Culture

I just read the last issue of Cerebus. That’s it; ain’t any more. For an insane guy, Dave Sim sure draws a pretty comic. It never stopped being gorgeous. I wish I could say kinder things about it; I am staggered by the weight of it. Thousands upon thousands of pages. There have been few such extended achievements. When both he and Gerhard are dead, Cerebus will enter the public domain. He has arranged for the negatives to remain with trustworthy custodians, and they will be available to those who wish to reprint any portion of it. The attentive will notice that those two statements are not entirely congruent. Who knows? I’m going to spoil the end now.

Celestial Pictures is restoring and rereleasing 75% of the Shaw Brothers library on DVD (original). Alas, they’re all region 3 DVDs. If only I’d just purchased a region-free DVD player… Oh, wait. I did.

Who doesn’t need more books? Lorem Ipsum (original), the hot new used bookstore in Inman Square, is throwing a grand opening party (original) this Friday at 7 PM. My brother made their bookshelves. They have a blog (original). They’re cool. See you there.

Hey, look — liberal talk radio (original). That actually fits the pattern. The news media is slanting increasingly conservative, but the entertainment media is darned liberal.

Moriarty reviewed The Passion over on AICN; unlike most of the Passion reviews on AICN, his was fairly negative. I note his review not because of that directly, but because of some of the replies to the review: “Most movies that are made in Hollywood are anti-white? Hollywood is controlled by jews. Most Hollywood movies have British and German villains. Blacks are overrepresented on TV. They’re either seen as the “victim” or superior to Whites. Blacks are NEVER portrayed negatviely, whereas whites are always the villains. Clearly this is anti-white racism at the hands of Hollywood jews.” ...

William Cork is keeping a very good blog on The Passion. I pretty much concur with his thoughts on the movie, which are summarized here (original). I still think Mel Gibson is a well-meaning individual, but until he takes a deep breath and acknowledges that his father is a lunatic and that his movie is going to inspire hatred, it really doesn’t matter what his motivations are. Take a look at some Hutton Gibson quotes from the link above (via Orcinus): ...

The Apprentice has been pretty much enh for a couple of weeks — one team was clearly better, and they were destroying the other team. There was some amusement value from watching Jessie stab Kristi, and then get fired the next week. (Kristi: “What should I do?” Jessie: “Oh, don’t say anything until Mr. Trump talks to you.” Kristi: “OK!” Later, Trump: “You’re not very assertive, Kristi. You’re fired.”) Oh, and the bit where Troy carefully manipulated the Fab Five into giving him a good item for a charity auction? That was great. He told the camera what he was gonna do and say, he did it, and it worked like a charm. But there weren’t a lot of good moments like that. ...

Why are you not reading Broog’s film criticism? Do you not know what it is that you are missing? The mighty cinematic edifice which is the human Jackson’s rendering of Tolkien’s classic novel grinds to its imperial conclusion in the third film, “Lord of the Rings: The Fat Jolly Hobbit Saves Middle Earth And Everyone Is Nice To His Whiny Friend”. The movie follows the exploits of Sam as he hauls his limp and apparently pointless companion across the dark desolation of Mordor, struggling against hunger, despair, orcs, giant spiders, Gollum, and what must surely be an overpowering desire to slap Frodo until he resembles a hubcap. ...

“Dave Sim is the only person out there who can tell us what it’s like to self-publish your own wholly idiosyncratic black-and-white comic book for 25 years straight while delivering massive polemics on esoteric issues, and from points of view that most people find indefensible. He’s a wholly unique individual. And while you could argue that EVERYONE is wholly unique, and I’d have to agree, that doesn’t mean they have wholly unique things to say. Dave does.” ...

I got three comments (on the same entry) in my Livejournal mirror encouraging me to go see The Passion of the Christ. This does not, in fact, convince me to adopt the recommended course of action. This is pretty much the sort of thing that I anticipated: I don’t think Mel Gibson set out to make a dangerous movie, but I thought that it was the kind of movie that would encourage poor behavior unless he took counterbalancing steps. Spam comments aren’t dangerous, but they do show a distinct disregard for social mores. I expect more of the same, and possibly darker actions. Call me a cynic. ...