Letters to the Editor
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Dogs
Wow ... you liked that Chihuahua trailer? I hated that thing more than I've ever hated anything in my life ... more even than Al Pacino in The Devil's Advocate.
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Sometimes a lynch mob
hangs a guy because he, y'know, did something bad. The dude liquored up and fucked a thirteen-year-old. Why does this fact become complicated just because he's European (they're sooo sophisticated!) and a movie director? If he were a gas station attendant with a mullett and GED, I have a feeling the sex crime in question would lose a lot of its luster. What a sorry nation of morally vacillating star-fuckers we've become.
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Bad Movie or Bad Journalism?
One of three scenarios must be true:
The Polanski documentary is a load of horseshit.
Heather Havrilesy didn't actually see the movie.
She is intentionally misrepresnting the facts.
Polanski did not flee the country "in the wake of his being charged" with his crime. He fled prior to sentencing. Furthermore, to refer to Polanski's alleged crime and his alleged victim is journalistic malpractice. There was nothing alleged about the crime. Polanski pled guilty.
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"Heather Havrilesy didn't actually see the movie."
Did you?
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Polanski not to be forgiven
Yes,he suffered a terrible tragedy and I felt very sorry for him when I heard the news. But I don't think that absolves him of what he did to a 13 year old girl. He abused a minor. That is a horrible act in and of itself. And, his behaviour in France wasn't much better. I read that he had an affair with the young woman who was in his movie "Tess". His actions were and are unforgivable. He is a very damaged person. This is revisionism of a crime and it taints his work.
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cute trailer, but...
yeah, the Beverly Hills Chihuahua trailer is cute. But, while extolling the dog's connections to the Aztecs, there is a brief flyover shot of Machu Picchu... which is an ancient Incan city. Different ancient culture, different continent altogether.
Much ado about piffle, I suppose, but still - it's not really that hard to maintain some semblance of historical accuracy, is it Disney?
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trailer hate
It was cute enough when for the first 2/3. Then the little dog said, "Jealous?" in a way that made me think of how so many shallow dickheads use that particular locution to talk back when you call them on shallow dickheadedness.
Fuck it. Asshole are assholes, even if they're adorable little rat dogs.
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critics picks
I don't have to personally like an artist to appreciate their art. My take on Polanski is that he is a genius level film maker who happens to be an asshole. I love the movies he makes.Many great artists are.I don't stop loving Gaugans canvasses just because HE was a total dick in his private life. But that's just me.
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Ovation TV - channel 157 on my dish -- irrc -- has a great line up today ...
My Dinner with Andre -- which I haven't seen in a decade but found quite amusing at the time
Knife in the Water -- Polanski's breakthrough movie I've never been able to watch much of, the tension and menace is just too great
Jules et Jim -- which I similarly haven't seen in a decade or two.
Their weekend programming is often movie classics. That these particular titles above may not appeal to anyone reading this aside, imho, it's a channel worth checking out.
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Regarding Polanski, as I understand it, he "did the right thing" and worked out a plea agreement and was prepared to face the music and "pay for his crime" when he got wind (apparently accurately) that the grandstanding judge was going to violate the plea agreement and exploint him and his crime a cause celebre ... so he fled.
People do dumb things. Some people are assholes. Even Polanski's victim thinks he's been punished more than enough. I do too.
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Re: Jeff Koons (and contemporary art in general)
Jeff Koons!!! It's that fabulous brush work. I just love that incredible technique of his. Don't you?
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Uh,
No. Any era defined by Jeff Koon is a bad era. He is a cynical, light-sucking manipulator. The Michael Jackson/Bubbles work is his tell-tale heart. Not one of his "witty, oversize installations" hasn't been done better and with more substance and humanity, by Claes Oldenburg, and long ago.
As for the BHC's - how can it be said any better than "Adam Reacts to Trailor for Beverly Hills Chihuahua"?
Here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEbWo3Cxlnw
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Can you imagine...
...Roman Polanski on "To Catch a Predator"?
If Jeff Koons could be "successful", maybe we can make sculptures out of toilet paper rolls and sell them for lots and lots of money...
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On Roman Polanski
All of you idiots who think Polanski got away with something, here are the facts of his life:
1. He survived Auschwitz. AUSCHWITZ.
2. He survived Auschwitz by escaping from it. He hid from the Nazis in caves and forests for almost two years. God knows how he survived, but he did.
3. After the war he got to go home to a Poland run by ruthless Stalinists. Hey, more fun and laughs!!
4. His filmmaking gave him an entree to the west, to which he defected in the mid-1960s.
5. He met and married Sharon Tate. In the summer of '69 she and his barely unborn child were slaughtered by the Manson Family.
He paid for ANY crime aside from murder long before he "fucked" a 13-year-old girl. Have you seen pictures of that "girl" - she looks about 19. That doesn't mitiate what Polanski did, but it - and his tragic life - goes a long way towards explaining why he did it.
And now for the "mystery" that will undoubtedly be revealed in this documentary. Polanski agreed to a plea that had him in county jail for X amount of time, plus probation. But the judge double-crossed him, and his attorney told his agent, and his agent helped him get out of the U.S. How did the judge double-cross him? Well, Polanski was supposed to do a few months plus probation, but the judge infamously said, "Wait until that degenerate little fucker gets in here. I'm sending him up for twenty years." That was overheard in chambers by Polanski's attorney.
A man who had survived the hell of Auschwitz, whose wife and unborn child were slaughtered like cattle, might be forgiven for not wanting to spend five minutes in an American prison.