Sunday, December 31, 2006

Fight Hypocrisy, Prosecute their Duplicity and Complicity

Got this from a friend today and thought it brilliant:
Please join me in taking the time today to write an email or make a phone call to your senator or congressman to request the extradition of Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney to Iraq to be tried for war crimes by an Iraqi citizens's jury, and subsequently sentenced if found guilty.
Like Saddam Hussein, Cheney and Rumsfeld have the blood of tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands on their hands as the result of their policies.
Let's allow the Bush administration to demonstrate their integrity and clear vision by administrating their brand of justice consistently.

Thank you.

Pass this on if you can.

For the State of Minnesota:
Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D) Fax: 202-228-2186
Sen. Norm Coleman
(R) Fax: 202-224-1152
Rep. Gil Gutknecht
(R-1) Fax: 202-225-3246
Rep. John Kline
(R-2) Fax: 202-225-2595
Rep. Jim Ramstad
(R-3) Fax: 202-225-6351
Rep. Betty McCollum
(D-4) Fax: 202-225-1968
Rep. Martin Sabo
(D-5) Fax: 202-225-4886
Rep. Mark Kennedy
(R-6) Fax: 202-225-6475
Rep. Collin Peterson
(D-7) Fax: 202-225-1593
Rep. James Oberstar
(D-8) Fax: 202-225-0699

NOTE: if you are from somewhere outside of minnesota, it is easy to find online the emails and phone #s of your congresspeople and senators for your area.

Friday, December 29, 2006

Mel Gibson--The Director as Torturer

been gone from here for a really long time. but now i want to rant.

i went to see mel gibson's apocalypto last week. as an enthusiast of historical fictions (books and movies), i thoroughly enjoy seeing or reading how other minds try to reinvent the cities, the customs, the dress, the conversations, the uses of technology, etc., of socieites long ago, and here was the first major film to take up a recreation of a part mesoamerican history.

i should have known not to expect much from the box-office's leading snuff filmaker. in fact, i went to the film already skeptical and highly guarded, but that was not enough.

mel gibson is an extremely deranged man who has made yet another outrageously inaccurate, ideologically absurd and insulting film (see this excellent commentary here) that is full of blood and gore.

since the article linked to above covers all of the ideological bullshit and obfuscations of gibson's latest peice of shit--labelling the film with anything more than a cuss word is to give it too much praise--i will comment briefly on gibson's indulgence of his passion for blood and guts. gibson has no qualms about subjecting his audience to his private fascination with cruelty while telling them his (flawed, racist, and ignorant) story.

gibson relishes in splashing blood on camera lenses and in conjuring the most minute, second-long glimpses of gore that he can throw at an audience to disrupt an otherwise flowing moment. he is far more affective than any horror movie director, the latter of whose gore usually is fanciful and removed from reality. with gibson, there is an air reality to the gore, but crucially, there is no critical distance in the portrayal. gibson does not for a moment intend to critique human cruelty--it is rather clear that this director delights in the bloodletting he portrays and derives juissance from his affective representations of cruelty. gibson's two latest movies present the director as torturer--and not in metaphor but in real affect, pure and simple. the passion of the christ was more about the testosterone level and sadomasichism of the director than it was about spirituality and a real, historical and suffering figure of world history, while apocalypto is. . .fucking ridiculous (as was the passion, too).