--- In [email protected], TurquoiseB <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> --- In [email protected], "authfriend" <jstein@> wrote:
> >
> > --- In [email protected], TurquoiseB <no_reply@> 
wrote:
> > >
> > > --- In [email protected], "authfriend" <jstein@> 
wrote:
> > > >
> > > > --- In [email protected], TurquoiseB <no_reply@> 
> > wrote:
> > > > >
> > > > > By the way, have you seen Apocalypto yet?  :-)
> > > > 
> > > > Not interested.
> > > > 
> > > > Have you seen Lynch's latest movie yet? You know,
> > > > the one you said was "stupid" before you'd seen
> > > > it (and then deleted the post)?
> > > 
> > > As a matter of fact, yes. They showed it here in 
> > > France on satellite because Lynch was one of the 
> > > guests at the recent Cannes festival. Didn't like 
> > > it much, but it *was* much better than his entry 
> > > for the "Chacun son cinema" compilation, which was 
> > > so odd that it appears to have been deleted from 
> > > the distribution copy of the film.
> > > 
> > > Have *you* seen the film yet, or is your relation-
> > > ship with it...uh...similar to your relationship 
> > > with enlightenment, too?  :-)
> > 
> > Nope, but I've never expressed a critical
> > opinion about it, either (just as I have not
> > done so with either "The Sopranos" or
> > "Apocalypto," you see).
> 
> From FFL Message #126122, which was mainly a 
> repost of someone else's ideas from Salon.com,
> but which contained the following lines, *all* 
> written by Judy Stein, who has *still* never 
> seen the film. The subject line was Judy's, 
> the text in brackets in the second paragraph 
> was Judy's, and the full concluding paragraph
> was Judy's. I'm sure she doesn't consider any
> of them "critical opinion," but I'm not sure 
> how many people would agree with her.

Of course they aren't "critical opinion."

> As for the film itself, as an exercise in fair-
> ness and "intellectual honesty," or maybe just
> to see whether her *obvious* "critical opinion"

Obviously *not* "critical opinion."

> (not to mention slander of Mel Gibson and his 
> film

Not slander, either.

 *that she never saw) was warrented, see 
> above. Judy's "Not interested." 
> 
> Subject: Mel Gibson, Christian bigot
> 
> ...If there were ever an apocalypse in the 
> history of the Maya -- and herein lies the 
> ultimate demoralizing irony of the movie -- 
> it would be because of European contact. But 
> in the movie, after two hours of excess, 
> hyperbole and hysteria, the Spaniards represent 
> the arrival of sanity [i.e., Christianity--JS] 
> to the Maya world. The tacit paternalism [and 
> bigotry--JS] is devastating.
> 
> To highlight what the writer tactfully leaves
> implicit, Gibson has slandered the Maya and
> mangled history for the purpose of exalting the
> purported superiority of Christianity.
> 
> I saw Apocalypto, and feel that the author who
> wrote the article was WAY off-base, and had
> seen the film through his own "I'm a scholar
> and I don't get no respect and this pissant 
> director is famous and more handsome than I
> am"-colored glasses, missing what was really 
> onscreen. Several people on this forum who have 
> seen the film agree with me.

And a substantial number of scholars who know
something about Maya history agree with the
person I quoted. See the compendium of quotes
from these scholars that I posted awhile back.

Several of them (including the Salon writer),
by the way, *did* express "critical opinion"
of the film. These opinions were uniformly
positive, praising Gibson's great skill and
artistry as a filmmaker.

 Judy's still never 
> seen the film, and is even claiming that she has 
> "never expressed a critical opinion about it."

Right, I never have.

> Go figure, eh? I guess *this* is her definition 
> of the "intellectual honesty" that she accuses 
> so many of us of *not* having.

What's intellectually dishonest is to claim
I was expressing "critical opinion" of the film.

> At least I saw "Inland Empire."

*After* you had proclaimed it to be "stupid"
(and then deleted the post).

 I think it was
> stupid. That doesn't mean that everyone will
> think it was stupid. Many French critics liked
> it. Then again, the French like Jerry Lewis. But
> at least the French critics and I saw the films
> in question. Judy is so confident that she's 
> "right" that doing that is unnecessary.

The only way I wouldn't be "right" is if the
various scholars who have pointed out the film's
historical inaccuracies were lying about them.

> Interesting, eh?

More than you suspect.



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