By Jason Apuzzo. • Can the theocrats in Iran possibly be any more obnoxious? It’s bad enough that Iran is blocking Jafar Panahi from attending the Venice Film Festival, but now a hard-line Iranian newspaper is calling Carla Bruni a “prostitute,” because she had the audacity to condemn a stoning sentence against an Iranian woman convicted of adultery. This paper later asserted that Bruni should herself be stoned. What pigs.
I hope you boys in Iran enjoy this picture I found above of France’s First Lady. I tried to find something smoky, sinful-Western-decadent, and sharia non-compliant … just for you! Pull up a bowl of pistachios for yourself and check out what we get to enjoy here in the West, while you boys gawk at black robes all day.
By the way, it would be wonderful if our own First Lady showed the slightest interest in these matters – you know, human rights abuses against women – while she’s busy during her frantic vacation schedule.
• Mad Men is on the cover of Rolling Stone right now. Yowza! Couldn’t resist.
• We’re now learning that the Discovery Channel gunman was apparently a radical environmentalist who experienced an ‘‘awakening” after he watched An Inconvenient Truth – how genuinely inconvenient. This would also seem to imply that he actually stayed ‘awake’ during the film. No wonder he went crazy. [Did he make it through Avatar, too?]
Based on what I’ve read about this guy (he apparently thought that human beings needed to be exterminated from the Earth, in order to make room for the animals), it’s surprising to me that he would’ve been so disgruntled about cable programming these days. Didn’t he see Life After People ?
I know it’s tragic that this person has lost his life – and I apologize if I seem insensitive here – but I’m allowed to be completely unsurprised, and downright cynical, about the fact that our entertainment industry is actually instilling psychosis in our citizens, implanting lies about humanity (that we’re a curse to our planet, etc.) that are now bearing an awful fruit. You might call this process ‘inception,’ so to speak.
• Variety just did a feature on Mao’s Last Dancer, and the incredible challenges of shooting that film in China. Still waiting for Fox News to do feature story #1 on this film. Anybody awake over there?
• On the sci-fi front, you really didn’t think there could be another alien invasion film greenlit, did you? Well, you’d be wrong, because we have another, called Transmission. This time it’s “a British sci-fi feature being shot in 3D and centered around an alien invasion during an solar eclipse,” with the film being described as “Pitch Black meets 28 Days Later.” Proposed cast: Bob Hoskins, Jason Flemying, Talulah Riley, Willem Dafoe. So here we go again. Why the aliens would bother to wait for a solar eclipse is anybody’s guess – but at least this film they’ll be shooting natively in 3D, as opposed to post-converting it. With respect to Ms. Riley’s presence in the film (see right), the 3D approach certainly seems like a good idea.
In related news, there are some new set photos out of Rihanna in Battleship; and we’ve also got some new Tron: Legacy posters out today.
• Apple is re-booting Apple TV, and is now going to be streaming TV shows through iTunes. Everyone seems to be underwhelmed by this news. I think the problem here is that everyone is looking for the 1 great app that will unify all digital content consumption (TV, phone, web, DVDs, etc.) and that’s never going to happen. We’re just going to keep getting these little advancements until someone invents a Brain Chip. I assume Google is working on that.
• Perfect irony: Variety reports that an Indian (south Asian) production team will be doing a $30 million biopic of Christ; meanwhile, back in Hollywood, 3 TV networks are fighting over a series to be titled Good Christian Bitches. [Sigh.] I couldn’t make this stuff up if I tried. On a somewhat related noted, a new survey suggests that moviegoers by and large are still willing to watch Mel Gibson in movies. I am too – in old ones, that is.
• AND IN TODAY’S MOST IMPORTANT NEWS … we thought we’d take a look at British star Talulah Riley (see above), who will apparently be battling alien invaders (who isn’t these days?) in the forthcoming British thriller, Transmission. Let’s hope she’s up to it – she may have to quit smoking, first.
And that’s what’s happening today in the wonderful world of Hollywood.
Posted on September 2nd, 2010 at 5:22pm.
I am hoping you can convince Professor Jacques de Molay to come back and address the meaning of all these alien invasion flicks. The last time we had cinematic giant monsters and aliens taking over was during the 50s, explained by film critic/historians and artsy fartsy types as being entirely due to anxiety about the commies taking over. Of course, there’s nothing like that going on now, so I’m wondering what gives?
K! Did you miss my post on all this? Here it is:
https://www.libertasfilmmagazine.com/libertas-responds-to-the-la-times-patrick-goldstein-on-the-aliencommunist-invaders-in-our-midst/
But Jacques may still have his say …
Yes yes yes. I believe your point there was film makers were turning in a more “freedom loving” direction in a politically confused era – while also embracing the 60s concept of larger bosums.
While I am whole heartedly in favor of this turn of the culture, such simple, straightforward reasoning just doesn’t fly in discussion groups on critical film theory or chatting up hot art girls.
So I was hoping the good professor would give us the scoop on “What Would Adorno Say?”
I’ll ask the good Professor about that. I believe the Professor’s written several books on Adorno, one of them titled: Neo-semanticist [De]situationisms: Heaving Bosoms in the youthful works of Adorno.
How completely vile that Iran is still condemning women to stoning. I’m very proud though of Carla Bruni for speaking up against it. I wish more Western women in positions of influence would do the same. The feminists are by and large sadly silent on the subject of the abuse of women in Islamic fundamentalist countries. It is as if the Western liberals feel that normal standards of human rights need not apply to the women of the Middle East.
And how completely deplorable of the Iranian mullahs not to allow Jafar Panahi to travel to the Venice Film Festival. Haven’t they persecuted him enough? He’s already done months of jail time on trumped-up charges that he was making an “anti-government” film (for which there is no proof, by the way), and now this? How much more horrendous can the Iranians’ reputations get when it comes to spitting on all the things truly civilized nations value – from womens’ rights to the freedom of artists?
Bruni is really living up to her position as France’s First Lady, isn’t she? I hope the French are proud of her.
As far as the Iranians, if it weren’t for their young people I would totally despair for that society. But I do think there’s a better future ahead for them.
I don’t think it’s tragic that this guy lost his life. I’m glad he was killed before he could harm anyone.
I know. The police have to do what they have to do. I just think that a lot of impressionable people get harmed by this crap that they see, and it leads them on a dark path. It’s just a shame this whole thing had to happen at all.
A commenter on Kyle Smith’s site pointed out that the Unabomber had one book in his cabin: Earth in the Balance. So this is perhaps not the first loony inspired to violence by Al Gore.
Great point – I’d forgotten about him.
Yeah. Who knew Al Gore could be so stirring?
“I hope you boys in Iran enjoy this picture I found above of France’s First Lady. I tried to find something smoky, sinful-Western-decadent, and sharia non-compliant … just for you! Pull up a bowl of pistachios for yourself and check out what we get to enjoy here in the West, while you boys gawk at black robes all day.”
That stings, Jason. It’s awesome to see such scathing writing in a simple round-up piece.
As for Al Gore, we can now add inciting violence to the charges of fraud, extortion, and treason on his rap sheet.
Thanks, Vince – I appreciate the kind word, coming from a pro.
As for Gore, I remember when he was just a cardboard cut-out man. Now he’s becoming a menace.
Re Mao’s Last Dancer, a new book on Mao is out. What will Anita Dunn say?
Just saw Mao’s Last Dancer, and WOW. Total rave. The audience loved it too–applauded and hissed at all the right places and continued talking about it in the Ladies Room afterward!
Like you say, Fox has got to cover this, Glenn Beck–or how about Rush takes his wife to see this and talks about it?
If you don’t love dance and freedom after this movie, you’re not alive.