By Debbie Schlussel
It’s sort of fitting that a bunch of turkeys comprise new movies at theaters on what is often nicknamed Turkey Day. This includes the race-card laden “Australia” and the gay-propaganda flick, “Milk”. Who wants to pay ten bucks to be hit over the head with left-wing propaganda on the extended Thanksgiving holiday weekend? I did not review “Transporter 3,” since I didn’t see the first two “Transporter” movies, and I just didn’t feel like it. Sorry, but I waste enough hours of my life watching drek.
* “Four Christmases“: Reese Witherspoon and the ever-ballooning Vince Vaughn are mismatched in this unfunny comedy about a boyfriend and girlfriend committed to being single and not having kids. It is very funny at the beginning of the movie when the couple practice their annual ritual of lying to their families, so they can celebrate Christmas away from them on the beach at some tropical locale.

The movie is at its funniest at the beginning, when they put on elaborate ruses, pretending they are off to help orphans in Burma and other excuses like that. But it’s all downhill from there as they are caught and forced to spend Christmas visiting with each of their four dysfunctional divorced parents. Most of the jokes are stupid and some are gross. When I wasn’t groaning, I fell asleep during this boring, miserable movie of less than an hour-and-a-half that seemed like five hours.
The most (unintentionally) funny part was watching Witherspoon struggle to walk in way-too-high heels up a driveway.
HALF MARX

* “Australia“: No wonder Oprah loved and heavily promoted this dud. It was as if Spike Lee redid his long, boring, race-laden “Miracle at St. Anna” and set it in Australia. This movie–clocking in at 2 hours and 45 minutes–was waaaaaaay toooooooo looooong. It was like five different movies were stuffed into one very bad one, and it’s a complete mess. I fell asleep like 7 times, and then I lost count. Some people call this movie “epic.” I call it “ennui.”
Most of the movie takes place during World War II, when a haggard, very aged-looking Nicole Kidman plays the snooty, uptight wife to a British nobleman. Strapped for cash and believing her husband is cheating on her, she travels to Australia to track him down and sell their money-losing ranch. She finds her husband dead and discovers that her ranch hand is impregnating Aboriginal women and stealing her cattle for a competitor who wants to buy the ranch at lowball prices.
Kidman and a “drover” (like a herder) she’s hired (Hugh Jackman) strive to foil this and come to love “Nullah”, the very cute illegitimate bi-racial Aboriginal kid the evil ranchhand has fathered. Throughout the movie, we are hit over the head by the racism in Australia against Aborigines and are shown how the Catholic Church and Australian authorities seize the half-White Aboriginal kids to “get the Aboriginal half out of them.” World War II is also taking place and we frequently see the telepathic/psychic communication between Nullah and his Aboriginal leader grandfather, “King George” and how they use their magical Aboriginal powers. This was the only charming part of the movie–and not worth sitting through nearly three hours of crap.
TWO-AND-A-HALF MARXES


* “Milk“: Timing is everything, and I doubt it’s a coincidence that Hollywood–without knowing the election outcome–chose a few weeks after the election on California’s Proposition 8, to release this very heavy-handed gay rights propaganda flick.
To say this movie is “flamboyant” would be the understatement of the year. Watching Sean Penn kiss anyone (or the ass of Iran’s Ahmadinejad and Venezuela’s Chavez) is bad enough. But watching him make out with and have sex with James Franco turned my stomach. Bleccccchhhhh to the nth.
It’s the story of how Harvey Milk–a gay activist from New York–became the first openly gay man elected as a San Francisco Supervisor (akin to a City Councilman). He’s shot to death by fellow Supervisor Dan White (Josh Brolin), whom the movie unfairly implies was a closeted gay–despite no evidence and the fact that Wilson is not alive to disavow that description.
Unrelated to gay issues, White assassinated Milk and was the first to successfully plead the insanity defense now known as the “Twinkie Defense.” Frankly, the trial and that defense would have made for a more interesting movie. White committed suicide not long after he was released from prison, and it is believed he had Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) from serving in Vietnam–an aspect completely skipped by the movie.
Conservatives and others who oppose the militant gay agenda (including Anita Bryant) were portrayed as bigots and extremists. But, in fact, most of America–while having no problem with gays doing what they want in their own homes and bedrooms–doesn’t like this agenda being shoved in their faces and–pardon the phrase–shoved down their throats. We know it’s not about equal rights. It’s about their right to impose upon us. That’s the part they don’t show you in this movie.
Other than being incredibly one-sided, this was way too long and boring and far too many scenes of Di-Fi (Dianne Feinstein). The movie was two hours and had like a gazillion endings. It could have been done in 1.5 hours, or–as far as I’m concerned–zero hours.
Appeals to the Elton Johns and Clay Aikens of the world far more than it did to me. The ghost of Liberace is applauding.
THREE-AND-A-HALF MARXES

* “I’ve Loved You So Long“: Kristin Scott Thomas stars in this French-language (with English subtitles) movie about a woman who stays at her estranged sister’s home after a long, mysterious absence, which we learn from almost the beginning, was a prison sentence she was serving. While somewhat interesting, the movie is mostly politically correct: her sister makes a point of noting that she has chosen not to have children and instead adopted two cute young Vietnamese kids. “We are like a Bennetton ad,” she brags. The two sisters, who barely know each other, struggle to cobble together a relationship, while Thomas struggles to rebuild a life as an ex-con convicted of a heinous crime. This film moved very slowly and is somewhat depressing and pointless but was slightly interesting in other ways.
ZERO REAGANS OR MARXES – A WASH