A Rhinebeck High School sophomore is urging the school district to require alternative views be presented by teachers on controversial topics like climate change.

Michelle Dewkett said the global warming documentary “An Inconvenient Truth” was being shown in science and English classes without equal weight being given to other positions on the topic.

“As of now, the teaching of controversial topics is out of control,” Dewkett told members of the Board of Education on Tuesday. She also said the district is not following its own policy of providing students with a wide range of materials.

Dewkett cited a class on global warming as an example, saying the effects of human activity on the environment are not being balanced with information about the natural course of changes on Earth.

Can any of you alarmists explain why the movie was being shown in an English class? What does it have to do with this type of class? Unless they were discussing grammatical errors and how to use language to be overwrought and hysterical. Or perhaps the massive number of un-truths in the movie. I could see the movie being shown in Sociology class, where they can discuss indoctrination and how to brain wash kids.

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Visually, this was a completely stunning movie. I caught myself not thinking that this was a mostly computer animated movie, and just fell into the scenes, especially with the 3D, which was done extremely well, and drags you right in. It was a cornucopia of delight for the visual cortex. Avatar gave you time to process the majesty of the scenes, and enjoy and revel in them. The details are simply stunning. All the animated creatures, from the tiniest to the largest, went light years beyond previous animation. They had facial expression, incredible movement, and emotion. And, it was a good thing they showed emotion, because the rest of the movie inspired very little emotion from myself or the 60% or so filled theater.

The overall plot was not bad, if kinda done before. A former Marine, who is paralyzed from the waist down during combat, is transported to a far off planet to work as an avatar which looks like one of the native people. Mean mercanaries working for a company want to move native people away from their home to get at the precious materials. Man goes native, rallies native people, beats company. It can be worked. The only problem, James Cameron didn’t. It wasn’t that the dialogue was bad. It was basic, but, OK. The acting from the live actors was fine. Even the “acting” from the computer animation was just fine. But, it just didn’t inspire an emotional response.

When Sully (the Marine) is falling in love with one of the natives, and she reciprocates that love, you barely feel it. When the tree is destroyed (trying to keep the spoilers to a minimum), you barely feel it. When the natives are fighting to defeat the corporation, and win (well, you knew they would, right?), you barely feel it. When the bad guy is killed, you barely feel it. When Sully becomes…….well, you get the drift.

Through the entire visual feast, there is little to inspire an emotional response. Has anyone seen “Marley and Me”? You just felt the joy, the sorrow, the love, the heartbreak. Something as simple as a puppy running loose on the beach brought a smile. When Marley had trouble getting up the stairs to the front door, you felt sad. Avatar brought almost no emotion. The audience was silent and still. You know what it is like to sit in a theater and pick up the emotions from everyone else. During Terminator: Salvation, I had the feeling that everyone wanted to walk out. Here, everyone just wanted to sit and relax like they would while watching one of those Sunrise Earth programs, or the ones where they fly over the countryside in some locale.

As far as being anti-war, anti-military, massive kumbaya with nature? Eh. There were some elements of the first two, but, it didn’t make me want to flip the screen off. Nature? A couple scenes were perhaps a little overdone, but, it was just a nice bit. Perhaps if there was any frickin’ emotion in the movie, I might have been like “whatever. Envirowackos.” The “green” stuff actually worked, most of the time. Ant-corporate? Just didn’t see it, though, it is amusing that some feel that that was a message, considering how much corporate money Cameron would have had to take to make the movie. I’m not sure what Roger Ebert was seeing, but, one thing he doesn’t talk about is how it affects the viewer. Because it doesn’t. If you read so many reviews by pro’s and viewers, they talk about how stunning it was visually, but, very little about being emotionally involved and how great the story was.It wasn’t racist, as one liberal contends. It didn’t suck, as a conservative contended. It just was.

That is why I gave it the dual ratings. Visually, a solid A. For the lack of emotional content, a D. The story itself would deserve a C+. Is it worth seeing in the theaters? I have to say “yes.” You just will not get the full scope of the stunning visuals on your TV, even if they give away the same type of 3D glasses as are used in the theaters (unfortunately, movie studios give you the red/green ones when you buy them for home viewing, which just isn’t the same.) But, go to a matinee, and save a few bucks.

Crossed at Pirate’s Cove

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For some lighter fare today…

When DVDs first began to contain those now ubiquitous special features, those mini documentaries, series of interviews, or behind the scenes shoots, it seemed like such an exciting idea, especially for film buffs (or series fans). But now that they have become fairly common and now that I’ve seen a lot of them, I have to say that they are almost entirely worthless for anything other than time-wasting, disc stuffers.

Did you know that JJ Abrams is a great camera shaker and is “the life” of the new Star Trek movie? Did you know that no one worked harder than Peter Jackson, director of the Lord of the Rings trilogy? Isn’t the newest Punisher movie as fun as a real live comic book? Didn’t the actors on Silverado have fun? Wasn’t Patton intense? Aren’t all these films as brilliant as Shakespeare?

Do you care at all?

It is entirely naive, of course, to imagine that the viewer will get any critical analysis of a movie by the same folks that made and are marketing the very DVD that contains the effort and therein lies the total uselessness of these “special” features. Every actor is brilliant, every composer poured his soul into his assembly line-like, quickly churned out accompaniment, every director was singularly intent on creating the most serious-minded art ever conceived on film… and most of it is utter bunkum.

The gauzy, uncritical fluff that comprises all these special features is laughable for the utter sameness of one to the other. How many times can you see nameless, faceless special effects guys tell you that their film has the most up-to-date, brilliant computer effects ever seen before you start to wonder who is telling the truth? How many slobberingly effusive actors can you take telling you that their co-stars were all princes, that their leading ladies were all as gracious as the Queen, and that their director was the most intelligent, dedicated auteur since film-making dawned?

Everyone was grand, every script was fantastic, every special effect the height of technology, every note of music heartfelt and stirring, and every film was as important as the invention of the wheel.

Seriously, did no one find their co-star a bore? Was no director a manic pain in the ass? Was no score written with obvious bits and pieces from the ten other scores the composer has drilled out over the last twenty years? Was every film a Citizen Kane instead of the summer’s quickly forgotten popcorn? Does it escape each of these self-congratulatory imps that these are just movies?

There is no reason whatever to watch these less than special features. There just isn’t. In fact, few of the movies that these special features accompany are worth the time invested, so the “special” features most certainly are not.

At the risk of sounding like I am about to chase “those kids” off my lawn, I have some advice for you all. After watching the movie, shut off the DVD player and go read a nice book. In fact, that advice just might preempt the feature presentation itself.

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Roland Emmerich’s new end-of-the-world disaster film 2012 has a rollicking good time destroying every monument to man’s architectural genius in the world. The Sistine Chapel goes kablooie, as does the Vatican and the giant Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro. The White House gets flattened, too. All man’s most well known landmarks get turned to dust by Emmerich’s over-the-top movie effects team.

But by the time the year 2012 rolls around, director Roland Emmerich is obviously saying that Islam has already been wiped off the face of the Earth before the end came. There are no Saudi scenes of mayhem and destruction in his film. No Iranian landmarks get caved in, no destruction of Mecca and Medina are shown in Emmerich’s mashup masterpiece.

One can only conclude that Roland Emmerich has decided that Islam has been wiped out by an enraged western civilization before the year 2012. Emmerich is obviously saying that all Muslims have been put to death and all Muslim holy sites will have been erased from the earth long before 2012 comes to end all of civilization.

Well, what other conclusion can you come to when it is realized that director Emmerich has decided not to show any Muslim sites being destroyed in his film about the end of the world? I mean, if everything is being destroyed and he doesn’t show any Muslim sites getting mushified, he MUST be saying that there aren’t any Muslim sites left to mush by the time 2012 rolls around… right?

So, there you have it folks. Director Roland Emmerich is positing a total genocide of all Muslims and a complete erasure of their history from the planet before the year 2012.

Either that or Roland Emmerich is just another boring self-hating, Hollywood coward that delights in wishing destruction and death to be visited upon the very civilization that brings him fortune and fame. And, gosh… we don’t want that to be true, do we?

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Imagine this. At a time of political turmoil, a charismatic, telegenic new leader arrives virtually out of nowhere. He offers a message of hope and reconciliation based on compromise and promises to marshal technology for a better future that will include universal health care.

Actually, the up front leader is a she. And, she does make all those sorts of “we’re the space aliens, and we are here to help.” Of course, in the opening 5 minutes, a large Jesus on the Cross falls and nearly crushes a man in a wheel chair. And, in the first 15, two priests have thoughts of doubt about God, because the aliens came. The first 30 seemed more about hopenchange then the original hopenchange

The news media swoons in admiration — one simpering anchorman even shouts at a reporter who asks a tough question: “Why don’t you show some respect?!” The public is likewise smitten, except for a few nut cases who circulate batty rumors on the Internet about the leader’s origins and intentions. The leader, undismayed, offers assurances that are soothing, if also just a tiny bit condescending: “Embracing change is never easy.”

The leader offers an up and coming reporter a once in a lifetime interview. Right before it is about to start, he says he has to ask some tough questions. She says he has to show the V in a good light. He says that’s not the way it works. She says the interview is over. Then she tells him this could make his career, and that he really wants to cooperate. Unsurprisingly, he does. And, during said interview, the leader states that she wants health care for all. I actually groaned out-loud when the reporter says “you mean like universal health care?” Then I remembered something important from the original series

So, does that sound like anyone you know? Oh, wait — did I mention the leader is secretly a totalitarian space lizard who’s come here to eat us?

See, now that is the part that liberals will not like. I’d suspect that liberals are sending plenty of unhinged emails, and placing many unhinged, frothing, foaming phone calls, to ABC.

While those few nut cases are circulating rumors and banding together to fight back, the V actually attack them.

Of course, I am wondering what kind of trickery the producers, director, and writers will stick in to change the dynamics so it becomes Liberal Friendly, much as the big shots destroyed Battlestar Galactica.

To be honest, I wish they could have left the politics out of it. Ruins the atmosphere. Hopefully, they will change it up just a bit, drop the politics.

Crossed at Pirate’s Cove

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Remember how the left always asserted that George W. Bush was stupid? Remember how they were so thrilled to have the Obammessiah that spoke so well, a president that was perpetually the smartest man in the room? Well, after the many stammering TelePrompter free stump debacles during the campaign, many began to doubt this claim of his superior intelligence. Certainly by itself this is no big deal. But added with the whole here is another small dent in the perception of Obama’s overrated superiority.

Newsweek conducted a Q and A with the president at the end of which appears a few questions concerning his recent choices of entertainment. During the Q and A The One admitted he watched the reboot of Star Trek in the White House movie theater claiming that everyone was saying he was Spock. But two other things he said clanged badly: one arrogant and the other somewhat ignorant.

First the arrogant:

And the last movie you saw?

Now, movies I’ve been doing OK [with] because it turns out we got this nice theater on the ground floor of my house … So Star Trek, we saw this weekend, which I thought was good. Everybody was saying I was Spock, so I figured I should check it out and–[the president makes the Vulcan salute with his hand].

So The One likes to be called Mr. Spock, eh? That is bad enough, but the fact that he so automatically called the White House “my house” is simply as arrogant as it comes. It isn’t “your” house Mr. President. It’s the people’s! The man’s sense of entitlement is disgusting.

Next the ignorant:

Did you watch that when you were growing up?

I used to love Star Trek. You know, Star Trek was ahead of its time. There was a whole–the special effects weren’t real good, but the storylines were always evocative, you know, there was a little commentary and a little pop philosophy for a 10-year-old to absorb.

I find it amusing that the “Spock” of the White House, the smartest president evah doesn’t know the difference between “evocative” and “provocative.” By the later half of his sentence Obama clearly meant provocative, not evocative.

The word evocative simply means to provoke emotional response or memories. But by focusing on “philosophy” and “commentary” Obama obviously meant that Star Trek provoked thinking so it was intellectually provocative not emotionally evocative. Additionally, how much evoking can a 10-year-old indulge?

So, why doesn’t the smartest man in the world know the difference between provocative and evocative?

Maybe he isn’t as smart as the left would have it?

(As for me, I saw Trek last night. Fun film. Unfortunately, it never once felt like Star Trek to me. But it did evoke some fond memories with its homage to the original series!)

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Naturally all Bush’s folks are the Evil Characters

In a transparently unhinged and partisan hit job against several Bush administration officials, Newsweek thought it would be amusing to compare the Bush era and the Obama era by analogizing them with Star Wars and Star Trek respectively. Naturally Newsweek’s Bush Derangement Syndrome was given full throated expression — phasers set to kill not to stun — as the Bush administration officials were noted as representing one or the other of the evil Star Wars characters while all the Obama officials were compared to the good guys in Star Trek. What we get is the typical Old Media talking point: Bush evil/ Obama good.

Out of the 9 Star Wars characters used on the SW side to explain the Bush era, only 5 are conceivably a good guy. The rest are all the SW bad guys. But even that isn’t as it would seem on its face. It’s so bad that even when Newsweek uses any of the ostensible good guy characters from Star Wars, their caption tends to undercut the good nature of the character when coupled with a Bush official. For instance, we all know that the happy and fun character of C-3PO is a beloved Star Wars character, but in Newsweek’s hands the venerable, loyal robot becomes former Bush Spokesman Ari Fleischer. Why is C-3PO like Fleisher? Why because he’s “obsequious” and “glabrous,” of course. Hardly flattering.

It gets worse. On the Star Trek side only one of the 9 Star Trek characters used for Obama era figures is a Star Trek bad guy. Evil Klingon Commander Kor becomes… wait for it… Rush Limbaugh! That’s right, the only bad guy on Newsweek’s Obama side is Limbaugh. Every other Obama era official is compared to a Star Trek good guy and lionized in the caption.

So what is the outcome? Let’s take the Bush/Star Wars side first. Bush himself is the evil, tragic Darth Vader, Rumsfeld is the evil general Grand Moff Tarkin, Cheney is the corrupt and venal Star Wars Emperor, Rove the sneaky, uncaring bounty hunter Boba Fett, and Alberto Gonzales is a “disposable flunky” Stormtrooper.

Now, W’s dad, former president H.W. Bush, is coupled with Obi-Wan Kenobi. You might then say, well SEE, Obi-Wan is a good guy. Oh, but wait for the caption. You see, H.W. Bush is Obi-Wan because he was the “confirmed sage disappointed by the cherished disciple Vader.” In other words, he is the wise father disappointed by the failure son. According to Newsweek, then, H.W. Bush was the “good” president because Newsweek agreed with H.W.’s wrongheaded foreign policy.

Worse is the silly portrayal of Colin Powell as the Han Solo frozen in carbonite. You see, in Newsweek’s eyes Powell was a good guy that was “thwarted by Vader.” So, even as they compare Powell to one of the Star Wars heroes they pick the time in the movie series when that hero was frozen and powerless, unable to be a hero.

But what of the wonderful, bright and shining Obama era? Who are they in the Star Trek universe? Prepare to be sickened.

Naturally, Obama is the logical Spock, the smartest guy in the room, with “cool, collected” brilliance. Robert Gibbs is teamed with Lt. Uhura simply as “communications chief.” No dig at the failure that is Gibbs is given by Newsweek, of course. Ben Bernanke is Scotty because he’s warning of the troubles ahead. Tax cheat Timothy Geithner is Nurse Chapel because he’s a “dependable helping hand.” Axelrod is Checkov merely because he “sets the course.” I already mentioned Limbaugh as the eeeevil Klingon.

Now we get to the two that might be considered a jab, but only just.

VP Biden is compared to D. McCoy with this odd caption: “Salty motormouth who thinks he knows best.” This I find to be an insult to McCoy because Dr. McCoy was never in the Star Trek series the clown that Biden is in real life.

Finally, we get Bill Clinton compared to the scarred and withered version of Star Trek’s Captain Pike, the man that commanded the Enterprise before Captain Kirk did in the TV series. Bill Clinton is like Pike because he was “so talented, so promising… so damaged.” And this too is a bad analogy. Pike is nothing like the disloyal, womanizing Clinton. All Captain Pike fans should be telling Newsweek to shove it.

… of course, any Bush fans should be too.

(And this is doubly galling for me because I think Star Wars is kiddie, junk. Star Trek was the one with the intellectual heft between the two. Sigh.)

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Who Watches The Watchers? -A Comic Book As Political Commentary and a new blockbuster movie soon to hit theaters

If you thought the last Batman movie, The Dark Knight, was dark and cynical, wait until you see Watchmen, arriving in theaters on March 6, 2009. Brooding Bruce Wayne will have nothing on a “hero” that rapes his sidekick, another one that has no interest in mankind at all, one that is a megalomaniac, one that is psychotic, and one that is overweight and sexually impotent all set against a backdrop of a United States that is many shades of despair and evil. It makes Batman, The Dark Knight, seem like a festival of sweetness and light. This is the Watchmen, soon to be released by Warner Brothers. If this new flick at all follows that anti-American, nihilism of the original comic books we are in for some dark stuff, indeed.

Why do contemporary artists all seem to think the end of the world is nigh? Why has art become a thing of ugliness, instead of light? With all the beautiful things we see every day, the delicacy of a flower, the turn of a woman’s arm, the grace of a bird in flight, we are treated only to the bizarre and horrid by our artists. These days we see sculptures that look like molecular mistakes writ large. We live in architecture with the image of a jumble of blocks thrown to the ground in the midst of a temper tantrum by a gigantic, petulant child. We view paintings that appear more accidental than planned. We have movies full of violence and anti-social behavior. On the radio we hear music that celebrates all the worst in man. We even have comic books that belittle heroism, that deconstruct the good and exceptional turning their heroes as cartoonishly flawed as the most obscene head case on the Jerry Springer Show.

When did entertainment turn so dark?

In the field of comic books, a 12 part series called Watchmen, created by writer Alan Moore (original author of the story that the 2005 movie “V for Vendetta” was based upon) as a political commentary on its time, was a comic book series hailed as having “transcended its origins,” and so becoming a watershed in comics entertainment. This series, published in 1986, was at the front edge of a wave of comics in the early and mid 1980s that attempted to demolish the heroes of the past and replace them with a post-hero world of darkness and pessimism.

So why talk about a comic book from 1986 now? With a motion picture under development and Time Magazine placing the series on its top 100 novels Watchmen is being brought back into prominence, and now seems like a good time to re-visit the series. Since it is claimed that it had so changed the comic book industry, let’s give it a look with fresh, more critical eyes.

Watchmenwas a reflection of the contemporary political positions held by an influential minority, sure enough. But in the final analysis, it is so imbued with the over wrought and ill-conceived notions of the political left that it fails to wholly represent a true understanding of what was really going on in the world or what, in retrospect, we really had to worry about. Further, it is just the type of stuff being peddled to our kids (as it originally was in comic book stores) to which we should pay attention.

Graphically, it isn’t very well drafted. It does have the benefit of being created in the semi-realist style that began to be popular in the 1980s though. which instantly makes it better than today’s comics drawn in that horrible Japanese Anime/Manga style that has so pervaded the comic book industry of late. Thankfully, Watchmen’s was not yet an era infected by this regrettable, current trend in US comic art.

As to subject matter, it wasn’t “just a comic book.” It hit all the 80’s hot-button issues. Homosexuality, rape, war with Russia and “the bomb,” crooked US politicians, corruption, murder, sexual impotency, welfare mammas, and homicidal maniacs were all aspects of the story line. It even indulges in demonization of Nixon directly, and Ronald Reagan by inference. But it’s philosophy of nihilism and anarchy was its underlying message.

Obviously, the series is a commentary on the human condition as much as it is on the politics contemporary to the publishing of the work as intended by writer, Alan Moore. Moore is from a long line of political leftists and has repeatedly said in interviews that his comic series was intended to be a left-leaning commentary on political ideaology. Man is the greatest evil of all, despair is the only possible reality, and peace is but fleeting seem to be the core messages in Watchmen. And in all of this, the western world makes it even worse. Watchmen is all told on the backdrop of a fallen and corrupt western society.

But, this idea, that man will ruin everything eventually, could certainly have been told sans the ill informed and badly thought out political commentary running underneath. The basic tenets of leftist thought that forms the basic point of view in this series are proven failures and this detracts from what could have been a better story. The fact that the Left’s ideas are failures was even realizable during the era in which the book was written and not just in hindsight as we re-read it today. From the hatred of American politics, to doubt of American character, and the equalization of all ideologies to the lowest common denominator, this series fails in its political philosophy.

Further, the cynical commentary that “justice,” or “right,” and “good” themselves are so subjective as to be impossible to define runs throughout. There is a basic assumption here that there’s no such thing as heroism and that those who claim to believe in the concept or even try to put it into play eventually make a mockery of their claims of defending the innocent and punishing the guilty. That they, sooner or later, confuse the search for justice with their own selfish desires or that said search is so intertwined with their personality flaws in the first place that they only succeed in deluding themselves into imagining that justice really is being served at all by their actions.

This all reflects the author’s ideology of anarchy and nihilism. A case is being made that everything is relative and that nothing can be “known” because things are different in all situations, there is no universal “right,” no natural law. We know this battle has been fought between philosophers since man first began to wonder about his condition. It was hotly contested during the Enlightenment period of the 1700s, and once again in the 1800s, and still again in the 1900s and today. So, the lamentations in Watchmen certainly are not new.

Like I said, it’s all pretty dark and cynical.

To create his universe, Moore’s super-heroes were created specially for Watchmen and are case studies of a series of mental troubles that would make that old fraud, Freud, run for his couch.

The Comedian represents the most cynical example of anarchy in the series. His only desire is to continue to sate his need for violence, a need he cloaks in service to his country thereby making a mockery of patriotism as well as heroism. He sees no value in anything unless it fulfills his desires. One political undercurrent for this character is to display the evil of the US government, as well as the character’s degradation. This evinces itself in a US government that apparently sees nothing wrong with employing such a homicidal maniac as an undercover agent.

Unfortunately for the author’s touch with reality, he seems not to understand that such a personality is not one a government would be able to control or trust in the long run. The reality is that a certain fealty or belief in the ideals of the government in question usually makes for the better operative.

Dr. Manhattan is the only truly “super” being in the series. Whereas the others are just normal people who have certain abilities of physical strength or mental acuity, Dr. Manhattan was a man altered by a radiation experiment into a being that can manipulate molecules. But, as a result, his problem is utter disconnection with his fellows. With all his power he still lacks any real understanding of his fellow man. He is so fascinated by the workings of things, so blinded by the mechanics of the universe, he fails utterly to ask “why.” In fact, everything is so relative to him that he can see no difference between a blade of grass, a lone molecule, or a human being for most of the series. His world is unsatisfying, though. He continues to look for that “something” that even he, with all his great powers, is unable to define.

Manhattan’s politics seem to represent the ultra egalitarian “we are all the same” variety. His equalizes all of human endeavor to the same level. But, if we were to buy into this simplistic view it becomes inescapable that there really is no difference between a Gandhi figure and a Hitler. They are both “just humans,” so how can their actions be so “different”? Thus such a philosophy ends up denying any “truth” for man. This, of course, goes to the heart of undermining justice and law.

The Nite Owl, an aging tech expert, represents impotency in nearly all things. He cannot stop a crime, he cannot save New York, and he cannot even subdue a friend. He can’t even have sexual relations without some out of the ordinary stimulus. Futility seems his only ability in the end. His character screams that we are all helpless.

The main female character, Silk Spectre really has little meat to her role. She seems not to represent much of anything, seeming to act only as a foil or enabler for other characters. In fact, Moore is quoted as saying she is only in there so that they had a requisite female character. She seems treated that way, too. This makes her Mother’s rape by The Comedian seem gratuitous and all about The Comedian’s character development instead of either of the Spectres’ (the daughter takes up Mother’s superhero character). We are left with feeling that this rape story line was only added to make the story seem “adult” oriented. Of course, it could be a commentary on the supposed ill treatment of women in western society, too, but looking at the rest of this story, I doubt it was meant so by the author of the series.

Ozymandias represents megalomania at its worst, most messianic form. So sure is he that he knows better that he takes away the very thing that makes man a sentient human being an individual: choice. The ability to choose our fate, choose our reactions, and direct our own lives is overridden by Ozymandias’ “better” future.

Lastly is the character of Rorschach. As a child, this character’s prostitute mother told him that she should have aborted him. He was repeatedly abused and eventually snapped, turning violent. Once he snapped, he found that his wild violence fixed things for him and made people fear him. As an adult in his superhero life, he uses unbridled violence to elicit information from underworld figures and thinks nothing of casually breaking fingers to insure cooperation. He attacks a caner riddled old man to get info and basically roams about the city intimidating and causing harm to people. His main part in the comic is to act as an unbalanced mockery of justice.

Unfortunately, the series ends up being just another way to tear down standards, another way to complain about the old ways while offering nothing with which to replace them. That being the case, nothing new has been learned in Watchmen. The only thing “new” is the forum in which the questions are being raised: a comic book.

One wishes that writer, Moore, could have used his considerable talents to produce uplift as opposed to depression, to reach for the sublime instead of the prosaic, to inspire by taking the high road instead of the low. But, unfortunately, with the influence of the political view from the left upon him all he could do was take the low road. If all one can do is see the worst in man, claim nothing is ever worth the effort, and that western ideas have destroyed any vestige of light in man then you are doomed to stay on that low road. So, we end up with despair and darkness in our art, too many artists having taken the low road.

Just as sadly, we see that the political Left hasn’t learned much since 1986. They still see the west as causing all of the world’s problems, still see capitulation to our enemies as the right course of action, and still feel that Patriotism and right and wrong are words with meaningless distinctions or, worse, even dangerous concepts.

Moore has lamented that his work with Watchmen had “started a whole genre of pretentious comics or miserable comics,” but since he insisted on taking that low road, but what could he expect? His politics, if emulated, ends up at this very place.

But, laments aside, Moore’s epic comic book does do one thing very successfully. It reveals the empty moralizing and faulty logic of his flavor of political thinking. Nearly every leftist political point that Moore tries to sell coupled with his philosophical premises all have been tried by successive generations of humanity and with the all the same results. Utter failure has been that result. Yet, here is Watchmen subtly trying to sell the same failed concepts that have proven so dangerous to mankind — and often murderously so. In the end, we cannot help but realize that the Left, so sure that they are the ones qualified to “watch the watchers,” fail to see that it is they, rather than others, who need the watching.

–The Watchmen series is 12 issues in length and is so full of political undercurrents and topical content that this short Op Ed doesn’t do it justice. For a full review, book by book, visit our review website at – http://www.publiusforum.com/watchmen/watchmen_index.html

(image credit: DC Comics/lib.udel.edu)

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1. Jar Jar Binks. I don’t really need to explain, do I? Actually, it was George Lucas who needed to be sacrificed, but, he wasn’t an actual character in the movie. Anyhow, Jar Jar should have sacrificed himself while protecting Padme just after they came through the watery core of Naboo.

2. Anakin Skywalker in The Clone Wars. Yeah, he was pretty annoying in The Phantom Menace, but, what kids aren’t? In TCW, though, here’s a guy who is one of the most powerful Jedi around, and his powers are still growing, and he spends his time whining about all sorts of crap. He meets up with the older woman, who happens to be rich and powerful, he has been pining for for 10 years, and, what does he do? Complain in a whiny voice. I was surprised she didn’t tell him to man up. Unfortunately, sacrificing him in Episode 2 would kinda defeated everything else. Fortunately, he decides to just kill everyone in Episode 3.

3. Elizabeth in Pirates of the Caribbean 3: At Worlds End. A case can be be that she needed to meet a horrible end, possibly to a ravenous bugblatter beast of Trall, or maybe being press ganged as a pleasure girl for Davey Jones’ crew, in POTC2 when she started to realize that she wanted Jack Sparrow, but, seriously, the final straw was when she asked James Norrington about realizing what side he chose. Oh, you mean the side that was trying to eradicate people who are in to theft, rape, and murder, among other crimes? That side, Elizabeth? One commenter at deviantART wrote: Elizabeth from PotC needs to be shot, run over, exhumed, resurrected, and shot again. Yup, pretty much.

4. Hartigan in Sin City. Usually Bruce Willis is da man in movies, but, damn, what was up with the script for his character? Let’s see: he saves little Nancy, shoots the rapist psycho’s package off, gets shot a bunch of times, goes through a crapload of time in a weird jail cell, gets beat to snot multiple times, goes on a killing spree, keeps himself from dying by being hung, saves the girl, rips the guys package off with his bare hands (yeah, that was kinda nauseating), beats his head to a pulp, then, rather then going off with the hot stripper babe (who won’t take anything off) who loves him, wrote letters to him in prison, and was pining for him for a decade, he blows the back of his head off. Couldn’t Hartigan just have died early and let Nancy get on with her life?

5. Johnny Depp as Willy Wonky. Way to take what had been a pretty cool character as played by Gene Wilder and turn him in to some metrosexual weirdo freakazoid. I couldn’t even watch most of this travesty. The Oompa Loompa’s should have rebelled and strung him up then turned him in to some sort of fruity confection.

6. Louis de Pointe du Lac (Brad Pitt) ”Interview With The Vampire.” It would have been a whole lot more fun if that annoying character had just been iced by the vampire Lestat, kinda like “Dude! I’m swapping blood with another dude! Out comes his heart!” Perhaps Lestat needed to go, to. Aren’t vampires supposed to be cool and pine after some hot babe?

Special mention goes to virtually the entire cast of Independence Day, Dakota Fanning for her constant whining and screaming in War Of The Worlds, and Mike Myers as Austin Powers in Goldmember. Any character portrayed by Pauly Shore and Adam Sandler. Any character portrayed by George Clooney, Owen Wilson, and Brad Pitt.

Who are your most annoying movie characters that needed to be sacrificed early?

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“The Messenger of Peace“, to be shot around the holy cities of Mecca and Medina, was originally a 1977 Hollywood film made by Moustapha Akkad and starring Anthony Quinn.

It is often applauded by Muslims as an example of how commercial Western cinema can respect Islam.

Executive producer of the new movie, Hajja Subhia Abu Elheja, said: “Since 9/11, Islam’s image has suffered tremendously.

“Now more than ever it has become important to bridge the gap of understanding between Muslims and non-Muslims.”

Hmm. Will it explain how that gap which includes beheadings, suicide bombers, teaching kids to kill the infidel, the poor treatment of women in much of the Islamic world, stonings, hangings for homosexuals, violence against those who criticize Islam, and intolerance against most things not approved by Islam, among others?

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