Free Republic

He reviewed books and films on the morning program for four decades: "'The Silence of the Lambs' may be all wool, and a yard wide, but it makes a terrific yarn."Gene Shalit, the fun-loving film critic on the Today show known for his oversized mustache, out-of-control mop of black hair and lively use of puns in his movie reviews, died Friday. He was 100.Shalit, a mainstay on the NBC morning show for four decades until his retirement in November 2010, “passed away peacefully today after 100 years of an amazing life,” his family said in a statement to NBC News....

Said Kanye’s ludicrous remark was a low point of his presidency Raise your hand if you thought George W. Bush’s memoir would include revelations that Kanye West hurt his feelings and his mother showed him a fetus in a jar when he was a teenager. That’s one sensitive president, and one bizarre move by mom. Making the rounds to promote his book, Decision Points, Bush told Matt Lauer that after his mother, Barbara, had a miscarriage, she showed George the fetus in a jar. “She says to her teenage kid, ‘Here’s a fetus,’” said Bush. “There’s no question that it...

"Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo" makes a living cleaning fish tanks and occasionally prostituting himself. How much he charges I'm not sure, but the price is worth it if it keeps him off the streets and out of another movie. "Deuce Bigalow" is aggressively bad, as if it wants to cause suffering to the audience. The best thing about it is that it runs for only 75 minutes. Rob Schneider is back, playing a male prostitute (or, as the movie reminds us dozens of times, a "man whore"). He is not a gay hustler, but specializes in pleasuring women, although the...

What the Republicans did, cleverly, was to establish effective "memes" in the minds of the public and the pundits... Bush became the "winner" of a dead heat, in the midst of an incomplete recount, when a premature victory was declared on her own unnecessary deadline by his Florida campaign co-chairwoman, who also held the crucial post of secretary of state... [I]t was clearly a shameless ploy to slam the door before the election escaped. A meme was born. The other effective GOP meme was the mantra, "we counted, and counted again, and then a third time." These words were chanted...

George Carlin delivered a monologue titled, "I Am a Bad American." The essay includes these statements: "I believe the money I make belongs to me and my family, not some mid-level governmental functionary who wants to give it away to crack addicts squirting out babies.... I believe it's called the Boy Scouts for a reason.... I believe that if you're selling me a Big Mac, you'd better be doing it in English." George Carlin?! Sounds more like something Rush Limbaugh would say, but the actual author appears to be a guy calling himself "bootyist-monk" on FreeRepublic.com, a conservative Web site....

"To see O-Ren's God-slicer and Go-Go's mace clashing in a field of dead and dying men is to understand how women have taken over for men in action movies. Strange, since women are not nearly as good at killing as men are. Maybe they're cast because the liberal media wants to see them succeed. The movie's women warriors reminds me of Ruby Rich's defense of Russ Meyer as a feminist filmmaker (his women initiate all the sex and do all the killing)."

SWEET SIXTEEN / ***1/2 (R) June 13, 2003 BY ROGER EBERT "Sweet Sixteen" is set in Scotland and acted in a local accent so tricky it needs to be subtitled. Yet it could take place in any American city, in this time of heartless cuts in social services and the abandonment of the poor. I saw the movie at about the same time our lawmakers eliminated the pitiful $400 per child tax credit, while transferring billions from the working class to the richest 1 percent. Such shameless greed makes me angry, and a movie like "Sweet Sixteen" provides a social...