begg. He and his friends were already featured in the discredited "Road to Guantanamo," which even liberal movie critics derided for its re-enactments of what the men claimed happened there. Begg and his two friends never explained what they were doing in Afghanistan, apparently training with terrorists, when their homes were supposed to be in the UK. He's equally as non-credible here.
The biggest problem the left-wing, anti-American "experts" in this fake-mentary/docu-fakery have: They're upset that, despite everything they believe is evil about America's treatment of Islamic terrorists, that "despite knowing all of this, 90% of Americans still support this 'torture.'" Says the same "expert": "Pop culture that Americans enjoy is the reason that 90% of Americans support legitimized torture." He's claims that "shows like '24'" make Americans allow and even approve this kind of thing." The commentators in the movie say that "we must debunk '24.'"
Where's Jack Bauer when you need him? This is high-quality, but very boring, Bin Laden cinema.
Posted by Debbie at 03:37 PM
February 24, 2008
The Oscars: The Stinking Stench Continues; Anti-Islam Animated Film Gets Shafted, Hypocritical Use of American Soldiers; Anti-War Fake-umentary Wins
8:43--Jon Stewart's monologue is so unfunny, it was hard to keep track of my groans. A stupid joke about how we can't let the audience win, relating to Iraq. Haha, funny. Where's Joe Pesce when I need him? Yup, it was hard to keep track, but I think I laughed exactly zero times. Even most of the laughter from the audience seemed forced.
8:57--Earlier today, I said that the only Oscar nomination with which I agreed was Philip Seymour Hoffman's Best Supporting Actor bid. But I was wrong. I also loved the animated film "Persepolis," nominated for Best Animated Film. It tells the story--through the eyes of a young girl--of what happened to Iran when Islamists took over and how everyone's life was ruined. Figures that it didn't win. Damn. Instead, "Ratatouille" won. Also a great animated film (among my year's best for 2007), but not half