So, I finally rented and watched Bowling for Columbine. It’s funny to me how something that’s been built up in my mind for so long by so many people can end up seeming so… different when I finally meet it face-to-face. I felt like telling the movie, “Huh. You’re a lot smaller in person.”

Which isn’t intended as criticism. The movie is what it is, and I think it makes a great point, and deserves to be watched and talked about. If I had my way, though, I guess I’d prefer that the talk actually be about what the movie is about, rather than being the strident meta-discussion over whether or not Moore “told the truth” in making it.

Yeah, well, I’d like to serve under Captain Picard aboard the Enterprise and take an extended vacation with the riders of Rohan and go fishing on the Grand Banks with the crew of the We’re Here, too. But none of those things are ever going to happen, except in my head. We live in the real world, and the subjective nature of reality notwithstanding, it is what it is, too, regardless of our wishes.

And what it is lately is a place to talk about Moore’s truthfulness in making Bowling for Columbine. He himself has a really nice treatment of that at his web site: How to Deal with the Lies and the Lying Liars When They Lie about “Bowling for Columbine”. And Brendan Nyhan at Spinsanity has his own counterspin on Moore’s comments: Moore admits to altering “Bowling for Columbine” DVD.

Thanks to Adam at Words Mean Things for the link.

Sometimes these lies.com stories just take on a life of their own. I’ve never even seen Bowling for Columbine, but it keeps showing up here.

Anyway, here’s Spinsanity’s Brendan Nyhan: Moore alters “Bowling” DVD in response to criticism.

Fun site you shouldn’t miss: Insultingly stupid movie physics.

We’re getting closer! Woo!

Ahem. Obsessive fanboy restraints applied. I wanted to share the following image, which apparently is a scan of the packaging for an action figure due to come out with The Return of the King, and which has been posted by the excellent obsessives at theonering.net: Dernhelm.

Warning: I (obviously) don’t know yet how this particular plot element is going to be handled in the movie, but if you haven’t read The Lord of the Rings and want to preserve what is, in the book at least, a major surprise, you shouldn’t view the above-linked image. But if you fall into that particular demographic, you’re tragically flawed already, so it’s hard to muster much sympathy for your predicament. Go read it already, then come back and view the image.

Woo!

User Eloquence at Kuro5hin has a really nice rebuttal of a David Hardy piece I previously linked to: A defense of Michael Moore and “Bowling for Columbine”.

It’s kind of hard to categorize this one. It’s an interview with actor James Woods by Salon writer Amy Reiter, and it’s definitely worth watching the MCI commercial (or whatever) to get the one-day pass for it: Woods on fire. He’s promoting his new movie, Northfork, so it should probably go in the “Movies” category, but the interview actually ends up being about lots of other things, like whether or not George Bush is a moron and why people on the left-wing can’t admit that it was a bad thing for Bill Clinton to put a cigar in Monica Lewinsky’s vagina and whether it’s important that WMD have not been found in Iraq and so on. On balance, I think the thing the interview is “about,” more than anything else, is the nature of celebrity and the larger context of people like Woods doing interviews like this, so that’s the category I chose for it.

I certainly don’t agree with all the conclusions Woods comes to. But I certainly do agree with some of them. And his comments about the frustration of dealing with people whose minds are already made up on every political issue struck a chord with me, given the kind of ranting I’ve been doing on this site lately.

In a story referred to earlier by John, Mel Gibson’s upcoming film project on the last hours of Jesus Christ’s life on earth has started to receive some advance screenings, and a few more details are coming out about it. Any kind of play or movie that has a central focus on Christ has always been a lightening rod for scrutiny and criticism among the Jewish and Christian faiths. It’s apparent already from this story and this one that some serious trepidation is surfacing, especially within some Jewish and Catholic groups. As a Christian, I certainly hope that Mel Gibson is true to his word of a faithful and authentic-feeling presentation of, what I feel, is the most important event in mankind’s history (although the dialogue will be entirely in Aramaic and Latin, it now appears that a limited amount of subtitles will be included). It’s an impossible job to fully pull off however, since Mel is relying on some Gospels that sometimes differ with each other in the details of those final hours. So what do you include or leave out in a biblically accurate retelling of the Passion Story? Hence, part of the inevitable disapproval. There is also an indication that some non-biblical sources (the writings of several centuries-old nuns) may find some influence within the story. The more problematic issue will be the reaction of the Jewish religious leaders and the Defamation League at any connection of the Jews of that time being involved in Christ’s arrest and death. Now, I certainly would be dismayed if the film painted the Jews in some ugly stereotypes and/or suggested that they were either wholly and collectively responsible for the death of Jesus. But I don’t believe that will be Mel’s intent. However, the fact that a number of the Jewish population and leadership of that time were threatened and angered by Christ’s presence, and had a hand in shaping the events of those final hours (along with the Romans) is undeniable.

Does this make all those of Jewish heritage permanently stained by the actions of some predecessors? Of course not. But the hatred and persecution endured by Jews over time has made many of them understandably hyper-sensitive (to a fault) to their depiction in this part of world history (an example of such thinking and a more moderate voice). I hope that the likely predictible uproar that some in both the Jewish and Christian communities will create will not distract people ( both believers and non-believers) from viewing the film without pre-judging its validity, sincerity, and its faithfulness to the scriptures. From all I have now heard about it, the film seems to deserve that chance.

You won’t have noticed, but I’ve been keeping my obsessed-fanboy side in check for the past several months. Well, I can feel the restraint slipping. We’re well and truly entering the ROTK spoiler season at theonering.net, which means it’s time for everyone, or at least me, to begin thinking continuously about the upcoming conclusion of the Greatest Film Adaptation of All Time.

I think I can restrain myself for at least a little longer, at least as far as posting about it here goes. But I can’t pass up posting about this one. From the truly insane cats at insanecats.com: The Two Towers Movie – Stick Version. Flash required.

For those who may have watched the movie on FX yesterday on the real-life bank robbery and police shootout with those two heavily-armed, body armor-wearing guys in North Hollywood a few years ago, here is an article on the riveting story’s feeble reenactment to a TV movie. Interesting how often an isolated yet compelling episode of real life becomes listless and full of inaccuracies once scriptwriters and producers get ahold of it and feel the need to add more “drama”.

So, here I am biding my time until December, when ROTK appears, or at least until November, when the extended-edition TTT DVD appears. In the meantime, though, my fanboy juices were set flowing by the following: Rings grabs four MTV Movie Awards.

Yeah, they’re not the real awards; just the silly MTV variety. But I’ll take ’em.

Assertively-rational conservative Bill Whittle has posted an essay that is getting lots of attention lately, at least according to Daypop: Magic. It’s entertainingly written, which is good, because it’s also fairly long-winded, and takes quite a while to get to the main point, which is that Whittle doesn’t like the way Michael Moore staged fictional scenes and asserted untrue things in Bowling for Columbine.

There’s extensive discussion of people’s love of magical thinking, illustrated by gleeful debunkings of Roswell and Loch Ness. Whittle invokes Carl Sagan, citing him as an influence and hailing his writing as “refined genius of the highest degree” (though apparently Sagan wasn’t able to actually apply the principles of clear thinking that Whittle praises so highly, since Sagan’s own views on political questions, at least, were diametrically opposed to Whittle’s).

There’s also a mention of misdirection, the illusionist’s hand-waving that distracts the audience while handkerchief is replaced by rabbit. Which is fun, given that Whittle’s logical argument itself is pretty much just a grand piece of misdirection.

I am always distrustful of self-styled skeptics who seem driven more by an emotional need to prove others wrong than by the desire to get closer to the underlying reality that mocks our simplistic, abstract perceptions. Whittle provides a great example of that, decrying the magical thinking on the part of those he disagrees with, while engaging in his own version of the same thing. His denial of the essential magic and mystery of the world, his repeated assertions that he possesses firmly-grounded Truths that his political opponents myopically overlook, is itself magical thinking, just on a slightly higher plane.

The constancy of the speed of light as a natural speed limit has been so thoroughly and completely tested and vindicated that these aliens must have learned to harness the power of entire galaxies to bore wormholes through spacetime, which would be necessary to have these infinitely fast, staggeringly maneuverable, gravity-defying, super-hardened space-metal saucers in the skies over our planet.

Sweet!

Heh. No one who really grasped the essence of what Sagan wrote about human knowledge and science could make a statement like that. Not because it’s particularly likely that aliens crashed a foil-wrapped spaceship into New Mexico in 1946, but because anyone defending a scientific principle as having been “so thoroughly and completely tested and vindicated” is just begging to have his frame of reference pulled from under him by new, unanticipated data.

The Whittle who saw a leprechaun at the age of nine was, in my view, a better scientist than the Whittle of today. It saddens me to see how the emotional traumas of growing up can do that to people, closing them off from the world, isolating them within protective walls of rational certainty, loudly proclaiming the correctness of their views and attacking anything that threatens to make a chink in that armor.

There is magic in the world still, real magic, way down deep. Children know that. Too many adults have forgotten.

Something I missed when it first appeared is a really fabulous interview with Roger Ebert over at AlterNet. He talks about Michael Moore’s Academy Awards speech, actors and musicians who criticize the war, and whether movies can make us better people. An excerpt:

Q: What do you make of the criticism of Hollywood celebrities for speaking out against the war – the Sean Penns, the Susan Sarandons?

Ebert: It’s just ignorant; it’s just ignorant.

Q: Why do you say that?

Ebert: I begin to feel like I was in the last generation of Americans who took a civics class. I begin to feel like most Americans don’t understand the First Amendment, don’t understand the idea of freedom of speech, and don’t understand that it’s the responsibility of the citizen to speak out. If Hollywood stars speak out, so do all sorts of other people. Now Hollywood stars can get a better hearing. Oddly enough, the people who mostly seem to hear them are the right wing, so that Fox News can put on its ticker tape in Times Square a vile attack on Michael Moore, and Susan Sarandon is a punchline. These are people who are responsible and are saying what they believe. And there are people on the other side who also speak out, and it’s the way our country works.

There’s lots more good stuff there. Definitely worth checking out, if you haven’t seen it already.

From Daypop comes word of this online petition, which seeks to derail the reported Casablanca remake starring Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez: Stop them before they film again.

There’s something fairly delicious in having the Weekly World News included in the list of publications available from Yahoo! Entertainment. Because, for example, it allows me to link to stories like this: Saddam starred in gay porn films!

Gasp!

In the newly uncovered 86-minute prison flick, Saddam, then just 34, plays a naive young peasant who is wrongly convicted and sent to jail. He is initiated into homosexuality by a series of older and more experienced cons.

“Saddam’s acting in the picture is actually quite good,” al-Sabah notes. “One scene, in which he buries his face in a pillow and cries, is so touching you almost can forget you’re watching a low-budget sexploitation film.”

Here’s a wacky story. As pointed out by the fine people at Daily Kos: Robbins-Sarandon anti-war talk leads Hall to cancel celebration. Baseball Hall of Fame president Dale Petroskey, a former Reagan administration official, has apparently chosen to cancel a scheduled tribute to the movie Bull Durham, because the tribute would have involved participation by those dangerous peaceniks Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon. The story quotes from the letter Petroskey sent to Robbins announcing the cancellation:

“In a free country such as ours, every American has the right to his or her own opinions, and to express them. Public figures, such as you, have platforms much larger than the average American’s, which provides you an extraordinary opportunity to have your views heard — and an equally large obligation to act and speak responsibly,” Petroskey wrote.

“We believe your very public criticism of President Bush at this important — and sensitive — time in our nation’s history helps undermine the U.S. position, which ultimately could put our troops in even more danger. As an institution, we stand behind our President and our troops in this conflict.”

The story quotes Robbins as replying that he didn’t realize baseball was “a Republican sport.” The story goes on to quote the following from Robbins’ letter of reply:

“You invoke patriotism and use words like ‘freedom’ in an attempt to intimidate and bully. In doing so, you dishonor the words ‘patriotism’ and ‘freedom’ and dishonor the men and women who have fought wars to keep this nation a place where one can freely express their opinions without fear of reprisal or punishment.”

Right on.

From today’s New York Times comes an interesting review of the 1999 movie on the aftermath of Gulf War I: One Film, Two Wars, ‘Three Kings’. Reviewer David Edelstein is a big fan of the movie, which he describes as “the most caustic anti-war movie of this generation.” He also quotes from a recent email he received from David O. Russel, the movie’s writer and director, on how he’d like to believe that the American public is smarter today about the realities underlying our mideast war aims, “but I honestly don’t think so… I mean, come on, it’s a SCANDAL that Bush has pulled this off. It’s mind-blowing.”

Anyway, if you haven’t seen the movie yet, you should rent it. Good performances by George Clooney and Mark Wahlberg, among others.

I’m not sure why, but I’ve found myself drawn to war movies lately. On some level I guess it’s obvious: a steady diet of raw news from the front lines has left me wanting something a little more polished, something that puts all the technology and amoral strategic calculation into a more-human context.

I recently Tivo’d and re-watched Full Metal Jacket, mostly for Lee Ermey’s Sergeant Hartman in the first half of the film, but as usual for a Kubrick movie, once I started watching it I was sucked in, hypnotized by his vision, and ended up watching the whole thing.

I also rented Saving Private Ryan last week, which really is an incredibly good war movie, as long as you skip the ham-handed opening and closing present-day sequences where Spielberg felt compelled to hammer us over the head with his message, just in case there were any five-year-olds in the audience who’d missed it.

Two war movies I’ve meant to see, but haven’t gotten around to, are The Thin Red Line (with a pre-Two Towers performance by Miranda Otto!), and Tears of the Sun, which has that Bruce Willis thing going for it (assuming we’re talking about the Bruce Willis who was smart enough to associate himself with The Fifth Element and Twelve Monkeys), which I’m hoping is enough to make up for the frighteningly twisted Hollywood premise of a war movie predicated on a Navy Seal officer’s heroic decision to violate his orders in order to save a bunch of Third World civilians.

Anyway, get out there and get your war (movies) on.

I seem unable to stop posting links about Michael Moore and Bowling for Columbine. Maybe I should actually see the movie. Anyway, here’s the latest: from David T. Harvey, Bowling for Columbine: Documentary or Fiction? According to Harvey, Columbine cannot be considered a documentary, because in making it Moore consistently lied about his subject matter.

Just to beat a dead horse a little more, here’s Time Magazine’s James Poniewozik with a fairly apt critique of Michael Moore’s anti-Bush, anti-war acceptance speech at the Oscars last night: Shame on You, Mr. Moore! Shame on You!

Dave Barry reveals the process behind the creation of Steve Martin’s Oscar jokes. Dave Barry is extremely cool.

So, I watched the Oscars. I was gratified by The Two Towers winning a few technical awards, and pleased that my (admittedly pretty sucky) score of 9 was sufficient to win the prognostication pool between myself, my wife, and my sister-in-law. And it’s fun to see Steve Martin doing what he does. Also, I was curious, like everyone else, to see how the war figured in acceptance speeches.

I basically agree with most of Michael Moore’s criticisms, but his ranting annoyed even me. Personally, I was more impressed with Adrian Brody’s more-thoughtful comments. Michael Moore bugs me in much the same way that Rush Limbaugh and Evan Coyne Maloney do. The strength or weakness of their arguments notwithstanding, I don’t like their certainty. For Michael Moore to get up on the Oscar stage and spout off about Bush’s fictions requires that the other side respond with boos, and the noise level goes up, and before you know it people are willing to go to war with each other in the name of peace.

There’s actually something fairly Bush-like in Moore’s assumption that the direct assault is the way to go. It’s kind of childish; everything is black or white, right or wrong, with us or against us. I assume the author of the YahooNews story I saw about Moore’s acceptance speech was going for irony with the line about how Moore had “used his win of an Oscar to launch a violent attack on US President George W. Bush,” and while I think that phrasing constitutes a pretty severe devaluing of the term “violent attack,” especially in the current context, I can also see the person’s point.