They Give It Two Thumbs Down

"PBS" revives the old Siskel-Ebert movie review show Sneak Previews, with Dinesh D'Souza as Siskel and Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi as Ebert (or maybe it's vice versa). Here's some of their conversation re Sex and the City 2:

D'Souza: Well the film opens with the four protagonists celebrating such a union, treating it as if it were the most normal thing in the world. Even the most supposedly "conservative" character, Charlotte, takes the whole thing in stride. As a some-time, critical fan of the HBO series, I really would have expected more of Charlotte, and I'm disappointed in the writers for falsifying the arc of her character.

Qaradawi: Charlotte is the one who apostatizes from your Christian faith to marry the bald Jew, yes? Because he has all the money, and can buy her a child from China?

D'Souza: Charlotte does convert to the Jewish faith in the last season of the series.

Qaradawi: And your country has no penalty for this?

D'Souza: No. In previous centuries, many Western Christian countries were intolerant of the Jewish faith, and I am the first to admit that in the Spain of the Inquisition, Jews were treated far worse than in the tolerant Islamic states of North Africa. I've always pointed that out against the Islamophobes, Sheikh.

Qaradawi: So Charlotte just gets away with this. Yes, and she goes with her fellow harlots to this union of the sodomites, where the worst of the four prostitutes has relations with a man she has only just met, keeping Carrie and Big awake at night. This is correct?

D'Souza: That was just one of many gratuitous and offensive sex scenes in the movie. This whole opening sequence sets the tone for a film that depicts, in lurid detail, everything that is wrong with the modern, secular attitude of narcissistic self-indulgence that certain sectors in America wish to export to the rest of the world.

Qaradawi: Yes, this much is true. If I might, however....

D'Souza: Yes?

Qaradawi: I thought that Liza Minnelli was good. She can still really, how do you say... "belt it out."...

I've got to go with the Sheikh on that one. Liza's version of Beyonce's "Put a Ring On It" (with the two Liza lookalike dancers)--quel showstopper!