In Cameron’s sci-fi universe, this communion is embodied by the blue-skinned, enviably slender Na’Vi…

D-hat-bag covets his magical neighbors lack of fat.

Even though the horrors of Manakin haven’t faded from my my gouged out eyes, wherever they may be – I’d just like to point out that Thers has just dropped Word to Tintin’s mother.

I can’t recall…does Douchehat object to the satanism inherent in the Harry Potter flicks?

Ah, Google to the rescue. He thinks Rowling’s world is an endorsement of xtianity: It’s true that the Potter novels aren’t an explicitly Christian fantasy in the same sense as the Narnia books (although Christian themes and motifs abound in Rowling’s universe); what they assuredly are, though, is a series in which the central moral difference between the protagonist and the villain revolves around each’s attitude toward his own mortality, and each’s faith (or lack thereof) in the soul’s survival after death.

Presumably, RD sees this same dichotomy in the way Doyle portrayed Holmes and Moriarty. Since, after all, everything in the world is about the RCC.

As usual, wingnuts are ever seeking deeper meanings in meaningless trash, sort of like Sarah Palin.

I’d like to walk up to Ross and wish him a Happy Solstice. It’s the reason for the season, you know.

Alternative Shorter…

“Atheists and God’s Gift to the Editorial Page™ agree, Avatar is for the easily humored.”

Didn’t trust the shorter. Was bored out of my mind.

One of the things that always amazes me about conservatives is how they lack concern for nature, or seem to see it as an enemy, like Douthat. If someone like Palin were truly “conservative”, wouldn’t she be furiously against trashing the environment of the beautiful state of Alaska? Wouldn’t she be trying to sink every supertanker before it got there? Why don’t conservatives want to conserve the environment?

In practice, it seems like conservatives can’t destroy it fast enough to be happy. They pretend to revere the 1950s, but push for development and sprawl that guarantee that small-town values are wiped out. And the “be fruitful and multiply” thing.

Lemme get this straight. So Ross wants Hollywood to make more fantasy movies involving Christianity?

As an atheist, that sounds pretty appropriate to me.

Made up stories are the worst and show a complete and utter disrespect for the totally true and unimpeachable history of the Christ Child.

In practice, it seems like conservatives can’t destroy it fast enough to be happy. They pretend to revere the 1950s, but push for development and sprawl that guarantee that small-town values are wiped out.

“Conservative.” Just another word that doesn’t mean what these people think it means.

It’s a long list.

One has to wonder if the catholic church is paying the NYT to publish douchehat’s shitty column. Though, given bad decision after bad decision from the NYT editors and publishers, they might just think it’s somehow relevant.

It is funny, in the ha-ha sense, to see each column from douchehat basically confirm his only raison d’etre at the NYT is to be the voice of religion for them. In the end, it comes to down to ross’s faith or someone else’s lack thereof. I wonder how long douchehat can actually make that already tedious dichotomy seem interesting.

My guess is, it gets boring as soon as the payoffs from the local diocese stop coming into keller’s office.

“Conservative.” Just another word that doesn’t mean what these people think it means.

Well, the Repugs wanted to rename the Democrats so perhaps it’s time we stop referring to them as Conservatives and start calling them Destructives.

GEEZ LOUISE Douthat is a boring writer.

As usual, wingnuts are ever seeking deeper meanings in meaningless trash

People here always use that response when Douthat talks about pop culture. The man may be little more than a kid who decided that being the nuns’ pet in eighth grade was the station he wanted to occupy for the rest of his life, but he’s not just projecting his fantasies into movies (most of the time). Judd Apatow’s movies are actually conservative and sentimental, and Avatar really does have a kind of ecologically focused pantheism at its center. That said, the movie is a great deal more interesting than Douthat gives it credit for. In the film, the Na’vi religion is shown to be entirely rational, and in fact explicable through science. Sigourney Weaver’s character, the scientist, is in fact its greatest human advocate for most of the movie. This lends support to Douthat’s comments about Dawkins and such, but it really does differentiate the movie from things like Pocahontas, where what connects the Native Americans to the earth is this inexplicable magic. In short, Douthat may be an idiot, but he’s not completely delusional here.

Well, the Repugs wanted to rename the Democrats so perhaps it’s time we stop referring to them as Conservatives and start calling them Destructives.

Eh. “Crappers” sound better. They shit on everything.

Fucking seriously? This is in the New York Times?

Starting my wingnut writing career TODAY.

Okay, fine. On topic then.

You guys totally missed Doohead’s point – teh dirty Islamoatheists in teh Hollywood faggoty elite are all about crush-ifying The One True God. That’s why you can never find any recent Christian-friendly movies, especially at this time of year.

Ben-Hur is always available and reliably conserva-sappy.

OT, but if you hurry there is still time to get a zrm doll for your friends and loved ones for Christmas!

“Pantheism” is a silly, immature psuedo-religion that tries to make a completely ridiculous connection between all living things and the ineffable human spirit.

Christianity, by contrast, is a completely logical and rational set of beliefs and morals based on the teachings of a mystical Jewish zombie rabbi who was actually his own father.

Got it.

Judd Apatow’s movies are actually conservative and sentimental

Do tell.

Semi-sarc here… I don’t get the “conservative” part at all, sure there’s some underlying seriousness in many of his films, but that’s not much to do ideology.

James Cameron probably IS going straight to Hell, but not for the reasons young Master Doo-Dah thinks.

strictly snoresville. me go with shorter in future times.

Heavens to Murgatroyd!! So he’s saying film-maker James Cameron is into sensationalist excess!

I would never have guessed!

“Pantheism” is a silly, immature psuedo-religion

Douche wants you to walk away with this impression… hackshually, and this goes back to my days of yon as an English Lit student, pantheism, originally, was about seeing God in nature. Like most philosophies, it branched out into many different schools of thought… for originals like Wordsworth and Coleridge and Whitman, however, it was very much about seeing God in nature, and pantheism probably more than anything else kept me from going full metal atheist.

Of course that won’t stop Douche from looking down on little believers like me, because clearly feeling a sense of spirituality inspired by natural beauty is totally fucking hippy, amongst other heresies.

“Conservative.” Just another word that doesn’t mean what these people think it means.

I commented on this recently. For the past 30 years, “conservatism” has focused on telling people they can have whatever they want. That’s not what “conservatism” meant before 1970 or 1980. My father was a conservative in the old mold. What it used to mean was “not being wasteful”. Conservatives were people who didn’t just automatically move to a bigger house or buy a fancy new car every year just because they had more money – they were people who were by nature frugal or conservative in the way they spent their money. One of the things I learned from my parents that really stuck was “don’t be wasteful.” That has stayed with me – to this day I buy a new car every 10 years – and drive it for 10 years. My recycle bin fills up faster than my garbage can. I generally don’t buy things I don’t need. Compare and contrast with today’s “conservatives”, to whom the word means, “drive a Hummer and burn as much gas as possible,” “buy a McMansion in the suburbs,” or, in case of national attack, “go shopping.” It used to be “buy war bonds.” But that was back before the GOP was in the business of telling people who will never have much of anything that “yes, you CAN have it all – the only reason you don’t already is because of TAXES that go to minority leeches who won’t work.” They’ve turned it on its head – these days, support of “conservatives” is supposed to free you of actually behaving like one, as if being fiscally prudent and non-wasteful is some kind of punishment and voting for “conservatives” will free you of the drudgery of having to live within a budget.

I’d like to walk up to Ross and wish him a Happy Solstice. It’s the reason for the season, you know.

Say, do your friends call you “Sac” or ‘Sacco’ ? Seems beer always has a lot to say at this time of year.

Get ready to hear serious wingnut whinging about “Avatar.” I have little interest in it and think Cameron is pretty much a hack, but it’s going to be a monster blockbuster and it seems obvious that it seriously bashes all the “values” the wingnuts hold near and dear. Every wingnut with a shitty blog will be opining about “Avatar” in the coming weeks. It seems Cameron has managed to cross “Star Wars” with “Fahrenheit 9/11.”

Um, I haven’t seen the film yet, but can I be forgiven for saying that, yeah, I think it looks pretty kewl? I have always had a soft spot for big, splashy special-effects eye-poppers, and I really couldn’t care less about its politics, metaphysics or “message”. Cameron’s a hack? OK, whatever, but I have to say I liked his Terminator flicks, the Abyss, Aliens, and, yes, Titanic. Does this somehow diminish me in eyes of the oh-so-sophisticated posters here? (Quick–who’s going to be the first one to put up a POOP! or PENIS! link today?) I mean come on, what are you highbrows doing this weekend? re-reading Brothers Karamazov again?

Check this out, and see if you can follow the “conservative” logic here.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/34465651

It seems as if it’s “let the ppl decide how to waste their money — not the government.”

To me, well, that’s so stupid there are no words…

“every successful religion needs … a piping-hot apocalypse”–
that’s about as good as saying a language needs a
definite article (because my native language has one).

Also, please note Doo-head’s formulation.

Pantheism or enviro-tree-huggeries or respecting nature or whatever is “Hollywood’s religion of choice for a generation now.” Ross is saying that there are devoted followers of this mystical spiritual energy of the universe thingy.

Then he spends the next two thirds of the column calling it stoopit and not good and blah-blah-blah. See, Doohead says that without some sort of ressurection, be with God in the afterlife, Xenu will take us away in the magical spaceship aspect to it, then it just aint that Old Time Religion.

IOW, teh next time I go making fun of the mystical sky-fairy with the all-loving smiting and such – it’s because I’m following Doo-head’s example.

“what are you highbrows doing this weekend? re-reading Brothers Karamazov again?”

Don’t be silly. I will be reading “The Iliad” in the original Greek.

Does this somehow diminish me in eyes of the oh-so-sophisticated posters here?

I saw it last night. It was pretty cool. I had a few problems with the wise native/sympathetic colonizer story line and I had motion sickness throughout the second half of the movie, but it was fun to watch and very, very pretty.

Definitely worth $8 or $10 or whatever it is big city people pay for movies.

this communion is embodied by the blue-skinned, enviably slender Na’Vi…

Once again, chunky Reese Witherspoon dodges a bullet.

I don’t get why Douchehat doesn’t love the movie. Sure, it’s superficially all tree-huggy and all that, but the whole point of the movie is that if you act like a dominant, macho superbully, and kill everything that gets in your way first and ask questions later, you’ll be a real hero and all the chicks will dig you, and you might even save the whole world.

Isn’t that exactly the mindset that gave the world the Afghanistan and Iraq invasions, and every other bad-for-faraway-brown-people policy Douchehat and his mangy little fellow-travellers have been wanking over for the past 10 years or so?

The right never was very good at close reading…

Hmmm…Hollywood blockbuster with lots of ‘splosions and an enviro-socialist, anti-capitalist slant is about to out-gross every other current film because pantheism appeals to so many millions and assuages the existential despair for those who can’t stomach the xian ravings about holy zombie rabbis and petulant sky wizards. God exists because simple people need him to or it would be mass suicides and homo abortions in the streets. Not irrelevant: the average IQ is 100. The lowest common denominator is stupidity. *sigh*

They must have hated Titanic too. That bad natural iceberg had the audacity to get in the way of the World’s Largest Metaphor.

Bottom line: If your metaphysical underpinnings are so shaky you feel threatened by a movie, maybe you need to take a closer look at your own beliefs.

I still think that it is weird that the NY Times has a columnist who regularly expounds upon the comparative scientific validity of various religions as presented in movies. Happily for Ross, the Roman Catholic Church always wins!

Bottom line: If your metaphysical underpinnings are so shaky you feel threatened by a movie, maybe you need to take a closer look at your own beliefs.

Their feeble beliefs are a feature, not a bug. Lots of opportunity to whine that you’re an embattled victim when you’ve got weak beliefs that are threatened by movies and TV shows and scarves and whatnot…

Peggy Noonan, shackled helplessly to five minutes ago, says Adam Lambert is the problem

Bottom line: If your metaphysical underpinnings are so shaky you feel threatened by a movie, maybe you need to take a closer look at your own beliefs.

As I’m fond of telling theocrats, “if the God you believe in is so weak that he can only hear your prayers when they’re broadcast from the publicly-owned PA system at the football game, then what’s the point of praying to him?”

This always goes over well.

Always. Trust. The. Shorter.™

Question: why is it that right wing “Christians” always forget that God intended for us to protect the planet, and not rape it?

That damn Liberal Media bias rearing it’s insidious head again?

“Profits” not portrayed as a pure moral goal? Blasphemy!

Sneering disdain for liars and thieves?

Sure sounds like an anti-capitalist dystopian nightmare to me.

Traditional theism has to wrestle with the problem of evil: if God is good, why does he allow suffering and death? But Nature is suffering and death.

He doesn’t quite get it (big surprise). God and Nature need each other. Specifically, God needs Nature to be his fall gal. That’s why, when hundreds or thousands die in a flood, religious people say things like “Mother Nature can be cruel,” but let one child be plucked from the waters and those same people will say, “God was working through the heart of” whoever made the rescue.

In other words, God gets all the credit for the good stuff and Ma Nature all the blame for the bad. Pretty sweet deal for the Man Upstairs…sorta like being Ronald Reagan.

I’d like to walk up to Ross and wish him a Happy Solstice. It’s the reason for the season, you know.

Festivus. After all, he’s airing his “grievance” *winkwink*

‘As I’m fond of telling theocrats, “if the God you believe in is so weak that he can only hear your prayers when they’re broadcast from the publicly-owned PA system at the football game, then what’s the point of praying to him?”’

As has surely been noted before, Jennifer has bigger balls than most of us.

This is why wingers are obsessed with lists of things like “10 best conservative movies”, or rock-n-roll songs or comic book characters or whatever. They must constantly look to shallow pop culture icons to validate their belief systems. Conversely, they work themselves into permanently outraged high dudgeon over fictional characters and plotlines (especially in children’s entertainment) that somehow mock or trivialize their own beliefs.

Liberals, atheists, and true intellectuals don’t bother much with this sort of thing. “24” is pretty cheesy, violent, and overwrought, to say the least, but it certainly doesn’t threaten me (except insofar as its fans treat it as a blueprint for how a True American Hero should act). I have yet to see a list of “Best Liberal Movies EVAH!”, nor would I care to write one.

In other words, God those who worship HIM gets all the credit for the good stuff…

Just doing a little mind reading here.

Once again, gawd via his follower(s) howl about how gawd (and the rest of the gawd krewe) will get butthurt by the disrespect/ridicule/mocking/doubting thereof. Real all-powerful deity ya got there, dude! Guess I better get ready for the smiting, huh? Better hurry up, my break’s almost over! Back to reality, dammit. Thought I was gonna get smitten there for a minute, give these guys an opening and they totally blow it. I’m so disappointed.

Don’t forget that “respecting the planet” may only be discussed in the context of a US made fantasy movie. We’re not allowed to discuss actual jungle-crushers in the Amazon or the assassinations of the people who opposed that policy.

Definitely worth $8 or $10 or whatever it is big city people pay for movies.

The cute naivete of the great plains. $12.50.

“This is an agonized position, and if there’s no escape upward — or no God to take on flesh and come among us, as the Christmas story has it — a deeply tragic one.”

At least he admits Christianity is escapism from the cruel realities of the world, it’s just he thinks his fantasy is happier.

I don’t get the “conservative” part at all, sure there’s some underlying seriousness in many of his films, but that’s not much to do ideology.

It has everything to do with a profoundly conservative gender ideology. See
http://www.alternet.org/sex/141872/judd_apatow%27s_insidious_virgin_whore_complex?page=1

God to take on flesh

Ew.

God to take on flesh

We all do that during the holidays.

It seems to me that Avatar is just a Western with video-game SFX. Except instead of the stock ’50s eevul injuns, these blue ones are actually a society with a right to exist. How dare they?

A thousand ’50s Westerns where the eevul injuns were blocking the railroad or scalping the wimmen or keeping the settlers from getting to their gold or pasture or whatever, vs how many where the natives are real people? I think the conservatives got way more of their version on film.

What would have made “Avatar” better is if at the very end all the blue-skinned cat people on their distant alien planet-moon came to their holiest site and knelt down before their holiest figure, which would in the final shot turn out to be the ordinary white European guy Jesus Christ on the cross. Anyone who didn’t like that ending would hate America.

Some of them aliens looked pretty homo to me.

-Sen. James Inhofe

Dear Ross,
Take a pill. It’s a fucking movie.

Dear Ross,
Take a pill. It’s a fucking movie.

Ross can’t watch movies with fucking. He gets the vapors.

It seems to me that Avatar is just a Western with video-game SFX.

More like Dances With Wolves, then. Funny, I don’t remember any big wingnut freakout when that one came out in 1990.

I went and saw the flick yesterday, and it delivered exactly what I wanted: amazingly cool visuals. The only surprises in the story were a few clichés they left out, probably for reasons of time. But yeah, I can see how it’ll annoy the Zhdanovative crowd.

It seems Cameron has managed to cross “Star Wars” with “Fahrenheit 9/11.”

Actually, teh Lucas already did that.

Wow, Avatar amazed me, not for it’s stunning visuals or emotionally compelling, albeit unoriginal, plot. It blows me away that both conservative and liberal ideologues hate it, the conservatives because it has a pro-environmental, anti-corporate message and the liberals because the film is an implicitly racist movie full of subtext about white guilt.

Have fun with your next Door-to-Door God salesman:

knock knock

DtoDGS: Hello! God love’s you and wants you to join him in his kingdom in Heaven.

You: Sorry, I know for a fact I’m going to hell.

DtoDGS: Now none of us really knows God’s will for certain. No matter what you’ve done, I’m sure if we pray together God will forgive your past sins.

You: Oh no, I know I’m not going Heaven. You see, about 3 years ago I sold my soul to Satan for a closer parking spot. Yeah I know it was a stupid reason to sell my soul, but I was late and if I missed another meeting I would have been fired for certain.

DtoDGS: That’s horrible! I’ll pray for you everyday.

You: Oh don’t bother, I’ve memorized Dante’s ‘Inferno” so I won’t be there long.

Actually, teh Lucas already did that.

Y’know, a little warning next time. I had just completed my “Hayden Christensen shock therapy” course of treatment.

Wellp, lemme call that doctor again. Or at least an electrician…

What would have made the movie much better would have been if all the main characters had been black Muslim people and the mercenary bad guy carried around a huge scimitar instead of a knife and if all the blue alien cat people had strong Southern accents and if their battle cry had been “We gunna rise ‘gin!”.

The cute naivete of the great plains. $12.50.

Awwww. It was $8.50 here because it was 3D; otherwise, I think adult admission is $7.25-7.50? It would probably be about $14 there, and I’m pretty sure that’s the upper limit that I would pay, even if I did sneak in my own snacks.

No need to sell your soul. Here’s a time-saver. And you get a free book at the same time!

The whole “question of evil” thing is pretty lame. Isaiah 45:7 makes it perfectly clear where evil comes from:

http://bibleresources.bible.com/passagesearchresults.php?passage1=isaiah+45&passage2=&passage3=&passage4=&passage5=&version1=9&version2=0&version3=0&version4=0&version5=0&Submit.x=0&Submit.y=0

6That they may know from the rising of the sun, and from the west, that there is none beside me. I am the LORD, and there is none else.

7I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.

I think adult admission is $7.25-7.50?

I can’t even park my car for that!

Is this how it works?

1) Righty outrage over temporarily popular fiction

2) Publish books/columns condemning it

2) New fiction makes a lot of money

3) Righties find god in it somewhere even if it takes an election microscope

5) Publish books/columns praising it

I think adult admission is $7.25-7.50?

I can’t even park my car for that!

Dance of the seven veiled references.

election microscope

Device used to determine that Ralph Nader is actually the rightful president.

I think adult admission is $7.25-7.50?

I can’t even park my car for that!

Damn. The most expensive place in town to park is on campus, and it’s a dollar an hour. The movie theater is “all the way across town” and it takes about 15 minutes to get there. There is definitely something to be said for living in a Midwestern college town, despite being surrounded by godbags and moran-Americans.

The most expensive place in town to park is on campus, and it’s a dollar an hour.

That’s like a tenth the rate of a random parking garage in midtown…

Even though I’m enviably slender (for my age), there’s no way in hell I’m going to paint myself blue – no, not even for a crack at some sweet sweet poontang. I’m afraid my Pictish heritage would kick in, sending me into full Warp-Spasm Mode, & I’d start attacking random citizens … spontaneously rending the limbs off of total strangers just isn’t that big a hit with The Laydehz, or so I’m told.

The threat of global warming, meanwhile, has lent the cult of Nature qualities that every successful religion needs — a crusading spirit, a rigorous set of ‘thou shalt nots,” and a piping-hot apocalypse.

Huh. Paleolithic/neolithic paganism was globally dominant for a mere 50,000 years or so (sure smells like a success-story to me) – it was way heavier on shalts than shalt-nots, contained no crusading spirit worth the name, & had pretty much sweet f.a. for an apocalypse (not even a lukewarm one).

To be fair, Fuzzyface could wind up being proven right – after all, Christianity only has about 48 millennia to go to match paganism’s record!

May the best cult win!

DOGMAS, START YOUR ENGINES!

Definitely worth $8 or $10 or whatever it is big city people pay for movies.

I’ve got a better idea. I picked up a 50″ plasma and brand new Blu-Ray player off Craigslist for a grand total of $850. And I didn’t even have to exploit anyone, it was just a couple of college students heading home for the summer. Add a decent surround system that I think cost me under $200, and I need never set foot in one of those awful multiplexes ever again.

That’s like a tenth the rate of a random parking garage in midtown…

The trade-off is that public transit is shitty, shitty, shitty and a total pain in the ass. But at least it’s also cheap.

Some of my friends in NY pay more to rent a room than we pay for our entire two-bedroom, two-bath apartment (we also have walk-in closets and a laundry nook). A friend of mine visited and said, “OMG, you live in a mansion!!!” which we thought was pretty hilarious since we’re always complaining about our place.

But again, godbags, morans, and a bizarre obsession with cream of mushroom soup. It’s a tradeoff.

You know who ELSE didn’t enjoy “Avatar”?
…

I don’t ordinarily actually wish for blockbusters to make a gazillion dollars, but in this case I’ll make an exception, just to think of the wingnuts’ heads exploding at the commercial success of a movie with a blatantly anticommercial message.

Also, of course, Zoe Saldana.

One of the things that always amazes me about conservatives is how they lack concern for nature, or seem to see it as an enemy, like Douthat. If someone like Palin were truly “conservative”, wouldn’t she be furiously against trashing the environment of the beautiful state of Alaska? Wouldn’t she be trying to sink every supertanker before it got there? Why don’t conservatives want to conserve the environment?

I’ve thought about that. Here’s my theory. Back in the late Roman Empire and the Middle Ages, Christians equated forests with magic and darkness. The word ‘pagan’ refers to rustic people. You also see it in early American literature wherein the Puritans equate the forests with heathen Indians and the devil. Throw in the line from Genesis about God giving Man dominion over the Earth, and nature comes to be viewed as a force to overcome instead of something to live in harmony with.

I have to admit it is not something I have looked at in depth, it’s just my impression.

I think a great deal of the butthurt derives from them having thoughtJames Cameron was their friend after he gave them that beautiful vision of poor people drowning to prevent rich people’s discomfort.

A different mikey, usually just “S” is sufficient, because if you’ve been hanging around with me anything more is just too difficult to pronounce. My Mexican friends like to shout Cerveza! – they are a fun bunch.

Beer does have a lot to say, but “it’s the beer talking” rarely works on a spouse.

we also have walk-in closets and a laundry nook

I always wanted a nook. I feel so…empty…

BTW, I remember some years ago National Review (back when I was more of a conservative) had a list of the greatest conservative movies of all time, and one of the pick’s was Cameron’s Aliens.

I was like, Aliens is not a conservative movie. The real villain is not the creatures themselves, but the Weyland Yutani corporation that considers people to be expandable in its quest to get their hands on one of the creatures for use as some biological weapon. In other words, Aliens is anti big business.

laundry nook

It’s nice that Nooks finally found decent jobs but owning them seems a little barbaric.

More like Dances With Wolves, then. Funny, I don’t remember any big wingnut freakout when that one came out in 1990.

You have a very short memory, then. Wingnut Commentary movie critic Richard Grenier, for one, really freaked out over Dances with Wolves when it first came out:

http://www.commentarymagazine.com/viewarticle.cfm/indian-love-call-7811

You have a very short memory, then.

In my defense, it was almost 20 years ago…

Pantheism is a more democratic approach to the divine, rather than Christianity’s nauseating rhetoric about kings that should sicken any real American.

Dances With Wolves only felt like it was twenty years long.

I’m a Catholic. Ain’t that interestin’?

Shorter Douchehat:

♫ ♪ ♫

My God’s better than your God.
My God’s better than yours.
My God’s better ’cause He eats Ken-L-Ration is Zombie Jesus
My God’s better than yours.

Why protect the earth when Jesus could come back at any moment and lay waste to everything? Granted, they’ve thought that for like 2000 years now… but at any moment it could happen!

When someone starts giving me shit about jesus coming back, I always tell them “You guys have been saying that from the day he died. Doesn’t it seem arrogant to think it is going to happen in your lifetime? What if its 100 years from now, butyour great great great grandchildren were never born because environmental catastrophe killed your grandchildren?” Usually it just sends them into a diatribe about how some election or earthquake is the one in Revelations so it is happening NOW but sometimes it actually does shut them up.

I always wanted a nook. I feel so…empty…

You should. Obviously, your life is incomplete.

Wingnut Commentary movie critic Richard Grenier, for one, really freaked out over Dances with Wolves when it first came out:

Well, that was kind of a dumb statement (leaving aside asshole’s commentary about people living in the Stone Age). Oh, and Dances with Wolves is a pretty shitty movie, too.

Oh, and Dances with Wolves is a pretty shitty movie, too.

Oh, here we go again. Pray tell, oh culturally edified one, what you would consider a “not shitty” movie from the last 20 years? Ferfuxache, DWW was a beautifully filmed, well-acted period piece with a nice message and a terribly sad ending. (Also pretty much the last good thing Costner did, IMO).

Hollywood keeps returning to these themes because millions of Americans respond favorably to them.

Interesting how he expects them to ignore free market pressures when he doesn’t like the outcome.

Thomas said:
the liberals [hate it] because the film is an implicitly racist movie full of subtext about white guilt.

I have not seen any liberal hate for the film at all. Yours is the first I’ve seen anywhere of someone pointing out the fairly obvious irony inherent in white middleclass Americans applauding at the end of an overtly anti-imperialist flick.

Maybe things are changing, who knows?

Ferfuxache, DWW was a beautifully filmed, well-acted period piece with a nice message and a terribly sad ending.

Having never seen the film, I CALL BULLSHIT!

Obviously, your life is incomplete.

I would hope so. Otherwise I’ve died and (yechh) joined the zombie hordes.

what you would consider a “not shitty” movie from the last 20 years?

I’ve got no idea what T&U will nominate, but looking just at the last five years and off the top of my head: The Libertine, There Will Be Blood, and because I like cheap jokes with a real message, In The Loop.

There are probably more that I’m forgetting.

Dances With Wolves only felt like it was twenty years long.

I’ll give Costner a few points for his attempt to capture “Grandeur” on film.

Where he failed was in the idea that just leaving the scenery on screen a little longer would make up for the lack of a wind in your face and the sound it makes reaching you.

Shorter Wingtard: You can tell the ‘whites with liberal guilt’ by their empathizing with fictional blue people.

More Ross:

Religion exists, in part, precisely because humans aren’t at home amid these cruel rhythms. We stand half inside the natural world and half outside it. We’re beasts with self-consciousness, predators with ethics, mortal creatures who yearn for immortality.

This is an agonized position, and if there’s no escape upward — or no God to take on flesh and come among us, as the Christmas story has it — a deeply tragic one.

I don’t have a problem with his first paragraph there. Yes, life is hard and our position in the world as self aware beings with a bloody past is agonizing. But for myself I don’t accept the Christian solution of an escape upward nor for the Pagan one of an escape inward. Life is a paradox, our relationship to the world is full of contradiction. Hold on to that, that’s the good stuff.

From the movie:
“I see you.”

uhhh… no, you don’t.

Pray tell, oh culturally edified one, what you would consider a “not shitty” movie from the last 20 years?

Okay, I’ll back up and say that it wasn’t “shitty,” per se, but definitely overrated. I thought it was a little heavy-handed, and while it may have been Costner’s best acting, he still wasn’t that great. I also have an abiding hatred of Costner, so that could be clouding my judgment.

Goodfellas came out that same year, and while I’m not a fan, I would argue that it was a better film. Also, too, just in the last few years: There Will be Blood (probably my favorite of the last ten years, followed closely by Control), Good Night and Good Luck, The Queen, Lost in Translation, Frida, Training Day…

Dances with Wolves? More like Dancing With Smurfs! But Douchehat is welcome to ponder the theological implications of a race created by evil magician Gargamel.

“Dances,” dammit.

I have not seen any liberal hate for the film at all. Yours is the first I’ve seen anywhere of someone pointing out the fairly obvious irony inherent in white middleclass Americans applauding at the end of an overtly anti-imperialist flick.

I just read this piece this morning. I actually did find some things in Avatar problematic, but not enough to ruin my enjoyment of the film. I can see if others had more problems with it, though.

I have not seen any liberal hate for the film at all.

See LGM. Spoilers.

(Also pretty much the last good thing Costner did, IMO).

The Upside of Anger was pretty good.

No flame-war intended, T&U, but I just wanted to make the point that we tend to fall into the same trap as the wingnuts, sometimes, demanding that movies must somehow transcend their medium and deliver greatness in order to be enjoyable. It’s like grabbing a taco from Taco Bell and complaining that it isn’t as good as veal au poivre. Can’t a flick be good if it’s just fun and lets you escape your own world for a couple of hours?

They’re places where existence tends to be nasty, brutish and short.

Japan!?

I always wanted a nook. I feel so…empty…

You should. Obviously, your life is incomplete.

I don’t quite have a nook. I have nookie.

Pray tell, oh culturally edified one, what you would consider a “not shitty” movie from the last 20 years?

The Soloist. That didn’t suck and was totally a liberal movie.

I had a boss once who was nasty brutish and short. I don’t know what he ate for breakfast, but his breath always smelled like shit in the mornings.

Man, I hate digging thru a bag and finding unopened mail from three months ago.

No wonder the electricity was turned off!

I had a boss once who was nasty brutish and short.

You worked at Spacely Sprockets too!?

Can’t a flick be good if it’s just fun and lets you escape your own world for a couple of hours?

Does it let you escape your world if the alarm bells go off?

The lovely daughter and I went to see The Princess and the Frog and seeing kiddie use made of black and white people in 1920s New Orleans was a hard thing to get over, and I never did. It’s a sort of Hogan’s Heroes thing.

Fine for her though.

When someone starts giving me shit about jesus coming back, I always tell them “You guys have been saying that from the day he died.”

Actually, Jesus himself has been saying that since before he died: “I tell you the truth, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.” (Matthew 16:28) That’s why he could tell people to take no thought for the morrow, etc., because they were all going to get on the express train (or chariot, whatever) to Heaven pretty soon.

“The Host” was a good movie, and it had family values.

“I tell you the truth, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.”

Veiled public onanism reference.

what you would consider a “not shitty” movie from the last 20 years?

City Of God. The Big Lebowski. Inglourious Basterds. Heavenly Creatures.

It’s a sort of Hogan’s Heroes thing.

It all depends on perspective. My father is a Korea vet and hated MASH with a passion. One might even say it triggered him.

No flame-war intended, T&U, but I just wanted to make the point that we tend to fall into the same trap as the wingnuts, sometimes, demanding that movies must somehow transcend their medium and deliver greatness in order to be enjoyable.

Well, I know I’m pretty dogmatic about matters of taste, so when somebody calls me out on that, I’m really okay with it. I do have some problems with the cultural narrative of DWW and maintain that it was overrated, but that certainly doesn’t mean that people can’t enjoy it. I mean, I love Die Hard and the Terminator movies, so if people enjoy DWW, more power to them.

Can’t a flick be good if it’s just fun and lets you escape your own world for a couple of hours?

Is it too late to vote for Elektra and Catwoman? They let me escape to a world of tight leather and loose plots.

See LGM. Spoilers.

Eh, I don’t really agree with his analysis at all. The “noble savage” and “white guy who assimilates and saves them all” narrative is an issue, but it’s pretty clear that the Na’vi hate the humans because they’ve fucked them over repeatedly, not because they’re human.

Ahhh thanks T&U and SM, I don’t visit either of those much.

I saw avatar the other night and enjoyed it. They telegraphed the ending like, literally an hour ahead and I got tired of the heavy stereotypes on all sides. But really, it’s beautiful and who wouldn’t want to be a ten foot tall blue native with your very own pterodactyl? Avatar is a fantasy, a dream, no such world exists or could exist in this universe. I guess there is a danger in that if one leaves the theater thinking that kind of eco-utopia is possible but you’re not suppose to do that. It’s just a flick, enjoy it and leave it in the theater.

And, shit. Sorry if that spoiled it for anyone. I’m notoriously bad about that.

Look, Cameron ruined the whole romance of the sinking of the Titanic for me, which is my main reservation about seeing Avatar.

If he could fuck up a movie about an event I’m truly interested in, how hard is he going to have to work to convince me to suspend disbelief so he can fuck up yet another romantic notion?

“Every wingnut with a shitty blog will be opining about “Avatar” in the coming weeks. It seems Cameron has managed to cross “Star Wars” with “Fahrenheit 9/11.””

Wow. How did you do that?

http://newyork.craigslist.org/mnh/wrg/1518831449.html

“The “noble savage” and “white guy who assimilates and saves them all” narrative is an issue”

I don’t think that’s even what happened. In the big final battle it clear that the natives, including Jake, have lost. Then Eywa marshals her forces and attacks and wins with Jake’s help. One could argue that Eywa chose Jake from the beginning because she foresaw the coming conflict and used him to help defeat the invaders and then assimilated him.

Eywa is Borg consciousness and as we know, the Borg always wins.

I do have some problems with the cultural narrative of DWW and maintain that it was overrated

Actually, I thought its treatment of the Lakota was pretty spot-on, historically. They managed to portay the Native Americans sympathetically, without being overly romantic or idealistic. They weren’t bloodthirsty savages, and they also weren’t poetic, doe-eyed, spiritual proto-environmentalists, either.

Does it let you escape your world if the alarm bells go off?

Exactly! That’s the difference between a good piece of escapist fiction and a bad one, whether in print or on-screen. There’s a contract of “suspension of disbelief” between the artist and the reader/viewer: Make your work interesting and enjoyable, and I will agree not to pick it to pieces. Cross that line, and I will cut you to ribbons. I can’t define what constitutes breaking that contract, but I always know when it has been broken: I suddenly start hearing Crowe and Tom Servo in my head, and from that point on, I can’t take it seriously any more,

What about Waterworld, eh? I don’t recall how the wingnutosphere reacted to that one.

This song by Adriano Cellentano has more content than a typical Douthat column. Not sure if its message is liberal or conservative though.

http://music.todaysbigthing.com/2009/11/03

If “A New Hope” came out today, we’d all be picking pieces of wingnut head out of our hair for the rest of our lives.

not surprisingly, Henry VIII and Martin Luther give the film relatively positive reviews

The fascination on both sides w/ ‘movies as some sort of statement of morals/politics/society’ and being taken seriously is humorous in itself. It’s a movie! Entertainment- mindless or cerebral- it’s a MOVIE! All these ‘grandiose expressions of the human condition’- it’s a movie! All that money spent to make it and all the money spent to see it- that is all that really matters. Kind of like politics- get elected, get re-elected, all else is fluff and irrelevancies.

If “A New Hope” came out today, we’d all be picking pieces of wingnut head out of our hair for the rest of our lives.

Are you kidding?

The allegory would be “The Death Star is HCR, right down to death panels”

If he could fuck up a movie about an event I’m truly interested in, how hard is he going to have to work to convince me to suspend disbelief so he can fuck up yet another romantic notion?

With this, you’re distracted by the fact that the visuals are fucking awesome. Just don’t pay too much attention to the dialog and remember that he was trying to bring in a really wide audience.

I HATED Titanic with a passion, and I thoroughly enjoyed this. Then again, I am a science fiction nerd, so that probably helped.

The fascination on both sides w/ ‘movies as some sort of statement of morals/politics/society’ and being taken seriously is humorous in itself. It’s a movie!

Certainly movies never take moral political or societal positions.

But consider an alternate formulation or two: It’s a blog post! It’s a comment on a blog post!

death panels

death panelling made my living room look too paranoid. we have walnut now

death panelling made my living room look too paranoid. we have walnut now

Walnut made mine too schizophrenic.

Mine too.

Entertainment- mindless or cerebral- it’s a MOVIE! All these ‘grandiose expressions of the human condition’- it’s a movie!

Movies are cultural products, just like books or art or anything else. Especially a movie like Avatar, which was obviously trying to talk about environmentalism, capitalism, colonialism, xenophobia, and the Iraq war. I mean, one dude literally said something about “shock and awe” and are mercenaries in the damn thing. These things shape people’s (especially children’s opinions) and affect the national discourse.

Fucking Fern Gully was important shit to me when I was an 11-year-old budding environmentalist, man.

I cannot overstate the importance of Underdog to my current view of shoe-shine boys.

TruculentandUnreliable said:

Damn. The most expensive place in town to park is on campus, and it’s a dollar an hour. The movie theater is “all the way across town” and it takes about 15 minutes to get there. There is definitely something to be said for living in a Midwestern college town, despite being surrounded by godbags and moran-Americans.

Springfield, Mo., by chance?

As far as the movie goes, I’ll wait for it to come out on video — no way in hell do I pay the ricockulous prices they charge now. Just ain’t worth the headache.

Besides, Titanic is one of the worst pieces of shit in the history of cinema, and not sure I’m going to give Cameron any of my $$ after that abortion of a film. Just … bleh.

(It’s a shame, since Aliens and the Terminators — 1&2 — were fucking awesome.)

Entertainment- mindless or cerebral- it’s a MOVIE! All these ‘grandiose expressions of the human condition’- it’s a movie!

When “Star Wars” came out in the ’70s, a co-worker of mine saw it the week it premiered. She came in to work talking about how the idea of “The Force” re-affirmed her own personal religious beliefs.

Did he say that nature is death?

I have yet to see a list of “Best Liberal Movies EVAH!”

I once did a Top Seven Zombie Vehicles list…..

She came in to work talking about how the idea of “The Force” re-affirmed her own personal religious beliefs.

“Jedi Knight” was listed as the fourth largest religion in the UK’s 2001 census.

I once did a Top Seven Zombie Vehicles list…..

I assume “hearse” came in at number one…

Dances With Wolves has one of the best WTF moments in movies. It’s near the beginning, when John Dunbar (Costner) meets the alcoholic Major Fambrough (played by Maury Chaykin). Fambrough keeps calling Dunbar “Sir Knight” and acting like he’s a king sending a knight out on a quest. Fambrough then tells Dunbar that “I’ve just pissed in my pants, and nobody can do anything about it.” As Dunbar is setting out on the wagon to Fort Sedgwick, Fambrough shoots himself through the head.

As for other films about natives & intruders, I liked Apocalypto (spoiler: no white people until the last 2 minutes).

(spoiler: no white people until the last 2 minutes)

It’s only a spoiler if anyone was actually going to watch it.

Which, given it’s B.O….

Every movie ever that doesn’t involve Muslimsexuals aborting all white babies is automatically a conservative movie, unless it was made by Hollywood. In the cases were the movie was made by Hollywood, it is to be plumbed for anecdotal evidence that the US is both a center-right nation that actually elected St. Ronnie 7 times in their hearts and that the silent majority thinks Baby Jesus is adorable.

Which, given it’s B.O….

I wasn’t going t say anything, but maybe Mel should leave a window open in the theater.

I liked DWW ok, because of, well, wolves. I developed a deep and abiding hatred for Costner some years later when I wasted an entire dollar on Waterworld.

I left that straight line out there for anyone to pick up.

The Postman had a truly hilarious fight at the end.

Which, given it’s B.O….

Wait, you mean the President turns into a white guy in the last 2 minutes of his term?

Of course, the problem is… if we really made a movie from the nativist point of view… they’d be every bit as xenophobic, racist and militaristic as we are.

Costner peaked with “Bull Durham”.

Springfield, Mo., by chance?

Close. Columbia. We’re smaller and have fewer Neo-Nazis here. And more college degrees. We also delivered the HELL out of our county for Obama.

Remember in the ’70s how so many station wagons had faux death paneling on the sides? That was weird.

Entertainment- mindless or cerebral- it’s a MOVIE!

Oh yeah? What about American Carol? Huh? It’s a movie but it’s not entertainment. Stick that in yer pipe and smoke it.

PS – this is mostly a test to see if WP still has it in for me.

Remember in the ’70s how so many station wagons had faux death paneling on the sides?

“Woodies”? Heh heh.

I have not seen any liberal hate for the film at all.
See LGM. Spoilers.

SEK’s criticism was rather weird. People pointed out in the ensuing comments thread that the assumptions he had made to interpret what was happening were in fact contradicted by information provided about the back-story (though not spelled out). SEK responded by explaining that when a director is content to provide crucial information fleetingly rather than by spelling it out in intelligence-insulting detail, he can do so because the movie is drawing on CLICHES and FAMILIAR TROPES so it’s a crap movie anyway.

I dunno about this DWW, but on a scale of one to awesome, D-KW is TEH HAWT!

SEK responded by explaining that when a director is content to provide crucial information fleetingly rather than by spelling it out in intelligence-insulting detail, he can do so because the movie is drawing on CLICHES and FAMILIAR TROPES so it’s a crap movie anyway.

TRANSLATION:

I wasn’t paying attention so it must have been crap.

D-KW is TEH HAWT!

You know who else is hawt?

SEK responded by explaining that when a director is content to provide crucial information fleetingly rather than by spelling it out in intelligence-insulting detail, he can do so because the movie is drawing on CLICHES and FAMILIAR TROPES so it’s a crap movie anyway.

Or he was just drunk throughout the entire thing and is now covering his ass.

,

Costner peaked with “Bull Durham”.

Ah, but what a peak that was. Talk about Hawt.

I prefer to be known from now on by my own Lakota name:

Dances with Dogs

Speaking of being drunk, where did that random comma come from?

Dances with Dogs

Funny. That was my fraternity nickname after that party at Ho Noo Mu?

Sadly, DKW’s avatar reveals him to be a very unattractive and overweight beagle.

You know who else is hawt?

I’m torn between making a comment about your mother and yelling “Hitler, that’s who.” Aha, a solution:

Hitler’s mother.

Oh yeah? What about American Carol? Huh? It’s a movie but it’s not entertainment.

Fuckin’ A right about that. Showtime has been showing it and the Ben Stein mess “Expelled” the last few weeks. I had “Carol” on for five minutes before my wife (who doesn’t care about politics) got mad and made me change it because it was so anti-funny.

…a very unattractive and overweight beagle.

I can’t help it if I gots bitches on my mind.

a very unattractive and overweight beagle.

Uh, do you normally find beagles attractive?

I can’t help it if I gots bitches on my mind.

I’d say it, but that would be just mailing it in…

Remember in the ’70s how so many station wagons had faux death paneling on the sides?

“Woodies”? Heh heh.

Unveiled PENIS reference.

Oh, and Columbia, eh? Yes, fewer Neo-Nazis (just a few) but a helluva lot more fratboy douche bags. Not sure which is worse … but do know they’re not mutually exclusive.

Strange — and maybe even sad — that I knew it was here in the Show Me state, though. It’s like I have Mo.ESP or somethin’ …

Discussions about the Lakota always make me think about back pain remedies and this commercial.

Discussions about DWW always make me think of this

Uh, do you normally find beagles attractive?

On the internet nobody knows just how creepy you are.

Discussions about DWW always make me think of this.

On the internet nobody knows just how creepy you are.
Oh, we have noticed, we just don’t remark upon it.

Teh Great Gazoogle reports: Results 1 – 10 of about 1,980,000 for ursula le guin avatar cameron. (0.32 seconds)

Damn those 2 million comment stealers.

Yes, fewer Neo-Nazis (just a few) but a helluva lot more fratboy douche bags.

Yes. Factory-wrapped. And I’m a Jayhawk, so it’s even worse. Luckily, I manage to avoid most of them.

Strange — and maybe even sad — that I knew it was here in the Show Me state, though.

Yeah, I guess “smallish, cheap Midwestern town surrounded by rednecks” doesn’t really narrow it down, eh?

Otherwise I’ve died and (yechh) joined the zombie hordes.

Being an engineer, who can tell the difference?

Mom, he started it!

Discussions about DWW always make me think of this.

Yea? Well, discussions of Ivar’s Steaming Piles of Clams make me think of this

I assume “hearse” came in at number one…

wrong, o misspelled actor one:

http://empireofthesenseless.blogspot.com/2009/10/guilty-pleasures.html

http://empireofthesenseless.blogspot.com/2009/10/guilty-pleasures.html

#3 is….appealing to me, if it comes with a dildo accessory.

wrong, o misspelled actor one

The fact that he’s wrong is a given. He is not, however, misspelled. His posts cause great æches.

The fact that he’s wrong is a given.

Two wrongƒ do not a right mæke

But two Wrights made an airplane!

…2 Wrightƒ…

But two Wrightƒ made an æroplane!

Fixed

But two Wrightƒ made an æroplane!

FTFY.

Well, ƒhit!

Them Wrightƒ have got an awful lot of vegetableƒ on ’em.

Uh, do you normally find beagles attractive?

I do when I’m on the Purina diet.

Well, ƒhit!

Far worse than the ignominy of being beaten by Actor is the horror of intersecting his brain in 17-dimensional space-time.

Far worse than the ignominy of being beaten by Actor is the horror of intersecting his brain in 17-dimensional space-time.

I’m sorry? I heard my name being used in vain…

It would only have been in vain if you hadn’t heard.

WTƒ?

It would only have been in vain if you hadn’t heard.

Lemon curry?

what you would consider a “not shitty” movie from the last 20 years?

Bubba Ho-Tep and Lone Star to name two.

Bubba Ho-Tep quote

JFK: That’s where they took a piece of my brain. They got it back in D.C. in that God damn jar.
[pause]
JFK: I got a little bag of sand up there now.
Elvis: But Jack uhh, no offense but
[pause]
Elvis: President Kennedy was a white man.
JFK: That’s how clever they are. They dyed me this color, all over. can you think of a better way to hide the truth than that?

Lone Star quote:

Mickey: Think her family’s gonna be okay that you’re a white guy?
Cliff: They think any woman over 30 who isn’t married is a lesbian. She figures, they’ll be so relieved that I’m a man…
Mickey: Yeah, it’s always heartwarming to see a prejudice defeated by a deeper prejudice.

On the internet nobody knows just how creepy you are.

Unless you’re Cigarskunk.

Far worse than the ignominy of being beaten by Actor is the horror of intersecting his brain in 17-dimensional space-time.

þhiƒ iƒ true. I may never ƒleep again.

I fucked that up. It should be “þis.”

On the internet nobody knows just how creepy you are.

Unless you’re Cigarskunk.

Does this mean there won’t be rousing, Spartican chants of “I am CigarSkunk”?

To ƒleep, perhance to blave

Does this mean there won’t be rousing, Spartican chants of “I am CigarSkunk”?

Oh, there will. They’ll just be creepy.

Have fun with your next Door-to-Door God salesman:

knock knock

Too wordy!

*knock knock*

“Usually the agency sends the same two strippers, but you’ll do.”

Always trust the fucking shorter. What the hell is he trying to say? That unless you make a movie about Jesus your just a dirty fucking hippy? God damn he’s an idiot.

From roseyviolet’s Craigslist link: We’re looking for CONSERVATIVE JOURNALISTS with an eye for the media’s manipulation tactics to review “AVATAR.”

If you get this position, your movie review will be published.

Tee hee hee!

“But Nature is suffering and death.” And religion isn’t?

“I tell you the truth, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.”

Veiled public onanism reference.

Fellatious reference.

That thread at LGM is noteworthy for SEK’s descent into near-Goldbergian levels of “That which fails to kill my point, only makes it stronger” — as well as argument through assertion (about Cameron’s alleged admiration for all things military):

If I’m wrong, I’m wrong … but only about The Abyss. My point stands for Aliens and Avatar.

Towards the end he points out that 90% of the comments on the thread are dismissing the arguments of his post, therefore he must have made valid arguments.

Count me in as another Cameron fan. I think it may be tempting to label him as a hack because his films are enormously successful, I just don’t think it’s a fair or accurate label.

As for Apatow and the charges of conservatism: I don’t get it. The reason that chick didn’t abort is simple: can’t release a 5-minute movie.

That thread at LGM is noteworthy for

having to page through it. JS-Kit: does anyone actually sign up for that shit if there’s another option?

JS-Kit: does anyone actually sign up for that shit if there’s another option?

I like Haloscan.

JS-Kit bought Haloscan.

I’m stuck with JS-Kit.

Not having seen the movie, but having seen the ads, the blatant chordate-centrism in the character/creature design really pisses me off. Why the hell would aliens from a distant planet look like jaguar-smurfs, rather than, say, iridescent, rugose cones?

iridescent, rugose cones

That’s sexy for you, is it?

I think it may be tempting to label him as a hack because his films are enormously successful

Apart from Titanic…and maybe Piranha II…it would be hard to call him a hack based on his directorial work.

Interesting that he wrote the screenplay for Rambo II, yet is considered such a Hollywood liberal by Douchehat.

I think it may be tempting to label him as a hack because his films are enormously successful

Exactly the point I was trying to make earlier. Assuming a movie (or song, or book, or whatever) is bad just because it is a commercial success is every bit as irrational as assuming it must be good because so many people like it. This kind of snobbery is precisely what wingers have in mind when they accuse us of “elitism”.

It’s a lot more work to examine a work of art and to decide for yourself whether you like it or not regardless of its wider popular appeal.

“James Cameron Is Going Straight To Hell”

Wait, does that mean he won’t have to hang out with Pat Robertson, Ross Douthat, and Tertullian?

That’s sexy for you, is it?

Not at all- it’s supposed to instill an overwhelming sense of cosmic dread, but it really just makes me laugh a lot, as do stories of elderly bachelor academics being abducted by crustaceous creepy crawlies from a dark planet.

Agreed, Steerpike. Which is why my taste in music and movies ranges from quite esoteric to quite mainstream. And I reckon most folks are like that.

On the other hand, there’s a lot of evidence that Cameron’s a hack writer and an effective director of spectacle. He can be hack and not-hack.

He can be hack and not-hack.

Then open the box and if he’s alive, he’s a hack.

Cameron’s a hack writer and an effective director of spectacle

Hacktacle!

Hoom, hoom.

The thing about Avatar is that it never pretends to be more than it is: A splashy, booming Sci-Fi epic in the tradition of other blockbuster mega-films. You really get what you pay for when you go to see it…but if you were expecting anything BUT cardboard stock characters and a Palin-simple plotline along with the boo-boom-boom and the eye candy then you need manage your expectations better.

Look, of course this kind of movie has a shallowness to it- not because that is necessarily what the creators are aiming for, but because it costs so much money to do a film like that, you have to appeal to the lowest common denominator. The sheer number of tickets that need to be sold to pay for this thing require that simple, dumbed-down perspective. You can’t take a chance with anything complex or nuanced.

If you went expecting No Country for Old Men or Brokeback Mountain then you really weren’t paying attention, were you? Requiring nuance from this thing is just like complaining about the lack of explosions in Love, Actually. It misses the point of the genre.

Tee hee hee!

I know! Isn’t it aDORable?!?!

Cameron is a hack; he has shown a decided aversion to using zombies in his movies.

It misses the point of the genre.

It might be an economic point, but it’s not the genre’s fault. District 9 was pretty terrific.

Argrgrgrghgh.

http://stopavatarmovie.blogspot.com/

Kill me, just kill me already.

Avatar insulted that progress by presenting us with a vision of the future that ignored Evolution and had no gay or transgender characters here on Earth or on Pandora.

Same for Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs.

Also:

I refuse to see the film

122 (1%)

I will buy a ticket but will not watch the film

138 (2%)

I will stand up during the film

333 (5%)

I will protest outside of the theater

146 (2%)

I will lay down or sit in the theater lobby

198 (3%)

I’m not sure

72 (1%)

I won’t protest

6141 (93%)

That’s all 107% of the vote.

Cameron is a hack; he has shown a decided aversion to using zombies in his movies.

hey, he brought Ripley back from the dead in Alien Resurrection.

he brought Ripley back from the dead in Alien Resurrection.

Nope.

Kill me, just kill me already.

Thanks for reading my blog!

Okay, I made that up.

You can’t take a chance with anything complex or nuanced.

Interesting take, and more or less dovetails with the idea I’d had that, with a movie like Avatar, you don’t want a complicated story getting in the way of the pretty pictures, whatever the IQ of your audience. Honestly, I think I’d have been annoyed if the plot had interfered with my gawking.

if you were expecting anything BUT cardboard stock characters and a Palin-simple plotline along with the boo-boom-boom and the eye candy then you need manage your expectations better.

Zackly! Well put.

Nope.

Cloned, dead, who cares? She’s zombified by any liberal definition.

Unless you’re not…liberal!

No, it wasn’t Cameron.

Avatar insulted that progress by presenting us with a vision of the future that ignored Evolution and had no gay or transgender characters here on Earth or on Pandora.

Well, the leading man fell for a long skinny blue NONHUMAN. Doesn’t matter that he was piloting a long skinny blue nonhuman himself, does it? I would say trans-species is just as risky as gay or transgender.

Unless you’re … a Ringworld fan.

Yeah, I was cringing at SEK (and Annalee Newitz over at io9) ragging on James Cameron for being such a bigoted prejudiced racist, because, by extension, so is everyone else involved in the movie, including Zoe Saldana, CCH Pounder, Wes Studi, Michelle Rodriguez, Laz Alonso, Dileep Rao, and every other person of color involved in Avatar. I’m sure that they just love it when white folks correct them on their politics.

Why is Douchehat pointing to that flaming cheeseburger on his chest?

And plus, would Cameron be covering Mick & Joe?

It could be anywhere
Most likely could be any frontier
Any hemisphere
No man’s land
Ain’t no asylum here
King Solomon he never lived round here

Kill me, just kill me already.

Posted on blog, expecting Avatar slash fiction in…

Are the aliens in the movie clearly depicted as male/female with sexual dimorphism in evidence?

And now for the really important question: is the movie really just a showpiece for new CGI/motion capture technology, which will become the industry standard for more plot-driven works in the near future?

Well, the leading man fell for a long skinny blue NONHUMAN. Doesn’t matter that he was piloting a long skinny blue nonhuman himself, does it? I would say trans-species is just as risky as gay or transgender.

Doesn’t that mean he is actually a cyborg screwing an alien? I bet that gets Glenn Reynolds to half-mast.

I haven’t seen it yet, but I’m certain I’ll agree that Avatar is back-door racist in a white guilt kinda way. Because it was made for consumption by a racist culture. The only non-racist movies are countercultural, so to rant about every racist/misogynist/homophobic element in every mainstream movie is to essentially argue against the existence of that culture. Whatevs, but I’m not sure that’s a winning strategy. White guilt is how white culture works through it’s guilt. It is getting kind of trite, but it’s a lot better than an outright celebration of colonialism and genocide and it will probably take a generation or two of blockbuster-producing non-white directors to purge it from Hollywood.

I’m all for opening minds with good film, but I would want to poke my eyes out if every movie was some boring-ass, weepily-sincere deconstruction of all forms of social domination.

Did I kill the thread, or are you all just writing Avatar slash fiction?

Hello??

Thousands of others silently protested by not watching Avatar or they protested by other means.

Dammit, PEGGED.

If “A New Hope” came out today, we’d all be picking pieces of wingnut head out of our hair for the rest of our lives.

What’s “A New Hope”? Do you mean “Star Wars”?

Fer Fuckickty Fuckall’s sake.

This is not about stopping a movie.

This was posted where? Anyone care to guess? Could it be….stopavatarmovie.com?

Also, B⁴, I think it’s more about 3D – trying to make the cinema experience something people will pay for, rather than just buying pirate dvd’s.

What’s “A New Hope”? Do you mean “Star Wars”?

My lawn, let me yell you off of it.

I should qualify what I mean by genre, Substance. Both District 9 and Avatar are science fiction, true, but there resemblance ends there. District 9 presented itself as an expensive indie film, and while both films are about alien contact, District 9 enters into a discussion of race and class almost immediately- and the trailering for the film let you know that that was the kind of experience you would have should you watch it. You knew that this movie- much like its kissing cousin Children of Men– would be a movie to a large extent enjoyed through the intellect.

By contrast, the trailering for Avitar made it clear that you would be seeing the kind of high-energy, high-cost blockbuster you expect from Hollywood, with very little in the way of thought or theme. The “art” -and you can you can safely call it that, I think- of Avatar comes from the visceral reaction of the viewer to the images and sound; in this it succeed mightily. It is not really an examination of anything so much as it is a kind of Red-Vine-sweet Theatre of Cruelty a la Artaud. It is “about” adrenaline and easily accessed emotionality in the viewer.

Avatar, in this way at least, has much more in common with Titanic that it does with District 9. This is what I meant when I brought up genre in the first place, in as much as I believe the blockbuster, regardless of its trappings, is a genre of film in and of itself.

Note: it was, apparently, posted by the fucking proprietor of the site

Thousands of others silently protested by not watching Avatar or they protested by other means.

Nature itself protested by dumping millions of tons of snow on the multiplexes of the eastern seaboard.

Also, B?, I think it’s more about 3D – trying to make the cinema experience something people will pay for, rather than just buying pirate dvd’s.

Are all showings of the movie in 3D?

Uh… would the plural form of multiplex be multiplices?

“The question is whether Nature actually deserves a religious response.”

That is a bizarre statement.

Uh… would the plural form of multiplex be multiplices
Multipleeeeeze, I think.

“Not content with the discovery that there is nothing in the world but a creation and a Creator,” he suggested, democratic man “seeks to expand and simplify his conception by including God and the universe in one great whole.”

At least he didn’t say “democrat man.” In 2009, we’ll take what we can get.

Are the aliens in the movie clearly depicted as male/female with sexual dimorphism in evidence?

Yes, though for a popcorn movie it’s surprisingly non-comic-bookish in that regard. That is, the alien women don’t have huge tits.

The leading-lady alien did remind me quite a bit of an old college gf of mine, though, who was a marathon runner who liked wearing blue lycra.

Me, I LOVED Titanic – when that damn boat finally sank, I €heered

Are all showings of the movie in 3D?

No.

In this age of emo vampires that sparkle in the sunlight and the Black Eyed Peas’ continued finger-fucking of the world’s ears, it’s good to see that people’s pop culture disdain meters are still in working order.

emo vampires that sparkle in the sunlight

What means this emo? How can peas do anything to your ears? I’m so confused.

The leading-lady alien did remind me quite a bit of an old college gf of mine, though, who was a marathon runner who liked wearing blue lycra.

Xecky, are you a catgirl fetishist?

(says the guy exhorting people to write slash fiction)

Xecky, are you a catgirl fetishist?

Heh. Somehow, no, despite a decade of anime viewing.

That is, the alien women don’t have huge tits

what?!1? this fact alone may force me to convert to catholicism

If I ever get around to writing some alien scifi, I’m going to have my aliens be sexually dimorphous, yet familiar to the audience: ALF and Robin Williams.

the alien women don’t have huge tits.

So you’re saying the alien men have huge tits.

So you’re saying the alien men have huge tits.

Yup, eight of them each.

/spoiler

So you’re saying the alien men have huge tits.

Yup, eight of them each.

Hmmm. Dorsal, ventral, buttocks…where are the fourth pair? Behind the ears?

If I ever get around to writing some alien scifi, I’m going to have my aliens be sexually dimorphous, yet familiar to the audience: ALF and Robin Williams.

Ah… sitcom retcon.

If ALF and Mork had to address a vermin infestation under the threat of nuclear war…

Sitcom retcon dcon4gone defcon!

If ALF and Mork had to address a vermin infestation in the nation’s military headquarters under the threat of nuclear war…

Sitcom retcon Pentagon dcon4gone defcon!

If ALF and Mork had to address a vermin infestation in the nation’s military headquarters under the threat of nuclear war…

… and repopulate the planet …

Sitcom retcon Pentagon dcon4gone defcon pr0n!

Red State reaction (shorter)

Doggone Sitcom retcon Pentagon dcon4gone defcon pr0n!

… and repopulate the planet …

…with offspring of William Kristol.

Sitcom retcon Pentagon dcon4gone defcon neocon pr0n!

If ALF and Mork had to address a vermin infestation in the nation’s military headquarters under the threat of nuclear war…

… and repopulate the planet …

with zombie Reagans

Sitcom retcon Pentagon dcon4gone defcon paleocon pr0n!

dammit, beaten to the punch by Bastard.

Sitcom
retcon
Pentagon
dcon4gone
defcon
neocon
pr0n!

It’s the end of the world as we know it!

FYWP

Red State reaction (shorter)

Doggone Sitcom retcon Pentagon dcon4gone defcon neocon pr0n!

I went to that “stopavatarmovie” site…Please…please…for the love of GOD…*grabs lapels desperately*…Tell me that was a satire!

Had to be, & someone no doubt literally trolled it before the denizens of a reactionary, sex-fearing site somewhere, getting quite a load of “Hey, fags!” comments for their efforts.

Cameron seems to have been a little more lax in the biology department—at least when it comes to imagining Pandora’s reigning creature, the Na’vi. Take those already infamous alien boobs: He gleefully told Playboy, “Right from the beginning I said, ‘She’s got to have tits,’ even though that makes no sense because her race, the Na’vi, aren’t placental mammals.”

Size doesn’t matter, but let there be no question: There shall be TITS!!

So, even if it’s not objectively racist, it’s genderist & sexist.

That site seems like a wingnut attempt link transgender (and therefore liberal) politics and health care reform. No transgender person of my acquaintance would make the claim “The Future is Transgender, Not Straight” , and the complaints that an insurance company wouldn’t pay for breast implants are exactly the kind of red herring a conservatard would leave around.

Still, I’m betting on, say, Ms. Gellar, or possibly the Malkin-thing linking to it within 48 hours or so…

…in ancient Greece

Sitcom retcon Pentagon dcon4gone defcon neocon agon pr0n!

You may be on to something, Tommmcatt, with a bonus for the whole emphasis on “evolution”. I’d say it’s just a 4chan addicted goofus doing some ratfucking, but you’ve planted a kernel of suspicion in my mind.

…in ancient Greece

but the effort is just a preliminary foray:

Sitcom retcon recon Pentagon dcon4gone defcon neocon agon pr0n!

…enough of this…

Sitcom retcon recon Pentagon dcon4gone defcon neocon agon pr0n begone!

If the wingtards are spazzing out now, wait until “John Carter Of Mars” is released. not only blue men and white men, but green men and red men and four armed men and many others. All these configurations are designated “men”, and have personalities and complex interrelationships (‘men’ denoting men and women). I’ve read the entire Barsoom series, and the movies grapevine expects them to be big budget ‘franchise of movies’. And John Carter is a Union officer in the Civil War, heh heh.

Look, Cameron ruined the whole romance of the sinking of the Titanic for me

Interesting you should say that. I’ve been interested in the Titanic since I read “A Night to Remember” when I was about 9 or so, and I felt the last hour of the film really brought the event alive for me like nothing else ever had.

The key here is “the last hour”. Just skip the first two dreadful hours. Cameron’s lucky he’s such a great visual innovator (and it doesn’t hurt to have mammoth budgets), because he’s got to be the shittiest writer for a mega-successful director in the history of films.

I am absolutely hard with glee that your SOCIALEST pubic option got NOWHERE! Hah ha ha ha NO SOCIALISM here, we are the USA not the UN and we can do things the AME$RICAN WAY!!!!!

Sitcom retcon recon Pentagon dcon4gone defcon neocon agon pr0n begone!

Ying tong iddle i po!

There’s a Barsoom movie coming?

Topless red women, bondage, red versus green racism, and best of wall white guilt!

best of all, too.

Oh, I like usa number one with a bullet. He’s adorable. Thanks for standing up for the Amesrican Way, moran.

The fact is, I follow all the news a week late. Why are you libs talking about whatever homo alien movie when you could be anticipating the hot new heartland release “All About Steve”?

The fact is, I forgot that dumb white men are already a shrinking minority, and will be all but irrelevant within the next couple of decades.

Well, why are there no gay or transgendered characters in Avatar? Why? Answer me, and not with some pat, heterocentric tautology.

The future is LBGT. Therefore the movie depicts reality incorrectly. Do not pay money to see it and do not see it either.

Stop the gay holocaust here, and now.

[Tintin adds: Fake Lara. This comment comes from the same IP as used by the fake Gary.]

The fact is, I forgot that dumb white men are already a shrinking minority</I.

I think most of them are growing circumferentially.

Well, why are there no gay or transgendered characters in Avatar?

How do you know there weren’t?

OT: I’m listening to Laura Ingraham subbing for O’Reilly on FOX. Ingraham is kindly informing her audience that because the East Coast was slammed by a blizzard, global climate change isn’t real.

Is it possible to make wingnuts write on a chalk board 1000 times “Weather does not equal Climate”?

There were no LBTG characters because no obvious;y non-hetero characters were having sex with each other or engaging in queer theory discourse or using gay science.

[Tintin adds: Fake Lara. This comment comes from the same IP as used by the fake Gary.]

Andrew Stanton (proposed director of “John Carter Of Mars”) wooed me (actor Mark Strong) with the storyboards that he had at the interview. He showed me his vision for the thing and it’s just mind-blowing and the knowledge that he’s made these “Finding Nemo” and “Wall-E” and he wrote “Toy Story”, so he’s a master storyteller and I think the fact that he’s been given the opportunity to direct live-action and a motion capture film together and in the light of “Avatar” knowing that these Pixar guys like to be in the vanguard of everything. You just know that he’s going to turn up something even better. I play a character called Matai Shang. He’s integral. He is, over the course of the 3 movies that they’re envisioning making and I’ve seen the synopsis of the 2nd and 3rd, basically and in the novels, Princess of Mars that Rice Burroughs wrote, Matai Shang is basically John Carter’s nemesis. So he comes into his own during the 2nd half of the current movie and then just basically gets bigger and bigger in the 2nd and 3rd. I spoke to Andrew after the Avatar screening Thursday night. And we were talking to him-a few people and I-about specifically Avatar and I could see the look in his eye about him seeing Avatar and he was mentioning something, you know like now he has to raise his game or now he has to sort of…I don’t want to say alter plans but you know I think Avatar is going to influence every filmmaker who’s working in motion capture of any kind because how could it not. I mean it’s “Avatar” type territory and I think the point I was making before about these Pixar’s guys are always wanting to be in the vanguard. They want to be leading from the front. They’re giving the public stories that the public don’t even know they want. I mean a story about a fish? A story about an old guy keeping his house? On paper, these must seem like, you know, how on earth are you going to carry those things off. Talking toys? Come on. But they I think Andrew said they’re in the business of giving the public what they want before they know they want it. So I can totally imagine he’s gone to see “Avatar” and that’ll just set the cogs whirring in his brain and the twinkle in his eye because he’ll just want to surpass it, no question. It’s something like a $200 million budget. It starts in January and I actually go through to May. I think some of it is also filming in Utah, so it’s a 5 month production based largely in London with some exterior scenes in the desert I assume in Utah. So it’s a massive production.think the fact that it’s a science fiction movie and that it’s going to spend 2 years in post and not come out ’til 2012 means that the vision for it is enormous. And as you pointed out, in the light of “Avatar”, I think they are planning on creating something extraordinary.

There were no LBTG characters because no obvious;y non-hetero characters were having sex with each other or engaging in queer theory discourse or using gay science.

Off-screen?

Lara – true enough, or at least as far as I could tell in one viewing. I’ll go see it a few more times to be sure. But yes, after one showing, I’m going to have to agree it’s pretty heteronormative.

Stop the gay foreskin holocaust right now.

Trans-species is the future.

Gay science, you say?

Trans-species is the future.

We are so 1980s.

It’s a traaaarrrrghp!

No “gay science” was used? The horror.

I’m running right out to purchase tickets & not go to the actual movie.

OT-

Stay classy, Cornfed Wanker!

No “gay science” was used? The horror.

Depends on who you ask. The lead scientist character was very much opposed to the mercenaries’ going in and slaughtering all the natives, and if that isn’t gay from the wingnut POV, I don’t know what is.

Trans-species is the future

i hear the health care bill mandates extraterrestrial sex

i hear the health care bill mandates extraterrestrial sex

So that’s what that whole “Mars bitches!” thing was about.

I didn’t trust the shorter, and now I’m a shattered husk of my former self, of which there was damn little intact to begin with.

Would say something witty, but all I can come up with is “what a pretentious, stuffy, pompous needledick.”

So over to you, George.

The lead scientist character was very much opposed to the mercenaries’ going in and slaughtering all the natives, and if that isn’t gay from the wingnut POV, I don’t know what is.

The lead scientist forgot to advocate the construction of wind farms on the native planet. Therefore it’s not gay enough.

Forgetting to change back to your usual nym happens to be just the right amount of gay.

Stay classy, Cornfed Wanker!

Class shmass. I’m sure we have no issue chuckling over the deaths of Jesse Helms and Strom Thurmond.

But we had reason. They were miserable old racist, bigoted fucks. Ol’ TIDOS, on the other hand, is wishing for Byrd’s death because he is one of very many who support a mild change in policy, and he just happens to be old. It’s the banality, the lack of proportion that gets me whenever this happens, as it frequently does.

a special committe will be appointed to instrument the movie and measure the amount of teh gaii

the results will be reported in the usual ‘douthat’ units

Robert Byrd has been around a very long time, and his many decades of service have made West Virginia a wonderful state in which to manufacture methamphetamine or frame the locals for murder.

Someone should tell Cornfed Wanker that he shouldn’t piss off one of the few remaining states in the wingnuts’ corner.

It’s sort of funny that a dink that runs under the handle “Confederate” would consider Byrd’s past with the KKK something shameful.

It’s sort of funny that a dink that runs under the handle “Confederate” would consider Byrd’s past with the KKK something shameful.

When you take into consideration that Byrd left the Klan, Cornfed’s ire is not that difficult to understand.

west virginia has a highly respectable origin in that it came into existence because it didn’t want to join the rest of virginia in the confederacy
.

True, but how many West Virginians recall that nowadays? More than I suspect but less than I hope.

It’s sort of funny that a dink that runs under the handle “Confederate” would consider Byrd’s past with the KKK something shameful.

Only because as a wingnut he’s obliged to beat anyone he thinks is a liberal with any club he can get his hands on.

True, but how many West Virginians recall that nowadays? More than I suspect but less than I hope.

Depends on the parts you’re in, I’d say. Closer to D.C. the better your odds, and the college towns, also.
~

Depends on the parts you’re in, I’d say. Closer to D.C. the better your odds, and the college towns, also.

Not that my home state has room to talk. It was a Union state during the Civil War. However it elected a congresscritter who believes any mention that slave labor built the Capitol Building wouldn’t be a “balanced depiction of history”:

http://thinkprogress.org/2009/07/09/king-slave-labor-vote/

Well, Ohio has a claim to fame:

The Ku Klux Klan was especially strong in Ohio during the 1910s and 1920s. In Summit County, the Klan claimed to have fifty thousand members, making it the largest local chapter in the United States. Many of the county’s officials were members, including the sheriff, the Akron mayor, several judges and county commissioners, and most members of Akron’s school board. The Klan was also very popular in Licking County, where the group held its state konklave (convention) in 1923 and 1925. More than seventy thousand people attended each event. The konklaves were held at Buckeye Lake, a popular tourist attraction in the early twentieth century.

which is too bad, considering the work done years earlier:

The Underground Railroad in Ohio reached its greatest level of activity in the 1840s, and more stations existed in Ohio than in any other state. For the safety of all involved, few records were kept of the numbers and identities of persons who reached freedom along the railroad, but it is estimated that at least 40,000 passed through Ohio.

And trust me, Licking County isn’t the sybaritic hedonist wonderland its name implies.

Gay science, you say?
I refuse to be pigeon-holed. Or even placed in a Nietzsche.

True, but how many West Virginians recall that nowadays? More than I suspect but less than I hope.

Depends on the parts you’re in, I’d say. Closer to D.C. the better your odds, and the college towns, also.

I dunno, to get to the WV border you go through some rural and more conservative parts of VA and MD.

WRT the Foreskin Holocaust…

…you’re welcome.

Knowing that I have added to the lore of this blog…wait, no, I’ve just got something in my eye…

Knowing that I have added to the lore of this blog…

But of course! Wasn’t it you that introduced us all to “Scuse my finGAHs”?

Yes, the Shithouse Troll. Also. Too. Children of the Corndog.

Impressive!

Actually that should have been, “Yes, the Shithouse Troll.“

Next week’s column: “Jar Jar Binks and the Rise of Rastafarianism”.

“Jar Jar Binks and the Rise of Rastafarianism”.

Something like that – all I know is that after Ep. 1 hit the theatres here all the kids were wearing dreadlobes.

Shithouse Troll

is he the one selling those trollhouse cookies?
.

Actually in most if not all futuristic science fiction settings around a third to a half of the population (at any given time) is transgender(ed). It’s just that they do it really well, so you can’t even tell without a gene scan.

Uh… would the plural form of multiplex be multiplices?

Edifice Complex.

Dragon-King Wangchuck said,
Which, given it’s B.O….

Wait, you mean the President turns into a white guy in the last first 2 minutes of his term?

FTFY

Oh my god. I kept thinking people were wrong but I clicked through and, really, that is some of the fucking worst writing I have ever seen. Boooooorrrrriiinnggggggg……………………………………..zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

How the hell do people like Douthat get jobs writing? Holy fuck!

Yes, the Shithouse Troll. Also. Too. Children of the Corndog.

well done.

All I’ve managed to contribute is flogging the Humorless Dildos.

How the hell do people like Douthat get jobs writing?

He gots a purty mouf…

We suffer and die. And there are spiders. So Nature sucks.

Door-to-Door God salesman

hmmm…that reminds me of something

This was posted where? Anyone care to guess? Could it be….stopavatarmovie.com?

PeeJ, has anyone posted on that lame-ass blog about what a failure his website is?

I mean, he sure stopped . . . nothing, didn’t he? The movie’s been nominated for several awards, grossed millions over the last weekend, and has been described as having as much impact on filmmaking this decade as Star Wars did 20 30 years ago. Shit, I’m getting old.

Anyway, maybe someone has a graphic of the Simsons’ Nelson to post on that site. ‘Cause, like, the failure of stopavatarmovie is as epic as the movie itself. Only moreso. Because it’s awesome to watch conservatives freak the fuck out.

I think the real hilarity of the situation is that conservatives, being uncreative folks, just don’t get why something like a movie can have such a huge impact. They of course do make conservative-themed movies meant to shove a bunch of gag-reflex-inducing ideology down the throat of the mainstream, but because so few artistic, intelligent people are conservative, they only manage to make a shadow of a real work of art. I remember trying to hold my gag reflex through the teaser trailers for “Fireproof” staring Kirk-not-related-at-all-to-James Cameron, and seeing immediately that it was little more than a piece of Christian propaganda dreck that would make most mainstream viewers either deathly bored, or violently ill. It had no artistic merit whatsoever because these hacktastic conservative scolds have no subtlety, and no concept whatsoever that there could be more than one side to a story.

In Avatar there were clearly two sides to the story and Cameron pretty deftly moved you through the familiar to the exotic as the story progressed, rotating your frame of reference until it was completely inverted. This takes some skill, and intelligence, and some hard work. I think conservative hack propagandists probably lack significant quantities of all three of the above requirements, and so conservative-themed films are both geared specifically at firing up people already familiar with the message of the movie, and reinforcing that message as exclusive and unalterable. Because drawing in someone who doesn’t want or need to understand your story takes work, and requires skill. To appeal to a more universal audience, you have to be willing to understand their point of view and sympathise with it.

Case in point: Col. Quaritch begins as a sympathetic character. He shows his battle scars from his years attempting to survive on a very hostile planet, and he gives Jake the encouragement he needs to fit in in a new environment. Cameron then accentuates the contrast between what Quaritch is doing vs. what Jake is learning about his new friends until it’s easy to see Quaritch as very little more than, in the awesome dialogue from one of Cameron’s own previous films, an “A-J, squared-away, robot jarhead.” Even after that, at the end you get a little bit of a sympathetic jolt with Quaritch’s final quip to Jake asking how it feels to betray his own world.

Conservatives could not write a “liberal” character with whom you could even begin to sympathise. I believe they genuinely do not grasp what liberals want, believe, or think. When trolls alight on the rough skin of S-N to drool their conservative talking points, it’s always as if they’re suddenly arriving from another planet where they don’t get the language or customs. They don’t realize that the mockery of their viewpoints and heroes is not the beginning of the destruction of their arguments, it’s the end. You start with disagreement, by the time you’re laughing at someone you’re laughing them out of the room because it’s all too easy.

Conservatives are desperate to re-ignite their mainstream appeal and hate Hollywood as much for its success in creating that appeal as they do for reflecting the mainstream values of our culture, and of course since those mainstream values are far more liberal than they are “permitted” to be by the morons behind the DC beltway, conservatives attack the messenger rather than even attempt to understand the message. They think that movies like Avatar are creating the mainstream. It’s unpossible for them to understand that it is merely reflecting that mainstream.

–FACT IS –having made BILLIONS upon BILLIONS
these past decades catering to the franchise slum needs
of history’s —MOST— awesomely genocidal regime
—ACROSS the Pacific —( 70 million downed in ‘peacetime’ FACT )Cameron and Hollywood
generally are running for shrinking moral cover behind
the stalest of Boomer era PC ‘conciousness’ —or,
even worse, round after round of anchronistic, ad nauseum
PC WWII retreads –er, e mean ‘tributes’.

-case closed-