“The Debt” proved to be everything you could want in the genre – a crackling cast led by Jessica Chastain, a potent tale of the hunt for a Nazi criminal and enough cogent storytelling to keep you rooted to both the characters and their fates.

Yet “The Debt,” out on Blu-ray and DVD this week, couldn’t find its audience despite hitting theaters on Aug. 31, one of the least competitive times for film releases. The film’s $31 million haul isn’t an embarrassment – ask Sarah Jessica Parker about her $9 million flop “I Don’t Know How She Does It” which opened two weeks later. “The Debt” deserved a better reception from ticket buyers.

Helen Mirren stars as Rachel, a retired Mossad agent basking in the glow of her daughter’s new book release. The tome recalls Rachel’s capture of Dieter Vogel, one of the Holocaust’s greatest monsters. The story soon flashes back to 1966, and Rachel (“The Tree of Life’s” Chastain) along with two fellow agents (Sam Worthington, Marton Csokas) are planning to kidnap Dieter (Jesper Christensen), living anonymously as a gynecologist in East Germany.

Rachel poses as a patient to get close enough to Dieter to confirm his identity. Meanwhile, her fellow agents are torn between completing their mission and feelings they’re developing for Rachel.

“The Debt” scores on a host of levels, from an improbable love triangle to a morality tale about dealing with an amoral soul. Christensen is wicked to the core as Dieter, even when he’s acting in a professional capacity. He can burrow deep into a person’s neuroses one minute, and then express profound sympathies the next. In both cases he comes across as utterly believable.

The film’s Blu-ray release includes a small array of goodies including feature commentary from director John Madden and producer Kris Thykier and three short “making-of” style featurettes.

I prefer my cops to be big and strong like Dirty Harry, and as more television programs feature women in various enforcement roles, I find some of them tolerable and others not so much. I love this genre, however, but find myself at times cringing at some of these leading ladies. So I thought it would be fun to grade them with star ratings and invite others to do the same.

Bear in mind, however, that I can only critique shows I actually watched on a regular basis, so don’t expect to see Cagney and Lacey in this pile. Nor did I ever watch Heather Locklear in “T.J. Hooker” or the sad-eyed Peggy Lipton in “Mod Squad,” who I found snooze-inducing.

“Police Woman” (1974) Angie Dickinson **

Totally unbelievable but I liked her co-star Earl Holliman who has always been underrated. Pepper Anderson, however, became producers’ idea of what they’d like their cops to look like.

“Hill Street Blues” (1981) Betty Thomas ****

Thomas played Sgt. Lucy Bates, and I found her believable because she was tall, 6’1” and looked as if she could take down a mugger like a steer in a rodeo–unlike, of course, the affirmative action Munchkin cops in the NYPD who look as if they’re just begging to have their weapons taken from them by rough thugs before getting pistol-whipped.

“Prime Suspect” (2011) Maria Bello **

The American version of “Prime Suspect” is exasperating because the British original starring Helen Mirren (I rate her ****) was excellent. In fact, I find all the British female constables and detectives are superior to their American counterparts. They’re believable and competent while still remaining womanly. That isn’t the case with Bello, the NYPD detective who is trying too hard to be as nail-tough as her colleagues which must mean not washing her hair. Maria, ditch the stupid hat.

“Rizzoli and Isles” (Present) Angie Harmon **

Dr. Maura Isles (Sasha Alexander) is a beautiful woman, but as Rizzoli, Harmon goes out of her way to downplay that, and on the few occasions where her character gets to dress up she appears uncomfortable, as if she can’t wait to get back into a sweatshirt and jeans. She could take a few lessons from Alexander, who plays the coroner without sacrificing her femininity.

“The Closer” (2005-2011) Kyra Sedgwick ***

“The Closer” has many intriguing plots, but what I find annoying is the main character’s Southern accent. Sedgwick was born in New York City and the show takes place in Los Angeles. The stories aren’t based on a novel with a Southern character so why, why, why? Please someone clue me in.

Now here are some of my favorites:

“Memphis Beat” (Present) Alfre Woodard ****

Too bad the show was cancelled, because I did enjoy the soundtrack and the acting in this 2010 entry. I think they overdid Jason Lee’s musical performances (he didn’t even sing but actually lip-synced to Mark Arnell’s voice so I never understood why this was part of each show) and I found it a distraction to the plots. Woodard, who’s always an excellent actress, played his boss–smart, authoritative and human.

“The Mentalist” (2008-Present) Robin Tunney *** and Amanda Righetti ***

Tunney and Righetti are fearless; they can shoot and they fit right in with their male cohorts.

“Life” (2007) Sarah Shala ***

Not only was Shala an attractive detective in “Life,” her performance as a flawed, alcoholic cop was never over the top. She now appears in a much lighter role in “Fairly Legal” which shows her versatility as an actress.

“Castle” (2009-present) Stana Katic ****

I love this show and look forward every week to a new episode. Katic is beautiful, tough and credible but not as sexy as her alter ego Nikki Heat. Nathan Fillion of “Firefly” fame stars as Richard Castle, a famous novelist who assists Beckett in the NYPD. He has created the sexy Nikki based on Beckett, who is chagrined at how she has been portrayed in the book series. What is totally bizarre is that Fillion is pictured on the jacket of the real novels as Richard Castle. The three novels, “Naked Heat,” “Heat Wave” and “Heat Rises,” are as much fun as the TV show, but I wonder who really writes the novel and how long the publisher will keep the joke going?

Researchers at the University of Southern California have revealed that Hollywood is still very much male-dominated. I didn’t need a study to figure that out considering how women are portrayed in the film or on television. When a man and a woman are running from danger, guess who always falls down? I’m certainly not your formula feminist and rarely side with the modern woman’s issues, but I would dearly like to see them depicted as persons of strength believably, not merely as poor imitators of men.

The West could not have been won without the tough pioneer women holding down the fort. Let’s put us back on the pedestal that the women’s movement knocked us off.

Now I’ll wait for the usual NOW rant.

 I wanted to see ‘The Debt’ because of my love for Helen Mirren, an actress that only grows more talented and beautiful with age. I was also excited to see 2011’s breakout star Jessica Chastain (‘The Help’ and ‘The Tree of Life’) when I first saw the trailer.

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The film begins in 1997, when three former Israeli secret service agents (played by Helen Mirren, Tom Wilkinson and Ciaran Hinds) are being celebrated for capturing and killing a horrible Nazi war criminal about 30 years prior. Two of the agents accept the accolades, another doesn’t feel comfortable being in the public eye.

Most of  the story takes place back in the ‘60s when the young trio (played by Jessica Chastain, Marton Csokas and Sam Worthington) plans and then finally executes their dangerous mission. The intense complications that follow brings the trio together and relentlessly pushes them into a love triangle.

This film is structured by director John Madden (‘Shakespeare in Love’) so that the audience sees two actors play each role. The young characters are motivated and charged by their mission, while the older characters live with an obvious weight on their shoulders caused by a secret they have carried ever since. When you see Jessica Chastain, you see the shadow of Helen Mirren and vice versa. It is a true success when two actors can mimic each other and play off each the other’s scenes.

Another stellar performance is that of Jesper Christensen who plays the Lucifer-like Nazi doctor. To put several decades of hate and villainous qualities into a single character cannot easy and Christensen proves himself worthy.

What sets this apart from other suspense dramas is the compassionate and contemplating relationship between the three main characters. It’s rare when a film has a gripping script full of suspense, drama and character development. A little slow in the beginning, ‘The Debt’ switches to full nail-biting speed midway through and becomes something that shouldn’t be missed.

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The film is based on a 2007 Israeli movie by the same name, and adapted by the writers of “Kick-Ass” and “X-Men: First Class” (Matthew Vaughn and Jane Goldman) with help from Peter Straughan who wrote the screenplay for “The Men Who Stare at Goats.” Their experience at adaptation shows, as “The Debt” is a beautifully crafted story blending events from East Berlin in the 1950s with Israel in the 1990s.

Like his previous films “Proof” and “Shakespeare in Love,” director John Madden’s latest features a powerful female in a male-dominated world (mathematics, 16th Century England, espionage), where being a woman is both an asset and liability. Rachel is the newest addition to the Mossad sleeper cell hunting Vogel, and her presence in their cramped apartment headquarters immediately adds tension. She is also perhaps the most important member of the group: she must visit Vogel’s women’s clinic, verify his identity and drug him. It’s a significant task for a first-time field agent and Jessica Chastain (who recently appeared in “The Help” and “Tree of Life,” which I haven’t seen) as the young Rachel conveys a delicate balance of vulnerable femininity and cunning agent – perfect for the character. As an older Rachel, Helen Mirren is significantly different from her “RED” ex-agent, less confident and snarky, more fragile, with a greater sense of duty. Tom Wilkinson and Marton Csokas as Stephan/young Stephan are both forceful and charming when it serves them, an ambitious, likable Mossad mission leader who quickly sours as the mission deteriorates. Sam Worthington as the young David gives a fine quiet performance, subdued and timid with brief explosions of anger. Most of his characters have been pretty emotionless, so it’s nice to see a more expressive side of him.

Jesper Christensen is not unlike his recent Bond villain as the sadistic Vogel, whose calm persona covers a quietly sinister monster. There’s a reason why the Mossad agents keep his mouth taped shut when they hold him in their cramped apartment: He drips venom with every word, and reminded me of Walter Slezak in Hitchcock’s “The Lifeboat.”

Madden again shows his brilliance as a director in “The Debt.” After a failed attempt to extract Vogel from Berlin, the agents are forced to keep him in their apartment, under watch, while waiting for new orders from Israel. Madden films the scenes in their tiny apartment to maximum claustrophobic effect, emphasizing its oppressively small size, and splicing the feeding and care taking of the bound Vogel with scenes of the agents sparring and Stephan banging out a tune on a piano. It’s a good scene showing the group’s nerves on edge, and illustrating how Vogel exploits it.

The film’s only problem is its ending, which pits elderly characters in a knock-down, drag-out fight to the death – something better left to their younger counterparts. In “RED,” Mirren kicks ass. Here, she just falls on it and flails about for a while. It undermines the seriousness of the conclusion. Even so, it’s worthy entertainment considering the performances of the leads, and storytelling ability of its director and writers.

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From 1965 through 1966, a young Rachel (played by Jessica Chastain) and her associates, Stephan (Marton Csokas) and David (Sam Worthington), are tasked with finding and kidnapping a Nazi war criminal, who was known for the cruel experiments he conducted on prisoners during the Holocaust. Once they kidnap him, the trio plan to sneak him out of the country and transfer him to Israel for trial as a war criminal. Doktor Vogel (Jesper Christensen), who was once known as the “Surgeon of Birkenau“ now works as a gynecologist in Berlin. To confirm his identity, Rachel starts seeking fertility treatments from him. After he is kidnapped, the prisoner’s transfer goes awry leaving the three agents living in a small apartment taking turns feeding and caring for the hostage. When their plan ultimately falls apart, the three agents are forced to make difficult decisions about what they will tell the Israeli military when they return home.

In 1997, the former undercover agents are still being celebrated for the work that they did and Rachel (Mirren), in particular, is now being lionized for her work on a new book. However, the truth about their mission isn’t as simple as their story makes it seem. The three former agents are keeping a secret about what actually happened in Berlin– a secret that could undermine their legacies as heroes.

“The Debt” is a taut and complex thriller that is more than a story about a mission gone wrong. It’s also a complicated story about good and evil. Evil in this story is personified in Christensen, who is deliciously vile in his role as a former Nazi. Once captured, Bernhardt knows that an ugly trial awaits him so he urges the agents to kill him themselves. When they refuse, he begins to manipulate them trying to get them to turn against each other. However, his brutality shines through and when they reveal their own vulnerabilities, the doctor makes cruel comments about how easy it was to murder millions of Jews in the Holocaust. Like Hannibal Lecter, the doctor knows how to get inside people’s heads and make them feel inferior to him.

Directed by John Madden, whose previous work includes “Shakespeare in Love,” “The Debt” is never willing to make easy decisions about its characters or its plot. One of the story’s most interesting choices was to focus on the relationship between Rachel and Stephan rather than the one Rachel shares with David. David is a more likable and empathetic character than the angrily paternalistic Stephan but he’s also more naive and vulnerable. While Rachel and Stephan build careers out of the “success” of their mission, David is haunted by the truth and becomes a prisoner himself: a prisoner of the lie he helped create. Worthington, who was a weak lead in “Avatar,” does a solid acting job in “The Debt” alongside the cruel Christensen and regal Mirren.

At one point near the end of the film, Rachel says “we can’t go back.” It’s a revealing quote about a trio of people whose lives are still rooted in their past together.

“The Debt,” like the hard truths that its characters try to hide from the world, won’t be easy to forget.

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Brand stars the titular rich playboy set to inherit millions of dollars from his family. He spends his days sleeping with beautiful women and generally wasting his life under the supervision of his nanny, Hobson (Helen Mirren). When his mother threatens to take away his inheritance unless he marries a corporate executive named Susan (Jennifer Garner), Arthur begrudgingly agrees. At the same time, Arthur meets and starts falling in love with Naomi (Greta Gerwig), a New York City tour guide who is known by the police for not getting the proper permits for her tours.

The whole remake feels like a platform to showcase Brand’s abilities as a comic actor and as a leading man. Unfortunately, he tries too hard with most of the story’s lame jokes. He always seems to be waiting for the audience to laugh but most of the things he says aren’t funny.

The story takes some wrong turns on its way to get to the few laughs it merits. One scene feels like it belongs on the show “24,” not in a comedy remake. Nick Nolte, appearing as Susan’s sadistic father, decides to threaten Arthur with a table saw. He says that the blade will stop moving when it senses liquid and he tests this theory by almost cutting Arthur’s tongue in half. Aside from that disgusting scene, the entire storyline about Arthur’s fiance Susan is more disturbing than delightful. Susan is an obnoxious business woman who wants to marry Arthur so she can run his family business, an unfortunate arrangement that Arthur’s family approves of.

Jennifer Garner’s despicable character is a far cry from Jill Eikenberry’s original Susan. In that film, Susan seemed more naïve than manipulative. In the remake, Garner is a genuinely loathsome human being. Both Brand and Garner are ill-chosen substitutes for the actors from the original film. So is Helen Mirren, who replaces John Gielgud in the role of Hobson. Along with its Oscar win for best original song, Gielgud won an Oscar for best supporting actor for his role. It’s unlikely that this remake will be nominated for anything other than a Razzie. The only actor who comes close to filling her role well is Greta Gerwig, who replaces Liza Minelli. Although Minelli is surely missed, Gerwig is infectuous as Linda–it’s no wonder that Arthur would fall in love with her.

It’s still unclear why this comedy needed to be remade. The original was amusing and Brand adds nothing to it. “Arthur” doesn’t work as a remake, nor does it work as a vehicle to further Brand’s comedic career. It’s unfunny and features a few nasty characters that have no place in a light-hearted comedy like this.

“Arthur” may be a desperate character but the film about him didn’t have to be.

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The most hysterical thing about the new Arthur (as opposed to the old Arthur, the 1981 movie starring Dudley Moore) is the instant wave of hatred it has drawn from the nation’s 10 million movie reviewers. Their objections are several. Many appear to feel that the new film sullies the memory of the first one—as if that agreeable entertainment were some sort of sacred text. Others find the picture formulaic (it’s a romantic comedy, a genre always high on critical hit lists) and decry the non-judgmental depiction of its titular multimillionaire in the midst of our current economic meltdown (as if the original Arthur had not itself been released on the cusp of a deepening recession—and as if Hollywood had never produced grand, sumptuous musicals in the pit of the Great Depression). There are also those indignant about the movie’s comedic view of alcoholism (as if William Powell’s martini-marinated Thin Man films had never bestrode the box office), and more yet who resent the presence here, in the old Dudley Moore role, of Russell Brand, a more-than-usually irritating English import, in their view, who’s being force-fed to the indiscriminate moviegoers of this great nation.

I must pronounce myself baffled. Walking out of the movie before I became aware of this monolithic vituperation, I thought it was a fresh and more-than-usually funny rom-com, and that the transformation of Brand from the amusingly addled rock star of Forgetting Sarah Marshall into a full-fledged romantic lead had here been completed. In addition, for a love interest he’s been engagingly paired with onetime indie queen Greta Gerwig (whose onetime admirers are now bewailing this Hollywood sell-out). I can’t imagine anyone who enjoys well-made romantic comedies not enjoying this one.

The story remains approximately the same. Brand’s Arthur is a good-hearted Manhattan wastrel, a round-the-clock lush and heir to a vast fortune. Arthur uses his money for fun—not just accumulating a fleet of pricey cars (including a flame-spewing Batmobile), but also withdrawing thousands of dollars from ATMs to simply give away on the street. Unfortunately, his frosty mother (Geraldine James) has about had it with her son’s inebriated antics, and has threatened to turn off the money spigot unless he finds a suitable girl to settle down with. In fact she’s found one for him—a shark-hearted heiress named Susan (Jennifer Garner, cutting loose as a bratty schemer). He is even provided with an ostentatious engagement ring to accompany a marriage proposal. (Taking one look at its weighty diamond he says, “It looks like an ice rink for a mouse.”) Trapped in his luxurious lifestyle, Arthur reluctantly agrees to pop the question.

Read the rest of this review at Reason.com.

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While “Ocean’s Eleven” featured more exciting actors like Brad Pitt, Matt Damon and George Clooney, “Red” has a stronger and more well-respected cast. It features iconic actors like Morgan Freeman, John Malkovich, and Helen Mirren. Both “Ocean’s” and “Red” were far-fetched and over the top, but each movie overcame its shortcomings with its cast.

“Red” opens on Frank (Bruce Willis), a retired and lonely man who receives his pension check in the mail. He’s trying to maintain a relationship with an employee at the pension office named Sarah (Mary-Louise Parker). Once he receives his check, he immediately destroys it and then calls her to say that it never arrived. Frank eventually wants to meet Sarah but she’s nervous about such an encounter. However, meeting her becomes a necessity when a team of assassins targets Frank for elimination. When their plan fails, Frank is forced to kidnap Sarah to protect her from any danger she may be in. (Frank has spent so much time on the phone with Sarah that he fears she might used as a way to get to him.)

The film’s title refers to a group of former C.I.A. officers (including Frank)who are known by the initials R.E.D: Retired, Extremely Dangerous. On the run from assassins, Frank and Sarah are forced to reunite with some of his R.E.D. colleagues to figure out whoever’s trying to kill them. Frank’s colleagues include Joe (Morgan Freeman), who spends his days checking out women in a retirement home, and Victoria (Helen Mirren), who lives a quiet life when she isn’t taking contract jobs on the side. Another former co-worker is Marvin (John Malkovich), who joins the crew as well but his psychological issues (caused by taking LSD for eleven years) sometimes interfere with his ability to get the job done.

The actors in “Red” seem to be having a great time. Malkovich, for one, gives a delightfully insane performance that steals the show but the other actors do just fine. There’s also the novelty factor in seeing high-caliber performers like Helen Mirren violently killing people and smiling courteously about it — but sometimes a novelty wears out too quickly. Some of the violent sequences showcasing Victoria’s abilities go on for too long.

Like “Ocean’s Eleven,” the plot isn’t as great as it could be considering the actors involved.  Everything ultimately leads to a bizarre conspiracy that involves a defense contractor trying to manipulate the political system. However, “Red” isn’t about logic or a strong plot. It’s about a strong group of actors coming together and having fun in a light fluffy action-comedy.

So what’s left for those of us looking for things like stirring heroism, rousing action, and solid family-friendly entertainment? If you had to pick five films appearing between now and the end of the year that look decent enough to take a chance on, what would they be? Here’s my shortlist, sorted by release date:

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Red (October 15)

A blissfully silly, cartoonishly hyper-violent trailer. A formidable array of talent seeming to have the time of their lives as they chew up the scenery, with normally stately and self-serious Oscar-winners like Helen Mirren and Morgan Freeman hamming it up next to Bruce Willis and John Malkovich. A premise that sounds something like Spy Kids for adults. Sounds good to me.

Word has it that this movie took pains to make itself more comedic than its DC comic source material, and after a year filled with worries about unemployment and the economy, with audiences looking for some mental relief and escape, that might be just what the doctor ordered. I hope the film lives up to the promise and tone of the trailer.

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Unstoppable (November 12)

Speed on a train, and the trailer makes it look as if they’ve pulled it off. With slick action maestro Tony Scott handling the directorial duties, this might do for the action/disaster genre what The Expendables recently did for 1980s he-man action fare.

Denzel is arguably our greatest surviving star, with John Wayne’s talent for holding up pictures with the sheer weight of his presence and gravitas. Chris Pine has emerged as the best of a younger generation of pretty boys trying to make the leap upward to Real Man status. Hot concept, good chemistry — let’s just pray that the dreaded Shaky Cam doesn’t ruin things.

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Faster (November 26)

The Rock abandons his tooth-fairy phase and dives into the sort of gritty revenge flick that used to be powered by guys like Charles Bronson. Hope springs eternal that Hollywood can still occasionally produce a satisfying movie for men as counterprogramming to (in this case) Disney’s Tangled, Christina Aguilera’s Burlesque, and Edward Zwick’s Love and Other Drugs.

Incidentally, I went to school with George Tillman Jr., the director of the film. He’s a good guy who’s helmed life-affirming pictures such as Soul Food (1997) and Men of Honor (2000), and it’s nice to see him recently back in the directorial saddle after a break of some nine years (in which he, among other things, produced the Barbershop series). In an interview a few years back, Tillman stated the clichéd opinion that, “We as filmmakers need to focus less on blow-em-up action flicks and focus more on personal films that can both entertain and educate.” Here’s hoping that Faster is big on the former and mercifully unpretentious about the latter.

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The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (December 10)

I liked the first Narnia film very much, but found the second so unwatchably bad and painfully episodic that I turned it off in disgust halfway through. It was strange to see Disney dump Narnia like a hot potato after that debacle — Patrick Goldstein of the Los Angeles Times, one of Big Hollywood’s favorite whipping boys, gives a good rundown of what happened here.

But with Fox picking it up and giving it a nice Christmas push (and with a true, humane artist like Michael Apted directing), prospects look good for the third film to resemble the first more than the second. The Voyage of the Dawn Treader is also widely considered to be the finest book in the series, so it has that going for it.

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Tron: Legacy (December 17)

The trailer for this one had all of the hairs on the back of my neck standing on end, as memories came roaring back of watching the original Tron (1982) endlessly on cable as a kid in between bouts of writing crude programs on a Commodore 64. Along with other early 1980s movies like WarGames (1983), this film instilled a fascination for computers into a whole generation of teen boys, and all around us today we’re still seeing the results of that early mass exposure.

The previews promise the return of both Jeff Bridges and Bruce Boxleitner, the portrayal of a sincere and healthy father-son relationship, plenty of eye candy (both of the techno and hot-babe varieties), and lots of action scenes powered by state-of-the-art effects, clever compositions, and NO SHAKY CAM! Man, I hope they knock this one out of the park. (As an aside, Bruce Boxleitner is a huge Robert E. Howard fan, always a sign of discernment.)

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So c’mon all of you Saturday morning, For Conservative Movie Lover blowhards: give us your own Top 5 must-see Fall-Winter 2010 pictures in the comments section below (if you need a master list of possibilities to work from, go here and scroll through the upcoming releases for October, November, and December).

Author’s Note: After fifty straight weeks of For Conservative Movie Lovers appearing every Saturday, a combination of real-life obligations and general burnout has me needing to relax the pace a bit. Going forward, expect gaps of one or more Saturdays in between each batch of FCML essays, with me filling in those gaps with lighter (and hopefully less research intensive) posts on other subjects.

I felt a collective shudder from parents everywhere when they heard about this.

When did woman start reaching so low to find their heroes, giving up what the feminists fought so hard for in the 60s and 70s? Wouldn’t it be nice to go back just 10 years or so, before reality TV and the Internet, before any Josephine was celebrated for displaying slut behavior? It seems like the norm for women in Hollywoodland and pop culture is to use their sexuality, savvy and gifts to seek celebrity with an abandon of self-respect, integrity and class. Whether Lindsey Lohan’s endless partying, drinking, drugs, and prison; to Ashley Judd’s belligerent, political tirades.

Whatever happened to women showing character and integrity when making choices and exhibiting decorum in debate? Wouldn’t it be nice to see them exercise the brain God gave them and work at the top of their intelligence? Granted Paris Hilton, Kim Kardashian and Montana Fishbourne wouldn’t have careers if they had character, but TMZ would be much more palatable.

Rather than feeding these lower life forms with any more of the publicity that provides their sustenance, I thought I would celebrate a few exceptions to the rule.

Sandra Bullock has always been beyond reproach. She has used her savvy, intelligence, charisma, and contagious, self deprecating sense of humor as an actress, producer, daughter and wife, while keeping her private life as private as possible. Being a HUGE movie star while maintaining that air of mystery is a quality that is so missed in the industry. She has shown tremendous intelligence in choosing her roles and crafting her career. (Well, except for “What About Steve”…and oh, wait…”The Lake House.” But everyone has a career blunder here and there). When her then-husband’s affair made all the headlines and TV news lead ins, she held her head high while maintaining a low profile; and demonstrated gracious stoicism when her mother was ill and died.

Reese Witherspoon made her break-out role in Hollywood at 14. She has become an accomplished actress, producer, children’s and women’s advocate, wife and mother, all in the public’s eye. From growing up and marrying in Hollywood, to her highly publicized divorce; Reese has displayed Southern charm, wit, poise and inner strength.

Cynthia Nixon, one incredibly talented and versatile actress was quite the role model when she came out as a lesbian. She didn’t get on her pedestal in an angry rant to make everyone accept her lifestyle, or shove it in our faces. She went about her life and shared her story in interviews with radiant joy and happiness, warmth and charm.

Then there’s Angelina Jolie. An actress who’s lived both worlds. Her early days were fraught with odd and dangerous behavior and poor personal choices. She now uses her savvy and intelligence, beauty and glamour to promote humanitarian causes; to inform and inspire.

I can’t leave out Helen Mirren, who at 65 is still one sexy, intelligent class act! She’s used her sexuality, talents, sophistication and intelligence to work for her, without compromise and with class. She’s been playful in interviews regarding her nudity in film and does not apologize. Reminding us that on the big screen she is playing a scripted character; directed and professionally and artistically lit which shows it’s more about art than nudity and is anything but pornographic.

You may not agree with their political views, religious affiliations or sexual preference, but you can’t refute that these woman need to be celebrated for their intelligence, beauty-inside and out, self-confidence, savvy and character. So let’s turn off the rag mag shows and reality TV and leave the gossip in the supermarket check out aisle. We can only hope that slut behavior in Hollywood is nearing the end of its 15 minutes.