It’s so hard to say I’m sorry for “stumbling into a use of words that in the past people have taken as code for anti-Semitic feelings” but the “Jewish executives [who] worship money above all else” have finally prevailed upon Gregg Easterbrook to retract his ridiculous comments on Kill Bill: Volume 1.
Writer Takes Jews to Task for ‘Kill Bill’ by Bernard Weinraub
Now, will Gregg Easterbrook apologize for his other offenses?
Earlier apologies from low culture
Movie Poop Shoot: Hollywood Elsewhere – October 8, 2003
Liberal “blowhard” Michael Moore (who is otherwise a very respectable fellow, save for that objectionable “blowhard” part…he ruined the Academy Awards!) has said his next film, “Fahrenheit 9/11,” is due to be released in September of 2004. The tagline? “The temperature where freedom burns.” The subject matter? The Bush dynasty’s connection to Saudi oil magnates and the White House assistance given to Bin Laden’s relatives in their efforts to leave the country in the waning days after September 11, 2001, a period of time during which all other planes were grounded by the FAA.
“Fahrenheit 9/11”? If you’re going to politically riff on Ray Bradbury titles, wouldn’t some pun related to “Something Wicked This Way Comes” have worked better? Anyway, it’s better than the neo-dadaist “Bowling for Columbine”.
Here’s the shocker: the documentary is being co-produced by Mel Gibson‘s Icon Productions, the same company releasing the action star and director’s uber-biblical (and possibly uber-anti-Semitic) “The Passion” next spring. This, you may recall, is the supposedly literal reading (even down to the Aramaic-language dialogue) of the bible’s documentation of the last days of Christ, complete with Christ-killing Jews. Because, you know, that’s the way it really happened. I mean, it’s in the book, even…
Now, take another gander at Moore’s film’s projected release date, September, 2004. The same month of the Republican Convention in Manhattan, mere miles from Ground Zero, on the event’s three-year anniversary. September, 2004, a little more than one month before the presidential election. Prime influence-peddling time.
I guess it’s a little early to speculate about Fahrenheit 9/11’s potential for incendiary content, but expect some topical punches to be pulled. It’s a sure bet that in any fistfight, Mel Gibson could so kick Michael Moore’s ass.
You know why? Because Michael Moore is a fat motherfucker, and overweight to boot! He is so easy for rightwingers to make fun of!
Earlier this week, it was announced that President Bush had raised $49.5 million in just the last three months alone for next year’s campaign. At this rate, he is expected to surpass $200 million with which he can soundly trounce whichever mediocre candidate the Democratic Party nominates to run for president next fall.
We would like to take this opportunity to wish the President much success with his “fuzzy math” endeavors as he gleefully counts the 54 electoral votes handed to him by Governor Schwarzenegger (as well as some very shortsighted voters) in California, as well as the 25 “bonus brethren” points afforded him by Florida Governor Jeb Bush.
Incidentally, regarding his Iraqi victory of yesteryear, one of the choice quotes uttered by the President at his appearance in San Bernardino this afternoon included the liberal-angst-inducing line: “I acted because I am not about to leave the security of the American people in the hands of a madman.”
There is still something gawky and virginal about [Quentin] Tarantino. There’s almost no sex in his movies. He says that’s because he can’t deal with becoming yet another sleazy Hollywood director talking a girl into taking her top off…
From The Movie Lover by Larissa MacFarquhar in this week’s New Yorker (article, sadly, not online).
You mean like “Q.T.,” the character Tarantino played in Spike Lee’s Girl 6 in 1996?
The New York Times‘ John Markoff tells Online Journalism Review that “it’s not clear yet whether blogging is anything more than CB radio.”
If his quip sounds familiar, that’s because professional friend-loser Toby Young said the same thing about the Internet (in general) in Vanity Fair way back in 1995.
[OJR link via Romenesko]
My all-time favorite online time waster? Easy: FilmWise‘s Invisible Quizzes. Can you identify your favorite actor or actress by posture only? Did you pay close enough attention to spot your favorite movie by the costumes and sets alone?
I’ve lost weeks on this site.
In other circumstances, the following legal case might have sent shivers of terror down the spines of American military leaders and their elected superiors. Alas, we live in an era where the nation with the world’s largest economy has forced its hand and more or less exempted itself from war-crimes prosecution. Through economic bribery, of course.
Yesterday, a court in Germany began arguments in a case seeking damages against the German government by Serbs whose relatives were killed in the 1999 NATO bombing campaign, when a handful of jets dropped bombs upon a bridge in a small village “far removed from the breakaway province of Kosovo where Slobodon Milosevic’s Serbian army was brutally suppressing ethnic Albanians and fighting off NATO air raids.”
The result of this particular bombing run? 10 civilians were killed on a quiet Sunday afternoon.
The families of the victims are seeking $4.1 million from the German government, though neither the pilots nor the jets themselves were German.
“They claim that Germany, although not directly involved in the attack, knew of and approved the bombing despite the bridge’s obvious civilian usage. Germany is in this case representative for all of NATO, explained the Hamburg lawyer Gul Pinar, who also criticized the government for sanctioning an attack without warning on a civilian target on a church holiday.
The lawyer for the relatives, Ulrich Dost, says the 35 Serbs are suing on the basis of a 1977 protocol added to the Geneva Convention which calls on signatories, including Germany, to distinguish between civilians and the military and “direct their operations only against military objectives.” The bridge in Varvarin, he added, had no military significance.”
10 people on a Sunday afternoon in a remote Serbian village? Why, that’s nothing! I mean, it’s not like the war crime that ensued when American bombers killed almost 30 Afghans, and wounded many more, at a wedding party in July 2002.
I’m sorry. Did I just say war crime? I meant “tactical error.” Good luck suing the U.S. for that, chumps! We’re immune from the impact of cases like your supposedly precedent-setting German lawsuit.
The LA Weekly claims something called Eddie Brandt’s Saturday Matinee is the best video store in LA? Talk about East Side snobbery! Everyone knows that Vidiots rules. Totally worth the forty minute drive on the 10.
After snapping up some staff picks, drive the two blocks (15 minutes) to Cha-Cha-Chicken for spinach quesadillas with dirty rice and beans.
Quick! Which photo is an official promotional image of FOX’s new Joe Millionaire and which one did I find by going to images.google.com and typing gay+cowboy?
Answer: Joe Millionaire is on the left, like it matters.
From the Washington Post‘s Battle Over Iraq Budget Begins by Jonathan Weisman and Dan Balz:
Retired Army Gen. Wesley K. Clark, who said he probably would have voted for the war resolution and later said he would have opposed it, has joined other Democrats in criticizing the administration’s current course in Iraq. But spokeswoman Kym Spell said Clark had no position on the $87 billion request. “He’s not in Congress,” she said. “He’s running for president.”