To be fair, Ebert did like the movie and recommended it. His opening remarks were :

The Islamic practice of stoning women and the Christian practice of burning them as witches are both born not from religious reasons but of a male desire to subjugate women and define them in terms of sexuality. Is this in dispute? Are there any theologians who support such actions? Of all the most severe punishments of both religions, this is the one most skewed against women, and the one most convenient for men.

He was making a case about how violence is done to women in the name of religion. His ending remarks are really good.

The message is that if a religion requires practices that seem evil to its members, they should resign from that religion. If it condones a death penalty that is visited unequally on members of a specific gender, race or class, it is immoral. There cannot be a reward for following it blindly, because only a thoughtful choice has meaning. At heaven’s gate you cannot say, “I always followed the herd.”

“The Stoning of Soraya M.” has such a powerful stoning sequence that I recommend it if only for its brutal ideological message.

Eberts complaint about the ending, as most of the critics, about the over all movie is this: It’s a powerful story-you didn’t need to oversell it with ham fisted cliché. So it’s not a “Liberal” vs. “Conservative” thing.

Cyrus has a 30-year-career in television and film. He has actually forged a career in the industry, and the only thing Ebert forged was a butt-groove in his seat in the balcony watching Cyrus’ work.

Roger, you wrote the script for a big-boob movie and spent the rest of your life in the deadest of dead zones: a Sunday late-afternoon TV time slot that’s after the news, before “King of the Hill”, and usually pre-empted by football. None of that is Cyrus’ fault. In the spirit of your book, I’d like to close by saying: Your Review Sucks.

2. The left’s hatred of Christianity, while treating Islam with the same respect it would get from National Geographic or Margaret Mead, is just another of the contradictions of political correctness, like the liberal use of obscenities and profanity every third word they utter while handling “the N world” only with forceps.

3. Is there no longer any part of life that isn’t embroiled in politics, which usually means dragging in some irrelevant reference to conservatism or Christianity just administer some gratuitous castigation? This film isn’t about comparative religion. It’s a stark reminder of how a major religion continues to resist human rights, which the left seems to think America alone specializes in violating. They know that fundamentalist Islam is far worse in thie regard than anything American Jews or Christians have countenanced for centuries, but illustrating it only irritates them because the Crusades and Spanish Inquisition aren’t given equal time.

Or maybe they just want to make it clear that they weren’t among the critics of Islam when the suicide bombers arrive next time. One can almost hear them mutter, “Mustn’t make the crazy man angry. Just keep sidling toward the exits as inconspicuously as possible.” It’s as though they’ve completely blocked out all memory of 9/11 and replaced it with angry demonizations of George W. Bush. They can’t think ill of the radical despots running these countries because to do so might give some justification for removing Saddam Hussein and Bush’s hated policy of encouraging the spread of freedom and self-government. That is the REAL EVIL of our time! Don;t ya know?

Yeah, no reason for courage there. Just ask the Danish cartoonists, or Theo van Gogh and Ayaan Hirsi Ali.

Thanks for writing.

A. I understand the AV Club and The Onion serve two diff purposes. I’m quite a fan of both and understand where each is coming from.

I critique the AV Club often because it hits readers over the head with its ideological perspective. To me, it should serve as an entertainment guide for all … not an entertainment guide for liberal movie/tv/music lovers. I’m a journalist, and a blog can be chock full of opinion. A mainstream news outlet shouldn’t be (unless its purpose is obvious like The Nation or The Weekly Standard).

It’s one of many reasons why Newsweek continues to shrink in size and respect.

As for your links … feh. None of them mock Obama’s policies in any meaningful way. None mock his arrogance, his sense of self importance, etc. They are harmless and toothless and don’t carry an ounce of the true political satire directed dead on against Bush over the last eight years.

The Onion, like just about every other comic outlet today (shows and comedians alike) are utterly chicken to mock him.

You want Obama satire, commentary that cuts through his policies? Check out Rush or a few other righty outlets. They’re doing the job the mainstream critics should be doing … but are too cowardly to do.