(I owe the links to feministe)

Mel Gibson’s film distribution company is suing a US cinema chain for more than $40m (?@ef;bf;½21m) in a dispute over revenues for The Passion of the Christ.

Gibson’s Icon Distribution says Regal Entertainment Group – the country’s biggest cinema chain – owes it the amount in unpaid box office receipts.

–from BBC 2004-06-09: Gibson sues over Passion takings

… only $12.99 from the official merchandising website!

Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ is being called a lot of things — brilliant, anti-Semitic, sacrilegious. And some Christian leaders are now criticizing the production for trying to turn a profit out of the story of Christ’s death. They point to the merchandising– a hardcover book, a soundtrack C.D., lapel pins, witness cards, nail necklaces and inscribed nail pendants.

–from MSNBC 2004-02-26: Merchandising "The Passion"

19. Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal:
20. But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal:
21. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. …
24. No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.

The Gospel According to Matthew, Chapter 6, KJV

A cheap shot? Sure, I’ll cop to that. Just let me add that interpretive charity is not always the top item on my list when it comes to creepy Holocaust-denying weasels.

Sorry, Mel.

On second thought, I think that I was a little too hard on President Bush in my post yesterday. Huey Freeman set me straight:

Huey: So Powell is finally admitting there aren’t any WMDs in Iraq.

Caesar: But it’s not the President’s fault. It was an intelligence failure.

Huey: Well, if it was an intelligence failure, it’s not the President’s fault.

Caesar: Not at all.

Huey: It’s his parents’ fault.

Caesar: I guess they didn’t read to him enough as a child.

There is a gargantuan poster hanging in our local movie theatre of Reese Witherspoon looking a bit sassy in a very New York black turtleneck, with the words SWEET HOME ALABAMA stamped across it, advertising the upcoming motion picture from Touchstone Pictures. As soon as I saw it, I thought, Oh Lord, he we go again, another patronizing movie about the wild and wacky local color of the South. I decided not to make my full judgment until I saw the previews, though. Who knows, maybe they were doing something interesting. After all, all you can see on the poster is a huge image of Reese Witherspoon’s head.

Well, OK, I saw the trailer. Apparently this ill-conceived romantic comedy was the product of combining two premises:

1. Intelligence and sophistication are signs of vice.
2. Fortunately, neither of these unhappy characteristics are to be found in the South.

Reese is a stylin’ jet-set New York City fashion designer who has everything that the big city has to offer. She comes back home to her ol’ Alabammy home, surrounded by the requisite cast of crackers, rednecks, and a droopy-faced smell-hound. Along the way we have the required jokes about bugs, Civil War re-enactors, and Yankees cluelessly tramping around trying to understand the curious habits of the savage natives.

So here we go again, with a bunch of folks from New York and L.A. making yet another insulting flick in which my home state is reduced to one big expanse of cartoonish stereotypes of white country bumpkins. From what I can tell, this movie is going to have all the subtle grace and sensitivity towards its subjects as a minstrel show; Rastus and Uncle Tom and Aunt Jemima have merely been replaced by Bubba and Lurlynn and Bobby Ray.

(link courtesy of Max [2002/08/15])

One of the things about this crazy postmodern age is the absolutely insufferable number of people who think that they are being clever and naughty but are actually just being stupid and hackneyed.

A case in point is the promotional materials for the upcoming film, The Rules of Attraction. It’s bad enough that it is being made by Roger Avary, and based on a novel by Bret Easton Ellis–virtually guaranteeing it will be too smarmily hip for its own good. But did they really have to make a poster and a trailer which are about nothing at all, other than how naughty they are being?

Here’s a hint boys: you’re not actually "corrupt minds;" you’re just boring little hipsters playing at epater les bourgeoisie, and there is perhaps nothing in the world that is less edgy or interesting than that.

OK, so I’ve been away for a while, as will be obvious to all three of my loyal readers. I’ve been visiting a lot with my friend L. from Detroit, and also celebrating my 21st birthday, which was yesterday (no alcohol was consumed, but I did have some very inordinately tasty bread pudding).

On Friday, I got to see a very fun, if spotty, production of Hamlet at the Alabama Shakespeare Festival. The costuming was all over the place–doublets, late Victorian costumes, Norwegian commandos with AK-47s. And, I hate to be catty here, but the actor playing Laertes seemed like a terrible ham until I just realized that he has the misfortunate of this really weird, nasal voice that is really distracting. Max, who we saw at intermission, also pointed out that he disliked the direction of Polonius, who was being played completely buffo, without any of his underlying menace. All true. On the other hand, many of the actors were quite good — in particular, Hamlet (whiich is the important thing, of course), Horatio, Claudius, and Polonius (goofiness aside). And as always, the Shakespeare Festival is just a lovely place to go out for a night and see a play. Even if it were god-awful, I would have enjoyed the drive and sitting outside by the fountain. Yesterday we celebrated my birthday by going to see the fabulous film version of The Importance of Being Earnest at the Capri theatre and having dinner at the Warehouse Bistro in Opelika. And today, we are going to Cold Stone Creamery with Max to hang out and get some very tasty ice cream. All of this, I have to say, has been a lot more entertaining than, say, schlepping down to Bodega’s and giving myself alcohol poisoning with 21 shots.

Anyway, to come to the point of all of this reportage, another nice feature of my birthday weekend was that my mother returned home from Dallas bearing several cheaply-acquired computer goods (Office XP Professional for $60 — having relatives who work for M$ is very nice). So, for the next few days I’ll be working on hot-rodding my computer a bit. New wireless mouse and keyboard are already installed; I’ll be upgrading to Winders XP soon, and I’m going to go out shopping with some of my birthday money to pick up new gadgets to slap on to the system. It should be a pretty geektacular couple of days, so if I’m not around posting for a little while, that’s where I’ll be.