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5/20/2004
FILM FLAM
As mentioned, it’s been a film-filled spring. We caught the action-packed MC5
documentary a while back at Echo Lounge. Don’t look for it at Blockbuster any
time soon. A) It’s a documentary, B) it’s hung up in legal entanglements over
who gets paid. But if you’re into music and you ever get a chance to see it,
jump on it. It gives a great insight as to why the band is often cited as one of
the godfathers of punk, garage and all things alternative.
Mondo Movie at Starlight Drive In on Sunday featured Mad Max 2: The Road
Warrior. It’s a fine film, even more so when you fail to notice any cheesy CGI
special effects – ‘cause there ain’t any. All those bodies flying through the
air, cars rolling over, people on fire were all actual bodies, actual cars, and
actual fire.
As always, a big highlight of the evening were the trailers for films you can’t
even find on IMDB, much less at the local Blockbuster. We watched the trailers
before Soylent Green but split before the movie came on.
Then we headed back to the drive in for our weekly fix on Tuesday for Troy, an
epic film that strives at every moment to be… well, EPIC. They couldn’t just
have a fleet of (CGI) ships, they had to have ships as far as the eye could see.
They couldn’t just have a small army attack Troy, they had to have soldiers as
far as the eye could see. But they couldn’t get any acting out of the actors as
far as the eye could see. Brad Pitt is hunky but dull. Everyone else comes of as
a caricature at best. But I have to hand it to the choreography department – the
fight scenes were impressive. Definitely worth seeing at the drive in,
especially with a pack of hecklers like we had. We probably missed 1/3 of the
lousy dialogue due to laughter at our own jokes.
EAR PLUGS, sort of
We’re getting caught up on the heap of reviews we ain’t done. Here’s a few
photos from the Inman Park Festival parade:
http://www.degeneratepress.com/vault/inman_park_fest_2004/index.html
BLASPHEMY
Degenerate GG have us a hypothetical argument for torture last episode that I
said I’d respond to. Fortunately, degenerate RVI beat me to it (so to speak):
GG: "I am glad to know I will never have to make such a decision, but I think a
scientific poll might show that even more than 47% percent of the people
questioned might squeamishly agree that some torture might be acceptable in such
circumstances. After all, the poll question is a theoretical one: is torture
EVER justified? Still, there are real world precedents:
In 1995, Phillipine intelligence agents used torture to stop a devastating plan
to bomb 11 US airliners simultaneously, murder the Pope, and fly a plane into
the CIA headquarters. "
Using this standard as a justification for torture, who in the world could you
not "theoretically" justify torturing? Think: for all those in power EVER know,
YOU or I may know where "nuclear bombs" (or whatever) may be hidden and ticking,
even if we have little to no idea what the hell they're talking about as they
begin to dismember us or flay the skin off our muscles in an attempt to find out
what we might or might not know. And if it turns out they were wrong in picking
us out to question, or if they're simply sadistic freaks on a grotesque power
trip, too bad for us, right? Fear justifies inhuman behavior, right? Right. The
very word "Inquisition" should cause everyone's flesh -- and conscience --to
crawl. These techniques did not work to discover truth about "witches" and
"heretics" centuries ago; they will not get us, institutionally, closer to
truthfulness about terrorists and enemies of the state in 2004. If for no other
reason than they make us unworthy of being saved in the first place because we
become, morally, no better than the enemy.
Degenerate RVI
We also got this from degenerate BW, though we aren’t sure it’s in response to
the Blasphemy:
Get real! Do not break the law.......
In a related story, we borrowed this from The Onion online:
U.S. To Fight Terror With Terror
WASHINGTON, DC—In a response to recent acts of extreme violence against
Americans in Iraq and mounting criticism of U.S. military policy at home,
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld announced the government's new strategy of
fighting terror with terror Monday.
U.S. soldiers using the government's new policy to fight terror abroad.
"Look, in order to catch a rat, you gotta think like one," Rumsfeld said in a
grainy and degraded videotape message filmed at an unknown location and released
to CNN Monday. "We've been pussy-footing around the war on terrorism for years.
All that time, the answer was right in front of us: In order to wipe out terror
around the globe, once and for all, we've gotta beat them at their own game."
http://www.theonion.com/news/index.php?issue=4020&n=1
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