By Debbie Schlussel
As I’ve noted before, I’m a member of the Detroit Film Critics Society. Every major city has one of these and each votes on the year’s best movies, actors, etc. And as in most, there are few conservatives. As far as I know, I’m the only one in the DFCS, which is dominated by liberals. As a member, I’m required to publicize this year’s choices, even though I don’t agree with most of them. Loved “Slumdog Milllionaire,” except for the brief Islamic propaganda part, and thought Mickey Rourke did an excellent job in a thoroughly depressing “The Wrestler.” Here are the picks (with my reviews of some films linked in bold). Compare ’em with my original choices/nominations. I’ll try to have my list of the years best and worst movies posted tomorrow. Stay tuned.

* Best Film: SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE
* Best director: DANNY BOYLE – SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE
* Best Actor: MICKEY ROURKE – THE WRESTLER

* Best Actress: KATE WINSLET – REVOLUTIONARY ROAD [DS: Hated this left-wing attack on American suburbs and capitalism. I voted for Melissa Leo in “Frozen River” (about an illegal alien smuggler and the consequences), with Meryl Streep in “Doubt” as my second choice.]
* Best Supporting Actor: HEATH LEDGER – THE DARK KNIGHT [DS: I voted for Robert Downey, Jr. in “Tropic Thunder,” with Ledger as my second choice of the available nominees.]
* Best Supporting Actress: MARISA TOMEI – THE WRESTLER [DS: I don’t generally like to vote for actresses who go topless and play strippers. I voted for Amy Adams in “Doubt,” with Tomei as my second choice, only because there weren’t many choices.]
* Best Ensemble: FROST/NIXON [DS: Didn’t like this propaganda movie. I voted for “Burn After Reading.”]
* Best Newcomer: MARTIN MCDONAGH – IN BRUGES (WRITER/DIRECTOR) [DS: I hated this movie. I voted for Dev Patel, the star of “Slumdog Millionaire.”]

Again, stay tuned for my own list of the best and worst movies of the year, which will be markedly different from this list.

By Debbie Schlussel
There’s a reason I own the website OprahSucks.com. She does. And she lies to her viewers on a regular basis.
The latest is the story she promoted on her show–twice!–about Herman and Rosa Rosenblat, a couple of Holocaust survivors who met in the camps and had this great fifty-years-plus love story. The thing is, it wasn’t true. Yes, the husband was a survivor of the Nazi death camps. But they met on a blind date in New York after the war.
It reminds me of another “great love story” Oprah promoted in her O Magazine, comparing a romance between Palestinian terrorists to “Romeo and Juliet,” and gushing over these murderers for eleven glowing pages.

Oprah: So What If I Lie? I’m Laughing All the Way to the Bank.
The lesson of the story is that, yet again, Oprah is a liar and shouldn’t have the credibility she’s unduly been given by her mindless followers and the gushers in the liberal media. She didn’t do her homework. Her producers didn’t vet the couple or do the most basic bit of research. It’s just like some of those many other times she lied to her audience–instances I’ve repeatedly cited on this website:
* when she promoted medical quackery on her show–that’s been several shows;
* when she promoted the vile, anti-Semitic claim by a mental patient that Jews worship the devil, practice cannibalism, and ritually sacrifice their first-born babies:

I want to make it clear that this is one Jewish person, so don’t go around now, saying to people, you know, ‘Those Jewish people, they’re worshipping . . . .’ This is the first time I heard of any Jewish people sacrificing babies, but anyway – so you witnessed the sacrifice?

Oprah forced YouTube to take down the video, so there wouldn’t be proof, but it’s also posted here, and the entire transcript is here;
* when she promoted the idea we’d all die from eating a burger;
* when she promoted the phony memoir of author James Frey, stood by it (on Larry King) when it was proven false, then got all indignant on her show against Frey, when she, Ms. Thang, came under fire;
* when, on numerous shows, she lied about Islam and promoted it as a moderate, gentle religion that respects women, etc.;
* when she lectured us–on four different shows–about what a “moderate” country Jordan is and used fake footage of a woman in a hooker-like tube top walking the streets.
I know from my own experience with Oprah producers, whom I watched coach clients of mine on what to say for an intro piece when they appeared on her show. She used fake footage for that, too.
You cannot believe a word this woman says (including her claim that Obama will be a great President), or a thing you see on her show, read in her magazines, etc.
Problem is, millions of women in America and around the world believe every piece of fertilizer that comes out of this woman’s mouth and/or is promoted on her show. There’s a reason women make the Oprah Book Club books and Oprah’s Favorite Things items market successes: they’re gullible and, in general, have inferior critical thinking skills. Don’t worry–as they become more feminized, the men are catching up in this category.
If HRHSBotU [Her Royal Highness Supreme Being of the Universe] Oprah says it, it must be the gospel.
And that’s why the world believed this couple’s phony story about meeting during the Holocaust–because Oprah pronounced it “the single greatest love story . . . we’ve ever told on the air.” (And she would know what constitutes a great love story, given her bizarre, faux-relationship with Stedman.) If Oprah says it, it must be true, right? That’s what Hollywood producers, book agents, publishers, and even the National Holocaust Museum apparently think, since they all fell for it, after Oprah pimped it.
The losers in this are not, of course, Oprah and these gullible idiots. Oprah’s gazillions of blind, mostly female followers will continue to eat up anything she serves them without challenge or thought. The losers are the Jewish people and the many survivors of the Holocaust who, for years, have met with the vicious Holocaust denying anti-Semitic canards. Despite the fact that six million Jews were murdered in the Holocuast, this lie by this couple will only fuel that fire. Yes, Oprah has helped the Holocaust deniers. But, hey, since she already did a show on how Jews sacrifice their kids, no biggie. What’s one major slight on top of another?
For the record, some Jews did meet and fall in love in the camps, and some who were lucky to survive did marry. My grandfather met my grandmother through the camps. My grandfather met my grandmother’s brother in Bergen Belsen camp. Then, after the war, he and my grandmother got married in Belsen, as it was a displaced person’s camp. My mother was born there.
But all of these stories that actually happened–along with the entire Holocaust–are yet again under a cloud because the world’s most influential woman put a fraud on the air and heavily promoted it, without doing even the most cursory fact-checking.
Thanks, Oprah, for reminding us–as if we needed it–why Oprah sucks. And that she’s a big, fat–literally and figuratively and figure-atively–liar.

By Debbie Schlussel
It’s quite pathetic–and it says it all–when a President enlists two women, one of whom is his wife, to defend his eight years in office. Even if a man weren’t President, it would be quite wimpy to rely on two women, including his wife, to defend him. With a President, it’s just downright embarrassing.
If I were Osama Bin Laden, this would be the next video commentary, as it says everything he’s tried to imply about America’s men for the last seven years.

Bad Defense: Hiding Behind the Chicks
It reminds me of when Michigan’s Republican Attorney General Mike Cox–the diminutive man who wants to become our next governor and who has allowed illegal aliens and pregnant Muslim illegal aliens to scam Michigan taxpayers–gave a press conference acknowledging just one of his ongoing, multiple extramarital affairs (which he claimed ended, but didn’t). He enlisted his crying wife and had her stand at the podium as a prop, as if to shield the nakedness that was being exposed in his silly press conference. He, like Bush, regularly panders to Islamic groups who openly support Hezbollah and HAMAS.

Michigan Atty. Gen. Mike Cox & Crying Wife
Yup, the Republican men who rely on women to defend their inadequacies and incompetence really aren’t men at all. They’re just males. And wimps. And not worthy of our respect.
Real men stand up for themselves. They take credit for their wins and they stand by and accept blame their losses. And they defend their records themselves. They neither accept, nor rely upon, someone with a uterus to do it for them.
Oh, and lest you think I’m singling out Republicans and so-called conservatives, I am, indeed. We already know the Democrats are the party of Woody Allen and Pee Wee Herman, and we expect this kind of thing from them. We expect better of the self-implied party of cowboys and national security and masculinity.
But just in case, watch this very brief video, as it’ll show you who the real man in charge for the next four and possibly eight years is. This is the person running the show. . .

By Debbie Schlussel
To paraphrase Avis Rent-A-Car’s old slogan, the Detroit Lions, today, said:

We’re Number 32. We Try Harder. Or . . . Not Really.

Yup, it’s the first 0-16 season in the history of the National Football League. Hmmm . . . may the slogan should be:

We’re Number 32. We Get Paid Millions No Matter How Hard We Don’t Try.

Hey, everything else in Detroit is dismal, so why not the Lions, too? Misery loves company. Problem is, it’s hard to be dismal or miserable, when you get hundreds of thousands to take home every week, even though you did a crappy job and came in last. And yet, your industry continues to make millions, regardless.
That’s the life.
***
Read my related column, “Another Detroit Entity That Wants a Bailout: Should Detroit Lions Lose Thanksgiving Day Game?”

By Debbie Schlussel
I’ve been getting a number of e-mails from readers cheering on the current Israeli strikes on HAMAS and Gaza in response to HAMAS’ katusha rocket attacks on Israel.
And to those readers, I say, Don’t Get Too Excited. You’re buying into the latest campaign tactic of losing candidate for Prime Minister, Tzipi Livni–a complete doompa a/k/a Olmert in a skirt and makeup. Anyone who thinks this latest “salvo” against HAMAS is of any significance whatsoever, really doesn’t know much about Israel and hasn’t been paying attention to goings on there for the last couple of decades, especially the last several years.

Latest Israeli Attack on HAMAS
is Costly Campaign Ad in Tzipi Livni Power-Grab
There have been many of these occasion, temporary Israeli attacks on HAMAS or temporary blockades of funds or supplies to Gaza. And they are a waste of time because Israel doesn’t mean business. Eventually, Israel backs down and stops and allows HAMAS to get “refueled” with supplies, money, etc. And yet the HAMAS attacks never end.
You must ask yourself why Israel suddenly chose to strike back now after years of HAMAS sending these rockets to kill the poor, working-class Israelis of Sderot–most of them descendants of Jews expelled from their homes and property in Arab Muslim countries. Why did it not matter that HAMAS sent rockets every day to kill Jews during the faux-truce and before then? Why does it suddenly matter now? What was different about now versus two months ago or two months from now?
Well, I’ll tell you what’s different: The only hawk running for Israeli Prime Minister, Binyamin Netanyahu (we’ll see how hawkish he ends up being once he’s elected–since he wasn’t nearly as hawkish in office as out of it), is whipping Livni in the polls, and the elections are just two months away. This is Livni’s and Olmert’s attempt–after several years of capitulation to Islamic terrorists, after practicing Judenrein in their own country and yanking Jews from their homes and businesses in Gaza and cities like Amona in the so-called West Bank–to try to look tough to Israelis with short attention spans. That’s all it is.
This “war”–which is really no war at all, since there is no intent to win and no inclination to continue this with any sort of relentlessness to defeat HAMAS and its entire support network in Gaza (almost all of the Gaza population)–is show business meant for an Israeli electorate. It is no different than Bill Clinton bombing a baby formula factory the day Monica testified. It’s a waste of munitions and a risk of Israeli soldiers’ lives to win an election.
If Israel really meant business, it would have invaded and attacked Gaza long ago. Or rather, it would never have pulled out of there in the first place. It would have expelled the Gazans to Arab countries, the way the residents of Sderot’s parents–who are once again under attack by Muslims–were kicked out by those countries. All of these things would have saved Israeli lives. But that’s not what this is about.
If Israel consistently attacked HAMAS, it would be great. But that’s not what the post-modern (and post-Israel) Israelis do. In a week or two, they’ll be letting through “supplies” and making a new fake “truce”–either official or de facto–and releasing more Palestinian terrorists to show “good will.” That’s what they always do. It will make this–as it does all of their brief, temporary attacks on HAMAS–meaningless.
You do not kill cancer by occasionally going through chemo or radiation when you want to look good at a Bar Mitzvah, after the metastasis is already happening. You kill cancer through regular treatment of the attacking cells, not by self-amputating your arm and leaving the cancer cells to fester on the remaining stump. That is what this ephemeral “war” on Gaza/HAMAS is. Nothing more.
And nothing to cheer about. It may make you feel good that, for example, HAMAS has occasional, perfect aim, killing its own people, which it views as expendable collateral damage. But in the long run, they are winning.
The Muslims not only have the will to survive, but to attack relentlessly their Jewish (and Christian) enemies. Israelis only have the will to get re-elected and take a siesta on Dizengoff Street and the discos of Tel Aviv.
No “Mazel Tov” from me on this expensive, dangerous, temporary campaign commercial for the Israeli leftists and their ambitions for the Prime Minister’s office.
***
And don’t forget that this is all about propping up the so-called “more moderate” terrorist leader–Holocaust-denier and Munich-massacre-paymaster, Mahmoud Abbas, who really doesn’t enjoy the popular Palestinian support HAMAS has. This is Israel continuing to risk Israeli lives to prop up this scumbag, just ‘cuz he’s the favored scumbag, but no less scummy than HAMAS.
Yes, let’s hear it for those “partners for peace.” And remember that, regardless of this temporary “attack” on HAMAS, America will pressure Israel into establishing a Palestinian state–right now there are two de facto such states on either side of Israel. And HAMAS will eventually take over that state.
Ah, statehood for the “deprived” Palestinians who strongly support HAMAS and live in Gaza and Ramallah mansions (which in Ramallah, are subsidized and “bailed out” by your taxes).

By Debbie Schlussel
Stories like this really tick me off. This is an example of big government interference extraordinaire. A disabled man who sacrificed and fought for our country is treated like dogmeat by Shasta County, California officials:

A cherished holiday tradition may be coming to an end for some Shasta County residents.
Jack Melton, 86, who has been baking and selling his pecan-laden fruitcakes from his Churn Creek Road home for the past 10 to 15 years, has been told to stop by Shasta County Department of Environmental Health officials.
Melton, a disabled World War II Navy veteran, has been told to quit selling his popular fruitcakes from his home because state law forbids the operation of an unregulated retail food business from a private home, said Fern Hastings, a senior environmental health specialist [DS: a/k/a Scrooge in drag].

The Fabulous Art of John Nagridge

“At my age, I probably need to quit anyway,” Melton said this week. “This was probably the last year I was going to do it anyway.”
Melton said he’s sure that his customers, many of whom look forward every holiday season to tasting his fruitcakes, won’t be too happy.
Hastings said Melton can continue making his fruitcakes for family and friends.
But if Melton is selling the cakes to the public – or even giving them away – he must make them in a commercial bakery kitchen that has passed a health inspection, Hastings said.

Yeah, we’ve seen some of these kitchens that pass a “health inspection.” Ever see the show, “Kitchen Nightmares”? I’ll bet this poor man’s kitchen is far more sanitary than most.

Melton could rent space in such a bakery, she said, noting that Country Entrees Take & Bake and Homemade Treats by Jan and Norene got their start that way.

Um, he’s not looking to start a mega-conglomerate, biotch. The dude is 86, and he’s just trying to eke out an existence and keep happy and active in his last days.

Melton received a telephone call from county officials about two weeks after a county inspector spotted a small sign outside his home advertising homemade fruitcakes for sale.
“I think it was the sign that got them,” Melton said. “I’m going to burn that sign.”
He also recently received a package of material, including the California retail food code, in the mail from the county.
Melton, a 47-year Redding resident and retired electrician, is proud of his fruitcakes.
He certainly puts a lot of effort, not to mention ingredients, into them, including red and green cherries, dates, candied pineapples and lots of pecans. . . .
Melton . . . admits that the money he receives from selling his fruitcakes helps supplement his Social Security income. He doesn’t receive a pension.
“It’s extra money to me,” he said. “It hurts not being able to sell my cakes.”
He sells his fruitcakes for $28 and $55, depending on their size, and sold about 160 fruitcakes last year, he said.
Until the county intervened, Melton had sold about 125 cakes this holiday season, mostly to his long-valued customers, he said.
“But I’m not doing it for the money,” Melton said. “I’m trying to help the people out. They want my cakes.”

Yes, they wanted them, until big government had to stick it’s big, fat nose into it.
It’s ridiculous. Not a single person ever complained or got sick from this man’s fruitcakes. And the income supplemented his modes Social Security income. But why encourage free enterprise from this handicapped war veteran, when we can be grinches and steal his Christmas? Nauseating.
This reminds me of how my late grandfather had to close his kosher slaughterhouse because government interference-including racist State of Michigan inspectors harassing his Black employees–made it too hard to stay in business. Under Michigan law, he had to treat dead chickens better in the slaughterhouse than my father, an eye surgeon, was required to treat live humans on the operating table. My grandfather had to put in foot-pump operated sinks, when they didn’t have those in surgery for doctors like my dad. It was absurd.
This is even worse. This man is 86. He’ll likely not have many Christmases left, and he enjoys doing this. Or rather, he enjoyed–past tense–doing it.
Until the Nanny State had to come in and “make things better.”
This man served our country–and is disabled because of it. And this is how our country “serves” him?! Sickening.
Hmmm . . . maybe he should pretend he’s converted to Islam and pretend they’re special Halal fruitcakes for post-Ramadan. Then the government would be kissing his butt. But a disabled WWII-vet–you get treated like Rodney Dangerfield. Just disgusting.
We’re from the government, and we’re here to help you.

By Debbie Schlussel
Like reader “There Is No Santa Claus,” I note, again, that most of the greedy people who lost money from the Bernard Madoff scam were liberals and lefties, and I really don’t feel bad for any of these “victims.” Least admirable among them is the ACLU, which was an indirect donee of Madoff, who gave a ton to similar far-left enablers of America’s enemies.
Hahahahahaha. The Islamic Terrorists Civil Liberties Union lost money because of Madoff, and I should be sad about this because . . . ? Actually, I see this as one of the great things about this whole Madoff affair.
Read it and smile:

Among the casualties of Wall Street money manager Bernard Madoff are several civil liberties groups–including two that are now being forced to close their doors.

The Jeht Foundation and The Rockit Foundation, based in Manhattan, said they’re shutting down at the end of January because of their benefactors’ investments with the veteran Wall Street money manager. They are the latest alleged victims to step forward in the unwinding of the Ponzi fund that investigators claim was being run by the 70-year-old Madoff. . . .
Robert Crane, who heads both the Jeht and Rockit funds, said the foundations will let go all 26 of their employees. The groups have a combined annual budget of $32 million and provide more than $500,000 a year to the American Civil Liberties Union, he said. The funds also provided $57,000 this year to the New Jersey chapter of the ACLU for its “Unlock the Vote” campaign to allow citizens on parole or probation to vote.
“This is sad,” said Crane. “We’re not the only ones impacted by this, by a long shot, but that doesn’t make it any easier.”
Deborah Jacobs, spokeswoman for the New Jersey ACLU, said the demise of the Rockit and Jeht foundations will hit her organization particularly hard. Their $57,000 donation represents 10 percent of the chapter’s political lobbying budget, she said. Most charitable donations are tax deductible and cannot be utilized for lobbying, unlike the funds’ contribution.
“This is a huge loss for us,” Jacobs said.

I cry frozen crocodile tears for the ACLU, whose milkshake was just drunk by its own patron saint, Bernie Madoff. So sad, too bad. Now, maybe they can defend him in court.
BTW, I await the further headlines on this injury to the poor old ACLU. Here’a a start: “Madoff Scam: Muslims, Illegal Aliens, Criminal Convicts Who Can’t Vote–Hardest Hit.”

By Debbie Schlussel
Congrats, “American” Muslims. All those Ramadan receptions and dinners at Ahmed’s Falafel Hut with Homeland Security bigwigs were worth their weight in shawarmeh. The Department of Homeland Security has officially bought into your crappy–and completely phony–explanation of why you fly planes into buildings, behead people for being turned on by someone’s ugly nose, and spend all your time dreaming of a (blood) red Christmas (and every other day of the year).

The terrorism threat to the United States over the next five years will be driven by instability in the Middle East and Africa.

Um, no it won’t. It will be driven by one thing: Islam. Africa and the Mid-East have always been relatively unstable. Islam, NOT “instability,” is the cause of Islamic terrorism.
The Real Terrorist Threat Assessment is Simple . . .

Was the Mid-East any more “unstable” in 1993–the first attempt on the World Trade Center)–than it was in 1983? No. Was it more “unstable” on September 11, 2001 than it was in 1991? Not actually. While Hamas wasn’t around then, Yasser Arafat and the P.L.O.–their forefathers–were. And Hezbollah was growing larger in South Lebanon.
Oh, and by the way, just what do they mean by “instability” in the Middle East? I think we know, since Condoleezza Rice a/k/a Condi Clueless, George W. Bush, Sarah Palin, Barack Obama, and HAMAS advisor Jimmy Carter all mean the same thing when they’ve eached talked about the Mid-East: Israel and the lack for a terrorist Palestinian State–which each of these figures has pimped on us.
Then, there’s the rest of this waste of time “for official use only” threat assessment. It tells us that more Muslim terrorists will apply to become citizens here and that more of them will invade our borders and that there continue to be Hezbollah supporters raising money here. Duh! Glad they just discovered America. But not really. Under Michael Chertoff–who oversaw and approved this “threat assessmen”–Homeland Security continues to allow gobs of Muslims to come into the country as “students” and “tourists” or even as future citizens, granting them green cards and asylum for no worthy reason. DHS officials continue to break pita with open Hezbollah and HAMAS supporters and known fundraisers for the groups. And they continue to allow charities they raided–in meaningless show raids–to operate unfettered and continue to send funds to Al-Qaeda, HAMAS and Hezbollah.

Terrorists will continue to try to evade U.S. border security measures and place operatives inside the mainland to carry out attacks, the 38-page assessment said. It also said that they may pose as refugees or asylum seekers or try to exploit foreign travel channels such as the visa waiver program, which allows citizens of 34 countries to enter the U.S. without visas.
Long waits for immigration and more restrictive European refugee and asylum programs will cause more foreigners to try to enter the U.S. illegally. Increasing numbers of Iraqis are expected to migrate to the U.S. in the next five years; and refugees from Somalia and Sudan could increase because of conflicts in those countries, the assessment said.
Because there is a proposed cap of 12,000 refugees from Africa, officials expect more will try to enter the U.S. illegally as well. Officials predict the same scenario for refugees from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan.

Actually, they don’t need to enter illegally. As I’ve repeatedly noted and decried on this site over the years, they just need to get documents from a visa waiver country–one of the many that Michael Chertoff has made agreements with, allowing them to avoid visas to enter America. Way to go, Mikey.
(For all of you Palin worshippers, she supports this crap and amnesty, too.)
So, why exactly do they issue these “threat assessments” they don’t follow and continue to defy? Well, for us–to make us think they’re actually concerned, actually working to stop this.
Make no mistake. While AP brags that it got its hands on this “confidential” and “for official use only” memo, it’s no accident they got it and we’re reading about it. It was leaked by design and part of the general PR bunk about how safe we are because of Homeland Security’s efforts.
But actually, because of their efforts–allowing these people to continue to enter, stay here, and raise money for terrorist groups out in the open–we’re less safe than ever.
The real threat that needs to be “assessed”: Continuing to have so-called “Homeland Security,” federal law enforcement, and “Justice” Department officials who bend over backwards to pander to Muslims and creating and enabling the terrorist threat on our soil, to begin with.

By Debbie Schlussel
**** SCROLL DOWN FOR “BEDTIME STORIES” REVIEW ****
Because of a snowstorm, I did not make it to a screening of “The Spirit,” and missed “Bedtime Stories” because it screened at the same time as “Valkyrie.” Will see the first showing of Bedtime Stories in the morning and add the review here by Noon.
* “Gran Torino“: Although Clint Eastwood long ago veered away from Dirty Harry in favor of more politically correct films with anti-war and pro-euthanasia messages, it’s fitting that this is likely his last film as an actor. Although he plays Walt Kowalski and not Harry, Eastwood has come full circle to the kinds of films that made American audiences love him and pay to see him act on the big screen.
And it’s got a lot of great things about it: the bad guys get their due (with a “peaceful” twist), a man who is cynical about religion finds G-d, and it’s a-laugh-a-minute funny on top of it. Politically correct, this movie is not.

In this–as with the Dirty Harry movies–Clint Eastwood tells the bad guys where to go in many scenes. There are no “Go ahead, make my day”s or “Do ya feel lucky?”s. But there’s plenty of dialogue just like it.
Eastwood’s Kowalski is a 78-year-old recently-widowed army veteran. He’s tough and doesn’t take guff from anyone, especially his ungrateful, spoiled children and grandchildren, of whom he’s not fond. He rightfully sneers when his granddaughter wears a belly shirt to his wife’s funeral in church. Kowalski’s openly racist and bigoted and insults and mocks pretty much every single ethnic group you can think of (except, interestingly, Muslims and Arabs–gee, I wonder why). He also doesn’t like the fact that his neighborhood has been taken over by Hmong (Vietnamese and Laotian) immigrants.
(If there’s any fault with this film, it’s that it takes place in Michigan (as a tribute to the place it was shot–metro Detroit). There are few Hmong here. As a one-time Wisconsin resident who worked with the Hmong in Madison, I know well that their area of popular concentration and the area where there are problems with Hmong gangs is Wisconsin, where the film was originally set.)
Kowalski has a prized possession that everyone wants–his beautiful classic Gran Torino. He catches the young Hmong boy from next door, trying to steal it. Soon, Eastwood takes the boy under his wing, and slowly learns to appreciate his Hmong neighbors. But the boy is being heavily recruited by a violent Hmong gang, which terrorizes the neighborhood.
Gun control is, happily, not practiced in this movie. Walt is ever-present with rifles, pistols, you name it. They help ward off crime. And while Kowalski is skeptical of the Catholic Church and repeatedly fends off the young, peacenik priest who pesters him to go to confession, Kowalski eventually appreciates the need for spiritual sustenance in a moving way.
One of the year’s best, this movie is a can’t miss, but it’s far too violent for young kids. For teens, it is okay.
FOUR REAGANS PLUS

* “Marley & Me“: This is a fun, cute, hilarious, lighthearted movie you can take your whole family to see. Yes, the ending is sad, but not too sad for kids. Based on the best-selling book of the same name, the movie follows a couple of newspaper reporters from their snowy wedding night in Michigan to becoming the parents of three young kids, all while they experience it with their dog, Marley (named after Bob Marley).
The husband, Owen Wilson, is troubled that he’s given up his dream to become a famous investigative reporter for the New York Times, to become a columnist for a major Miami newspaper, writing a lot of columns about his dog and how it interacts with his growing family and his Florida surroundings. He wishes he could have the career of his friend, a playboy who is a fellow reporter and makes the move the the Times, when the real thing to covet is in his own lap.
The dog is the real star of the movie, and there’s lots of laughter about the worst dog, the uncontrollable Marley, who is forever eating and destroying everything in sight. Absolutely hilarious.
Could have done without Jennifer Anniston screaming and getting all angry in one scene, but other than that it’s a great movie. Aniston adds nothing to the movie (other than coldness and bad acting), and really Owen Wilson and the dog are the whole movie.
Even though I’m not a dog owner, I like dogs and found it touching and above all, highly entertaining. In one of the movie’s funnier scenes, there’s even a cameo of Kathleen Turner–gee, that man looks familiar–as a professional dog trainer.
FOUR REAGANS


* “Doubt“: Since I’m not a Catholic, I feel kind of out of place reviewing this excellent movie. It takes place in the early ’60s, when change and liberalization is taking place in the Catholic Church–something the movie applauds subrosa, but something maybe it shouldn’t. That liberalization, among other things, has led to many lapsed Catholics and a watering down of the religion.
I liked this movie because I feel bad for the Catholic Church, with the admissions in recent years that some priests molested children. Many others did not. And the revelations have hurt the Church and Christianity in general in America. As readers know, I feel a strong Christian presence in America is the bulwark against Islam taking over here.
This movie–though it never quite says so, and you don’t know for sure–is about one of the priests who is wrongfully accused based on no evidence and a lot of innuendo and speculation by an imperious head nun at a Catholic school, played masterfully by Meryl Streep. A strict, old-fashioned nun, she doesn’t like that her church is liberalizing. She thinks it leads to lazy, undisciplined, valueless kids, and she has a point.
The symbol of that liberalization is a young, modern priest, played–also masterfully–by Philip Seymour Hoffman. Streep simultaneously bullies and uses a young nun, played by Amy Adams–also excellent, to help her persecute and accuse this priest of molesting a Black child–the only in the Catholic school in a time of much racism. Again, it’s based on mere innuendo and not a shred of actual evidence.
This movie is well done and raises a lot of good points about gossip and innuendo. The best scene in the movie is one of Hoffman’s sermons to the church. He tells congregants about gossip spreading like the feathers of a pillow slashed open in a windy outdoors. You can’t get the feathers back, once they’ve been released. We’re shown the literal, while Hoffman makes his sermon.
And his sermon is really the message of the movie. Magnificent. One of the best movies of the year.
FOUR REAGANS

* “Valkyrie“: I’m really surprised the studios held this back from early screenings and that it’s not been well-received. I thought this performance by Tom Cruise as a Nazi colonel who plots to assassinate Hitler wasn’t bad, even if he’s probably not the best choice for the part. Still, the men who play his fellow anti-Hitler Nazi conspirators were the real masters in this movie and show up Mr. Cruise.
The operation to assassinate Hitler and take over was called “Valkyrie,” because he was hijacking Hitler’s Operation Valkyrie–the code name Hitler used for troop positions in the event of his death.
This movie is important as far as history goes–the story is that Col. Claus von Stauffenberg (Cruise) thought he blew up Hitler, he thought wrong, and as we know, Hitler only died of his own suicide when it was apparent he’d lost. But it is entertaining as a World War II thriller about counterspies within Nazi ranks.
I don’t know how accurate it is to the real story–von Stauffenberg is regarded as a hero in Germany. But if every German–or even a significant minor percentage–were as anti-Hitler as the heroes of this movie are portrayed to be, the Holocaust would not have happened. And while the Colonel is shown to be motivated by his opposition to World War II and the treatment of Jews and others–and I don’t know if that’s accurate in real life, it’s not clear whether doing the right thing–as opposed to a quest for power–was the real motivation.
As we know, the case was otherwise–Hitler was not assassinated, and the Nazis exterminated 6 million Jews. Noble effort, not a great movie, but not bad either. Interesting.
TWO-AND-A-HALF REAGANS


* “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button“: It turns out this movie bears little resemblance to the F. Scott Fitzgerald short story from which it takes its name. Instead, writer Mitch Albom discovered that it’s a rip-off of a novel by another author, whose book producers tried to buy but weren’t successful.
Not that this matters, because–plagiarized or not–the movie is long, boring, cloying, and a Lifetime Network movie of the week at best, or–at almost three hours–a substandard, way too long episode of “The Twilight Zone.” It’s not just Brad Pitt’s really awful attempt at a New Orleans accent or his terrible acting and the computer-generated graphics making him look, at one point, as young as he did in “Thelma and Louise.”
It’s that this sleep-inducing story is pointless and stupid, and it takes far too long to tell it. And it’s forced. Oh, and then there’s the fact we don’t care a whit about any of these characters.
This is the story of a man who is born with the scrunched up face and body of an old man and grows younger, until he dies in the body of a young baby, even though he’s an old man with Alzheimer’s. Bad sci-fi plot and obvious CGI aside, the manipulative plot shows that Pitt, er . . . Benjamin Button is rejected by his real father and adopted by a Black woman and her friends.
Soon, Benjamin is sleeping with old women who live at the rooming house for older women at which his adopted mother is employed. He falls in love with a girl (Cate Blanchett), who eventually falls for him. But they can only be together for a brief time at which they are both the same age and their contrasting age and physical progressions meet in time.
The end. Wake me when the boring chick flick is over.
ONE MARX

* “The Reader“: The should re-title this “Nazi SS Concentration Camp Guard Porn” or “Sympathy for a Nazi Murderer Because She Likes to Have Sex.” Yup, that’s how disgusting this exercise in semi-porn is, in both its message and its enactment.
Kate Winslet plays a 30-something woman who seduces a fifteen-year-old boy. They have lots of graphic sex scenes, much of which we are shown. It’s just plain sick and gross. Did I really need to see this kid’s erect penis in the shower. Uh, no. But, hey, we’re supposed to appreciate how highbrow this is because the woman has the kid read to her from great books. Ah, great literature trumps child molestation grossness, every time.
Then, when the kid becomes a young adult and is in law school, he soon learns that the woman was a Nazi SS Guard at a concentration camp who sent Jews to their deaths. But we’re not shown any depictions of that because breast shots of the Nazi guardess in hot sex scenes took up most of the film and are far more important, right? And not only are we not shown any of her horrid treatment of the Jews or how she picked which one would be sent to her deaths, we are shown the two Jewish female Holocaust survivors who testify against her to be cold bitches with lotsa cash and a multi-million dollar Manhattan apartment.
The movie takes the point of view that this poor Nazi guard was treated so badly, when she was such a hot sex partner when she was young and just a lonely old inmate who wanted to read when she was old. Sorry, but I don’t feel sorry for any Nazis.
Nor do I feel sorry for the pervs that go to see this ridiculous movie, which probably should have been called, “I’ll Show You My Auschwitz, If you Show Me Yours for 15-year-old Boys.”
Sick, sick, sick. Disgusting. Figures that most movie critics are hailing this movie and Winslet’s performance. Liberals love Post-Holocaust Porn masquerading as art. So does HOprah–this was one of her book club selections.
FOUR MARXES PLUS


**** UPDATE: “Bedtime Stories“: Finally, I like an Adam Sandler movie. This is what kids’ movies are suppose to be. This Disney movie was fun, charming, magical, and hilarious. And a bonus–it makes fun of Prius-owners, organic food eaters, and the whole green movement. That’s a refreshing change from the Booger Green Santa that F.A.O. Schwarz is pimping on kids.
Sandler is Skeeter, the son of a proud small businessman motel owner in Los Angeles. Dad’s motel is failing economically and he sells to a British hotel developer (who looks like Richard Branson plus 50 pounds) on the condition that Skeeter gets to one day manage the hotel.
Zoom forward a couple of decades and Skeeter is the maintenance man of the hotel, treated like dirt by the higher-ups. Soon plans are announced to build an even bigger hotel, and Sandler finds himself with a chance to compete to manage it against the mean, stuck-up, favored hotel manager, Kendall (Guy Pearce), who is dating the hotel magnates daughter.
Meanwhile, Sandler’s sister (Courtney Cox), is an uber-green, organic fanatic and a high school principal who lost her job. She makes her kids wheatgrass birthday cakes that no-one eats. “It’s very good, once you get past the smell,” she tells the kids. Since she’s being downsized, she has to travel to Arizona for a job interview and asks her brother to take care of the kids for the week. The kids ask Sandler to read them a bedtime story, but their books have titles like “How the Green Alligator Saved the Environment” and “The Organic Monkey Rides His Bike.” “I’m not gonna read you these Communist books,” Sandler protests, and starts making up his own fairy tales.
Soon, those fairy tales start coming true in his own life, and good things begin to happen with Skeeter at work and in his personal life. That includes a romance with Keri Russell, the kids’ enviro-friendly teacher, whom he derides as a Prius-driver (the best scene is when her Prius gets towed).
I really enjoyed this movie, and that’s the point–it’s a great kids movie, which you will also enjoy when you take them to see it. And you’ll get a chuckle at the constant mocking of politically correct, uptight parents who insist on organic food and no sugar.
Could have done without the presence of Russell Brand, the far-left, unfunny British comedian who hosted the MTV VMAs and used it as a platform to urinate on America and conservatives. Could also have done without some of the very minor bathroom humor. And some might say, there’s an anti-business theme, with the hotel shutting the school down to take its property. But if anything, it’s pro small business owners. And overall, it’s a lot of fun. There’s something in it for everybody. Plus, you’ll laugh.
TWO-AND-A-HALF REAGANS

By Debbie Schlussel
Hey, Readers, I haven’t gone away. I’m still here, but I decided to take the afternoon off to do errands before all the stores closed. Big mistake–madhouses everywhere.
My movie reviews, for all of the new movies coming out tomorrow, will be posted at Midnight, including “Marley & Me,” “Gran Torino,” “Doubt,” etc. Lotsa good stuff, and then there’s the Brad Pitt movie. Stay tuned.
And to all of my Christian readers, I wish you a Merry Christmas. Your strong Christian faith ensures that America remains a Christian country, so that I as a Jew continue to be safe to practice my religion. More on that later.
In the meantime, check back at Midnight for my movie recommendations and disses.