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26 February 2004 
Mel Gets Medieval
Scott Holleran of Box Office Mojo on The Passion:
By Gibson's own admission, The Passion presents the essence of religion. It's the Bible told in literal images, imbued with no romanticization of goals as in Lilies of the Field, no sense of jubilation as in Sister Act, no sense of the sublime as in The Song of Bernadette. It's religion offered for what it is -- abject misery here on earth -- with no hint of the larger than life scope of Cecil B. DeMille's The Ten Commandments. The Passion promises vengeful Jews, a weeping whore and the most vile execution; in short, unrefined religion.I have no intention of seeing this film, mainly because of the much-reported surfeit of violence and gore. On a side note, the more I see Gibson in interviews, the more creeped out I get. As Holleran points out in his commentary, the man is serious about this stuff.
12:41 AM |
17 February 2004
Move Along, Nothing to Read Here
But there's plenty over at David Janes', who's hosting the Carnival of the Canucks this week.
And don't forget that there's a thousand words' worth from me every day over at Selective Memory.
07:37 AM |
7 February 2004
Good Morning, China
Things are looking up in China. Ian Hamet relays an experience he just had in an English class he's teaching in Shanghai:
After going through the book exercises, instead of proceeding through the rest of the chapter, I took some time to converse with each student in front of the class, one at a time. What is the best movie, the worst book, the most fun, etc.Wow. You don't expect to hear things like that from any country these days, let alone China. But it didn't surprise me as much as it would have yesterday; that is, before hearing (sorry, no link) that the contracts have just been signed giving the go-ahead to print two books there: For the New Intellectual and The Voice of Reason, both by Ayn Rand.When I asked what the best country was I was expecting to hear "China."
Nope.
"America!" And for this question, everyone answered, not just the one I asked. Both classes.
Curious, I inquired why. The answer from everyone was basically the same: America has the most freedom, the least regulation, and the most tolerance.
10:18 PM |
4 February 2004
The Return of QM and a Cigar
Tomo's back to blogging after a little hiatus (he provides at least one very good reason for his absence) and inaugurates a new "give 'em what they want" series which attempts to answer Googlers' questions. I'd do that, but then I'd have to write posts about wiccans (spelling, people!) and whether Steven Sabados and Nik Manojlovich are gay.
03:44 PM |
Nipplegate
Agenda Bender has it exactly right on the FCC's over-reaction (to put it mildly) to Janet and Justin's Super Bowl half-time antics. He has suitably harsh words for commission chairman Michael Powell and a great suggestion in response to Mickey Kaus's jumping on the censorship bandwagon:
Let's just appoint angry, young Muslims to the FCC, Mickey. As long as you think the feds should be in the position to fire broadcast executives and shut down TV stations as punishment for prime time bodice rippage and nip slippage, and that the occasional bare right tit will light a fuse under the umah's younger set, how better to avoid the conflagration than by making the FCC an American outpost of international Mullah standards and practices.I only worry that conservatives might consider the suggestion seriously.
12:51 AM |
3 February 2004
Sniveling Human
Some poor woman named Jane Snow writes:
I was a freshman in college and the big questions loomed large: Who am I? What's the meaning of life?And Jane Snow remains as dumb as a post.A friend who was older and much wiser answered my questions with a short reading list. It contained just two books, Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand and Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger. I read and reread them, gradually realizing that they represented opposing views of human nature. Would I embrace survival of the fittest, become a Republican and claw my way to the top of the sniveling human heap (Rand's philosophy)? Or did I believe in the inherent goodness of humans, and recognize it is our duty as civilized beings to help those less fortunate (Salinger's gentle Zenlike philosophy)?
Franny and Zooey remains one of my favorite books.
10:41 PM |
2 February 2004
Selective Memory
Given my less than spectacular record for posting here regularly, you may legitimately question the wisdom of my starting yet another blog, let alone one whose charter calls for daily posts. Yet this is what I have done.
At least it's historically an auspicious day for the birth of successes: Happy 99th, Ayn Rand.
12:00 AM |