Katherine Heigl could have been the next Meg Ryan, Hollywood’s new rom-com sweetheart. She was beautiful in an approachable way and could break our hearts with one crooked, well placed smile.

But the “Grey’s Anatomy” standout trashed the movie that started her big screen career, “Knocked Up,” and caused a ruckus on the set of her ABC hit series by pulling herself out of Emmy competition because she didn’t think she was given award-winning material.

She’s been doing damage control ever since.

How far has she fallen? Her latest film, “One for the Money,” opens tomorrow without critical reviews. That’s a sign the studio knows it has a clunker on its hands. Making matters worse, the discount company GroupOn is offering special deals on “Money” to help boost the film’s opening weekend ticket sales.

Last weekend, Heigl appeared on the cover of USA Weekend looking prim and apologetic next to a dog. She’s practically begging audiences to reconsider her as a movie star, but it didn’t have to go down this way.

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HOLLYWOOD’S NEWEST CRYBABIES: LEPERS … AND INDIA

It doesn’t bother me when crybabies crybaby. That’s what crybabies do, especially GLAAD and CAIR — two of the biggest, fascist crybabies in the history of crybabying.

What bothers me is that the politically correct cowards that run Hollywood only listen to certain crybabies. Southerners, Christians, stay-at-home-moms, Republicans, and pro-lifers continue to take hellacious beatings in all things pop culture. Everyone else is hands off at the first sound of a crybaby.

Those of us on the right can take a joke better than anyone; it’s being singled out by Hollywood cowards who pose as “edgy” that’s galling — the double standard.  Take us back to the good old days of “Blazing Saddles,” and we’ll never complain again.

It’s not satire when you’re singled out. It’s bigotry.

AMAZON PONDERS NEW CHALLENGE TO NETFLIX IN STREAMING MARKET

There’s a bigger story here than just this:

Ever since Netflix first alienated its consumers last summer with a price hike – ruining a perfect record of consumer satisfaction – the market seemed to open for new challengers. That door swung a bit wider after Netflix and Starz failed to agree to terms, further limiting the service’s movie offerings.

At the moment, Amazon has deals with the likes of CBS, Fox, Disney and NBCUniversal.

Hollywood is fighting streaming harder than they would ever fight terrorists and yet you have two of the biggest entertainment retailers on the planet — Netflix and Amazon — expanding this service. It was only a matter of time before someone stepped in to challenge Netflix Streaming, and Amazon is the perfect choice.

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GEORGE LUCAS INSISTS IT’S POSSIBLE TO ‘NUKE THE FRIDGE’

Dear George,

Please see: Holes, first rule of.

Signed,
America

People wouldn’t have cared anything about the fridge thing had the rest of the movie not been so awful… and stupid. I doubt very much an inflatable life raft works like a parachute when it’s filled with people and thrown out of a plane. But we suspended disbelief for that because the third act of “Doom” made us wet our pants.

THR REVIEWS ‘RED TAILS’

The experience of black American aviators in World War II gets a whitewash in Red Tails. The story of the 996 pilots (and some 15,000 ground personnel) who distinguished themselves in the air in the face of institutional racism is a great one and, at least, will come to the attention of more people due to this long-gestating project from Lucasfilm. But every character here is so squeaky clean, and the prejudice as depicted is so toothless and easily overcome, that the film feels like a gingerly fantasy version of what, in real life, was an exceptional example of resilient trail-blazing. The tale’s considerable built-in inspirational value will move and impress black audiences of all ages and would do the same to a wider public if sufficiently promoted, but the determinedly simplistic approach will curtail interest among any viewers hungry for some real history. The anticipated low interest level for this material overseas is cited as a major reason the project took so long to get off the ground.

Related: George Lucas Heading For a Big Disappointment with ‘Red Tails’

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[Editor's Note: This list is arranged in no particular order. Read Part I here.]

6.  “Being exploited is different from being empowered ” – Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982)

Often too-easily dismissed as a raunchy teen sex comedy, Fast Time was a tremendously influential and important mirror on young America in the early 1980s.  The fact that it is gut-bustlingly funny – Sean Penn’s turn as surfer/stoner Jeff Spicoli remains his only role where he doesn’t annoy me – seems to overshadow the serious undercurrents, as does the ample nudity culminating in the unforgettable swimming pool scene starring the glorious Phoebe Cates.

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However, there is a very, very dark undercurrent to this movie that provides a serious lesson to young people.  Jennifer Jason-Leigh’s Stacy is a pretty but not-so-bright 15/16 year old who does not understand the difference between love and sex.  In a world of absolutely no parents (not a single one is ever seen), she tries to find love (or at least attention) by basically trying to have tacky sex with every guy she meets – and it’s heartbreaking.  She’s not “empowered” – she’s used.  The ugly scene where she loses her virginity to a guy in his 20s in a Little League dug-out staring at graffiti reading “Surf Nazis Must Die” is a better repudiation of the “hook-up” culture than a hundred lectures.

After scaring off the one guy who actually likes her for herself by trying to bed him too, she seeks comfort underneath his skanky pal.  A grim, humiliating encounter in a pool house leaves her pregnant and she immediately seeks an abortion.  Regardless of one’s stand on the life issue, one cannot be anything other than horrified at how the fact she sees herself as literally nothing but a mere receptacle leads her to feel nothing at all about her decision. (more…)

We conservatives spend a lot of time criticizing Hollywood’s failings, calling out its errors and pointing to its hypocrisies – and this is entirely appropriate since so much of the crap spewing out of the Tinseltown cookie cutter is borderline commie nitwittery masquerading as profundity.  But if nothing good ever came out of Hollywood – if everything it produced hewed to the same lame party-line pinkoism rejected everywhere except in Westside L.A., university faculty lounges, and Washington, D.C. – we all would have stopped paying attention long ago.

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And many conservatives have.  Many of us have thrown our hands in the air and opted out of popular culture completely, exhausted from enduring liberal sucker punches buried within crummy flicks about magic robots battling Dick Cheney vampire clones that we pay $12.50 to see in theaters maintained at the hygiene level of your average bus station men’s room.  You can hardly blame them for giving up.

But as tempting as it is to withdraw from the battlefield, to dig in and hope it somehow changes, surrender was never an option.  This is our culture, not theirs.  And they don’t get to control it. 

The fact is that among the detritus of American popular culture, there are voices of sanity.  Sure, they are nearly drowned out by over-praised hacks like Aaron Sorkin and over-indulged clowns like Oliver Stone.  Yet, occasionally, Hollywood has allowed positive, conservative messages to slip through. (more…)

“Life as We Know It” begins with a bad date. Holly (Katherine Heigl) and Messer (Josh Duhamel) have been set up by mutual  friends. When Messer arrives at Holly’s apartment an hour late, the couple immediately dislike one another. Even before they go out to dinner, an argument ensues and the two decide to part ways before Holly’s car leaves its parking spot. As it often does in romantic comedies — and this is a likable one — fate will eventually intervene.

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A few years after the aborted date, the couple who set them up is now married and have a daughter named Sophie. Separately, Holly and Messer remain friends with them but after the couple is suddenly killed in a car accident, Holly and Messer are given custody of the baby. 

They quickly reject the idea of raising a baby together but agree to accept the responsibility for a short time as they search for a better solution. After interviewing relatives of the deceased parents, they decide none of them would be suitable, so Holly and Messer decide to take care of the baby and move in together. Slowly, the animosity begins to fade and they discover that they may have feelings for one another. (more…)

It is a little early for declaring what the worst movies of 2010 are, but after seeing “MacGruber” and “Killers” within weeks of each other, it seems like this is going to be a rough year for film viewers. “Killers” is the new “comedy” about a woman who falls in love, gets married and then eventually finds out that her husband used to be an assassin. She is mildly shocked by the news but the biggest shock in the movie theaters showing this movie  will not be on big screen. It will be film-goers who realize that they wasted their money on this awful film.

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The movie revolves around Jen (Katherine Heigl), a woman who goes to France on vacation with her parents after her boyfriend dumps her (lucky guy). On that vacation, she meets Spencer (Ashton Kutcher), a mysterious stranger who kills people for money. Because of this new woman he meets, Spencer decides to give up his occupation partly because he longs for a quiet domestic life. (I guess he didn’t realize that former assassins don’t live in tranquil bliss, like the “desperate housewives” do.) A few short scenes later, the years have passed and Jen and Spencer are married and living a pleasant life in the suburbs. Spencer knows a lot of his neighbors and enjoys attending the local block parties. 

Spencer is living a peaceful life until his past catches up with him and long-time friends of the couple attempt to kill him. Unfortunately for us, they don’t succeed.

The movie then focuses on people trying to kill Spencer and his attempts to escape with his wife. Sadly, the characters  are all one-dimensional and the dialogue is utterly atrocious. From their first encounter and their first date (where Jen does a “robot” voice for no apparent reason) through the end, the lines these actors say are utterly ridiculous. In the past, I have liked the two leads (Heigl and Kutcher) in some of their other work. However, they are both unimpressive in this latest effort and the movie does them no favors. (more…)

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The London Times recently ran an article about Katherine Heigl and her comments indicating that the ire directed at her by the press (especially the Internet) is the result of sexism. The article wasn’t particularly enlightening, but it did call to attention the bad rap this young actress has gotten from the media. It also made some commentary about the general condition of women in Hollywood. The closing paragraph defended Heigl, but didn’t go far enough.

While its fun and all to smack Hollywood people around (as I did with Megan Fox), it is occasionally important to do the opposite. The plight of Katherine Heigl in the media has a lot to do with her background and what is expected of actresses in today’s Hollywood cesspool. In broader terms it speaks volumes as to what the left expects from women in our society. (more…)

You could feel it in the air as Apatow basked in the glow of his 2006 double whammy, the hilarious “Knocked Up” and “Superbad.” By the time 2007’s “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” rolled around, the backlash was gathering steam.

I told a friend I’d seen it.

“Is it just more of the Judd Apatow formula,” he sniffed. It was, I admitted. But I like the formula. I like it a lot. And not to get too Harry Knowles on everyone, but I’ve liked it for a long while.

I liked “The Ben Stiller Show,” loved “Heavyweights” and what I saw of “The Larry Sanders Show.” Heck, I even chuckled at “Celtic Pride” and saw “The Cable Guy” opening weekend. Aside from the latter, most people didn’t see much of Apatow’s work, but those who had loved most of it. (more…)

The movie business is not generally kind to women when they pass the age of 40, and Julia Roberts (now 41) is learning that lesson the hard way. The former Pretty Woman has returned to the big screen this weekend in Tony Gilroy’s Duplicity (Universal), and one prominent blogger wrote this headline:

Duplicity soft: Julia’s Comeback? Audiences Say Go Back

Julia Roberts and Clive Owen star in the fun, smart DUPLICITY, from writer/director Tony Gilroy

Roberts’ last starring role was in 2003’s Mona Lisa Smile ($63.8M domestic), and since then she has become a full-time Mom. Overall, she has 8 movies on her resume that have reached $100M in the US with her as a lead (I’m not including the Ocean’s Eleven franchise). Her most successful string of movies started in 1997 with My Best Friend’s Wedding ($127.1M cume) and ended with her Oscar winning performance in Erin Brockovich ($125.6M cume). During that span, she starred in 6 movies, generating an average of $115M in domestic box office.

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Hollywood execs seem to be waking up to the power of women at America’s multiplexes. The success of He’s Just Not That Into You (Warner Bros) and this weekend’s Confessions of a Shopaholic (Disney) can be traced to Meryl Streep’s witty riff on the tyrannical Anna Wintour in The Devil Wears Prada in the summer of 2006. Prada opened to a $27.5M weekend on its way to a $124.75M domestic cume (Streep also earned an Oscar nomination).

Then in July of 2007, New Line grabbed an almost identical $27.47M with the opening weekend of the female-skewing Hairspray, translating to $118.87M domestic. Also Enchanted, starring Amy Adams, was a hit for Disney over the holidays reaching $127.8M domestic.

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