By
Well, now we know why, at the age of 60, Sylvester Stallone was in such great shape when I met him at the Detroit premiere of “Rocky Balboa”:
STEROIDS.
And, since we know that steroid use often affects mental faculties, as well, maybe that explains his absurd support for illegal aliens and opposition to a security fence at the border.
While we can’t say for sure if we know that Stallone uses steroids, but since Australian Customs agents raided his room and caught him throwing them out the window, I’d say it’s a pretty safe bet.

The Body of a 60-Year-Old Steroid User?
Too bad he repeatedly lied about why he was in such great shape, telling a number of interviewers about his strict exercise regimen (which also apparently included a strict injection regimen).
More:

Customs officials raided actor Sylvester Stallone’s harbourside room at Sydney’s Park Hyatt Hotel yesterday, as members of his party were seen throwing objects out of the window.
Stallone had already denied bringing steroids into Australia after he was questioned at Sydney Airport on Friday.
It is believed customs officers visited Stallone, 60, about 3pm, and gave him a summons relating to prohibited substances. A summons normally requires him or his lawyer to appear in court.
Here to promote his new film, Rocky Balboa, Stallone flew out of Australia last night but not before customs officers searched his private jet.
“We are aware that he has left the country,” a customs spokesman said.
On Friday, Stallone and five attendants were held until after midnight after X-rays of his luggage found suspicious items, believed to be a body building drug outlawed in Australia.
Laboratory tests will identify the material before any further action is taken.
Stallone’s minders warned yesterday that if the subject was raised, interviews would be terminated. But the actor-director insisted the items were not steroids. He would not identify them other than to say it was something that he had taken for years and was not dangerous.

Believe me, when I met Stallone, he was in better shape than your average 40-year-old. And he’s 60. This explains it. There are some, though–like Jack LaLanne (whom I’ve also met–and he is, indeed, in fantastic shape)–who are in great shape and got there–ostensibly–the natural way.
Yo, Adrian. It’s gonna be a Rocky road ahead.

By
It’s supposed to be Black History Month.
So why are the most prominent, influential Black Americans focusing on themselves instead of real Black contributions to America?
Take Tyra Banks. The Victoria’s Secret lingerie model is now, unfortunately, a popular daytime talk show host and fancies herself an important Black leader. Her ratings seem to confirm that.
On her show, she marked what she considers the most important moment in American Black history: her 1997 star turn, donning a bikini as the first Black model on the cover of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition.

Silicone Implants v. Slaves’ Freedom: Which is the Real Black History?
Banks claimed that this served as an important inspiration for America’s Black women and opened up important opportunities for them they never had before.
Yes, forget about Harriet Tubman. And Sojourner Truth, too. Who needs them, when the newly-minted greatest woman in American Black history is the hostess of America’s Next Top Model, now casting for Season Nine? Freeing slaves? That’s nothing compared to the woman who tells America to “Kiss my fat Black ass.”
Then, there’s Oprah Winfrey. She, too, has Tyra Banks disease. Or more likely, Tyra got Oprah disease.
How does Oprah celebrate Black History Month? She’s celebrating it by showing America all about “me, me, me.” With tonight’s primetime TV special on ABC, Oprah celebrates her new school in South Africa bearing her name.
But the school has nothing to do with Black history and everything to do with Oprah’s ever-growing ego and new brand of acceptable racism.
The school of 152 girls has only one White student, the token who’s been bandied about for all the world to see. Since Oprah personally handpicked the students out of more than 3,500 applicants, that should tell you something about Oprah. And Oprah told us more: “I don’t have to please the White people of America,” she told E! Entertainment upon the opening of the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls.

Where’s Waldo?: Token White Oprah School Student (behind Oprah)
Then, there’s the way Oprah picked the students, aside from the apparent color scheme. Newsweek detailed the “leadership” Oprah employed from the start.
“You’re so skinny in person!” remarked one applicant to Oprah. She was admitted. Ditto for Lesego Tlhabanye, who blurted:

“Do you spend $500 to get your eyebrows done?” Oprah laughed–and admitted her to the school. A girl with moxie is exactly what she’s looking for. . . . One girl, Thelasa Msumbi, held on extra tight [while hugging Oprah], then whispered in Oprah’s ear: “We are your daughters now.” Winfrey smiled. And yes, Thelasa got admitted.

Sorry. That’s not Black history. Or leadership. It’s just Oprah ego-ism.
It’s sad that instead of racism and self-conceit, Oprah and Tyra don’t tell their audiences–Black and White–the real American Black history, which doesn’t include them.
Blacks were among the founding fathers of several western cities, including Los Angeles. Forget Beverly Hills cop. Maria Rita Valdez, a Black woman, owned Rancho Rodeo Las Aguas, which became Beverly Hills. William Alexander Leidesdorff, introduced the first steamboat, hotel, and public school to San Francisco. Bose Ikard helped blaze the Goodnight-Loving Trail that led out West from Texas.
Oprah and Tyra don’t come even close to the heels of these great Americans.
Or to York, Lewis and Clark’s slave and guide, instrumental to their famous expedition. Or Black businessmen Barney Ford and Henry O. Wagoner, instrumental to founding and developing Colorado, according to 1895’s “History of the State of Colorado.”
Or George Washington Bush, who helped the U.S. stake claims to the Oregon Territory by settling Puget Sound. Oprah and Tyra probably remain ignorant of Congressional Medals of Honor earned by the brave all-black Buffalo Soldiers and the Ninth Cavalry, which rescued late General Custer’s 7th Cavalry, when they were trapped during an engagement.
They did these things without affirmative action, government handouts, or minority set-asides. They did this when times were far more difficult for Blacks in America. And they did this without self-anointed talk-show leaders and lingerie and bikini models pretending to be their leaders.
That’s the real Black history. “Knowledge of a proud past will set the stage for a bright future for African-American and … all Americans,” says Charles A. Green, founder of the Old Wild West African-American Hall of Fame. But as late Detroit Mayor Coleman Young (with whom I rarely agreed) observed, “As black people we don’t appreciate our history. We don’t even know our history.”
Just the way Oprah and Tyra like it.

By
And the Oscar for Best Moral Equivalency Film Equalizing Jewish Terrorism Victims and Their Palestinian Muslim Terrorist Perpetrators goes to . . .

Well, at least, criminal thug Mark Wahlberg (an attempted murderer who took out the eye of a Vietnamese man with a meathook) didn’t get the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor.

By
No surprise that Oscar day is the day for incessant crazy news about extremist Hollywood.
The makers of the fake “documentary,” “The Road to Guantanamo” (in which Islamic terrorist inmates’ version of events is re-enacted and portrayed as the truth–but they gloss over what they were doing fighting in Afghanistan on behalf of Qaeda) just won an Independent Spirit Award for Best Documentary. Writes reader Debra:

Acceptance speech dedicated the award to the Lackawanna 6. Must be seen to be beloved.

Actually, if you saw it, you’d see why they love the Lackawanna 6, who pled guilty to training at an Al-Qaeda terrorist training camp and who were U.S.-born Muslim citizens plotting against America.

The movie is pure propaganda and fake. That it won for a documentary tells me that Leni Reifenstahl is up for a posthumous award, next year, for best film on the joys of residency in a Nazi Death camp.
Thanking convicted Islamic terrorists–well, hey, at least they’re honest about it, which is more than I can say for many Hollywood filmmakers who secretly find kinship with Islamic terrorists, but won’t admit it.

By
**** UPDATE: Billionaire NBA Owner/Producer Mark Cuban can’t take the heat from Schlussel readers with complaints over this anti-American troops film. Read the on this post, in which Cuban writes that he’s setting his filter to delete all complaints about this movie. Hey, Mark, you know what they say about your promiximity to the kitchen when you can’t take the heat . . . . One thing about Mark I do have to give him credit for: Mark Cuban does say he’ll consider a project I bring him. It’s a deal, Mark, as I intend to take you up on this. ****
My friend, Producer/Director James Hergott, President of of Owned Entertainment, alerts me to the latest Hollywood-Hates-America outrage.
Of all the brave and heroic things our many brave men and women have done in Iraq (and all over the world), Director Brian DePalma–fresh off the bomb of his absurd “”–will make his next biggest box office release a giant defamation of American troops. DePalma has chosen to make a film about the rape of an Iraqi woman by some U.S. troops. And he’s making this defame-the-troops “film” with billionaire producer and NBA owner Marc Cuban–yet another reason to boycott the Dallas Mavericks and ALL of the team’s licensed merchandise.

Brian DePalma, Mark Cuban to Defame U.S. Troops in “Redacted”
Making a film about this is an outrage. And it’s not the first time for DePalma, who has a serial obsession with defaming U.S. troops as rapists and wrongdoers in all wars. From JoBlo.com:

According to Production Weekly, Brian De Palma’s follow-up to the loved by few, not really liked by many BLACK DAHLIA is going to be REDACTED, a war drama based on the recent events surrounding the rape and murder of a 14-year old Iraqi girl and the killing of three of her family members by four US soldiers. Oddly enough, this will be the second De Palma movie to deal with such a thing; his CASUALTIES OF WAR [DS: starring–surprise!–Sean “Spicoli” Penn] centered around five U.S. soldiers during the Vietnam War, four of whom kidnap and rape a young villager. In a move that’s decidedly un-De Palma-esque, however, REDACTED will be cobbled together from documentary footage, trial coverage, video from news broadcasts, YouTube posts, and excerpts from one of the soldier’s video blogs. Production on the movie is scheduled to begin in April. De Palma is also attached to the prequel THE UNTOUCHABLES: CAPONE RISING.

Why not make a film about the many rapes of Iraqi women by their fellow Muslims? Or about how many U.S. troops have saved countless women from the mass raping of Uday and Qusay Hussein or the rapes by their fighting Sunni and Shi’ite co-religionists? Well, DePalma would never do movies on those things. Because, hey, they aren’t anti-American. And that would portray the Muslims, not American troops, in a bad–and truthful–light. And we can’t have that in Hollywood.
Fortunately, there are a few good guys left in Hollywood, like James Hergott–and some others to which I’ll be introducing you in the coming weeks and months. It’s just a shame that the uber-liberal America-haters are the ones who get all the funding and cache to make their silver screen trash.
It’s bad enough that Mark Cuban produced sympathize-with-the-Islamic-terrorists propaganda like “” and “,” to mention a few. Now this. E-mail Mark Cuban about his latest production choice. Post notes against this irresponsible movie on his blog. And don’t buy any Dallas Mavericks merchandise.

By
**** UPDATE: Fortunately, this film did not win the Oscar. ****
You’ve read my work on why anti-Israel, pro-Islamic terrorist screeds like “” and anti-American, pan-Islamist, pro-Illegal Alien BS like “” have been nominated (multiple times for “Babel”) for tonight’s Academy Awards.
But French website GalliaWatch alerts us to another false, propaganda-filled nomination (for Best Foreign Language Film) at tonight’s Oscars telecast, “Indigenes” a/k/a “Days of Glory,” which attributes the World War II liberation of France as the WORK OF MUSLIM ALGERIANS!!! HUH?!!!!! Hello . . .? Who was it that died on the beaches of Normandy? Get a fricking clue: The liberators were AMERICAN SOLDIERS, not Muslim Arabs from North Africa (who were working WITH–NOT against–the Nazis). Unbelievable.

Supposedly, this movie is about four Algerian Muslims who enlisted in the French Army to fight the Nazis. But let’s get real. The liberators were Americans (and British), and most North Africans–Arab Muslims–helped the Nazis and maintained concentration camps of Jews there.
Read about this absurdity (and have a barf bag ready). Oh, and by the way, this trash was funded by the French Government. That’s what we get for saving their asses.
“No good deed goes unpunished” TIMES TEN!
(For the record, I haven’t screened this film yet b/c it does not come to Detroit until April.)

By
Predictably, there was more gushing Louis Farrakhan coverage in the last two days. (I on Friday.)
That included openly gay Charles Pugh, Anchor of the FOX News owned-and-operated FOX 2 News gushing over Farrakhan along with Louis X’s Detroit area chief. I guess Pugh conveniently forgot about how Farrakhan openly hates gays like him. Since Pugh apparently doesn’t care about Farrakhan’s bigotry against Jews and Whites, he could at least care about himself.
Then, there is the official announcement–Weird Al Sharpton is officially part of the Nation of Islam, as he delivered a speech calling for the unity of the group, saying “We” this and “We” that. His anti-White, anti-Semitic past certainly gives him NOI street cred.

Weird Al Sharpton: Race Merchant & Coke Dealer
Flaming anti-Semite Malik Shabbaz (also spelled, “Shabazz”) of the New Black Panther party was very open about how Islam is necessary to defeat White people:

Malik Zulu Shabbaz, with the New Black Panther Party, also praised Farrakhan at the forum, saying he was “God’s man in our midst.”
Shabbaz urged unity among blacks and Muslims to fight what he saw as white domination.
“Islam, right now as I see it on the world scene, is the most powerful antidote to white world supremacy,” he said.

Racist Malik Shabazz of New Black Panther Party
Then, there was the Detroit Newsistan’s (and its resident Islamism apologist/fabricating “reporter” Gregg Krupa’s) deliberate omission of any coverage of Sudanese racist and Muslim (repetitive) Omar Al-Bashir’s speech, yesterday. At least resident Detroit Free Press Islamist, Niraj Warikoo, did the honors:

The President of Sudan told a cheering crowd of Muslims at the Nation of Islam’s convention in Detroit on Friday that his country is being unfairly targeted by Israel and Western countries “who do not respect the will and dignity of our nation.”
Speaking from Sudan, Omar al-Bashir addressed hundreds of Nation members and other Muslims in a video conference that Nation members said was broadcast live inside the African country.
“Colonial powers … want to come back” to Sudan, al-Bashir said through a translator to a crowd inside Cobo Center, the site of a three-day convention by the Nation, founded in Detroit and headed by Louis Farrakhan. There is an “American, Israeli, British alliance to dominate all the region.”
In recent years, al-Bashir and his government’s military forces have been criticized for allegedly killing people inside Sudan, allowing slavery, and providing a haven for terrorists. The U.S. State Dept. lists Sudan as a state sponsor of terrorism.
But al-Bashir said that “there is no ethnic cleansing at all” and “there isn’t any slavery in the Sudan.”
Speaking to a largely African-American audience, Al-Bashir also addressed the issue of race in his country. Some have said that Arabs with light skin are oppressing Africans in Sudan.
But the leader said “this is nothing but a lie,” because in Sudan, “we’re all Africans and we’re all black.”

Al-Bashir & Farrakhan: Perpetrating & Legitimizing Sudanese Arab Muslim Genocide of Black Christians
It figures he’d spew that. It’s the same BS Farrakhan, himself, has spewed for decades. Farrakhan has denied this evil genocide, looking the other way at the fact that over 2,000,000 Black Sudanese Christians have been murdered, also tortured and gang-raped. They were bought and sold for $35-$50, while he ignored the slaughter. Nauseating. And this is the most hailed Black leader in America, these days (other than Oprah–who also denied the Sudan problem and refused to cover it, until all the Christians were murdered).
The fact is, Muslim Arab leader Al-Bashir was a chief participant and sponsor of this murder of Black Christians in Sudan. Now, he’s going after Black Muslims (which is why all the lefties and celebs in America are suddenly concerned; Christians don’t count a whit to them).
And no biggie that Al-Bashir’s country is on the State Department Terrorist List or hosted Bin Laden for years. The clueless, lunatic NOI and Farrakhan buy into and help spread the propaganda. That there’s anti-Israel and anti-American sentiment thrown in, makes this group swallow the “medicine” that much more easily.

By
Hmmm . . . interesting that every time there is an election, a Bush speech, or immigration “reform” legislation granting amnesty is about to be voted on in Congress, there is a rare, well-timed raid on illegal alien employers by agents of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). And some arrests are even made.
I’m sure it’s just a coincidence. Right?
Yesterday’s raids on Nevada-based Rosenbaum-Cunningham International, Inc. a/k/a RCI–a cleaning and maintenance service company–is nice. So are the arrests of its three top executives. But it’s only a tiny drop in the bucket. These arrests should be happening every single day. They aren’t.
Then, there’s the lunacy of completely clueless resident ICE Airhead-in-Chief a/k/a “The ICE Princess.” She praised Michigan’s Grand Traverse Resort & Spa, saying

The ICE Princess & Abu Moskowitz: Pimping America Ad Absurdum

Our dealings with Grand Traverse Resort & Spa showed it to be a company interested in doing the right thing

because it cooperated with ICE after knowingly employing 100 obviously illegal alien workers as janitors and landscapers.
PUH-LEEZE. It’s well known and has been for years to anyone and everyone in Michigan that Grand Traverse, Mackinac Island’s Grand Hotel, and many other hotels and resorts in Northern Michigan and elsewhere around the state employ maids, janitors, landscapers, and others that quite clearly don’t belong here. They don’t speak English and all the other signs are there. A very, very few are here legally. Most aren’t. And, just like Wal-Mart did, these resorts and hotels employ less expensive third-party agencies like RCI to get them workers they well know are here illegally.
The only apparent reason Grand Traverse Resort & Spa–near Traverse City, Michigan–cooperated is because it had no choice. To praise the place because it did so–after knowingly contracting for these illegal aliens–is just idiocy.
And no-one ever said Julie Myers was immune from that. Anything but. And that’s the problem. She simply doesn’t belong there and should have been out long ago. If she had any honor, she’d resign (and would have never taken the job in the first place).
Robert Birach, a prominent attorney for illegal aliens fighting deportation, has openly said all over Michigan media that he knows these hotels and resorts in Northern Michigan employ illegal aliens. Why doesn’t she know it? And why is she openly praising these resorts who get around the law by feigning ignorance? Re-read above paragraph for the answer.
Then there’s The ICE Princess’ Special Agent in Charge for Michigan and Ohio, He’s whoring himself out for all the media attention he can get on this (see here also for video–the first guy is incorrectly labeled as Abu M, but he isn’t; he’s the shorter guy who says “the idea that we could prosecute or investigate everyone is impossible”) because his agents investigated the aliens working at Grand Traverse Resort & Spa. But, like I said, everyone here knows that most resorts and hotels up north employ illegal aliens. So where have he and his agents been for the last three years? And why are they letting Grand Traverse off the hook? And what about all the other hotels and resorts?
Don’t hold your breath for him to do anything more. He simply doesn’t care about enforcing immigration law–even though many of his subordinate agents do–because his sole purpose in life is to advance the career and associated emoluments of Abu Moskowitz. Period. End of Story.
And that’s why we’ll never beat the illegal immigration problem. People like The ICE Princess and Abu Moskowitz are running the show. And people like President Bush and ICE Director of Investigations, put them there.

By
**** UPDATE, 02/25/07: More on Farrakhan’s Looney Motown Adventure– ****
As you’ve probably read or heard by now, Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan a/k/a Louis X a/k/a Louis Eugene Walcott a/k/a that loony man who had a “vision of being swept into a UFO that took him to a larger mothership” that told him to have the Million Man March, is making what is likely his last appearance ever in a weekend-long event, beginning today in Detroit.
Those of us in Detroit have known about this speech for several months now, bombarded by billboards, radio and latenight TV ads, and tons of gushing Mainstream Media press that barely mentions what this racist, bigoted nutcase is really about.

Extremist Love Gaze: Louis Farrakhan and
Frankly, I didn’t think Minister Farrakhan would be around long enough to give this speech, as the last time I wrote about him he sent a good-bye note around. But the previous time he had cancer, an “Evil Zionist” doctor brought him back from the near-dead, and I’m sure the same thing happened again, so that he could grace us with his wicked presence just one more time. Read the when he told us he was going.
I, myself, went undercover to a Detroit area mosque in 1998 to hear Farrakhan speak–the very first time I went undercover to an Islamic event. I wrote about it in The Detroit Newsistan, which was then not Islamist-occupied territory (as it most certainly is now).
I wrote about his absurd speech, praising Muammar Ghadaffi and Saddam Hussein. I wrote about his vehement anti-Semitism and his call for a violent Jihad on America to cleanse it of the Jews, whom he called “the forces of Satan.” And scariest of all–but not the least bit surprising–I wrote about how the top Muslim leaders in the Detroit area and the 2,000 mostly Arab Muslims in the mosque cheered his calls for Jihad and his anti-Semitic slurs. For the first time in my life, I understood what it must have been like in Nazi Germany at a Hitler rally. This was the closest thing to it. Here is an excerpt of what it was like:

It’s not easy to forget that cold day in November 1998, when I heard Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan speak to about 2,000 Muslims–mostly Arabs–at the Islamic Center of America (North America’s largest mosque). (I wrote about it in The Detroit Newsistan and mentioned it in the Wall Street Journal.)
It was no different than any other Hitler rally. They eagerly drank up his shrieking, ranting, and raving about the “forces of Satan, the Zionists.” They joined him in his shouting about how we evil Zionist Jews control the government–the figure he used was that 48% of government jobs were occupied by these Satanic Jews. He called for a jihad on America, saying America needed to be frightened this way to “waken up.” He said a number of other equally absurd and dangerous things, including, “Saddam Hussein–his people seem to love him,” to this group of thousands of Jew-hating Shi’ites who fled Hussein, who didn’t object to this misstatement because they shared in his wish for the elimination of Jews and Christians from America.

But I don’t fault Farrakhan for his views or the mainstream American Muslim community for supporting him and those views. That is what they truly believe. I blame the press for mainstreaming him, and self-anointed far left Jewish community leaders who admonish his comments but continue to kiss the asses of all those Detroit area Muslim leaders and imams who support him.
Both have relegitimized Farrakhan–once shunted off to the fringe, but now more mainstreamed than ever–by glossing over his supporters’ support for him and by positively portraying him as some modern day pull-yourself-up-by-the-bootstraps success story and moral authority, when he is the Black David Duke who rips off his idiotic, hateful followers.
Both Detroit papers gush over him with a teeny-tiny afterthought mention of his “alleged” or “what some believe is” anti-semitism. Would they say David Duke is “allegedly” anti-Semitic or that some merely “believe he is” anti-Semitic, and publish glowing front-page stories on Duke? Of course, not. Both Detroit papers are worried about who will replace Farrakhan. One wonders if today they’d worry about who would replace Hitler. And by the way, I addressed that issue many months ago, .
All of the Detroit media quote Michigan Anti-Defamation League Director Betsy Kellman against Farrakhan. But she regularly kisses the asses of all Muslim leaders and imams who support Farrakhan. So do other self-anointed Jewish leaders. They constantly kowtow to Michigan CAIR Director Dawud Walid, who was an imam at one of Farrakhan’s Detroit mosques.
These are the same self-anointed American Jewish “leaders” that also looked the other way while Nazis cooked the Jews for sport. But put a manger scene in a town hall somewhere in podunk America around Christmas time, and they’re already at the courthouse with their lawyers.
These are the people that are the problem, NOT Farrakhan. He’d still be just a fringe loon, had they not legitimized him and his legitimizers.
Read what I wrote about .
Read more quick and interesting facts about Louis Farrakhan here.
More on Farrakhan , , , , and .

By
This weekend’s biggest box office releases might be called “Virginia Madsen v. Virginia Madsen.” The talented, beautiful actress has starring roles in both the excellent “The Astronaut Farmer” and the novel “The Number 23.” With both “Farmer” and the atrocious “Reno 911!: Miami,” it’s also got the best and worst movies of 2007, so far. Here are my reviews:
* “The Astronaut Farmer“–So far, this is the best movie of 2007, and I believe that’ll hold (as my “United 93” claim on that title for 2006 did, after its spring release). You can take your whole family to see this movie.

A true encapsulation of the American spirit and the individualism and dreams that comprise it, it’s the story of Chris Farmer (Billy Bob Thornton), a Texas rancher who dreamed of being an astronaut until a family death forced him to drop out of the NASA astronaut training program. But he hasn’t given up his dream and is building his rocket in the barn. While he’s behind on loans from the bank, and it puts a strain on his family, his loving wife (Virginia Madsen) support him amidst the financial strife, the opposition of the U.S. government, and all the naysayers who think he’s a kook. But he’s really a modern American cowboy in the best sense.
It’s the story of a traditional nuclear family in small town America, a man whose dreams are bigger than that town, and how a loving wife’s support makes that dream possible. And it’s the story of how big government bureaucrats and federal agents can’t keep a man down. Though I’d call this the fictional “The Right Stuff” of the decade, this movie isn’t just about space and astronauts and small towns in Texas. It’s about everything that’s great about America and the possibility–only in America–of making great dreams come to fruition. It reminds me of Ronald Reagan’s famous statement, “We have the right to dream heroic dreams.”
If I had any criticism of this film, it’s that while it’s a serious film, the FBI agents in it are comedic caricatures. It’s a minor point. And while I’m critical of the FBI, I know most of its agents are good people. Few are as incompetent as these. And none whom I know still wear Ray-Ban aviators. Best part of the film: the tune one FBI agent has as his cellphone ringtone. Also, I could have done without the political lines about Weapons of Mass Destruction and the presence of an apparent illegal alien farmhand. But that was very minor.
Walt Disney is smiling down from Heaven, as the young twin Polish brothers who wrote and directed this magnificent film have picked up where he left off. Some might call this film hokey, but I call it great. It’s the uplifting, positive, great American family film Hollywood makes too little of–and which America needs so badly. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.
I interviewed filmmakers Mark and Mike Polish and stars Billy Bob Thornton and Virginia Madsen, and I will post my interview, later today. The Polish brothers are an impressive, imaginative pair. And I couldn’t think of anyone but Thornton and Madsen to play these roles–both are excellent.

* “The Number 23“–Most critics are panning this psychological thriller starring Jim Carrey and Virginia Madsen. But not me. While the last third of it has too many twists and turns, I think it’s a novel, interesting movie with a plot I haven’t seen before. It’s a little bloody and explicit in sex scenes, so it’s not for kids. Though different and dark, I found it interesting and new.
Carrey plays a dogcatcher Walter Sparrow, who thinks his life should be bigger, more exciting. His loving wife (Madsen) makes cakes. One day, he’s late for his birthday celebration because he’s bitten by a dog he’s trying to catch. That leads him and his wife to a bookstore, where she buys him a tattered pulp fiction book, “The Number 23,” by “Toppsy Kretts.”
Soon Sparrow finds himself obsessed with the book, its private detective character “Fingerling,” his paramour “Fabrizia,” and finds himself seeing similarities between himself and the fictional investigator. He also becomes obsessed with the number 23 and sees it everywhere in everything. And he tries to figure out who killed a local college student, whose body was never found. Is the book a fiction or is it real?
Entertaining and recommended, even though it’s way too twisted and overdone toward the end.
* “Reno 911!: Miami“–Absolutely disgusting. Vile. Gross. Never thought I would miss “Police Academy 6.” This movie, based on the TV comedy is far worse than it’s small screen version. And not funny. Yes, I laughed a few times. But mostly, I was embarrassed, and I’m no prude. People walked out of the screening, and I wished I’d joined them. If you’re into explicit, stupid sex, deviance, and bathroom jokes, this is for you. But even those in that category won’t laugh much. No cops are this dumb, this sick . . . or this unfunny. The worst movie of 2007 so far, though “” is strong competition in that category. Skip this, if you’re smart.