Monday, February 16, 2009

Big Hollywood review: 'The Reader'

I've been waiting for the blogging artist formerly known as Dirty Harry to weigh in on The Reader. He has, and it's good stuff. (The review, not the film.)

Recently, a new ingredient’s been added to the effort of fooling us into believing that what we’re watching is intelligent, and that’s The Immoral -- with the normalization of sex with young children leading the charge. "Notes on a Scandal,” “Birth” and “Towelhead” actually portray a physical intimacy with children as liberating, while “The Woodsman,” “Little Children,” and “L.I.E.” offer up those who molest our children as alternately sympathetic, wise and the protector.
Creepy. But it gets creepier.

“The Reader” is so desperate to be perceived as intelligent that it creates an entirely new recipe: the sympathetic Nazi child molester and former S.S. concentration camp guard responsible for the mass murder of 300 Jews who with the help of the young boy she once raped triumphs over her reading disability.

The reason you keep thinking Hollywood’s finally hit bottom is because you forget how well they dig.

Love that last line. Vintage Dirty Harry. Full review here.

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