Entertainment & Sports: March 2004 Archives
I watched Dawn of the Dead on Saturday night, and it was decent. Not as good or as creepy as 28 Days Later, but still respectably entertaining. They managed to peg my greatest fear in the first five minutes: scary little girls (that's a great poster). Ever since The Shining ghost/zombie-girls give me chills. Go figure.
Even aside from the zombies, some parts of the movie were a bit unbelievable. How did the heroes get into the mall and why couldn't the zombies? How could the zombies move so fast without an energy source? How could the zombies be thwarted by locked doors at a mall and yet still manage to overrun a ton of army bases? How did the zombies spread across water?
28 raised most of these same problems, but the mechanism by which its zombie-ism spread were a bit more realistic and scary. Even so, no such disease could wipe out humanity, simply because in both movies zombie-ism spreads so quickly. Ebola is deadly and highly communicative, but it stays in one place because it destroys its hosts' mobility so early in the infection. Zombies can't pilot planes or ships, so it's unlikely that they could spread very easily between continents or even across deserts. Then again, do zombies breathe or drink? Who knows.
I saw a pretty cool preview of Van Helsing before the show. I hope it's good; I love vampire movies.
I rarely read or quote Andrew Sullivan anymore, largely because of the vitriolic nonsense he spews over the gay marriage issue; it bores me and leaves me dumber for having read it.
I want to address one particular post of his that I only noticed because Justin Katz is tearing Mr. Sullivan apart over larger topics.
Mr. Sullivan didn't like the movie The Passion, and doesn't much like its creator either -- even going so far as to call Mel Gibson a "heretic" using language that palpably longs to burn him at the nearest stake.
I'm tired of people believing that Gibson is representing Catholicism. He isn't. He is a rebel against Catholicism, specifically the reformed, open, repentant Catholicism of the Second Vatican Council. Gibson doesn't recognize the authority of the current Pope; he doesn't recognize the current mass - the central ritual of Catholics across the world. People are mistaken in believing that he merely prefers the Latin mass; he doesn't. He favors the Tridentine mass, a relic. He believes that all non-Catholics are going to hell, another heresy. He is clearly and palpably anti-Semitic. His movie is an act of aggression against Jews, and, as such, is an act of aggression against Catholicism and the current Pope's heroic efforts to confront the shameful history of the Church with regard to the Jewish people.Further, on Mr. Gibson's obvious anti-Semitism:
[T]hat Gibson would use the message of Christ to advance it is what makes it doubly unforgivable.For the first part, Mr. Sullivan gives absolutely no indication of where he gets his information. Some of the facts may be right, but where are they from? As for his characterizations of Mr. Gibson's opinions, those most certainly require some sourcing if anyone is going to take them seriously.
"He believes that all non-Catholics are going to hell, another heresy." Has he said this? If so, I'd very much like to know when and where. I doubt he has though, because his critics would have plastered it up on a billboard long before now, considering some of his biggest supporters are non-Catholic evangelicals. Further, Mr. Gibson has spent a great deal of time meeting with protestant religious leaders during the course of promoting his movie, and from what I've read by Christians I know here in Southern California no one got the impression that Mr. Gibson was anything but sincere. (Then again, he's an actor!)
"He is clearly and palpably anti-Semitic." It's so clear that there's a major controversy over the truth of that "fact", and most people -- across the spectrum -- apparently disagree with Mr. Sullivan. Probably because most people are stupid and...
not familiar with the medieval tropes that signal evil and that Gibson trafficks in. Gibson knows. And he knows how his movie will play in those parts of the world where anti-Semitic tropes are still recognized.How clever of Mr. Gibson to package his anti-Semitism so subtly that it will be ineffective! Except in other parts of the world that are already anti-Semetic. If you already hate Jews, here's more fodder -- but anti-Semites show a tendency to blame Jews for everything and hardly need rational justification.
"[T]hat Gibson would use the message of Christ to advance it is what makes it doubly unforgivable." I wasn't aware that anti-Semitism is unforgivable. I'm no expert on Catholic doctrine, but my general understanding is that nothing is completely unforgivable. Who's the heretic now?
Andrew Sullivan is a mean, hateful, anti-Melite.
Update:
Here's a quote from an interview Mr. Gibson gave to the Austrailian Herald Sun, in which he says that non-Catholics are indeed hell-bound.
Gibson was interviewed by the Herald Sun in Australia, and the reporter asked the star if Protestants are denied eternal salvation. “There is no salvation for those outside the Church,” Gibson replied. “I believe it.”It sounds to me like he knows he's supposed to believe it because the Pope (that's "the chair", right?) says so. If he really does believe it, his actions don't show it. But if the Pope says it then it isn't heretical (to Catholics), as Andrew Sullivan claimed, right? Eh, I don't know, the whole Catholic Church thing confuses me sometimes.He elaborated: “Put it this way. My wife is a saint. She’s a much better person than I am. Honestly. She’s, like, Episcopalian, Church of England. She prays, she believes in God, she knows Jesus, she believes in that stuff. And it’s just not fair if she doesn’t make it, she’s better than I am. But that is a pronouncement from the chair. I go with it."
My January post encouraging Sean Penn to spare us his political opinions has gotten a lot of attention from search engines since the Academy Awards, and numerous new comments.
I like Danny Elfman even more now. Don't forget Beetlejuice. Check out the lyrics for his song about Capitalism.
