As a seasoned (but not peppery) reviewer, I can assure you that it's not hard to review a thriller or mystery without giving away plot twists. I've done it--plenty of reviewers do it. You just have to spend a little more time crafting what you write.

Yes, people reading reviews want to "know something" about a movie or book. Yes, they want to know if something is worth their time and money. But they don't want the surprises revealed for them. If you think they do, you're misreading the audience. I know it well from having not just reviewed but from having done dozens of panels at mystery conferences and met many hundreds of fans and heard from still more via email, and being a member of a mystery readers listserv.

It's not "fretting" to avoid spoilers. It's being considerate of your audience.

BTW, I saw the trailer and it didn't seem to be to reveal much at all. Maybe there's more than one out there.

I was the mysteries columnist for the Detroit Free Press for many years and also reviewed mysteries for other papers and did my best never to include a spoiler. It was not hard. Yet I've seen reviewers as famous as Michiko Kakutani reveal crucial plot twists in a novel that made it impossible for me to enjoy the book since I knew what was coming. I'm grateful for the spoiler warning on this review, since It helped me skip it until after I see the movie this weekend. But I have some simple questions: why have any spoilers at all, even minor ones? Why not spend the time to construct the review so as to leave them all out? Is every word in the review sacrosanct and incapable of being cut? I doubt it. I've read reviews of me own mysteries that included spoilers and thought the reviewers were lazy, arrogant, or both. Reviewers should be working to aid readers (and viewers), not diminish their pleasure.

Gordon Wagner below does what so many sad journalists have done over the past eight years: he utterly mis-reads the Bushes. He claims that Barbara Bush is not hostile. He apparently buys her fake smile and grandmotherly air, just as the press has bought the fake smile and fake bonhomie of her son, who is like her in many ways, not least in sarcasm and in those cold, beady, angry eyes that belie every attempt at warmth. Wagner thinks la Bush isn't hostile? He should try reading memoirs or biographies of the family--she's their Enforcer and people are quite literally afraid of her. She's a nasty piece of work.

Remember Mark Rusell's joke about Reagan and Iran/Contra? "The question isn't what did the President know, and when did he know it, the question is what does the president know, and does he know that he knows it?" Given what Scott McClellan has written about Bush and cocaine use, Bush probably believes that he doesn't know Abramoff and never met him.

So as per usual, if you support Obama, you're an "automaton."

We've also been called cultists, Obamamaniacs and sundry insulting terms that clearly imply we're stupid, easily fooled and ruled, and have no minds of our own.

It's as if not a single one of us examined the candidates, possibly supported someone else first, looked at their positions, listened to them, and made a choice based on sound judgment. Oh no, if you choose Obama, you're disturbed.

It's as if Clinton didn't enable an unjust and illegal war, a vote which she has never been fully able to explain despite her rhetorical gyrations.

It's as if Obama has no record, no accomplishments. It's as if his being inspiring is evil, bad, dirty, wrong. It's as if leaders like FDR, JFK, MLK who gave passionate and intelligent speeches never existed or counted for much--since all that was just rhetoric.

It's as if not voting for Clinton and disliking her stances and the way she ran her campaign (complete with loose cannon husband) is ipso facto sexist because she is above criticism. Ditto Bill.

This kind of thinking seems to lull Lulabelle and her ilk to sleep at night. We're bad, stupid, foolish, wrong, messianic. Clinton and her supporters are good, strong, clear, forceful. This Manichean thinking is echt-GOP. Well, it might make you happy, but it makes us sad to see how you have become what you loathe: George Bush and the Republicans. You paint us in the ugliest colors while you yourself are pristine. If you had more insight, you'd be ashamed of yourselves.

I see. All of Clinton's voters, who likely loathe Bush as much as Obama's voters, will either stay home or vote for McBush in November? They're democrats, not idiots. Does anyone think the majority of women who voted for Clinton would risk seeing Roe v. wade overturned? And that's just a start. 34 million Democrats came out to vote because they want to make a stand and change the direction of the country. Not voting or voting for McBush will be political suicide.

Obama doesn't have to win these voters over. They chose between Democrats. When the choice is between a democrat and four more years of Bushism, no reasonable person can believe they wouldn't vote for Obama.

Isn't that a line from an early Roxy Music song?

Dalifeman, how can you possibly compare the service of Kerry with Bush. We don't really know what Bush did in the Guard, how little or how much, but we sure know that he did not go to Nam. And he likely never expected to since the Guard was a shelter for rich men's boys trying to stay out. I remember a draft counselor asking me if I had any influential friends who could get me into the Guard. Everyone knew what it was then. Bush's "service"? The verdict is still not in.