Wednesday, March 31, 2004
Before messageboards, comic book letters pages was one way for geeks to argue and put forth their faceless opinions. One comic that seemed to have a really, well, interesting letters page was Dave Sim's Cerebus.
Dave Sim is a pretty complicated guy. Most of those complications stem from his treatise on women, 'Tangent'.
Some highlights include:
All I got out of that research, I already knew: a) women want to be raped by rich, muscular, handsome doctors b) women are completely self-absorbed and, thus, see themselves in everything around them and c) feminism is no different from communism in that all of its literature is founded upon convoluted syntax, bafflegab and academic jargon which paints a false (albeit attractive) picture of an unattainable utopia which can be achieved - easily! - by everyone in the world simply and simultaneously (in both feminist and communist literature the "crux point" is invariable) changing their basic nature overaight. Acknowledging - (grudgingly) the small likelihood of so sweeping a societal change coming about on its own, "a rigorous and thorough program of (communist and feminist literature share an admiration for the euphemism) re-education may be called for." That is, all "non-comrades, non-fellow travellers" must be subjected to unrelenting political indoctrination, sloganeering and brainwashing ("A woman's right to choose! A woman's right to choose!").
His thoughts on government funded daycare:
not only is it fiscally irresponsible and an inherently unfair use of public funds (benefiting only those mothers who choose to work), it is diametrically opposed to a central tenet of any civilized society: that children are the responsibility of their parents to rear. When was the last time you even heard it described as 'rearing children'? 'You rear children. You raise hogs.' What the feminists and their ventriloquist puppet husbands are talking about doing with Government-Funded Daycare is raising children as if they were a herd of interchangeable swine. No surprise coming from a gender which has no ethics, no scruples, no sense of right and wrong. Just hand the kids over to the voodoo profession, social workers, government bean counters and go along with whatever happens to be the Ethical Consensus du Jour. 'Raise' boys to be girls, 'raise' girls to be boys.'"
Read 'Tangent' in its entirety here.
After 'Tangent' it seemed like The Cerebus letter column just got sort of wacky. It's pretty much the only reason why I read Cerebus. I skim the story and skip right to the letter column. It's nice way to have all of your convictions challenged and then realize that quite literally the majority of the men writing in who have disparaging things to say about the feminist movement or feminist theory really don't have very much interaction with women. It's hard to take someone's "straight up account of what feminism really means to men" seriously when they have never seen women as having anything more than instrumental value in the first place.
So why am I thinking of Dave Sim today? Lots of reasons, but one is that there's an interview with him in the latest edition of the Onion. Read it because it's a lot better than last week's feature interview with Jason Bateman.
Dave Sim is a pretty complicated guy. Most of those complications stem from his treatise on women, 'Tangent'.
Some highlights include:
All I got out of that research, I already knew: a) women want to be raped by rich, muscular, handsome doctors b) women are completely self-absorbed and, thus, see themselves in everything around them and c) feminism is no different from communism in that all of its literature is founded upon convoluted syntax, bafflegab and academic jargon which paints a false (albeit attractive) picture of an unattainable utopia which can be achieved - easily! - by everyone in the world simply and simultaneously (in both feminist and communist literature the "crux point" is invariable) changing their basic nature overaight. Acknowledging - (grudgingly) the small likelihood of so sweeping a societal change coming about on its own, "a rigorous and thorough program of (communist and feminist literature share an admiration for the euphemism) re-education may be called for." That is, all "non-comrades, non-fellow travellers" must be subjected to unrelenting political indoctrination, sloganeering and brainwashing ("A woman's right to choose! A woman's right to choose!").
His thoughts on government funded daycare:
not only is it fiscally irresponsible and an inherently unfair use of public funds (benefiting only those mothers who choose to work), it is diametrically opposed to a central tenet of any civilized society: that children are the responsibility of their parents to rear. When was the last time you even heard it described as 'rearing children'? 'You rear children. You raise hogs.' What the feminists and their ventriloquist puppet husbands are talking about doing with Government-Funded Daycare is raising children as if they were a herd of interchangeable swine. No surprise coming from a gender which has no ethics, no scruples, no sense of right and wrong. Just hand the kids over to the voodoo profession, social workers, government bean counters and go along with whatever happens to be the Ethical Consensus du Jour. 'Raise' boys to be girls, 'raise' girls to be boys.'"
Read 'Tangent' in its entirety here.
After 'Tangent' it seemed like The Cerebus letter column just got sort of wacky. It's pretty much the only reason why I read Cerebus. I skim the story and skip right to the letter column. It's nice way to have all of your convictions challenged and then realize that quite literally the majority of the men writing in who have disparaging things to say about the feminist movement or feminist theory really don't have very much interaction with women. It's hard to take someone's "straight up account of what feminism really means to men" seriously when they have never seen women as having anything more than instrumental value in the first place.
So why am I thinking of Dave Sim today? Lots of reasons, but one is that there's an interview with him in the latest edition of the Onion. Read it because it's a lot better than last week's feature interview with Jason Bateman.
This is what I thought of "The Return of the Curse of the Creature's Ghost" aka Dawn of the Dead
(I apologizie to Lachie for seeing it without him, but somehow I've lost his number)
The movie wasn't as bad as many people would like to make it out to be. The opening scene set in the suburbs and detailing the mayhem of having block parents turn into the undead was pretty great up until the Johnny Cash sequence. I thought the Johnny Cash sequence was a tad too pedantic. It just seemed too much. I'm not a big fan of montage scenes narrated by music in the first place. It didn't work very well in Bowling For Columbine and it doesn't work very well in Dawn. If a film is going to have some sort of commentary the best way to deliver it isn't through an ironic montage.
I like the idea of people having their social routines entirely fucked up and having no idea how to cope. The movie didn't focus a lot on that, but it's a theme that I guess is implicit in any zombie film. One scene that I thought was pretty memorable for that was when the Sarah Polley group of survivors first entered the mall and the security guards refused to defer to Ving Rhames' police authority. It wasn't a huge part, but it was there and I liked it. It reminds me of the blizzard and making sure we went out after curfew. When there's 5-6 foot snowdrift outside your door the last thing you're caring about is being home by 11. I suppose the same holds true when there's a legion of the undead banging on the door of the 'Roots' store.
The mall in the film seemed to be a bit underused, but there was some great comedy through out the when it was showing how the new denizens of the mall were coping.
Some great parts from that:
-Andy's response to Kenneth on the wipeboard after being bitten (which I suppose was more morbid than "funny", but it was still great)
-the Tom Savini cameo
-the Celebrity look-a-like zombies
-when CJ is in the elevator and says "I like this song"
The ending/credits was ok until they cued that awful song. I think it was Disturbed. I can just picture a group of 30 somethings clad in suits sitting around and thinking how inventive it would be to include this song during the video camera sequence. It was terrible.
The movie wasn't amazing. There are a number of things that you wished had been treated differently, but that's primarily due to the fact that the whole way through this movie you have it in the back of your head that there's an original version of this movie where they do this particular scene or sequence differently. I also kept comparing it to "28 Days Later" which is overall a better film. I thought "Dawn of the Dead" was entertaining for what it was. It wasn't a particularly dumb horror film and it wasn't a particularly great one. Most of its flaws are highlighted, undeservedly, by comparisons to the superior aforementionned zombie movies. For what it is, a horror movie that doesn't appeal to the lowest common denominator (aside from the final moments of the closing credits), Dawn of the Dead is entertaining.
(I apologizie to Lachie for seeing it without him, but somehow I've lost his number)
The movie wasn't as bad as many people would like to make it out to be. The opening scene set in the suburbs and detailing the mayhem of having block parents turn into the undead was pretty great up until the Johnny Cash sequence. I thought the Johnny Cash sequence was a tad too pedantic. It just seemed too much. I'm not a big fan of montage scenes narrated by music in the first place. It didn't work very well in Bowling For Columbine and it doesn't work very well in Dawn. If a film is going to have some sort of commentary the best way to deliver it isn't through an ironic montage.
I like the idea of people having their social routines entirely fucked up and having no idea how to cope. The movie didn't focus a lot on that, but it's a theme that I guess is implicit in any zombie film. One scene that I thought was pretty memorable for that was when the Sarah Polley group of survivors first entered the mall and the security guards refused to defer to Ving Rhames' police authority. It wasn't a huge part, but it was there and I liked it. It reminds me of the blizzard and making sure we went out after curfew. When there's 5-6 foot snowdrift outside your door the last thing you're caring about is being home by 11. I suppose the same holds true when there's a legion of the undead banging on the door of the 'Roots' store.
The mall in the film seemed to be a bit underused, but there was some great comedy through out the when it was showing how the new denizens of the mall were coping.
Some great parts from that:
-Andy's response to Kenneth on the wipeboard after being bitten (which I suppose was more morbid than "funny", but it was still great)
-the Tom Savini cameo
-the Celebrity look-a-like zombies
-when CJ is in the elevator and says "I like this song"
The ending/credits was ok until they cued that awful song. I think it was Disturbed. I can just picture a group of 30 somethings clad in suits sitting around and thinking how inventive it would be to include this song during the video camera sequence. It was terrible.
The movie wasn't amazing. There are a number of things that you wished had been treated differently, but that's primarily due to the fact that the whole way through this movie you have it in the back of your head that there's an original version of this movie where they do this particular scene or sequence differently. I also kept comparing it to "28 Days Later" which is overall a better film. I thought "Dawn of the Dead" was entertaining for what it was. It wasn't a particularly dumb horror film and it wasn't a particularly great one. Most of its flaws are highlighted, undeservedly, by comparisons to the superior aforementionned zombie movies. For what it is, a horror movie that doesn't appeal to the lowest common denominator (aside from the final moments of the closing credits), Dawn of the Dead is entertaining.
