More Mel

From (surprise, surprise) Fox News, Father Jonathan Morris says:

Abraham Foxman, president of the Anti-Defamation League, was keen to push the envelope in these suppositions.

“His tirade finally reveals his true self and shows that his protestations during the debate over his film 'The Passion of the Christ,' that he is such a tolerant, loving person, were a sham. This confirms what all of us knew before, Mel Gibson is an anti-Semite and a bigot.”

Big words.

Big words? Ok, but you wanna hear some other big words? "Fucking Jews... The Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world... Are you a Jew?"

Anyway, I'll let Father Jonathan continue.

For over a year, I worked with Mel and his team during the filming, post-production, and marketing of "The Passion of the Christ." .....

I knew then, as I know now, Mel is not an anti-Semite.

Please. I know there are probably better ways to respond to Mel than the way I did on Monday. But I cannot accept an approach that doesn't acknowledge that Mel is an anti-semite.

I think anti-semites, like racists, homophobes, sexists, etc. can change. I think Mel can change, and all I can do is take his word that he's commited to changing. But at the moment, he's still a damn anti-semite, ok?

We all have our prejudices. Every one of us. The best thing any of us can do is learn to recognize our prejudices, acknowledge them, and use our self-awareness to treat people in a way that overcomes these prejudices. The worst thing any of us can do is deny our prejudices.

Best Marketing Campaign Ever

So do you want to see "Snakes on a Plane?"

What if this man calls you and tells you to see it?



As Amelie Gillette points out, now you can have Sam call a friend and make the pitch.

Watch The Daily Show and Colbert tonight

From Media Matters:

Rivera also asserted that Comedy Central hosts Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert "make a living putting on video of old ladies slipping on ice and people laughing" and that they "exist in a small little place where they count for nothing."

Let's see how Jon and Stephen react. Olbermann could be fun to watch tonight too.

Rolling Roadshow

Not that Netflix needs any free publicity on my website, but I think this Rolling Roadshow thing they're doing sounds pretty cool. They're going to the cites where various movies were filmed or inspired, and showing them on location.

Here's the list....

The Warriors at Coney Island in New York
Jaws on the beach at Martha's Vineyard

Clerks in Red Bank, New Jersey

Ferris Bueller's Day Off at the "Save Ferris" water tower in Northbrook, Illinois

Field of Dreams at the baseball diamond in Dyersville, Iowa

The Shining at the hotel in Colorado that inspired Stephen King to write the book

The Searchers in Monument Valley, Utah

Raising Arizona at the state park in Arizona where they had their trailer

The Poseidon Adventure at the R.M.S. Queen Mary in Long Beach, California

Escape from Alcatraz at, you guessed it, Alcatraz

Granted, I won't be able to go to any of these. The only one that's remotely close is Clerks, and I've already made a Kevin Smith related trip to New Jersey... Granted, I'd make another, but this is next Tuesday, which is not feasible.

My friend Brad is going to be in Colorado at the time of The Shining one, and is seriously considering going.

A couple years ago, during "Screen on the Green" on the Mall in Washington, I saw "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington." So I've had an experience similar to this roadshow. It was quite cool.

A few other movies I think would be cool to add to a roadshow like this...

--- Blues Brothers in Chicago at Daley Plaza
--- Animal House in whatever fraternity-row type of area they have at the University of Oregon
--- North by Northwest at Mt. Rushmore
--- King Kong at the Empire State Building (granted, there's not really an open space to show it, but it sounds cool)
--- The Exorcist on the Georgetown Campus (I hear they don't this every once in a while, but don't know the details)
--- Ghostbusters at the New York Public Library

Anyone else have any ideas?

***UPDATE***

The Alamo Drafthouse in Austin is actually responsible for creating the Roadshow, Netflix is a partner this year. The Drafthouse did one last year too. Among the movies they did last year was North By Northwest, but in Bakersfield, California, not at Mt. Rushmore where they ended up later in the movie. They also did another one I should have thought of... Close Encounters of the Third Kind at Devil's Tower in Wyoming.

Quick Petty Post

I'm pre-emptively worried that over the next couple weeks, this blog could become all Tom Petty, all the time, so I'm going to hold off on making any of my by big Petty posts until at least tomorrow. I'll probably blog about other matters a bit later today.

For now, I just want to note that The Onion A.V. Club posted yet another article on Petty yesterday, and I saw it about an hour after I made my post. It echos some of the things I said and also foreshadows some other points I was planning on making in other posts.

And now for something completely different...

Here's an actual IKEA commercial that you'll NEVER see in the U.S.

Tom Petty: Part 1

I don't like the idea of having a favorite band or favorite musician, but the closest thing I have to one is Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. The music kind of gets to me at a level that most music doesn't.

So what is it that makes him great? I don't even know how to answer that. He has a very straightforward and extremely talented and tight rock band, but I could say that about alot of bands. I do think his voice and vocal style are a big part of it, but he's not exactly Frank Sinatra when it comes to vocal talent either.

It largely comes down to the songwriting. I don't know that he's the most talented wordsmith either, but he writes in away that is very raw and personal. To put a finer point on it, He writes like I think. If there's a common theme in most of his songs, I think I'd call it something like "desperate optimism." There's hope in all his music, because he knows how important hope is. Despite all the pressure in the world, real or in his mind, that seems to be dragging him down, he remains hopeful.

Also, it's about the longevity. Tom Petty has been a favorite artist of mine my whole life, from when I was very young, watching his videos on MTV, through now.

Petty's new album, Highway Companion, came out last week, so I thought this would be a good time to discuss him. However, I realized I have alot to say about him. So I'm going to cover him in several posts over the next week or two. Here are some posts I know I'm going to make:

* A review of Highway Companion
* A discussion of The Onion A.V. Club's 14 Classic Tom Petty Opening Lines.
* A quick walk through my memories of Tom Petty, from childhood through the present (I hope that one isn't too pretentious)
* A discussion of my all time favorite Tom Petty songs.

Those are the four big ones, I want to hit, I might make some other posts as well. Looking forward to it? Not looking forward to it? Either way... the wa-a-iting is the hardest part.....

Today in Religious Intolerance

So, ok, I was pretty pissed at Mel Gibson yesterday.

Today, Mel made an apology to the Jews, and it was about as good as he could do, given the circumstances. Since he's offered to at least meet with Jewish groups to discuss his issues, I won't use profanity towards Mel for the time being. I won't say "F*** You, Mel Gibson" anymore.

Screw you, Mel Gibson.

Hey, all I said was I won't use profanity. He has a long way to go before I won't think he sucks.

By the way, I think the best think I've read on the matter is Christopher Hitchens' piece in Slate. I usually can't even make it through a Hitchens piece anymore because he's so flipped-out when it comes to Iraq, but I do think he's a good writer, and he's dead on here.

In other religous intolerance news, the "Left Behind" people are at it again (Yes, I do consider them religiously intolerant because they have a specific goal of convicing everyone to convert to their way of thought).

I saw it on the Daily Show last night, so I had to look for myself. There's going to be a Left Behind video game. The goal of the game is... you guessed it... to convert as many people as possible to Christianity. Ugh. But maybe the evangelists will be so bored with this conversion stuff after constantly playing the game that they'll stop trying to convert people in real life.

I did find this interesting:

Beating the game will unlock the multiplayer mode, which allows gamers to duke it out online as both the side of good and evil. That's right - you will be able to control the forces of the antichrist.

Hmmmmm..... maybe this game could be fun after all. I could get into playing as the antichrist for a few hours. I mean, give most people the choice between being Luke Skywalker or Darth Vader, they'll choose Vader.

No word yet on whether this guy will be lending his voice talent.



And with that, I've blogged about Kirk Cameron for the fourth time this month. This is getting worse than Federline.

A message to Mel Gibson

There's somedays that I sit down to blog, and I wonder what I'm going to blog about.

There are other days when Mel Gibson says "The Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world."

Fuck you, Mel Gibson. Fuck you and your holocaust denying dad.

Hey, I gave you the benefit of the doubt on Passion of the Christ. I had no desire to watch a movie about a messiah being tortured to death, so I never bothered to see if it was anti-semetic or not. If I had to guess, I'd say the criticism of it was a little bit overblown.

But we're not talking about the movie now. You've now made this personal. You've insulted my cultural identity, and don't use your alcoholism as an excuse. I don't care how drunk I get, I'd never make such a blanket statement about a culture or race with the malice that you appear to have intended.

Fuck you, Mel, you prick. I hope your Air America, Lethal Weapon 3, Ransom, We Were Soldiers ass can never get a job again.

And I think you're going to have a hard time in Hollywood now, you prick.

From the AP article:

"It's a nuclear disaster for him," said publicist Michael Levine, who has represented Michael Jackson and Charlton Heston, among others. "I don't see how he can restore himself."

In case you didn't read that, MICHAEL JACKSON'S PUBLICIST says your career is ruined beyond repair. This is a man who think's that there's a chance to restore MICHAEL JACKSON'S image, but he says your Attack Force Z, The Patriot, Conpiracy Theory, Lethal Weapon 4 ass can't be helped.

It couldn't happen to a nicer guy, you prick.

Did I mention that you.....

look a bit like....

Kirk Cameron?

I think this is a good time to repost "The Passion of Benny Hill"