After 40 years of delivering snarky movie reviews for NBC's Today show, Gene Shalit is calling it quits, with his final broadcast this Thursday and the long-serving movie critic didn't reserve his barbs for bad acting and direction, conservatives and their causes were occasionally targeted as well. From bad mouthing hunters -- saying they exhibited "mankind's stupidity" in his review of the documentary Winged Migration -- to denigrating the effort in the first Gulf War -- he called it "America's first oil war" in his critique of Jarhead – Shalit occasionally jarred his viewers with out of nowhere liberal condescension.
The following are examples of Shalit's lefty preaching, as seen on the Today show, over the years:
During a 2003 review of a documentary titled, Winged Migration, on the August 20 Today, Shalit described how the film followed flocks of migrating birds: "For three years and 40 countries and all seven continents filming from every perch and flying contraption, often gliding along with the birds some 450 participants of surpassing skill and patience recorded this ethereal migration." But then speaking over footage of birds being shot by hunters, Shalit charged: "And then it's upward and onward challenged by mountainous hazards, mankind's stupidity, sub-zero weather and yet most make it to safe haven."
In his review of the 2005 war movie Jarhead, Shalit lapsed into the language of Moveon.org types in his description of the film:
Shalit: "Good morning and welcome to the Critic's Corner. Jarhead, from the distinguished director Sam Mendes, is an immediate classic. No exploding mines, no flying shrapnel its glory is in its understatement, its frightening quietude. Jarhead, that's slang for a Marine, is set in Desert Storm, America's first oil war."
Even reviews of kids movies weren't free from a tinge of liberal bias from the dorky mustached film critic, as seen in this review of the 2006 sequel to Ice Age:
Shalit: "Good morning and welcome to the Critic's Corner. Think global warming isn't real? Ask Manny the Mammoth, Diego the Tiger or Sid the Sloth. They first met in the animated hit Ice Age and they formed an unlikely herd. Now in Ice Age: The Meltdown they're fleeing floods of melting ice and the results are joyous.... Carlos Saldahna's direction and the smart three-scribe script makes this Ice Age very cool. The herd's happy 88 happy minutes will melt away your out-of-theater cares while attesting that global warming is no snow job. Audiences everywhere get ready! Here comes Ice Age: The Meltdown starring the herd shot 'round the world. And that's the Critic's Corner for this morning."
—Geoffrey Dickens is the Senior News Analyst at the Media Research Center. You can follow him on Twitter here
