I can’t comprehend how something like “skankelina” can be found remotely funny by anyone over the age of 8.

ConservativesLovePuns(descent) on January 16, 2007 at 4:34 pm

BABEL got a rating of 7.8/10 at imdb.com from over 11,000 votes so obviously a lot of people liked it. Voting fraud is lessened because imdb.com requires a voter to be registered.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0449467/
I wish conservatives would stop complaining about the movie industry and make your own darn movies. Be like Mel Gibson!:P
Yeah, Debbie, I like the way you mischaracterize everyone you don’t like. Don’t ever change.
On a lighter note, anyone here who likes cute and funny, see this Geico commercial spoof:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Br_b4Ngpyxw
JUDGING WHETHER PEOPLE LIKED A MOVIE BASED ON PEOPLE MULTIPLE-VOTING ON A WEBSITE IS EXTREMELY IDIOTIC. THE ULTIMATE INDICATION WHETHER PEOPLE LIKED IT IS THE BOX OFFICE RETURNS. AND “BABEL” FAILED. THE ONE WHO MISCHARACTERIZES THINGS AIN’T ME; IT’S THE ONE WHO JUDGES A MOVIE’S SUCCESS BY VOTING ON A WEBSITE. HA! GET A CLUE (OR EVEN HALF OF ONE).
YES, BE LIKE MEL GIBSON–GUH-REAT ASPIRATION: DRUNK ON HIS ASS & “ALL THE WARS IN THE WORLD ARE CAUSED BY THE JEWS.” NO, I DON’T THINK I WANT TO BE LIKE MEL GIBSON. AND BTW, WHOEVER PROPAGANDIZED YOU THAT HE’S A CONSERVATIVE IS AS CLUELESS AS YOU. HE’S VERY LIBERAL, ON IRAQ, ON BUSH, ON A LOT OF THINGS. IF YOU DON’T LIKE WHAT YOU READ ON THIS SITE, HERE’S A SUGGESTION YOU MIGHT NEVER HAVE THOUGHT OF: DON’T READ IT.
DEBBIE SCHLUSSEL

Norman Blitzer on January 16, 2007 at 4:55 pm

After about a year reading your columns on and off this site I’ve finally decided to register and comment.
Once upon a time I was liberal minded. Jimmy Carter, may his head explode at his next political meeting with the muzzie scum, cure me.
Ronald Wilson Reagan gave me immunization.
Today I simply roll my eyes back in disbelief at what passes for competence in the government. If Rome was this corrupt, it isn’t any mystery to me why it finally fell apart.

Islamsnotforme on January 16, 2007 at 9:54 pm

Debbie, you are so wrong about Borat. Look, comedy is supposed to hurt. It can be cruel, uncomfortable, juvenile, cretinous, all for the sake of advancing a sharp observation or two, or blasting through a taboo, or simply cramping you up with laughter. Comedy is not nice. The Greeks knew this. So did Lenny Bruce. Most people, however — Americans included — are obsessed with being perceived as nice while sometimes saying not-so-nice things. This is what “Borat” is really about. Well, that and a naked fat guy running through a sales convention. Sacha Baron Cohen’s tatty, low-budget prank-a-thon was both the most overhyped movie of the year and the most underrated, the smartest and the stupidest, the most bigoted and the most open-minded. (It was also the funniest. Hands down.) In other words: a movie that encapsulated the extremes of our culture and our times better than almost any serious movie you can name. In all, this plucky little fellow from a mythical Kazakhstan — acting extremely nice while spewing ignorance in every direction — fit right into the American scene. Sinclair Lewis would have recognized the people Borat meets, and even Chaplin might have found in him a rude, crude modern descendant: a Little Tramp for an age of industrial-strength complacency.

Jovent on January 16, 2007 at 11:16 pm

Debbie,
First of all, I already pointed out the issue of voter fraud. You’re obviously not familiar with imdb.com, but it’s very hard for a movie to get a good rating because of the amount of people registered to vote (and who do vote). And to use boxoffice figures as the main indicator of whether or not people liked a movie is REALLY STUPID. The only way to know if the people who saw the movie liked it is to survey those people. Obviously movie critics who saw the film liked it. And if you don’t like negative comments about your articles, then don’t have a comment option.
On the issue of Mel Gibson, it wasn’t liberals pushing people to see ‘The Passion of the Christ’, remember? Mel Gibson is as liberal as Pat Buchanan.
I know you like to throw around words like “idiotic” because I’m sure many of your critics have used that kind of word to describe you. It’s very sad that adult discourse has come down to childish insults. But keep hating, Debbie, it’s only eating you up inside.
SINCE I’M ONLY ON IMDB EVERY SINGLE DAY, I THINK I’M QUITE FAMILIAR WITH IT. VOTES ON THERE COUNT FOR ABSOLUTELY NOTHING IN REAL-LIFE. YOU ARE APPARENTLY NOT FAMILIAR WITH EITHER HOLLYWOOD OR THE ENTERTAINMENT INDUSTRY. BOX OFFICE RETURNS ARE EVERYTHING. GET USED TO IT. THE MARKETPLACE IS THE JUDGE, AND THE MARKETPLACE SAID IT SUCKED. AND THAT’S WHY GIBSON IS STILL IN BUSINESS. ANTI-SEMITISM AND BEING A TOTAL NUTCASE DOESN’T MATTER IF YOU MAKE MILLIONS FOR THE FOLKS IN TINSELTOWN. THEY ARE BIGGER WHORES IN HOLLYWOOD THAN IN ANY OTHER INDUSTRY. AND IT’S ONLY GETTING WORSE.
IF YOU DON’T LIKE BEING INSULTED, DON’T INSULT ME. FAIL TO SEE HOW YOUR GRATUITOUS, CHILDISH, BASELESS INSULTS ARE “ADULT DISCOURSE,” BUT RESPONDING TO THEM IS “CHILDISH.” POT, KETTLE, BLACK. CAN’T TAKE THE HEAT? YOU KNOW WHERE TO STAY OUT OF . . . .
PLENTY OF MOVIE CRITICS HATED “BABEL,” SUCH AS THE WEEKLY STANDARD/NEW YORK POST’S JOHN PODHORETZ, WHO CALLED IT “THE FEEL-BAD MOVIE OF THE YEAR.” FINALLY, THE ONLY THING EATING ME UP INSIDE IS HOW MUCH TIME I’VE WASTED RESPONDING TO YOUR ILL-INFORMED COMMENTS. TIME I WILL NEVER GET BACK. YES, THE HATRED OF THAT IS DEFINITELY EATING ME UP INSIDE. BELIEVE ME. EVERYONE (ALL MY CRITICS) THINK THEY’RE MY POP PSYCHOLOGIST. THEY REALLY HAVE TO REALIZE THERE’S MORE TO LIFE THAN REPEATING THE PSYCHOBABBLE UTTERED BY “DR. ROBIN” ON OPRAH.
“BABEL” WAS TOO LONG, TOO BORING, TO BIZARRE, AND ABOVE ALL, SITTING THROUGH IT WAS AN EXPERIENCE WORTHY OF BEING CALLED TORTURE. I GUARANTEE THAT IF THEY MADE GITMO PRISONERS WATCH IT, THE ACLU WOULD BE ALL OVER IT. CRUEL AND UNUSUAL PUNISHMENT.
DEBBIE SCHLUSSEL

Norman Blitzer on January 16, 2007 at 11:41 pm

Debbie has to be one of the laziest critics I have ever read. Not liking a film like “Babel” because it is “too long,” or “too boring”, is a weak argument. “Babel” is a bad film because it confirms what a good friend of mine once wrote, that movies should never be good for you. And that is what nags me about Babel. Unlike anything in David Lynch’s Inland Empire or Melville’s Army of Shadows or whoever else you would accuse of pretentiously aestheticizing anomie or pleasurelessness, IÒ°??itu seems to want his movies to be good for you on those same terms. Babel demands to be taken as more than a mere movie, as more than an entertainment. It’s a big vitamin you can get at Whole Foods, near the yoga mats. At some point on their getaway from their parental misery (who escapes from the blues to that part of Morocco, anyway?), Cate Blanchett asks Brad Pitt why they’re here. And all you can think is, you poor Hollywood actress, you’re in Babel where you and some other less famous people will be written into one massive implausibility after the next. But you’ll all suffer for a worthy cause: the audience’s enlightenment. Cue the harps. This is a movie that people leave under the impression that something amazing has happened, that they’ve seen a high cinematic work, when all they’ve gotten is a flu shot. Last year, there were many more emotionally chilling manipulations that pull their strings without all the noise and blubbering and trashy entrapment of its characters. I mean, really, having the maid, good as Adriana Barraza is in the movie, doing all that grotesque desert drifting? The movie is shameless. The Mexican maid is devoted to her employers and their children at the expense of every ounce of her common sense. She has to be stupid and suffer so we can see/feel/know the full extent of how terribly illegal immigrants are treated. Barraza dragged to every station of the sociopolitical cross. Unclean! These are the medicine movies people are going for?these social melodramas cum op-eds, like Crash, that toss a bunch of characters into pot and turn the stove to “boil.” The tears! The dramatic irony!
I THINK THAT’S THE MOST PRETENTIOUS REVIEW I’VE EVER READ. I’D RATHER BE “LAZY” THAN PRETENTIOUS.
DEBBIE SCHLUSSEL

Jovent on January 17, 2007 at 1:10 am

[IF YOU DON’T LIKE BEING INSULTED, DON’T INSULT ME.]
Since when, Debbie?
BTW, did you like the Geico commercial spoof?

Norman Blitzer on January 17, 2007 at 1:22 am

(ill)Liberals infiltrated your site, Debbie. Maybe the good idea would be to restrict the access to trolls so that reading the comments would be interesting again.

CommonSensor on January 17, 2007 at 12:58 pm