From the Orange County Register:

Clint Eastwood’s “American Sniper” is playing to packed houses and, by early February, earned $281,398,352 in domestic box office alone. But the violation of Hollywood taboos might leave the movie shortchanged on Oscar night.

The blockbuster film has drawn fire from movie stars and filmmakers such as Michael Moore, who charges that snipers are “cowards.” More is going here than meets the eye.

Long before he produced and directed “American Sniper,” Clint Eastwood played detective Harry Callahan in the 1971 “Dirty Harry.” This was the first movie to talk back to liberalism, then preoccupied with the rights of violent criminals. A similar dynamic is going on with “American Sniper.”

The film shows American troops engaging the kinds of people they actually fight these days …

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Lloyd Billingsley is author of “Hollywood Party: Stalinist Adventures in the American Movie Industry.”