October 28, 2011, - 6:10 pm

Wknd Box Office: In Time, Anonymous, Rum Diary, Love Crime, Paranormal Activity 3

By Debbie Schlussel

The best new movie, out this weekend, is a foreign language arthouse film.  Plus I really liked “Paranormal Activity 3,” which I couldn’t review for you, last week, due to Jewish holidays.  And speaking of Jewish, it’s no shocker that one of the biggest releases this weekend is not-so-veiled anti-Semitic cinematic rantings of the Occupy Wall Street smellies.

 

 

*  “In Time“:  This is “high-styled Occupy Wall Street cinema.”  So obvious, so absurd.  And, yes, so anti-Semitic.  What a coincidence that the bad people in this movie are the wealthy.  And that the biggest villain of them all is a stingy moneylender, er . . . “timelender,” named Philippe Weis (pronounced, “Weiss”).  Historically, Jews have been the money changers and money lender villains of Europe.  No surprise that Hollywood Jew-haters repeated the Jew scapegoating and stingy canards here.   They don’t say he’s Jewish–they don’t have to. Oh, and then there’s that “numbers on your arm” thing.  Looks just like the tattoo my cousin Avraham had after his time in the camps.

The plot of this silly OWS flick:  it’s the future.  The aging gene shuts off at age 25, and that’s how you look for the rest of your life, except that you need to earn or inherit time to live longer.  Everyone has a clock on their arm that begins running at age 25.  The poor have only a few hours to live at a time.  They get paid in time and pay for goods and services in time.  The social hierarchy is such that the rate of cost in time constantly goes up in order that the poor will die more quickly.  The rich live outside the ghetto and “unfairly” have a lot of time.  Yup, in this movie, time–not money–is the currency.  The rich ask their fellow rich, “Do you come from time?” (instead of the old, “Do you come from money?”).

Will Salas (Justin Timberlake) is out to fight the “injustice” of it all.  He is from the ghetto and is poor.  But, one night, he saves the life of a man rich in time.  The man gives him more than a century in time.  Just as Will runs to give some of it to his mother, she dies–she runs out of time.  And Will sets to buy himself into the wealthy neighborhood of New Greenwich, so he can get revenge on the wealthy for his mother’s death.  There he meets a rich girl, Amanda Seyfried a/k/a Sylvia Weis (hmmm . . . sounds like a Jewish grandmother’s name–why didn’t they just name her, “Rachel Horowitz,” and be even more obvious about their animus toward Jews?).  She’s the daughter of the evil rich guy money-lender.  Soon, there is a whole Bonnie and Clyde/Robin Hood story going on, too.

Sound like OWS fantasy?  That’s exactly what it is.  One movie critic chastised me for saying so, claiming that the movie was made two years ago so that means it has nothing to do with Occupy Wall Street.  Really?  Anyone listening to Hollywood’s hypocritical, limousine liberal views on entrepreneurs and businessmen over the last several decades knows where OWS was born and where it finds kindred spirits by the gazillion actor/waiters.

The thing is, just like Justin Timberlake’s character in the movie says and thinks it’s not fair that he works so hard and has little, while the wealthy work little and have so much, I think I work far harder than Timberlake.  While he lolls around Hollywood and New York drinking and supping and barely working, I toil daily.  And yet, I have far less than he.  So, maybe, as he claims in this movie, I have a right to his multi-millions and should rob him of them, as he does the wealthy in this flick.

But I’d never get away with it because just like the rest of Hollywood, Timberlake is a do as I say, not as I do kind o’ guy.

And that’s the real moral of this movie.  I loved the style of the movie and the cool cars.  Hated the message and the not-so-subtle agitprop about the JOOOOS.  Skip it.  If ever there was a Marx-worthy movie, this is it.

FOUR MARXES PLUS
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Watch the trailer . . .

*  “Anonymous“:  Even putting aside that this movie co-stars the butt-ugliest woman on earth, Vanessa “Zionist Hoodlums” Redgrave (and I cannot put that aside–sorry!), it’s long, slow, boring, confusing, and frankly, silly.

While it’s long been rumored and theorized by some that William Shakespeare did not write his plays, this movie isn’t the story of Sir Francis Bacon, who is believed to be the real author of the plays.  Instead, it’s some stupid contrived soap opera about an effeminate, philandering girlieman noble, Edward De Vere, the Earl of Oxford, who allegedly wrote the plays.  It’s absurd and there are so many constant flashbacks and flash forwards, it’s hard to understand exactly what is going on until the movie is more than half over.  And, by then, you’re bored to tears, if still awake. (I suppose I should be happy that Hollywood isn’t claiming the Muslims wrote the plays and were victimized by Shakespeare.)

I’d love to know what motivated whoever it was that wrote this stuff to write Macbeth or the steretypical Shylock in the Merchant of Venice.  But this was none of that.  Instead, it’s just a froofy, flowery set of men in ancient English royal costumes pretending to play “Desperate Housewives.”  And even the real thing is being canceled by ABC.  If you’re a gay man and like to dress like a woman, you’ll probably like this.  For everyone else, stay away.  You were warned.

After watching this, I couldn’t care less who really wrote Shakespeare’s stuff and why.  It’s miserable.  Forget this. . . unless you have trouble falling asleep and warm milk won’t do.

TWO MARXES
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Watch the trailer . . .

*  “The Rum Diary“:  This was boring, silly, and mostly not funny.  No surprise, as it was written by the vastly overrated late druggie nutcase, Hunter S. Thompson.  I never understood the fascination with that wack job, and this renews my global thought on everything Thompson:  “Huh????” If this movie is what it means to be a “gonzo journalist,” it’s no wonder Gonzo is the name of a muppet.

I’m not sure what the point of this movie without an interesting plot or resolution was.  Clearly, the point wasn’t to entertain, as this is slow and boring, and nothing gets accomplished.  It takes place in the 1960s Puerto Rico with your typical anti-business plot.  Evil, mostly-White businessmen want to colonize an unnamed island that is just off the coast of Puerto Rico and part of the territory.  Although its name is never mentioned, I presume it’s Vieques, since the U.S. military is conducting test bombing exercises nearby.  It’s irrelevant, though, because nothing ever happens.  The stale Johnny Depp comes to a dying newspaper in Puerto Rico, where he meets a publicist (Aaron Eckhart) looking for a writer to pimp and promote his island hotel idea.  Depp falls in love with Eckhart’s beautiful young fiancee.  And, again, nothing much happens.  And the movie ends.

Congrats, you just wasted ten bucks and two hours for nothing.  The dead pothead, Hunter S. Thompson, is having the last laugh from hell, after all.  Sucker.  Like “Anonymous,” this is great for the sleep-deprived.  Will put you out in a quick minute. One more thing: the Johnny-Depp-I’m-Cool-In-a-Weird-Offbeat-Way act is old, tired, and hackneyed. Time for it to retire.

FOUR MARXES
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Watch the trailer . . .

*  “Love Crime [Crime D’Amour]“:  I enjoyed this tight and suspenseful thriller, which is in French with English subtitles.  It’s a “get revenge on the boss” flick, but far superior to the dumb and mean-spirited “Horrible Bosses” (read my review).   Isabelle (a de-glammed Ludivine Sagnier) stars as the hard-working, bright assistant to Christine (Kristin Scott Thomas), a heartless, cold boss.  Christine steals Isabelle’s ideas, takes credit for them, and does what she can to keep Isabelle down.  But when she publicly humiliates her, Isabelle can take no more.  And that’s when the thrills begin.  To say more would give away too much.   

This is well edited and fast-paced, interesting and entertaining. It’s playing mostly at arthouse theaters, so if you can’t find it playing nearby, it’s a great rental to watch at home.

THREE REAGANS
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Watch the trailer . . .

*  “Paranormal Activity 3“:  I liked this the best, by far, of the three Paranormal Activity movies.  It’s a great “scary movie,” and it frightens without graphic violence or otherwise base manipulation.  Instead, this movie goes back to the oldtime great horror flicks, which relied on mind games and psychology to scare you.  That’s what makes a great horror thriller, and that’s what this is.  You needn’t have seen any of the other Paranormal Activity movies to get this.  It was well done.

A couple of pregnant women who are somehow related find a box of VCR videotapes of family from the ’80s.  When they look again, the box of tapes is missing.  Suddenly, we are shown what’s on the tapes.  It’s the late ’80s.  A 20- or 3o-something guy marries a woman with two daughters and has moved in with them to their very cool house.  The guy has a wedding videotape business.  Soon, weird things are happening in the house–noises at night, things being moved, etc.  The guy sets up video cameras to record what’s happening as they are sleeping.  It’s creepy.

I can’t say more, except that it builds slowly to a lot of frightful chills and shivers.  I hated the first “Paranormal Activity” (read my review).  I liked the second one slightly better (read my review).  But this one was really good.  If you like a good horror flick without the blood, guts, and gore, this is it.  Spooky and creepy the way it’s supposed to be done.

THREE REAGANS
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Watch the trailer . . .




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43 Responses

Good reviews. Just one correction: The women in Paranormal Activity 3 are sisters, and only Kristi, the younger one, is pregnant. The videotapes they find in the box are tapes from their childhood.

John on October 28, 2011 at 9:28 pm

That PA3 sounds very good! Maybe I will see it on Halloween. We are having wicked cold weather in New England. It sucks, but if we don’t get snowed in, this will be a way to have a quiet and fun Halloween.

And that French movie sounds so good. Good on Kristen Scott-Thomas. Because she can speak French fluently, she has been getting some great acting work that would be NON-EXISTENT in Hollyweird. There is Hollywood for you. Full of irony and hypocrisy just like the OWS crowd. And most of Hollywood is not bilingual so they are too dumb to look for work where there is some for broads over 40 years old.

What the hell do peeps see in Timberlake? I can’t stand him and he is not even hot. I just don’t get it.

Skunky on October 28, 2011 at 9:35 pm

    Skunky, answering your question “What the hell do peeps see in Timberlake since he’s not particularly attractive?”, the answer is that he seems to be settling into a niche as symbol of a beyond-words-hip twentysomething Establishment rebel. My best guess is that he’s been selecting his film roles to maximize damage to our culture; the more he does that, the more liberal critics shower him with praise. Bad Teacher is another example of a film he was in recently which poked and slapped at traditional morals and institutions. He reminds me of Dustin Hoffman who was also not particularly attractive but who carved out a persona of scruffy, sullen youthful rebel in The Graduate and became an iconic symbol for a generation of malcontents who had mommy and daddy issues.

    Burke on October 29, 2011 at 8:02 pm

In Time is anti-Semitic?…I think someone needs a dictionary.
People deal with time, so automatically they’re Jewish money changers? Really?

petebone on October 28, 2011 at 9:37 pm

    Pete—everyone who is rich and evil has a stereotypical Jewish last mname. Clue in: if everyone who was violently thuggish in a movie was black, and all consumed watermelon and fried chicken, do you think that would be referring to stereotypes?

    Occam's Tool on October 30, 2011 at 7:09 pm

      Given that most of the characters don’t have last names I wouldn’t say that it’s an anti-Semitic movie. Also the hero of the movie is named Salas.
      And given that the movie written by the same guy that wrote “The Lord of War” and “The Truman Show” I don’t think the movie is anti-Semitic movie.

      petebone on October 30, 2011 at 7:45 pm

        If the character Phillipe Weis is intended to be a Jew, and the movie is attempting to subliminally espouse anti-Semitism, the casting doesn’t serve those purposes well. Weis is played by Vincent Kartheiser, who is best known to audiences as Pete Campbell, the advertising executive, from the fictitious ad firm of Sterling Cooper in Mad Men. When Matt Weiner, the creator of Mad Men did the casting for the show, Weiner (who is Jewish) didn’t select people who would have Jewish features because he wanted to create Sterling Cooper as a gentile ad firm, consistent with the anti-Semitism of the times, a la Gentlemen’s Agreement. (In fact, the only character who “might” be Jewish is Don Draper, played by John Hamm, and that is only because Weiner saw Draper as a “white man who is an outsider.”) Had an actor for the Weis character been cast with more clear Jewish ethnic features than Vincent Kartheiser, then, maybe, I’d say the criticism of anti-Semitism in this movie might hold more water.

        Ralph Adamo on October 31, 2011 at 4:01 pm

One reason why I like good horror movies is that they make for the best comedies. Rarely have I seen one that has made me “shiver”. After your review, Debbie, I am definitely going to watch PA3 just to see whether I will be laughing or be slightly frightened.

Pats on October 28, 2011 at 9:58 pm

I thought from the rum diary trailer it looked just like Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas but on an island. boring.

Ender on October 28, 2011 at 10:34 pm

I love your reviews. My 14yr old wants to see In time. It’ll make a gazillion dollars because there’s not much out for kids older than 12 that want to be cool and yet see something their parents will let them see. I thought it looked like a new Logans Run (Jenny Agutter was the British Amanda Seyfried– same extra round blue eyes).
I hope the uneducated children really won’t get it, but it’s so subliminal. Hollywood sucks. We all deserve better entertainment.

Andrea on October 28, 2011 at 10:44 pm

How long is Depp gonna play characters who act like they are in their late 20’s/early 30’s? He’s in his late 40’s now.

The thing about Depp and Thompson, they both seem offbeat cool when your young and then you realize they are one-trick ponies who think (thought) too much of their own “talent”.

Blight of the Hunter on October 28, 2011 at 11:23 pm

I’m guessing you didnt see “Puss in Boots”

Matthew on October 28, 2011 at 11:35 pm

Read “Alias Shakespeare”. A great case is made that the Duke of Oxford was the Bard of Avon. I think the bi-sexual Duke was the author. Hollywood messes up a great story again.

Jimbo on October 29, 2011 at 1:01 am

    Jimbo, several of Shakespeare’s plays were written after the Earl (not Duke – he wasn’t THAT lofty *lol*) of Oxford’s death so, for me, that kills the theory.

    I disagree about Johnny Depp, too. Of course I’m biased since I’ve LONG been a huge fan of his but I don’t find his acting style in the least hackneyed, and I’m all for more and more of it. His looks don’t hurt either. 😀

    Aaaaaand yes… In Time. While I get your reference, Debbie, especially with the name, and with the historical Jewish stereotypes, I have to say I do think you’re being a little over-sensitive in this regard. I used to work with a man called Wiseman, who had no Jewish blood anywhere in his traceable history and, in fact, was an Irish Roman Catholic himself. I think, given your stance on it, that the name was poorly chosen, but I certainly wouldn’t have developed any anti-Semitic feelings over it and, if I’d detected any, I’d still see the film as what it is – a work of fiction.

    Alison on October 29, 2011 at 10:46 am

      Alias Shakespeare addresses the dating issues in painful detail. We really do not have any idea when these plays were written. It’s actually a point in the Oxfordians’ favor that considering how Shakespeare loved to cite obliquely current events, there are no such references following Oxford’s death in 1604. Hamlet is Oxford’s friggin’ life story, and everyone concedes that Polonius was based on his father-in-law.
      MacBeth actually makes a lot more sense when you realize that it was unfinished, it author dying in 1604, and puffed up with a nonsense scene or two from Thomas Middleton’s “The Witches.”
      In fact, there are documented references to Hamlet a couple of decades in advance of its dating by “experts.”
      In William Shakspere’s will, his major concern is that his wife get his “second best bed.” No mention of any plays. More people claim to have met Socrates than Shakespeare (3 to 1).
      Joe Sobran’s conservative credentials are beyond reproach, and his scholastic contribution to the Shakespeare question is mighty.
      To my knowledge, no one has ever really attempted to refute Sobran’s case… only ignore it.
      I have no doubt that the movie is shlocky and probably designed to sabotage the Oxfordian case, but it is certainly worth researching before rejecting because it isn’t what one’s grammar school teachers told one. When I was in school, they were still teaching that “different tastes on different parts of the tongue” business, and that was refuted a century ago.

      gangnet on October 29, 2011 at 4:52 pm

        In fact, there are documented references to Hamlet a couple of decades in advance of its dating by “experts.”

        Shakespeare’s The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark was a REWRITE!!!

        Miranda Rose Smith on November 2, 2011 at 7:32 am

    Although I believe that there is great merit to the theory that the Earl of Oxford wrote most of the plays that have been attributed to Shakespeare, I will not go to the theater to see Anonymous, and will wait until it’s available to view on DVD.

    My reason, very simply, is that John Orloff is the wrong person to write the script for this film, and the script is the heart of soul of a movie. Orloff simply has not read enough of the literature supporting the Oxfordian view; so he understands very little about the evidence. He has neither the knowledge nor depth of understanding of the life of Edward de Vere, nor even a solid understanding of Shakespeare’s writing to make a persuasive case for the Oxfordian theory.

    I would not be surprised that the movie Anonymous is boring, confusing, or directionless. Unless the writer and director truly are knowledgeable about their characters, understand what they want to say, are passionate about the subject they are attempting to communicate, and have worked hard to convey that passion with depth, insight, and skill, the results are bound to miserable, especially in a story purporting to intersect the life of Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford, with the plays attributed to Shakespeare.

    Many of the world’s best intellects from a broad spectrum of fields have doubted the conventional Stratfordian theory. Here’s just a sampling: Charles Dickens, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Mark Twain, Walt Whitman, Charlie Chaplin, Orson Welles, John Gielgud, Jeremy Irons, Derek Jacobia, Michael York, Henry Blackmun, John Paul Stevens, and Antonin Scalia, to name a few. Interestingly, many of the greatest writers and some of the very best Shakespearian actors do not believe in the conventional Stratfordian theory.

    Many of the above individuals are also strong supporters of the Oxfordian theory of authorship. http://www.shakespeare-oxford.com/?p=39. Thus, a real movie on the subject of Oxford and Shakespeare has yet to be made.

    Ralph Adamo on October 31, 2011 at 12:54 am

While people insists for whatever reason Shakespeare did not write his plays, it is a silly theory, founded on nothing other than the desire of the theorists to be famous. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of references, physical objects, citations, contemporary accounts, and historical documents linking Shakespeare to his works.

pat on October 29, 2011 at 1:29 pm

    Contrary to your statement, there’s virtually nothing linking the Stratford man to the plays of Shakespeare. The only piece of writing we know for sure that was written by the Stratford man is the following poem, which appears on his gravestone:

    Good friend for Iesus sake forbeare
    To digg the dust encloased heare:
    Blest be ye man yt spares thes stones
    And curst be he yt moves my bones.

    Pretty lame stuff, huh? Sort of makes Rodney Dangerfield’s epitaph look like a work of sheer genius, wherein Dangerfield wrote: “There goes the neighborhood.”

    As for your other statement that the only people espousing the Oxfordian theory are people trying to become “famous,” well, that is totally absurd. AS I’ve pointed out, some of the world greatest writers have said the Stratford theory is a lie: Charles Dickens, Mark Twain, Henry James, James Joyce, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Walt Whitman, to name a few. Sigmund Freud, Charlie Chaplin, and Hellen Keller doubted the Stratford theory. The world’s greatest Shakesperian actors have doubted the Stratford theory: John Gielgud, Derek Jacobi, Orson Welles, Leslie Howard, Michael York, etc. http://www.shakespeare-oxford.com/?p=39.

    So your statement about seeking fame is just silly.

    But, as the old Nazi saying goes: The bigger the lie the more it will be believed […. by some].

    Ralph Adamo on October 31, 2011 at 3:07 pm

Still awaiting a flick that shows any business in a positive light. I won’t hold me breath.

JeffT on October 29, 2011 at 4:22 pm

So Vanessa Redgrave is still alive??

Not Ovenready on October 29, 2011 at 8:08 pm

JeffT: I can think of two. The first is the recent Atlas Shrugged (Rotten Tomatoes rating scale: 6 percent approval). Before that, you have to go back eighty years to Employees’ Entrance (1933) which starred Warren William and Loretta Young. In that film, there’s a dialectic presented which shows arguments for and against capitalism, and the film eventually ends with what I consider reasonable wisdom, that capitalists and business managers may be obsessive-compulsive and even sometimes personally cold, but they are the ones creating prosperity for the rest of us and should therefore be thanked rather than scorned. I think by the mid-Thirties and onto the present, Hollywood had become so ideologically corrupted that this kind of pro-business message became virtually impossible.

Burke on October 29, 2011 at 8:26 pm

hey debbie….
you rock the world …keep fighting….just turned off SNL for good ……they are so friggin bias…..ugh…..
cya………….

Richard Czarniecki on October 30, 2011 at 12:42 am

    Hi Richard – re SNL. I can overlook a certain amount of bias, but the head writer of SNL is j-u-s-t NOT funny. Such a smug-looking pos as well.

    Nir Lieu on November 1, 2011 at 6:41 am

SNL is not funny anymore. I guess they ran out of stolen ideas.

JE on October 30, 2011 at 2:41 am

Excellent review of In Time, Debbie, right on every count including the jab at hypocritical Hollywood limousine liberals. The film is not just a naively romantic portrait of protesting youth (as was Badlands, for example). It’s a sophisticated and purposefully crafted slam at free enterprise, a piece of “eat the rich” propaganda. In its ideological consistency, it reminded me of Machete. The word “justice” used in the film (as you mentioned) is meant to stand for the progressive concept of “social justice”–that is, the forcible dismantling of capitalism. Amanda Seyfried is repeatedly assured that violently robbing those with wealth “is not really stealing, because they stole it first.” The Wall Street villain uses Darwin’s birthday as his safe combination because, it is stated outright, he believes in “survival of the fittest.” Every socialist-fascist-Marxist trope in the book is thrown at viewers, even the black guy who works for the Establishment who begins to see the light by the end of the movie and question whether the status quo is ensuring “real justice.”

I liked Paranormal 3 like you did. Part of the charm of the movie comes from its quality as a period piece (late 1980s). Many of us who might recall bumbling around with camcorders and just-invented VCRs can relate to this ordinary guy trying to get the most out of what now looks like primitive equipment. My greatest peeve is that half-way through the story, enough evidence of supernatural weirdness has accumulated on film to terrify and convince the most stubborn skeptic, yet the guy doesn’t share this information with his live-in because he’s worried she’ll make him stop shooting? I lost some sympathy and belief at that point.

I also saw Puss in Boots which was tepidly entertaining in the same vein and with about the same quality and originality as Shrek 3 and 4. Like many films these days (such as Rio and Fast and Furious), it was targeted to the growing demographic of Latinos and included a large number of Spanish phrases in the dialog, an elaborately dramatic Spanish dance, Hispanic actors in the key roles of the main characters and so forth. Banderas as a kitty cat can be the beta-alpha, masculine-infant combo that women find so appealing in Johnny Depp, Montgomery Clift and other wide-eyed boy-baby-men that have populated films since the fifties.

I also saw 3 Musketeers, a spectacularly vulgar mess. I liked it, because I like Paul Anderson (Resident Evil, Death Car) who directed and realized that the mess was intentional. Casting Milla Jovovich as Milady was brilliantly crass and perverse. My favorite version of this Dumas story is the 1940s one with Gene Kelly and Lana Turner, but the Richard Lester film from the seventies is a close second. This was a distant third, but I still enjoyed it.

I also saw And They’re Off, a weak parody of films like Secretariat, Dreamer and Seabiscuit. Best In Show it was not. Mockumentaries are not easy to make, I guess, because if you aim too high, most in the audience won’t get the deadpan humor; but if you aim low as in the Scary Movie franchise and this film, the jokes come off as clumsily obvious, and obvious jokes really aren’t much fun.

I’ll also mention that the just-released indie film Martha Marcy May Marlene is terrifyingly effective and one of the few films I’ve seen this year that I consider deserves four stars. It also has a valid subtext about the dangers of youth corrupted by naive utopian liberalism. I compare it in scary effectiveness to Pscyho and Repulsion.

Burke on October 30, 2011 at 12:09 pm

    OOOOOHHHHHHH MYYYYYYYYYYYYY GODDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD THERE ARE MEXICANS IN THE MOVIES!!!!!!!!!! MEXICANS IN HOLLYWEIRD!!! LIBERALS ARE LETTING THE MEXICANS RUN THE STREETS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THERE WILL BE MASS PANIC I TELL’S YA! PISS IN BOOTS IS VOICED BY A MEXICAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! CLOSE THE BORDERS, DIG UP PAPA REAGAN AND PRAY TO OUR WHITE GOD TO SAVE US!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! MEXICAN HATE THE JEWS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!MEXICANS KILLED WHITE JESUS!!!!!!!!!!! OBAMA LOVE THE COMMIE MEXICANS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! OH MY GOD ALL THE MEXICANS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    Right is ALWAYS wrong on November 1, 2011 at 2:46 pm

      Rightisalwayswrong: It’s not a bad thing that Hispanics have the lead roles in Puss in Boots. I admire and like both these superstars, Salma Hayek in particular. Julie Taymor’s film Frieda in which Hayek played the lead role of Mexican artist is one of my favorite movies of the last decade. It is noteworthy, though, I think, that our nation’s demographics and culture are changing rapidly and that films as usual can be counted on to reflect this change.

      Burke on November 2, 2011 at 11:34 am

I saw “In Time” over the weekend. Produced and directed by Andrew Niccol, who did “Gattaca” (1997) “The Truman Show” (1998) and “Simone” (2001). And like those films, “In Time” is a thought-provoking look at a creepy futurist utopia in which centrally-controlled, technological quick fixes wind up messing with our better nature and our privacy. Perfection on Earth, in other words, is an illusion.

The late Michael Crichton, for one, explored this theme. If that’s “anti-Semitism,” let’s have more. Debbie should stick to what she does best: exposing Muslims and their collaborators. As a film critic, she simply lacks patience and insight.

Seek on October 31, 2011 at 12:45 pm

I’m Jewish and I thought In Time was very good. But of course I noticed the Weiss thing immediately and it really pissed me off. And you know that can’t be coincidental. The writer randomly choosing a Jewish name is about as likely as a writer randomly putting a black guy with a watermelon in one hand a chicken wing in the other and never noticing anything racial about it. The only possible explanation is he intentionally named them that to be openly antisemitic and as a big middle finger to Jewish people. And it makes it worse that I really liked the movie. But there’s no way I’d watch any of Andrew Niccol’s movies again after that. What a jackass.

Adam Bomb on October 31, 2011 at 5:09 pm

    As I’ve said above, I think the case for anti-Semitism in the movie “In Time” seems somewhat weak, based on the casting of Vincent Kartheiser as Weis, who lacks physical characteristics necessary for a sterotypical Jewish appearance. I haven’t seen the movie yet, but has his appearance been altered for the movie to make him appear so?

    If you want to see a solid example of subliminal anti_Semitism(or not so subliminal, depending on your level of sensitivity), revisit the film, Rosemary’s Baby. Now, keep in mind that with this film ALL the top people involved in the production were Jewish: Ira Levin, the author of the novel; Robert Evans, the producer; and Roman Polanski, the director.

    To deliver her baby (unknowingly, the Devil’s child) Rosemary wants to go to the (gentile appearing/named) Dr. Hill, but is instead, advised to go to Dr. Abraham Saperstein, who is part of the Devil’s cabal. Now, ironically, Dr. Saperstein is played by the great actor Ralph Bellamy, who I don’t believe was a Jew. However, his screen makeup made him appear to be Jewish. Hence, HERE we have a strong case for an anti-Semitic message, even though the main creators behind the movie are all Jews. Adding to the irony is that Dr. Hill, who appears to be gentile, is, in fact, played by the fine actor Charles Grodin, who IS a Jew.

    Furthermore, I note that the producer of In Time is Marc Abraham, who is a Jew. You can be virtually certain that Abraham approved of the name “Weis” for the character in the movie, and, for all we know, HE could have been the person who suggested it be used.

    One thing is certain about all this. The Jews today in Hollywood have a serious problem with their Jewishness. That is very sad. They’ve lost the pride and character that the great Jews from the old Hollywood school had in abundance. I’m thinking of Samuel Goldwyn, the Schenck brothers, the Warner brothers, Lewis B. Mayer, etc.

    Ralph Adamo on October 31, 2011 at 7:22 pm

      Hi Ralph, This was some time ago so I may have the studio wrong, but I think Warner Brothers released a film just after WW2 which featured a Jewish doctor wondering around Germany during that war. This was after the horrors had been discovered. Were WB (if that was the studio) trying to suggest the nazis weren’t all bad????

      Nir Lieu on November 1, 2011 at 6:52 am

        I don’t know the movie you’re referring to, so I can’t comment. Although Jack Warner was a staunch anti-Communist, I doubt that any film project under his watch would remotely suggest a sympathetic view of the Nazis. For a little background on Jack Warner, see this link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Warner.

        Ralph Adamo on November 1, 2011 at 1:26 pm

          Hi Ralph – I got a few things wrong: studio was MGM, it was released in 1944 but set in Germany during 1936. However, by that time Nazi laws – among many other things – prohibted Jews from all, or nearly all, professions.

          Nir Lieu on November 2, 2011 at 10:09 pm

      I have nothing to say about this discussion, but I want it clear that this is not the Ralph Adamo who lives in New Orleans saying anything on this forum.

      Ralph Adamo NewOrleans on December 13, 2011 at 11:36 pm

    For the love of God, keep writing these arselcit.

    Henrietta on May 24, 2014 at 7:27 am

Doesn’t anybody know? Depp is a twisted Bogart. With lax personal hygiene, that’s all.

jake49 on October 31, 2011 at 7:32 pm

How do the people who say the Earl of Oxford wrote Shakespeare’s plays explain the fact that Edward de Vere died in 1604 and Shakespeare was writing in 1612?

Miranda Rose Smith on November 2, 2011 at 5:52 am

    Miranda, the dates that have been “given” for the Shakespeare plays are not certain as you might think. Shakespearean scholars have attempted to establish the dates, but the evidence supporting those dates is far from certain. If you’re interested in the the subject, here’s a link to a discussion about the dating of the plays with respect to Edward de Vere’s life: http://www.deveresociety.co.uk/DVS-DatingProject.html The criticism of the Oxfordian theory on the basis of the so-called dating of the plays holds no water. For me, the most powerful evidence linking Edward de Vere to the plays is the incredibly close correspondence between the the characters and situations in the plays and Edward de Vere’s life. As the great filmmaker Orson Welles put it, and I’m paraphrasing, “If Edward de Vere didn’t write the plays attributed to Shakespeare, you have a whole lot of strong coincidences to explain away.” (Although most people know Welles for such great films as Citizen Kane, as a TV personality, and for his infamous Halloween radio presentation of The War of the Worlds, he was also a great Shakespearean actor, and had been producing Shakespeare plays for a good part of his life, even before his radio days.)

    Ralph Adamo on November 2, 2011 at 3:11 pm

I’d love to know what motivated whoever it was that wrote this stuff to write Macbeth or the steretypical Shylock in the Merchant of Venice.

Dear Debbie: Shakespeare wrote Macbeth to flatter James the First and The Merchant of Venice to cash in on the wave of popular anti-Semitism that followed the Lopez case.

Miranda Rose Smith on November 2, 2011 at 5:54 am

“who lacks physical characteristics necessary for a sterotypical Jewish appearance”

Gee, shut the f–k up.

dee on November 5, 2011 at 6:01 pm

How Anti-Semitic WERE the early 60s? Everything I’ve read suggests that things really changed in the 50s.

Steven Burstein on January 5, 2012 at 2:14 pm

Love Crime was a one of the worst movies I watched in long time.Total waste of talent and time.
Turned it off after 30 minutes.
Debbie did you acutaly see this movie ?

HORRIBLE

hr on May 24, 2013 at 3:33 pm

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