Film, media and art links
Guardian readers rate the 50 best TV series ever (seen on British TV).
Google™ seems to have some issues about ‘Islam’ searches.
A 90 year old Canadian history magazine is changing its name.
Nice video of where the NYT is read around the world during a particular day.
This review makes Daybreakers sound like lots of fun. (As one comment says “A vampire movie with a car chase ? I am so there.”)
Hitch on Gore Vidal’s decline from mordant, satirical wit to crackpot.
The NPR Ombudsman responding intelligently to conservative outrage over an NPR animation on “how to speak tea bag”. A nice related piece on political terminology.
The BBC may be dumping the UK Met Office.
The “Met” is quietly pulling images of Muhammad from its public collection.
A German editor arguing that the West is taking a fearful response to violent Muslim outrage. Interviewing Hitch on such matters. The second part of the interview.
Clive Hamilton on not giving artists licence to break every taboo in their private lives.
And now, 3D porn.
I have not seen Avatar, but this made me laugh:
Avatar's plot is virtually identical to Ferngully, a shit-for-brains, message-heavy kids' cartoon about pixies who must stop loggers from destroying their rainforest. One human pretends to be a pixie and falls in love with the pixies and discovers how precious their world is. That is the plot of Avatar, except this new mega-production isn't handled as maturely as the kiddie movie, and it has a shitload more carnage.
Someone with a lot experience among the Navaho really dislikes the noble savage theme in Avatar:
Why not rip off The Last of the Mohicans and have some bad Na’vi thrown into the mix? That would at the very least be more interesting, and certainly more honest. A film wherein the natives are not only exploited but turned against one another - whose weaknesses are exploited as well - would be more complex and realistic. Or Cameron could have taken some pages from the The Mission - a film which took seriously the questions of colonization, religious colonization and the indigenous response, and the merits of passive resistance.
This is the problem with treating the Na’vi as noble savages. They are unbelievable. They are too easy too sympathize with - childlike, fragile - and this exposes them to the white-man-as-savior theme all too easily.
Some Chinese perspectives on Avatar. The plot of Avatar summarized in a minute: all blue eyes, all blue skin, what’s the difference?
Google™ seems to have some issues about ‘Islam’ searches.
A 90 year old Canadian history magazine is changing its name.
Nice video of where the NYT is read around the world during a particular day.
This review makes Daybreakers sound like lots of fun. (As one comment says “A vampire movie with a car chase ? I am so there.”)
Hitch on Gore Vidal’s decline from mordant, satirical wit to crackpot.
The NPR Ombudsman responding intelligently to conservative outrage over an NPR animation on “how to speak tea bag”. A nice related piece on political terminology.
The BBC may be dumping the UK Met Office.
The “Met” is quietly pulling images of Muhammad from its public collection.
A German editor arguing that the West is taking a fearful response to violent Muslim outrage. Interviewing Hitch on such matters. The second part of the interview.
Clive Hamilton on not giving artists licence to break every taboo in their private lives.
And now, 3D porn.
I have not seen Avatar, but this made me laugh:
Avatar's plot is virtually identical to Ferngully, a shit-for-brains, message-heavy kids' cartoon about pixies who must stop loggers from destroying their rainforest. One human pretends to be a pixie and falls in love with the pixies and discovers how precious their world is. That is the plot of Avatar, except this new mega-production isn't handled as maturely as the kiddie movie, and it has a shitload more carnage.
Someone with a lot experience among the Navaho really dislikes the noble savage theme in Avatar:
Why not rip off The Last of the Mohicans and have some bad Na’vi thrown into the mix? That would at the very least be more interesting, and certainly more honest. A film wherein the natives are not only exploited but turned against one another - whose weaknesses are exploited as well - would be more complex and realistic. Or Cameron could have taken some pages from the The Mission - a film which took seriously the questions of colonization, religious colonization and the indigenous response, and the merits of passive resistance.
This is the problem with treating the Na’vi as noble savages. They are unbelievable. They are too easy too sympathize with - childlike, fragile - and this exposes them to the white-man-as-savior theme all too easily.
Some Chinese perspectives on Avatar. The plot of Avatar summarized in a minute: all blue eyes, all blue skin, what’s the difference?