Dear Editor, That Movie Sucks!

Never let it be said that we Oklahomans don't appreciate the cinema. Over a little more than a week, the Daily Oklahoman has led its "Letters to the Editor" section with mailings from disgruntled God-fearin', flag-wavin', home-schoolin', traditional-marriage honorin', fornicatin''-hatin', country-lovin', Bush-votin' readers fed up to here with all that Hollywood dirty talk.

A letter today (Friday, Dec. 10) assails the Daily Oklahoman's movie review of "Closer" that gave the flick four stars. "[Movie critic George] Lang correctly calls this movie 'gut-wrenching' but nauseating might be more apt," writes the outraged audience member. "Why does Hollywood insist on marketing what should be X-rated nastiness when PG movies and the like continually outgross these films? Most people want to be entertained when they go to a movie. 'Closer' is not entertaining. ... Four stars? No stars!"

Now, I wasn't enamored with "Closer," but it's certainly an interesting movie and has something to say about the brutality of honesty and inherent failure of true intimacy. X-rated nastiness? Speaking as a Natalie Portman fan, I must sadly report that no, X-rated nastiness (aside from one explicit Internet chat-room exchange) is nowhere to be found in the movie. It's the ongoing woes of how so many refuse to consider film an art form comparable to literature, music or the fine arts. Isn't there an "entertainment value" to challenging one's intellect or viewpoint? Can there be an "entertainment value" that transcends that of an organ-grinder's monkey clashing tiny cymbals?

Then there is the ol' fallback outrage over homosexual (to be pronounced ho-mo-SEX-u-ole with the proper scowl) subject matter.

A Dec. 4 letter to the editor in the Oklahoman takes aim at Oliver Stone's "Alexander" and its "filthy" take on the title character's bisexuality (a trait, incidentally, that has been challenged by some historians). "The title should have been 'Alexander the Great Homosexual,' " chortles our makeshift reviewer. "Sex, homosexuality, filthy language, revealing necklines and obscene gestures obscured the story of this man's military genius."

Revealing necklines? Obscene gestures? We shudder at what could be next. Bare shoulders? Knowing glances? Heavy petting?