An interesting article from http://www.ucg.org/ about movies. This follows this post about music.  For a free magazine subscription or to get the books recommended for free click HERE! or call 1-888-886- 8632.

Movies and the Culture Wars

 by Larry Greider Estimated reading time: 5 minutes

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A look back tells us clearly where today's movies are headed. Are they morphing—shape shifting—your values?

The 63rd Golden Globe Awards in January 2006 shocked some people with four awards validating director Ang Lee's movie Brokeback Mountain . Academy Award nominations followed, and this story about two homosexual cowboys received considerable media attention and promotion around the world. The movie attempts to warm the audience to a sensual relationship between two married men. These are not the cowboys of your parents' era.
My generation could hardly imagine John Wayne falling in love with another cowboy. I don't think it would have made Clint Eastwood's day either. Yet Hollywood producers try to convince us that we must lighten up. Cowboys used to be quintessentially masculine role models that spoke of a lifestyle that defined bedrock values including displaying men as leaders of traditional families.
Shaping our culture
There was a time when movies validated traditional Christian values rather than pushing the limits of what many thought to be appropriate. We have come a long way from the epic Civil War picture, Gone With the Wind, first shown on the big screen in late 1940. At the time this cinematic showpiece was accused of pushing the limits when Rhett Butler said a four-letter word and left his shirt unbuttoned. Many movie theaters boycotted this risqué rendition of Margaret Mitchell's tale of sacrifice and hardship during America's bloody Civil War.
The makers of movies and television shows have often been accused of moving society along a liberal path, all the while insisting that they just reflect the latest trends.
For Christians, this is another test of our bedrock values. Either we spot the slippery, moral slide, or we float slowly along with the murky current of change. At the end time, the Bible reveals that the state of mankind will become worse and not better. “But evil men and impostors will grow worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived” (2 Timothy 3:13 2 Timothy 3:13But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived.
American King James Version×).
A movie comparison
A good illustration of this remaking of American values is revealed in two different movies based on a similar script: Academy Award winners High Noon in 1952 and Unforgiven in 1992 .
Peter Gibbon, in his book A Call to Heroism , makes the case that people today have a different view of heroes and a different culture to evaluate them. He compares these two movies produced 40 years apart. In the earlier version, Gary Cooper won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his portrayal of a U.S. marshal in High Noon. Forty years later, Unforgiven also won four Academy Awards including Best Picture.
High Noon opens in the morning sunshine with a wedding, while Unforgiven opens in the night rain in a brothel. High Noon starts with a kiss; Unforgiven with the slashing of a prostitute. Will Kane, the hero of High Noon , is a U.S. marshal; Will Munny, the hero of Unforgiven , was a reformed killer and alcoholic reduced to pig farming. High Noon was set in the town of Hadleyville; Unforgiven in a town called Big Whiskey whose sheriff, Little Bill, was a sadist.
High Noon ends with order restored. Unforgiven ends essentially as it opens–in the dark and rain, in sorrow and violence, with anarchy ascendant. High Noon was about physical bravery and moral courage, about overcoming fear and fatigue, about doing the right thing no matter what the cost. Unforgiven was about weakness and revenge (Peter Gibbon, A Call to Heroism : Renewing America's Vision of Greatness , pp. 144-145).
What's the message?
A day at the movies offers a titillating opportunity to experience the latest adventure with high-tech graphics and special effects, including dynamic digital sounds. But the most critical part of high profile entertainment is the message that is communicated. Movies have often been an accurate commentary of culture. Directors feel they are reflecting the world around them. Arguably, the film industry picks up on marginal themes and moods that often shape the attitudes of others.
More and more people use sensate imagery to form their values rather than the written Word of God that makes them think through a scenario and compare it with the moral laws given to mankind. Powerful images, especially those coupled with high technology, sound and glamour, can move the emotions and taunt the conscience. Are you wise enough to notice the subtle, and sometimes not-so-subtle, provocations?
A few days ago, my wife and daughter were watching a 1942 black-and-white film about famous baseball player Lou Gehrig, The Pride of the Yankees, with swelling big band sounds and formal clothing (men wore ties and ladies were in dresses). My initial inclination was to see what else was on (a bad habit of mine), but I soon realized this was not a cheap, old movie (starring Gary Cooper and Babe Ruth), but a touching tribute of courage, love and responsibility. I don't advocate that we go back to black-and-white Turner Classics, but audiences don't need crassness and vulgarity to entertain them. Good values can entertain and also inspire!
How to make a difference
The issue here is who defines values. Is it Hollywood or the Holy Bible? The way to make a difference is to boycott the type of material that degrades Christian values. There was a time when the majority of people recognized when something was outside acceptable bounds. The “bounds” seem to be moving more and more with some advocating that “bounds” are archaic.
The current interest in culture wars is encouraging, when we consider the number of people who feel some things in our culture have gone too far. But how far the entertainment industry will go largely depends on the next generations of ticket buyers. Patrons can vote with their wallets and decide what to put into their minds.
Perhaps there are a few people reading this who might want to make a few movies of their own, based on vertical themes that inspire and teach. How wonderful it would be to have access to good, wholesome entertainment that takes the high road of morality and virtue. The future belongs to our young adults. If you want to win the culture wars, speak up and make it clear what you want to see at the movies. VT

culture values morals Movies Entertainment Youth

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Box Office: Unbroken, The Imitation Game, Big Eyes, Into the Woods, The Gambler The Interview: Juvenile Crap w/ Some Funny Lines

Here is an interesting article from http://www.debbieschlussel.com/ reviewing some of the movies that came out over the past weekend. This follows this post about some of the movies from last week and THIS POST about some movies that have been released over the past few years that you might have missed! This all follows this post about guidelines to choosing good movies to watch yourself!

Christmas Box Office: Unbroken, The Imitation Game, Big Eyes, Into the Woods, The Gambler

By Debbie Schlussel

And the end of a bad year in new movies goes out with a whimper. The only one of the movies, new in theaters yesterday, that I liked was the gay WWII hero movie. And even that was all relative in a year of really shabby movies. Oh, and by the way, those who claim “patriotism” got snubbed because neither “Unbroken” nor “American Sniper” got nominated for any awards–well, they are dead wrong. I myself did not vote for either of these in any category, as a member of the Detroit Film Critics Society, and–at least with regard to “Unbroken”–here’s why:

* “Unbroken“: You would think that a movie about an American World War II hero and patriot would be right up my alley (you would be right about that) and that I would love this movie, but you would be wrong. It would be very difficult for any director to screw up a movie about the inspiring, incredible life story of Louis Zamperini. But Angelina Jolie managed to bleep it up. Gone is the amazing, uplifting story depicted in the book of the same name. In its place, Jolie produces a long, boring, formulaic, stilted, distracting mess. I received the DVD screener for this movie a month ago. I was excited to watch it, but it was so slow and herky-jerky that I had to watch it in 15 minute installments, since it didn’t keep my attention.

The most noticeable disservice to the late Zamperini is that Palestina Jolie skips what may be the most interesting part of Zamperini’s life: his second (and third) acts. Maybe that is because she is a godless woman who doesn’t seem to like Christianity (or Judaism) much (but oh does she love Islam!). After he returned home from being tortured in a Japanese prison camp during the war, Zamperini retreated into a life of drunken carousing. But he heard Rev. Billy Graham deliver a sermon in person, and it changed his life. He became a devout Christian and started a camp for wayward boys, changing their lives. NONE of that is in the movie. None. Knowing that story and watching this long, drawn out, formulaic movie end, I thought, “Is that all there is?” I felt like I’d watched only half a movie. The only references to his future life are a brief line in the movie when Zamperini tells G-d he will devote his life to him if he is allowed to survive and in a caption at the end of the movie stating that he did devote his life to G-d. That’s it. The story is much bigger than those brief mentions.

And then there’s what I did watch. Jolie employs the device used by the most incompetent so-called directors. She constantly flashes back and forward and back and forward and back again. It’s dizzying, confusing, and just flat-out annoying. It wasn’t necessary and ruins the movie. The most interesting parts of Zamperini’s life are obfuscated and/or poorly told. Zamperini, after being a bad kid, is convinced by his older brother to become a disciplined runner and track star. When he makes Team USA and goes to compete at the “Hitler Olympics” in 1936, director Jolie shows some silly “We Are the World” scene of Zamperini and a Japanese athlete nodding at each other during the opening ceremony. She completely skips Zamperini’s meeting Hitler, because, hey, that’s not at all a big deal, right? The whole set of Olympic scenes, by the way, are in the endlessly distracting flashbacks.

And since she manages to make one of the potentially most interesting scenes into a bore, she then also makes what should have been one of the most boring things into something interesting, in a survival adventure movie kind of way that reminded me of Tom Hanks in “Castaway” or Robert Redford in “All is Lost” (read my review) or the Indian kid in “Life of Pi” (read my review). Zamperini and two other soldiers are shown adrift on two rafts in the middle of the sea for 45 days, struggling to survive. Compared to the lengthy scenes of Zamperini and two other soldiers in the raft, the scenes of Zamperini in the Japanese POW camp seem rote, like the directrix was bored. The movie was cold and lacks spirit, exactly like the personality of its director.

Jolie said she wanted the message of the movie to be that all people suffer in war, and she shows us scenes of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. We are morally equivalent to the enemy. I get that’s the message. How sad that she doesn’t seem to get that it’s just not true. And if she feels that way, she should go live amidst the enemy and stop making bad movies.

Some people have pointed out that Zamperini was taken with Jolie. Well, so what? A 90-something old man is taken with a beautiful and very famous movie star? He wouldn’t be the first to be starstruck and happy just to have her make a movie about his life, no matter how boring and uncomprehensive the movie is. The only touching part of Jolie’s film is the part that she had no part in directing: real-life footage of Zamperini running with the Olympic torch down the streets of Japan.

A couple of weeks ago, in the endless hype for this, Tom Brokaw hosted an hour special on NBC about the life of Zamperini, Palestina Jolie, and the making of this movie. The parts about Zamperini combined were far more touching and infinitely more interesting than this multi-million dollar heap of film.

Like I said, it would be very hard to bleep up the Zamperini story as told in the book, “Unbroken.” But in the movie of the same name, Angie Voight managed to do just that. She says it’s an anti-war movie. And I believe her.

ONE REAGAN

* “The Imitation Game“: While this is, among other things, a gay rights movie clothed in World War II intrigue and mystique, the people who made this know how to make a movie. It’s one of this year’s best. As a conservative, I don’t believe in special rights for gays, but I do believe that what you do in your bedroom is your business (so long as it’s not with kids, incompetents, or animals), and I oppose any form of persecution like the awful kind that is on display at the end of this film.

That said, this is a pretty decent movie, one of this year’s best, in a very bad field of them. And it’s the story of thinking outside the box (though the use of that phrase is now inside the box) and genius. It’s the story of those who think differently not letting the mainstream horde of sheep get them down or cause them to change. And more than all of these, it’s the story of a brilliant British man, Alan Turing (Benedict Cumberbatch), who broke the Nazi Enigma code and helped end World War II early, saving countless lives. He also invented the first computer.

This movie also employs flashbacks to Turing’s childhood as an odd duck who is endlessly mocked by classmates, has only one friend, and so on. You get the point. But unlike in Angelina Jolie’s “Unbroken,” the flashbacks are few and far between, and they are employed to make a point. Despite being a persecuted kid on the outs with others, he didn’t let that stop his different way of thinking or get him down. He persevered and thought great things, did great things.

He is chosen for a position on a squad of code breakers attempting to decipher the Nazi code to pilots and others. The code changes every 24 hours, so if it’s not solved by the end of the day, they have to start all over again. It’s frustrating work, and they aren’t making progress, until Turing convinces Winston Churchill to make him the director of the project, and he fires those who persecuted and attacked him. Turing creates a computer of sorts to break the code, but the computer isn’t making much progress. Soon, though, he hires people who solved a crossword puzzle he put in the newspaper. One of these is Keira Knightley, who inadvertently helps him figure it out.

She also becomes his girlfriend and fiancee until he tells her he is gay and that they can’t be married. This was back in the day when homosexual acts were against the law. Ultimately, none of his World War II heroics or genius matters. And it’s, in the end, a sad film because of the deplorable way Turing was treated.

Still, it’s an important movie about a lesser-known man who helped the West against the forces of evil and was a computer science pioneer. And it’s a great portrayal of the importance of rugged individualism and independent, critical thought–all of which Turing embodies in this movie.

Usually, science and math geniuses aren’t sexy enough for Hollywood, and so their stories aren’t told on the silver screen. I’m glad this was one of the exceptions to that rule.

THREE-AND-A-HALF REAGANS

* “Big Eyes“: I always dislike reviewing movies about real-life people, as told from the point of view of only one of those people. You never know if the story is true. And this one is very heavy-handed, very over the top. Walter Keane, the villain in this movie, isn’t alive to defend himself. And the movie is told from the point of view of his ex-wife, Margaret Keane. The movie isn’t just heavy-handed. It’s heavy-handed feminism and it’s also anachronistic because even if everything that happens in this movie actually happened in real life, none of it would happen today.

The story: Margaret Keane (Amy Adams) is an artist and single mother. She paints portraits featuring big eyes (think “Bratz” dolls). You’ve probably seen her work, which became popular in the ’60s and ’70s. My late maternal grandmother had a “big eyes” painting, probably a knock-off or lithograph of Keane’s work, hanging in her basement. (I used to think it was soooo ugly and creepy-looking.) Keane meets another artist (or at least a man who pretends to be an artist) and eventually marries him. The man, Walter Keane, soon begins marketing and selling his new wife’s paintings as his own. And after being initially upset, she goes along with it. Walter turns the paintings into a huge marketing hit. They are soon everywhere, and the Keanes are making a mint. But Margaret is upset that she doesn’t get credit for her work and that her husband is abusive and constantly degrades her, plus he’s apparently an alcoholic. Ultimately, she leaves him and fights back with a vengeance (and this movie, told as she sees it). Gloria Steinem and the ghost of Betty Friedan are proud.

But is the story really true? Mainstream liberal media accounts discuss the lawsuit depicted in the movie, so that seems accurate, as does Margaret’s claim that she, not her husband, painted the pics. Still, I saw nothing confirming that Walter Keane was a violent, abusive, harmful person, threatening and attempting to burn Mrs. Keane and her daughter and their house down. Like I said, I hate reviewing these movies that seem over the top in depicting what may (or may not) have occurred in real life.

I don’t want to give away the whole movie, but you get the point. I wonder about the casting of Christoph Waltz as the Nebraska-born and American-raised Walter Keane. Waltz’s Austrian accent comes through crystal clear, and that is never explained in the movie, despite the fact that much of the movie takes place just a decade or two after World War II. It’s curious.

Like I said, the real Walter Keane is long dead and not around to give his side of the story, which–in past press accounts quoting him–was quite different than what you see here. So, if you go see this agenda-laden, ax-grinding movie, keep in mind that it’s propaganda neatly wrapped in Hollywood’s “You go girl!” grrrl-power-narrative bow.

And you’ll never know the whole story. Or the real one.

FOUR BETTY FRIEDANS PLUS FOUR MICHELLE LAVAUGHN ROBINSON HUSSEIN OBAMA IDI AMIN DADAS

* “Into the Woods“: While the “first act” of this movie is entertaining and engrossing, the second act is an anti-male bore. Copied from a Broadway musical of the same name, the movie takes several fairy tales–“Little Red Riding Hood,” “Cinderella,” “Jack and the Beanstalk,” etc.–and intertwines them, with the characters involving themselves in each other’s stories. Johnny Depp’s child-molester-like wolf in the “Little Red Riding Hood” story was just more than a little creepy, but I enjoyed the first half of the movie.

It’s all male characters, especially the princes (including the one Cinderella marries), are idiots, fools, and failures, fending off a female giant in the woods, that I got bored and turned off. That part was boring and typical Hollywood crap. And if you don’t like musicals (I do like them), you’ll hate this.

Oh, by the way, Meryl Streep is pretty true to character as a witch. She’s played one several times, and I get the feeling this ain’t just acting.

FOUR BETTY FRIEDANS PLUS FOUR MICHELLE LAVAUGHN ROBINSON HUSSEIN OBAMA IDI AMIN DADAS

* “The Gambler“: Mainstream (liberal) movie critics are falling all over this movie in gushing unison. Not me. I don’t know what the point of this slow, boring, pathetic movie was . . . other than to give Mark Wahlberg yet another paycheck and pretend he’s a great arthouse, indie film actor. This is supposedly a remake of the 1974 James Caan star vehicle of the same name.

The story: Wahlberg is a college professor from a very rich family. But he keeps losing everything because he’s addicted to gambling. And even when his wealthy mother and loan sharks give him the money to pay off his gambling debts–and even when he’s hundreds of thousands of dollars ahead at the casino tables–he deliberately keeps making risky bets and gambles it all away. Therefore, a whole bunch of mobster and loan shark thug types are after him.

Oh, I forgot one other reason they musta made this movie: so they could show you a digustingly morbidly obese John Goodman wearing nearly no clothes in a schvitz joint, playing a pseudo-Jewish loan shark, who uses the word “schvartze” (Yiddish word for Black, usually derogatory). We are just 5.2 million people (and shrinking) in America. And they couldn’t resist yet another opportunity to implicate Jews as ugly, fat, racist cretins in a movie. Thanks, Hollywood.

THREE MARXES PLUS THREE OBAMAS

The Interview: Juvenile Crap w/ Some Funny Lines

By Debbie Schlussel
Reader I Am Me warned me it was bad. “It’s AWFUL. It may be the worst movie I have ever seen,” he wrote me. He paid to watch the controversial “The Interview” online, “out of some probably misplaced sense of patriotism.” I went to a theater to see it, last night.

It’s not a great movie. In fact, I agree with him that it’s somewhat crappy, although I’ve seen many far worse movies just this year, and I didn’t hate it as much as he did. It’s a low-rent movie with a lot of silliness and juvenile, crass, gross humor–the kind that appeals to teens and 20-somethings raised on a steady diet of MTV’s “Teen Moms” and assorted Kardashian Kartrashian. I’m surprised it actually cost $40 million to make because it looks more like a $4 million (or less) budget movie.
But I thought it was very funny. I will be the first to admit that I went to the movie ready to laugh, and that makes a huge difference. I laughed a lot, especially during the first third or half of the movie, probably more than anyone else in the theater where I saw it.
But the movie isn’t just a crude, low-humor vehicle for Seth Rogen and James Franco. It made a lot of good points about the low taste of America, these days. Rogen plays a serious journalist stuck producing Franco’s celebrity-culture interview show. Rogen longs to do serious stuff and be taken seriously by his colleagues at other journalism outlets. But Franco argues with him that Americans want this kind of low-brow celebrity culture. He says that the American TV-viewing public is constantly saying, “Gimme s–t, gimme s–t!” To me, that’s spot on. If it weren’t, TMZ wouldn’t have soared to become THE influential “news” source in America in just a few years. And if it weren’t true, the Kardashians would be working minimum wage jobs sweeping up hair at a salon, instead of multi-million dollar annual earners, famous for being famous.
The movie makes the point repeatedly about the dumbing down of America’s taste and description of what is journalism and news. And that’s on-target. But after that, it’s downhill. And while it makes other journalists seem more serious than the celebrity “journalists,” that simply isn’t the case anymore and hasn’t been for a long time. All three of the major network nightly news broadcasts are more than peppered with celebrity news, whether it was about Joan Rivers’ death or Bill Cosby’s alleged multiple rapes or NBC News Anchor Brian Williams’ daughter Allison’s starring role in NBC News’ live braodcast of “Peter Pan.” And “60 Minutes”–which is portrayed in the movie as a serious news program–constantly does celebrity profiles and interviews. Just last Sunday, Reese “I Am an American Citizen! [so don’t arrest me for drunk driving]” Witherspoon was profiled and interviewed on “60 Minutes.” And you know what they deliberately didn’t mention in the puff piece? Her drunk driving arrest and outrageous behavior on video. It’s as if it never happened.
Back to “The Interview.” As you probably know, the plot centers on a celebrity-obsessed interview show and its host (played by Franco) and its producer (played by Rogen). As I mentioned, Rogen wants to be taken seriously (which makes you wonder why he agreed to produce a celebrity show with a semi-dim-witted host), and the host wants to make news. Franco reads that North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un is a fan of his show, and he convinces Rogen to make contact with North Korea to request an interview. Once the interview is on, serious journalists are all angry, afraid that Franco is being played for a patsy (which he essentially is) by Kim. And the CIA manages to convince the duo to assassinate Kim. But when the two of them get to North Korea, Franco buys into the propaganda and is “honeypotted” (I won’t use the phrase here that they actually use in the movie) into liking Kim, and it’s up in the air whether a hard-hitting interview and the assassination will actually happen.
Amidst all the controversy about this movie, I heard many (liberal) commentators whine that Rogen and Franco and Sony shouldn’t have made a movie about killing an actual sitting world leader (which is funny because all of them were dead silent when a movie about killing President Bush, “Death of a President,” was released while he was President–read my review). I thought this movie actually humanized Kim and undersold what a madman and mass-murdering human-rights abuser he is. There were no shots of concentration camps or starving people. No scenes of citizens murdered en masse. None of that. And you have to wonder, “Is this all there is? Is this nothing of a movie really what North Korea was upset about?”
While Sony may still lose a lot of money after initially canceling the movie’s release, North Korea’s strategy over a really stupid movie was even more stupid. Had they done nothing and not released hacked messages (at least until after “The Interview” was long gone from theaters), this movie would have quickly bombed and died a quick death, unnoticed by most. It’s not a good movie, and it would have failed against relatively better Christmas-time fare. But North Korean hackers and terrorist-threat-issuers created controversy and publicity for the movie that made people want to go see it or pay to see it online. North Korea created a demand for crap–crap that isn’t really that negative against North Korea as much as it is negative against America and Americans.
Watching this movie, I didn’t even think it was original, as some claim it is. It reminded me of real-life boob Dennis Rodman traveling to hang out with Kim and singing his praises to all who would give him a forum. And it reminded me of assorted cold war movies in which we Americans are the idiots versus clever Communist dictators, such as “Spies Like Us.” And it has notes from Michael Moore’s totally unwatchable, failed attempt at a fiction movie (though all his documentaries do qualify as fiction movies), “Canadian Bacon.” Both of those movies stank, and this stinker is a doubly smelly derivative of those. There is nothing new under the sun, except for North Korea’s help in making this a questionable “must-see” movie for the masses by making it forbidden fruit. North Korean hackers turned this unworthy target into the most talked about movie of the year.
There’s nothing patriotic about this movie in which Americans are dummies (though, sadly, we often are in real life, today). The bottom line is that this movie isn’t worth the hype, and definitely not worth the ten bucks-plus and two hours of your life you’ll never get back.
Says reader I Am Me, “Not only did the movie stink, but I am now fearing the North Koreans may hack the database containing my credit card information.”
He gave me yet another reason to see it at a movie theater. And to pay for my ticket in cash.
TWO OBAMAS PLUS THREE DENNIS RODMANS

Here is an interesting article from http://www.debbieschlussel.com/ reviewing some of the movies that came out over the past weekend. This follows this post about some of the movies from last week and THIS POST about some movies that have been released over the past few years that you might have missed! This all follows this post about guidelines to choosing good movies to watch yourself!

Wknd Box Office: A Million Ways to Die in the West, Maleficent, The Immigrant, Palo Alto

By Debbie Schlussel
Can’t really recommend any of the new movies in theaters today. The only one even halfway decent is “Maleficent,” but see my many caveats in my review.


* “A Million Ways to Die in the West“: Before I start this review, I want to apologize to all of my Christian friends and readers on behalf of all of the Jewish people. My apology is for the very existence of an embarrassing disease known as Sarah Silverman, a va-JINO (my name for female Jews In Name Only) who mocks Christians and Christianity repeatedly in this awful, unfunny piece of crap parading as a movie. On the other hand, the movie was written, directed, and produced by Seth MacFarlane, an atheist of Scottish, Irish, and English descent, who also stars in it. He is responsible for this garbage that I’m sure will, sadly, do very well in theaters, and somebody else can do the apologies for him.
I didn’t like the excessive raunch in MacFarlane’s “Ted” (read my review), but at least that movie was very funny. This one wasn’t at all and makes “Ted” look like a masterpiece in comparison. Just gross. A guy defecating into two cowboy hats and an up close shot of the dung–that’s funny? A woman sucking and licking on a guy’s rounded mustache as foreplay–funny? No. Eeuuww–ding, ding, ding. And that was the case with pretty much every joke in this movie: sickening sophomoric stuff focusing on bathroom humor and bodily fluids from sex acts. I’m no prude, but you don’t need to be one to find this movie utterly disgusting and cringe-inducing. The only funny thing in this movie (and it was only very mildly funny) was a very brief tribute to “Back to the Future” (hint: Christopher Lloyd and a DeLorean make an appearance). The rest is just dumb. Oh, and by the way, using S- and F-words every other second doesn’t make you funny. Just weak.
I love the old West. If I had to choose a time in American history to live in other than today, I’d pick that time period. With Manifest Destiny and the settling of lands untouched previously by Western civilization, it was an exciting, industrious, and important time for America. And a time when cowboys and American masculinity was nurtured and thrived. My love for the old West runs in the family, as my cousin, Lillian Schlissel, wrote “Women’s Diaries of the Westward Journey.” But this movie, which is supposed to be a parody of Western movies . . . or something, is just a frat boy movie with modern day dialogue and sleaze wrapped up in Western window dressing, costumes, and accoutrements (a word that probably 99.999% of the people who pay to see this movie and mindlessly rave over it have never heard–and yes, snobbery is vastly underrated here).


The “story”: MacFarlane plays a sheep farmer who is a loser. He owes people money, he can’t round up his sheep, he lives with his bitter, old parents, and his girlfriend (Amanda Seyfried–who sucks the mustache of Neil Patrick Harris, as I noted above) has just dumped him. To win her back, he challenges her new boyfriend, Harris, to a gun duel. But, as with everything else, he’s inept and can’t shoot. So he learns how to shoot from the mysterious new woman who’s come to town, Charlize Theron. Theron is secretly married to the meanest criminal in the West (Liam Neeson), who robs and kills people and will soon be in town to meet up with her. While MacFarlane is learning to shoot, he falls for Theron.
MacFarlane’s closest friends are religious Christians, played by Giovanni Ribisi and Sarah Silverman. Silverman is a prostitute who works in the town brothel and repeatedly engages in all kinds of sex acts with the patrons. But each time Ribisi asks here if she will have sex with him, she repeatedly responds, “No, we’re Christians. We have to wait until we’re married.” And there’s a scene mocking the town pastor, his church, and its congregants as total morons. Um, when will Seth MacFarlane make a comedy movie about a devout Muslim prostitute in a hijab who has ejaculate on her face and has bad breath from performing oral sex, like the “Christian” one in this movie? Or a movie that mocks a mosque? Won’t happen.
What also shouldn’t happen is your payment of ten dollars and waste of two hours of your time on this trash. Skip it. This is a national taste test. If you like it, you don’t have any.
FOUR MARXES PLUS FOUR OBAMAS PLUS FOUR BIN LADENS



* “Maleficent“: The first thing you need to know about this movie is that it stars and is executive produced by Angelina Jolie, the pan-Arabist cretinette who praised Palestinian kids for singing about their desire for terrorism against the Jewish people to get Jerusalem.
And while the special effects in this movie–based on the “Sleeping Beauty” fairy tale–were fabulous, the acting was good, and the story was suspenseful and entertaining enough (if slow-moving), the movie is too violent and scary for kids at whom it’s being heavily marketed. And it has the wrong messages, glorifying an evil-doer (blurring the line between what is evil and what is good) and portraying men as evil and violent, just plain dolts, or both. And the movie is basically an entire anti-male revenge fantasy for scorned women with no boundaries. If I had young kids, I doubt I’d take them to a movie in which the main character, a fairy, is essentially given a “ruphie” and dismembered. Would you?
The story: a young fairy, Maleficent, helps protect the land of the Moors from the evil mortals in the nearby kingdom. One day, she meets a poor mortal orphan boy who has trespassed into the Moors. She tells him to leave, but soon they become friends, and ultimately lovers. However, the boy, who is now a man, has more materialistic, mortal ambitions and soon abandons her for his desire to become king. Time and again, the current king keeps trying to enter the Moors and defeat the fairies so he can have this magical land for himself. Each time, he’s defeated by Maleficent who can fly and cast spells. From his sick bed, the king tells his subjects that he will appoint to be the next king the man who kills Maleficent. The man who once maybe loved Maleficent goes to see her and warns her the king has put a bounty on her head. But he also gives her a bottle to drink from, and she falls into a deep sleep. He gets out a sword and plans to plunge it into her, but decides to dismember her wings that grow out of her back. When she awakens with no wings, she repeatedly screams a primordial scream. It’s very melodramatic for kids.
This is where the movie becomes extremely dark, and Maleficent–a woman scorned and betrayed (and also the protagonist of this movie)–wants to get revenge on the king, the man who was once her boyfriend and who has mutilated her body. So she visits the castle and casts a spell on the king’s daughter, saying that on her 16th birthday, the princess will prick her finger on the needle of a spinning wheel, and she will fall into a deep, everlasting sleep until and unless she is kissed by her true love.
Maleficent watches as the king–to avoid the spell taking place–sends his baby daughter to seclusion to be raised by pixie fairies until the day after he 16th birthday. But Maleficent sees where the princess is and–with the help of a crow she has transformed back and forth to and from a human–she watches over the princess. Soon, she takes a liking to the innocent girl and comes to protect her, as the pixies are incompetent. She also comes to love her and tries to reverse the spell on the princess, now a teen girl (Elle Fanning).
No need to tell you all of the rest, except to say that throughout the movie, the viewers are manipulated into taking the side of the evil Maleficent, as the movie justifies her revenge against the evil man who wronged her, and later as she “seeks redemption” by trying to protect the princess, then trying to reverse the spell, and, finally, kissing her. You see, in this warped movie, the princess’ true love isn’t a male. It’s Maleficent. Huh? I mean, is lesbian pedophilia what they were going for here? Don’t count that out. The young prince of the traditional fairy tale is, in this version, a clumsy dope.
Whatever happened to stark good and evil characters of the Disney I grew up with? The Disney that didn’t bash men or traditional values and roles? That Disney is long dead and buried along with its namesake, apparently. And along with the stark good versus evil we once knew in the world. Today’s America, like this movie, says the evil are good and the good are evil. That the men are idiots and jerks. And the women are the strong and morally straight, even when they are the villains.
And while you say, “it’s only a movie,” sadly in the America of now, life imitates art.
TWO BETTY FRIEDANS PLUS TWO ANNOYING SHERYL SANDBERG LEAN-INS PLUS A MICHELLE LAVAUGHN ROBINSON HUSSEIN OBAMA IDI AMIN DADA



* “The Immigrant“: Should be called, “Dear Jews, We Hate You, Love, Hollywood” or “Jewish Men Are Sleazy Pimps Who Force Innocent Virgin Polish Catholic Immigrants Into Prostitution & Ruin Their Lives.” That’s essentially the plot of this absolutely horrible, depressing, openly anti-Semitic movie lauded by critics and starring 9/11 Truther Marion Cotillard as the Polish chick.
Cotillard is Ewa (pronounced, “Ava”), an immigrant from Poland who has just arrived at Ellis Island with her sister in the early 1900s. They wait in line to be interviewed by an immigration inspector. But Ewa’s sister is sick and they send her to an infirmary, from which she can only be bailed out with a lot of bribe money Ewa doesn’t have. Then, the immigration inspector says Ewa cannot be admitted into the country because she exhibited that she was “a woman of loose morals” on the ship over to America. Actually, a sleazy pimp–posing as a kind Samaritan–has bribed the inspectors to deny her entry, so that he can “save the day.” The man, Bruno Weiss, tells Ewa he can help her if she comes with him. It is the beginning of his scam to con her and then force her into prostitution to pay him back and bail her sick sister out of the Ellis Island infirmary.
In case the viewer isn’t immediately aware that this purely evil pimp, Bruno Weiss, is Jewish (and he is played by apparently self-hating Jewish actor, Joaquin Phoenix), the people who made this movie hit you over the head with it. Bruno lives on New York’s Lower East Side and tells Ewa that he speaks Yiddish and Hebrew. Later on in the movie, the immigration inspectors he paid off and some other cops call him, “you dumb kike.”
Throughout this miserable ordeal, Ewa remains the prostitute with a heart of gold, and she goes to church to confess her sins to the Catholic priest, despite all of those who betrayed her. The only person who tries to rescue her is Emil (Jeremy Renner), Bruno’s wandering cousin who performs as “Orlando the Magician.” But that ends tragically.
I suffered through this fictional, Jew-hating movie wondering when there will be a flick about a Muslim pimp who forces a Jew or Christian into prostitution (that goes on every day in America, where, as I’ve detailed, devout Muslims in several sex slavery rings forced Christian women they kidnapped to perform sex acts for money). Of course I know the answer: never. It simply wouldn’t be tolerated. I was tremendously disgusted, but not the least bit surprised that among the names among the top producers of this movie were surnames like Levin, Shapiro, and Blavatnik. Yes, Jews can be anti-Semites against their fellow co-religionists, and that certainly includes Paul A. Levin, Greg Shapiro, and Len Blavatnik who made this modern-day celluloid Mein Kampf. Oh, and don’t forget the top Jewish self-haters here, the Weinstein brothers, Harvey and
Bob Weinstein, whose studio, The Weinstein Company, put the movie out.
I see movies like this–in which the villains are markedly Jewish–more and more. And, usually, they have many Jewish names attached to them. Goebbels’ ghost is having the last laugh.
FOUR HITLERS PLUS FOUR BIN LADENS PLUS FOUR ARAFATS



* “Palo Alto“: I was once a fan of James Franco. What the heck was I thinking? This absolutely disgusting, pointless, horrible movie, parading as high-brow, coming-of-age teen angst cinema, is warped, and it’s based on the short stories he wrote (he also stars in this).
Only someone very sick in the head would dream up some of the disgusting dialogue and scenes. The movie is disturbing, and yet, predictably, mainstream media movie critics (all of them liberals) are raving over this slow, boring, time-wasting garbage. The movie is littered with relatives of Hollywood notables, including Julia Roberts’ niece and Eric Roberts’ daughter, Emma Roberts, and Val Kilmer’s son, Jack Kilmer, and it is directed by yet another Coppola, Gia Coppola (Frances Ford’s granddaughter, who also wrote the script), showing once again that what gets made and who gets cast in Hollywood is all about who you know (or to whom you are related), not talent. (The bloated balloon who used to be Val Kilmer also has a small role in this crappy film.)
The story (if you can call it that): several teens in high school smoke, do drugs, engage in various wanton sex acts with each other, and are all-around empty creeps. There are no real adults anywhere in this movie who exercise any discretion or parenting whatsoever, and they are barely around. One dad, though, offers his son’s friend pot and then tries to come on to the male friend. Emma Roberts is a babysitter for her high school soccer coach (Franco), who is also a teacher at the school. Soon, they begin having sex, but she finds out he’s also having sex with another female soccer player/babysitter from her high school. Jack Kilmer is a screw up who constantly drinks and gets high. He crashes into another car while drunk driving after he leaves a party in which the class slut has just given him oral sex. He repeatedly gets in trouble, but keeps getting breaks in the justice system. He also hangs out with a really bad kid who is crazy and repeatedly has sex with the same girl who gave oral sex to Jack Kilmer. And he draws penises on pictures in books in a children’s library. Then he deliberately drives his car the wrong way into oncoming traffic on the freeway. The end.
Yup, this is the dung-on-film I see more and more of coming out of Hollywood these days. And you wonder why America is sinking. Like I said before, life imitates art . . . and garbage posing to be art.
FOUR MARXES PLUS FOUR OBAMAS PLUS FOUR BIN LADENS