Weekend Box Office: Thor: The Dark World, Diana (a/k/a “I Like Muslim Penis”)

BLOGGERS NOTE: I WILL BE MOVING FROM FACEBOOK TO TWITTER AND BLOGSPOT SOON!

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!

Weekend Box Office: Thor: The Dark World, Diana (a/k/a “I Like Muslim Penis”)

By Debbie Schlussel

Nothing to really recommend that’s new at the movies, this weekend.


* “Thor: The Dark World“: I like a good superhero movie. This ain’t it. I didn’t especially like the first “Thor” movie (read my review). This one was far worse. Long, boring, dull, and confusing. The story/plot of this movie looks like someone phoned it in. It’s silly and hard to follow. This movie has so much action and so many special effects, and yet I struggled to stay awake because, at the same time, it was so slow.   Natalie Portman is bummed out that Thor, the love of her life, disappeared from Earth without saying good-bye, two years ago. But he returns because Earth and the other realms over which he has power are in danger from some group called the “Dark Elves.” It’s strange because they are pale white and not elfin or height-challenged in the least. Thor must partner with his evil brother, Loki, to fight off the Dark Elves (headed by some dude named Malekith), in defiance of his king father’s efforts. And, eventually, the day is saved. There is a lot of confusing scientific mumbo-jumbo and jargon and other silly stuff that seems to serve as filler. Also, there’s some running debate as to whether Loki is still a bad guy or now a good guy. Who cares?



Superhero movies are supposed to be filled with magic and excitement, with suspense and thrills, and this has none of those.

A waste of time which I’m sure will do gazillions at the box office.

HALF A REAGAN

* “Diana“: Should’ve been called, “Princess Diana Liked Muslim Penis . . . and Was a Psycho-Super-Stalker.” The whole time I was watching this, I kept thinking, “Just Die Already!”

I hated this extremely silly, waste-of-time movie. Long, boring, and dull. Sitting through this was Grade A Gitmo Torture. It was almost as excruciating as sitting through that whole weekend of non-stop “Diana Has Died” nonsense, during that weekend of 1997 in which we were told non-stop about “the Whole World crying” over the “untimely death” of an overrated, proud high school dropout whore who married into an inbred royal family. Oh, and Diana is played by Naomi Watts who looks and sounds nothing like the real thing. Frankly, it would have been more entertaining if, say, Tracy Morgan played Diana in this movie.

The movie is Princess Diana’s affair with Pakistani Muslim doctor Hasnat Khan (Naveen Andrews). She stalks him incessantly, showing up at his work, his apartment, and so on, even after he repeatedly dumps and rejects her. One day, while he’s at work, she enters his dirty, messy apartment and spends the day vacuuming and washing the dishes. Yeah, right. Like that EVER happened.

Diana recites from the Koran to Khan to impress him and tells him, “I studied Islam several years ago, so you see I’ve been preparing for you for a long time.” Barf. And, since this is partially a Muslim propaganda flick, Dr. Khan tells Diana, “To me, Islam means the constant reformation of one’s character.” Really? And I thought it meant the constant reformation of the quality of one’s IEDs, hijacking methods, and ways to shoot up American military bases. Silly me.

Not that I believe anyone ever said any of the things that comprise the dialogue of this movie. I think it’s all made up and stupid, including comments such as, “I’m a princess, and I get what I want.” Or scenes of Diana ordering “Gray’s Anatomy” and having multiple orgasms when she opens the book. I don’t doubt that Diana, like the rest of the British Royals, was an Islamo-panderer. Heck, she serviced at least two Muslim penises (Khan’s and Dodi Fayed’s) that we know of . . . and probably enough to field a Muslim football team. In one scene, Khan’s relative tells him, “If you marry Diana, it will be a great thing for Pakistan and for the whole Islamic world.” And I was wondering if he meant politically . . . or for a multi-national Muslim orgy.

There is enough crying and unnecessary melodrama in this joke of a movie to last me several lifetimes. But one other thing: I hate when movies get their gadgets, clothing, and other stuff so obviously wrong. Diana tells Khan that, “like most normal people, I have a mobile.” But few normal people had a cell phone back in 1994 or ’95, when she tells him that. She also wears “skinny jeans” throughout the movie. Skinny jeans were not in style in 1994-97, when the movie takes place. The wardrobe director needs to be fired.

But so does everyone else who had anything to do with the cinematic stupidity.

SKIP THIS.

THREE MARXES PLUS AN OBAMA PLUS TWO BIN LADENS

Celebrity Culture: The Distorted Mirror

An interesting article from http://www.ucg.org/  about celebrity influence on things such as drug use and sexual problems. This follows this post about divorce in China.  For a free magazine subscription or to get this book for free click HERE! or call 1-888-886-8632.

Celebrity Culture: The Distorted Mirror





article by Gary Petty





Magazines, TV and the Internet are obsessed with celebrities and celebrity culture. How does society's fascination with celebrity culture affect you and your children? How can you counter its negative influence?







Source: Wikimedia CommonsI remember, as a child, watching the Jackson Five perform on television. Young Michael Jackson's stage presence, voice and talent were mesmerizing. Years later, as I watched his "Thriller" music video, a full-blown movie production with Hollywood special effects turning Michael into a monster, it was clear to me that his persona was very different from the earlier child sensation belting out puppy love lyrics to bubblegum rock.



He seemed to have it all—fame, money, adoring fans. We also know a little of the other Michael Jackson—strange disfigurement, broken marriages and self-destructive behavior. Whether it was his performing genius or bizarre lifestyle, love him or hate him, the public could not get enough. He remains very popular well after his untimely death in June 2009.



Michael Jackson was both messenger and victim of a celebrity culture defining the spirit of an age. People envy the fame and money of celebrities and imitate them as role models. At the grocery store checkout, people grab the latest celeb magazine to revel in their sexual exploits and bad-boy or bad-girl experimentation with drugs and alcohol.



Many hold them up as glimmering stars until they come crashing down in the latest Internet sex video scandal or announcement that they have just entered a rehab center. Fans worship celebrities until they become parodies of themselves, and then the media turns them into cartoon characters.



In reality, many celebrities live emotionally and spiritually destructive lives. With 24/7 media coverage and the need for young people to have role models, the celebrity lifestyle of glamour and thrills seems attractive to many children, teens and young adults.



A culture of narcissism

Drs. Drew Pinsky and Mark Young describe a societal trend towards narcissism in their book The Mirror Effect: How Celebrity Narcissism Is Seducing America.



The term narcissism comes from ancient Greek mythology. The tale is of a handsome young man named Narcissus, who is so consumed by his own desires that he is unable to love others. Narcissus sees his own reflection in a pool of water and falls hopelessly and madly in love with himself. Of course, every time he tries to touch the watery image it dissolves. He eventually dies of a broken heart.



Pinsky, a TV personality himself who is better known as Dr. Drew, explains: "For the narcissist, the whole world is a mirror; life is spent in constant pursuit of a gratifying reflection, a beautiful self-image to stave off feelings of internal emptiness. The modern narcissist seeks those reflections in the pages of glossy magazines, and on the screens of their TVs and computers. The celebrity-media looking glass responds with images of a privileged life where participants are beautiful, charismatic, powerful and free to act as they choose.



"The mirror of celebrity reinforces every narcissist's belief that a world of constant admiring attention is possible. All you need to do is to act sexy, play the diva, demand privileges, and party with abandon" (2009, p. 88).



This dysfunctional view of life leads to dangerous behavior. In spite of public emotional meltdowns, drug addiction and broken relationships, millions of young people see celebrities as quintessential images of the good life. Therefore, "all you need to do is act sexy, play the diva, demand privileges, and party with abandon" and you will find true happiness.



It's true that people have always been enamored with the lives of the rich and the famous, but never before has society been bombarded with an endless stream of information about celebrities.



Tabloids and tabloid TV, celebrity magazines and Internet sites, and even mainstream news to an unwarranted degree have become "mirrors" for celebrities living dysfunctional lives. And they have to continue perpetrating sordid behavior in order to maintain fame and thereby keep these mirrors in operation.



The drugs, raw sexuality, broken and cyclical relationships, bouts in rehab and emotional meltdowns are eagerly watched by impressionable young people—along with many who are not so young—who are led to believe that those moving images and glossy, airbrushed pictures reflect success and happiness. Desiring this for themselves, many of those watching end up modeling their own lives accordingly, becoming mirrors themselves of those they essentially idolize.



Hence "the mirror effect." Everyone, it seems, is narcissistically preoccupied with modeling himself or herself into the image of other narcissists who will do anything to maintain fame. People throughout society have become so in love with themselves that they are losing the ability to love others.



Helping children navigate the celebrity culture

Being mildly fascinated with celebrities, especially as a teen, is not necessarily harmful, but parents have to help their children navigate the traps of the dysfunctional celebrity culture.



The following are some symptoms your child may exhibit if he or she is adversely affected by the celebrity culture:



• Excessive fascination with celebrities.



• Obsession with wanting to dress or model the behavior of a celebrity.



• Hypersexuality.



• Dangerous behavior like drug or alcohol abuse.



• Acting out wrong behavior on the Internet.



As noted, not just young children or teens are entranced with celebrities. According to one poll, 51 percent of 18- to 25-year-olds said that being famous was their generation's most important or second most important life goal.



According to Dr. Drew, young people first begin to feed their curiosity and emotional needs with a constant diet of celebrity media, and then they begin to see the celebrity narcissistic, dysfunctional behavior as normal and desirable. The next step is mimicking the celebrity behavior in daily life. Eventually, the young person may begin to mirror the celebrity behavior by broadcasting his or her own wrong behavior on the Internet.



Countering the negative influences

You, as a parent, grandparent or concerned adult, must take positive steps in helping children develop a strong sense of healthy identity, a positive set of internal values and a sense of belonging to family and community.



The place to start is to help them understand that there is a Creator God. You must personally get involved in teaching your children the stories and messages of the Bible. When children understand the people of the Bible as real human beings, with feelings just like them, the biblical stories become personal. Positive biblical characters become heroes worth imitating.



The most powerful, life-changing message for any human being is the understanding that:



• He or she is made in the image of God.



• God loves him or her and has a purpose for his or her life.



• The problems in life are a result of people not living the way God intended them to live.



• There is real good and evil, and there are terrible consequences for choosing evil.



• Jesus Christ is the Savior who died for our sins and helps us to live as God directs.



You must also limit the time your children spend surfing the Internet, watching television and reading celebrity magazines. This may be a real battle at the beginning. The rags-to-fame-to-riches-to-partying-to-meltdown story has a strong appeal to young people who have bought into the idea that uninhibited spending of money, partying, sex with a myriad of glamorous people, and fame are the measures of success.



You are competing for your child's mind with media programmers who know how to manipulate that appeal. Here is just part of a casting call put out by MTV: "Do you long to strut into the world's most elite hotspots without a care in the world except how fabulous you are? Ever wish the velvet ropes didn't exclude you from the social circle of the A-list? How about the fantasy of jet setting around the world with the ultimate BFF [best friend forever], whose fierce style, charisma and star power is only matched by your own?" ( quoted by Pinsky and Young, p. 135.)



Reality shows are designed to attract young people to the make-believe world of social stardom. It's like a mind drug, and withdrawal can be difficult. That is why, if you limit TV and Internet time without replacing it with other activities, you'll have bored and angry children.



The solutions to the pulls of the celebrity culture on children are developing healthy relationships with parents, positive experiences with personal growth and achievement, and knowing that there is something more important in life than the immediate gratification of selfish desires.



Here are some actions parents can take to help children avoid the dangers of imitating celebrity culture:



• Eat meals together and talk to each other.



• Play games with your children.



• Organize regular family experiences: Learn to play a musical instrument together, go camping or take up a hobby that fits the interests of your child.



• Get involved with service projects like volunteering your family to serve at a nursing home once a week.



• Have them participate in a church youth group that does service projects.



• Help them develop positive relationships with grandparents and other adults.



• Give them regular chores so that they develop a sense of accomplishment in work.



We have to help children learn that happiness is more than acting sexy, demanding privileges and partying with abandon.



A much better life is possible

We excuse professional athletes who use illegal steroids as long as they perform. When they can no longer thrill us with hitting the baseball out of the park, we turn on them in hypocritical condemnation. People like to hitch their wagons to the latest rising teenage singing star. When he or she predictably has a breakdown, they shake their heads in disgust.



At the same time, all too many young people see the celebrity lifestyle of fast money, easy sex and fame as the ultimate measure of success and happiness. The results are empty and many times tragic.



God has a purpose for you and your children. Real success is rooted in a strong sense of identity as a child of God and living by His rules of life. Ask God to come into your life and forgive you for living a way based on a wrong viewpoint of how life works. The teachings of Jesus Christ will show you the real, eternal ways to happiness and success. GN

.

Wknd Box Office: Incendies, The Double Hour, Everything Must Go, Hesher

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 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 chosing good movies to watch yourself!

Wknd Box Office: Incendies, The Double Hour, Everything Must Go, Hesher


By Debbie Schlussel


There are four other movies I didn’t get to, one of which I liked a lot, and two I hated intensely.











* “Incendies“: Rarely have I been so angry walking out of a movie because it is such a lie. This movie is a complete fraud, written by a pan-Muslim Lebanese Arab PLO-ass-kisser (Wajdi Mouawad) and designed to propagandize the West with a fiction about what really happened in Lebanon in the last several decades. In this movie, there are no Islamic terrorists in Lebanon, only Christian ones; no Islamic homicide bombers, just Christians who do that; no Muslim honor killers, just Christian ones. The Muslims in this movie are universally and without exception innocent, kind, downtrodden, the underdogs, and they give you tea and help you find your long lost relatives. The Christians are the Islamic terrorists who wear masks and shoot up buses full of people. There is no Hezbollah or Amal, even though predecessors to both of these Shi’ite terrorist groups, if not the groups themselves, existed at the time this movie takes place. It’s simply absurd and would be hilarious, if it wasn’t so effective at propagandizing the mindless American movie critics (who are raving about this fraud of a movie) and artsy fartsy crowd, who are woefully ignorant about real contemporary Lebanese history. In this film, there is no P.L.O., which, in real life, invaded Lebanon and raped, tortured, and killed both Christans and Muslims, as I’ve documented on this site many times. Google the Damour Massacre. Yup, you gotta learn the real history on your own because the movies lie.



The story: a twin 20-something boy and girl are read the will of their single mother, an Arab woman in Montreal, who has just died. The will instructs them to go back to Lebanon to meet their brother and their father, both of whom they never knew they had. The girl goes back and is treated horribly by Christians all over Lebanon, but the Muslims are so kind. Her brother, who wants nothing to do with the search, eventually goes to Lebanon to get his sister to return to Canada, and he, too, gets sucked into the quest.



We learn that their mother was a Christian woman pregnant with her Palestinian Muslim boyfriend’s baby. Of course, they never tell us he’s Palestinian, but he lives in the refugee camps, which–memo to the many ignorant Americans watching this movie–means that’s what he is. The Muslim is shot in an honor killing by the woman’s brothers, and they are about to shoot her, but her aunt or mother or grandmother or something (I forget which and don’t care) rescues her, delivers the baby, and after putting an identifying tattoo on its heel, makes the woman give the baby up for adoption. Thereafter, the woman becomes a revolutionary in college, siding with Islamic terrorists against her fellow Christians. Of course, we aren’t told they are Muslim or terrorists. The only religion specifically identified, and constantly portrayed as terrorists are “right wing Christians.”



After this, the woman tries to find her baby and finds herself on a bus full of Muslims who are shot up by “right wing Christian terrorists.” The Christian “terrorists” are wearing green masks and Arabic headbands, which in real life are worn by Islamic terrorists, like HAMAS and Hezbollah, not Christian ones. Even more ridiculous, the “Christian terrorists” wear t-shirts depicting their leader, who is supposed to resemble the real-life Christian leader Bashir Gemayel, assassinated by Muslims at the behest of Syria. What terrorists wear t-shirts of their leader? It’s absurd.



The woman is spared murder on the bus because she is Christian and is horrified by what she sees, so she approaches the Muslims (who, again, are never identified as Muslim, but they wear keffiyehs and they are fighting the Christians based on religion, so we know who they are supposed to be). The woman joins the Muslims and helps them in their terrorist attacks, including assassinating the Christian leader, the Gemayel-esque man. She is sent to a prison in South Lebanon, where she is repeatedly raped and tortured by–you guessed it!–the Christians. Muslims would never ever do such a thing, right? From the rape at the hands of the interrogator, Abu Tarek, she becomes pregnant and gives birth to twins, the twins who are now looking for their long-lost half-brother and their father.



The ending is messed up, but something I predicted about half-way through. And, frankly, it’s just more fictional propaganda designed to make you feel for the nice, oppressed Muslims in Lebanon versus the “evil” Christians. How sad that there aren’t any movies telling it the other way around. But, then, truth just isn’t something that Hollywood–our version or the imitations around the world–are interested in when the villains are actually the Muslims and their innocent victims are Christian.



In French with English subtitles, but would have been just easily translated using deceptive Koranic verses and Muslim Hadith.



FOUR ARAFATS PLUS A NASRALLAH PLUS A BIN LADEN




* “The Double Hour [La Doppia Ora]“: This was a fantastic thriller with so many twists. I figured out one of them, but not the rest. It’s that good. And it moves pretty quickly along. If you like a great psychological thriller, this is it, although the white subtitles were sometimes hard to read on light backgrounds (the movie is in Italian with English subtitles).



Sonia (Ksenia Rappoport), a Slovenian immigrant and maid at a fancy hotel in Turin, Italy, meets a security guard/former cop, Guido (Filippo Timi) at a speed dating event. Soon, they are dating, and he takes her to the giant mansion he guards. The owner is out of town, and he turns off the security system, so they can go into the woods for a walk. But they are blindsided by a group of robbers who tie them up. They shoot the security guard boyfriend, killing him, and a bullet just grazes her. She survives.



I can’t tell you anymore because it would give away the movie, but as in all great psychological thrillers, NOTHING is as it seems. I loved this, except for the ending, which was not justice served. It was riveting, and kept you thinking, guessing, and enjoying. It’s a light, fun, enjoyable movie that is definitely escapist stuff.



FOUR REAGANS





* “Hesher“: I absolutely hated this. If an intellectually-challenged frat boy on crack was challenged to make a movie, this is the crap he’d produce. Absolute garbage. Filthy, vulgar, violent, stupid, slow, and boring beyond belief.



Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays a homeless hippie hoodlum in the ’70s or early ’80s who terrorizes an eleven-year-old kid and soon moves into the home of the kid’s father and grandmother. The father (Rainn Wilson) is a loser who grows a beard and lives on the couch after his wife, the kid’s mother, died just a few months earlier. The kid also has a crush on the supermarket clerk (Natalie Portman), who saves him from the son of a used car dealer, who is also terrorizing him. The kid keeps trying to get his mother’s crashed up car back from the used car dealership.



The movie was pointless, absolute dreck-beyond-belief, and a complete waste of time. Four-letter words populate most of the dialogue, and it’s just simply disgusting–jokes about an old grandmother being raped, a kid being forced to eat a urinal cake, and a nose being cut off. This is entertainment? Only if you need to be locked up, which should be the consequence for everyone who made and/or starred in this utter piece of dung. Did the soldiers–the fallen heroes–we honor tomorrow really make the ultimate sacrifice so movies like this could be made? Oy.



FOUR MARXES PLUS A BIN LADEN


* “Everything Must Go“: Will Ferrell takes a serious role as a vice president of sales who loses his job because of his alcoholism and the accusations of sexual harrassment of an underling. When he gets home, his front lawn is filled with his stuff, and his wife has locked him out of the house. For the rest of the movie, Ferrell is living on his front lawn struggling to survive and hold a yard sale, while he drinks beer. Oh, and his wife has frozen his bank account and canceled his credit cards, so he has no money and no way to get around or survive. In the meantime, he meets a boy whose mother is a nurse for a dying resident of the neighborhood. He befriends the boy and teaches him how to sell things and become a sales genius. Ferrell is also contemplating what to do with the rest of his life and befriends the pregnant young new neighbor across the street.



This movie was somewhat slow and depressing, but not all that bad. I wouldn’t pay $10 or even $5 to see it, though. But it had its moments, even if it seemed somewhat anti-corporate and anti-police at times.



ZERO REAGANS OR MARXES – A WASH

Wknd Box Office: Thor, Something Borrowed, Winter in Wartime, Cave of Forgotten Dreams

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 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 chosing good movies to watch yourself!

Wknd Box Office: Thor, Something Borrowed, Winter in Wartime, Cave of Forgotten Dreams


By Debbie Schlussel



The best–and ONLY good–new movie this weekend is a small arthouse thriller about World War II and the Nazis. If you can’t find it, best to stay home and rent/Netflix something else.











* “Thor“: Rhymes with bore . . . for a reason. Yaaaawn. This ain’t no “god of thunder.” More like, god of slumber. Chris Hemsworth (who trained for this movie at the Detroit area gym where I work out–nice house, no one home) plays an uninspired version of an already uninspired superhero, Thor. This movie was boring, a mess, and had a dull, waste of time story.





Thor, a prince of some distant planet, is a brash, arrogant, immature guy who defies his father, the King, and goes to some planet where they freeze people. He fights the frozen dudes and upsets the balance of things. His evil brother puts his father in a coma and sends Thor to earth, where he falls in love with an annoying Natalie Portman (sooooo sick of her and her lackluster acting–her best performance was as a kid in “The Professional” (read my review) and it’s been all downhill from there). Portman is a scientist studying storms and disruptions in the desert, where Thor lands. There is no spark between them and no chemistry. The same can be said about Hemsworth and his role. Dullardsville.



I saw the movie in 3D, and it was a waste. Didn’t need to be 3D and there was barely any of it of substance. Kinda like this long, boring movie. Nothing objectionable here. Just nothing worth spending $10-$14 bucks and more than two hours of your life on. It’s fine for kids. This is mindless baby-sitter stuff. Nothing more.



HALF A REAGAN





* “Something Borrowed“: Wow, it’s official. Anti-American Kate Hudson hit the wall. She’s supposed to be “the hot one” in this movie, but instead, she really looks like a fat old cow, far older than her years. Awful. This is an unbearable chick flick I advise guys to avoid like the plague. Yes, there are a few really funny lines, but they are all the property of John Krasinski, and there’s not enough of him and far more of the annoying chick flickish fawning and brooding stuff.



Ginnifer “my parents got the ’70s Jennifer memo but were hooked on Seagram’s or couldn’t spell” Goodwin plays a lawyer who is the “geeky,” “less pretty” half of a best friend duo–two women who’ve been BFFs since they were little kids. Hudson is the half of the duo who always gets what she wants, is supposed to be super hot, and is engaged to the lawyer Goodwin always wanted but didn’t think she was good enough to have. The guy–by the way–is played by a Colin Egglesfield, who looks like they took Tom Cruise Silly Putty and put him on a stretching machine. It’s too distracting how much he resembles a semi-twisted version of Cruise.



The guy always had a crush on Goodwin and didn’t think she wanted him. Now he is engaged to Hudson and they are about to be married. But he and Goodwin have a one-night stand and the machinations continue. Does he break off his engagement? Does Hudson find out about them? Who cares? I sure didn’t. Booooooring. Next. This went on forever, despite being more predictable than death and taxes.



It was even less convincing because Goodwin, who normally ain’t all that, actually looks better than Hudson in this. Stick a fork in it, Kate. You’re done. So, what was that you said about how you hate Americans? Eat it. Oh, wait, looks like you already have . . . and then some (and this was filmed before she got pregnant, so save the e-mails).



TWO MARXES




* “Winter in Wartime [Oorlogswinter]“: I cannot say enough good things about this masterpiece. LOVED It! Excellent. And while it begins slowly, it sneaks up on you as a great thriller. Easily one of the best movies of the year, and definitely THE BEST so far.



A boy in his early teens is the son of the mayor of a Nazi-occupied town in the Netherlands. He secretly helps a British pilot whose plane crashed in the woods nearby and is working with the partisans. The boy has an uneasy, precarious position because his friends have been arrested and killed for being involved with the partisans, and his father is trying to maintain an uneasy peace with the Nazis to save his village people. At the same time, the boy’s uncle–who is working with the partisans–has moved in. Who can the boy trust? Will he be able to sneak around and save the soldier without risking others’ lives?



Such a young boy shows incredible fortitude and maturity, as many surely did amidst Nazi occupation during World War II, as did many American boys who served, fought, and some of whom lost life or limb. Kids his age in the current era pale in comparison, and I doubt most would have the guts to do against the Islamic threat what this kid and many others did against the Nazis.



In Dutch with English subtitles. A MUST SEE. Terrific.



FOUR REAGANS PLUS






* “Cave of Forgotten Dreams“: Werner Herzog directed and narrates this documentary about a French cave preserved for thousands of years because it was sealed off with rocks, etc. Inside, there are many drawings and paintings of various animals, along with stalagmites and stalagtites, and the preserved bones of dead bears and other animals.



While this was interesting at first, it went on and on and on. It could have been a 20 minute television feature, and that would have been more than enough. Instead it covered the material to death, and then some. Listening to Herzog narrate this was kinda like listening to an evil villain from the “Die Hard” movies narrate something academic. Strange and mildly comical.



But the comical became absurd when Herzog goes 20 miles away to some sort of reptile sanctuary and asks what the crocodiles (or alligators–I forget which) think about the paintings in the caves nearby. Really? Did you really just ask that, Werner? I laughed a lot. But, unfortunately, the movie didn’t end there. It kept on going and finally it was over. Great stuff for insomnia.



Plus Herzog never tells us how the paintings/drawings were made and what implements were used or what type of ink. Other basic questions like that just weren’t answered as he bored us to tears with his repetition and inane musings. I don’t dislike Herzog. He’s a bright guy. But it’s important to note that he is the same guy who defamed brave American Gene DeBruin in his “Rescue Dawn” movie. I’ll never forget that, and neither should you when you watch anything else he makes that gets to the big screen.



HALF A REAGAN