Mr Smith,
I see. I used to go out with a Jamaican girl at one time; that caused some havoc among my still Polish parents (foster). Now I'm in a relationship with a muslim girl. It's much better this time around. I do support your fight against religion fundamentalists; however, don't give them any ammo against you. Vulgarity, though sometimes merited, is sometimes lost on such people. Instead, make them argue with you on an intellectual level, and do damage to them that way. This was just a hint; nothing more.
PS - The above hint does not, of course, apply to this messageboard.
I don't consider anyone here to be my foe, unless they give me reason to do so. Cheers,
Translator

[This message has been edited by Translator (edited 03-04-2004).]

Translator,

Shoot, I didn't expect you to be so polite. Re-reading your other posts however, I see the error was mine. Yes, we disagree. But we've done so politely, I hope.

Mr. Smith,

Re-reading my post above, I realize I was far too sarcastic. I apologize. I hope I said nothing to provoke your response but you might follow my example and re-read some of your own posts and see if, though you disagree, you might be able to do so in a more polite, respectful manner.

Differing points of view are quite welcome on this site, I've found, and lend some spice to it. Don't be discouraged. Just play nice.

Pete

"Alas. How could I have suspected that a message board about Ray Bradbury would be infected with right wing zealots spewing hatred?"

This is the kind of blather that is bothersome . . . not that you have different ideas, but that you express yourself via bigotry, over-generalizations and name-calling.

Simple stuff. Again, you seem like you have the raw intelligence to understand this. So why the difficulty in understanding it?

Translator:

I would disagree that the violence in the film "The Passion of Christ" necessarily indicates problems with the director. I have seen "Schindler's List" and it (with less blood) was certainly as emotionally violent (even nude shower scenes of death, etc.) as anything in Gibson's movie -- yet, interestingly, I saw no comments denouncing Speilberg's mental stability following that film.

So again, why the presumption that Gibson is definitionally a mental case based on extrapolation from "Passion" alone, when the same standard does not apply to Speilberg, as director of "Schindler's List"?

Hey, everyone:

I've started a brand new thread under Ray's Legacy. Maybe we can continue to beat this topic to death while staying out of everyone else's way who want to use this site for Bradbury stuff.

Pete

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Mr. Dark:
[B]Translator:

I have seen "Schindler's List" and it (with less blood) was certainly as emotionally violent (even nude shower scenes of death, etc.) as anything in Gibson's movie -- yet, interestingly, I saw no comments denouncing Speilberg's mental stability following that film.

I keep seeing this argument all around. Even in the local paper. This is disturbing on mainly one level: it's an oblique way to express either conscious or subconscious anti-Jewish feelings. Why keep bringing up this one film (SCHINDLER'S LIST)?

Thinly-veiled anti-Jewish ideas.

Mr. Smith,

Re-reading my post above, I realize I was far too sarcastic. I apologize. I hope I said nothing to provoke your response but you might follow my example and re-read some of your own posts and see if, though you disagree, you might be able to do so in a more polite, respectful manner.


Pete[/B][/QUOTE]

Apology accepted and offered in return.

It bothers me that you now attack me as anti-semitic because I cite an example of a counter-argument.

By your argument all efforts to attack Gibson for violence in the Passion are hence anti-christian, because any attack on Spielburg on the violence in Schindler's List are anti-semitic. Apparently, the argument only applies in one direction for you. This, of course, makes it very difficult to have any kind of discussion with you.

Again, get off the name-calling and generalizations and deal with the arguments. Citing Schinder's List is not anti-semitic. You've made assumptions about Mel Gibson based on his movie about the sufferings of Christ, now you've made assumptions that I'm anti-semitic (even sub-consciously) because I cite the violence of Schindlers List as an example of violence against the Jews -- a film and director that ae apparently exempt from criticism. The violence and inhumanity in Schindler's List shares the violence in the Passion in magnitude, but there were not attacks on Spielburg for that film.

Rather than making specious assumptions, personal attacks and name-calling, how about if you stay with the issues?


[This message has been edited by Mr. Dark (edited 03-04-2004).]

Personally, as an objective movie-goer, I disliked the film very much. The emotion it provoked in me most was anger. I was mad at the people torturing an innocent man so brutally. But I was also mad at the director. I felt like I was manipulated. And yes, I realize all films manipulate us, but this film went too far. After the first ten minutes of beating I had gotten the point. Enough already. I felt sickened. The only people I can see benefitting from this film are the true believers. For them I can see how it might be a useful tool to understand what Jesus went through. For everyone else, it is just awful. There is no glowing feeling for us non-believer movie-goers that he did this for us, only scene after scene of senseless violence, which I abhor. The comparison's to Schindler's list are off base. Yes Schindler's List was horrific and deeply powerful, but the only way it could ever equal the raw and senseless horrors of The Passion would be if we zoomed in on one jew and showed 2 hours of his suffering. Yes, we know Jesus suffered. I do not like knowing that. More importantly I do not need to watch chunks of flesh flying off his body for an hour and a half to get it. I have an imagination and a bit of a brain. I do not need it rubbed over and over in my face to understand. There was no story to the film. It was a visualization of a man's excruciatingly painful death. I am quite sure a better movie about Jesus could be made, communicating the point in a much more tactful way.

Bill Oberg:

Ah!! At last, an actual intelligent post.

Yep, true believers are really the ones that benefit the most. But a "guilty" man in being put to death. Made "guilty" on 'our' account. The agony in the garden encompassed all of time and all the wrongs of everyone to be and those that were...Now, how do you film such evil and darkness? To give it a moment of justice, would run you screaming from the theater.

But this movie only scratches the surface of expressing Christ. Trouble is, the graffiti-film artists are not far behind, who will give us goofy renditions, attempting to match the box office receipts of 'The Passion'.

I remember when "The Exorcist" came out to theaters. It was hypnotic. No one had ever seen anything like it before. Within 6 months, and copy cats galore, the original movie was re-leased...to laughter and scorn. The copy cats broke the spell of the original.....

Thanks for your post, Bill. I really enjoyed your views.



[This message has been edited by Nard Kordell (edited 03-05-2004).]

Hello Mr Dark,
there is a very great distinction between Shindler's list and the Passion of Christ - one is a tactfully doen movie that shows more things by merely hinting at them, the other revels in blood and gore. I agree with Oberg about the comparison; the two movies would only be comparable if, as I mentioned before, they would, for example, document in detail the pain and suffering of a family doomed to death in the inferno of the death camps. As this is simply not done in Shindler's List, his movie is not on the same level as Gibson's. Once again, my argument is that those who love such bloody, realistic movies, are pathologically deviated, and those who support them should do so at their own risk.
Incdentally, I was throughly disturbed by Shindler's List; I got to a certain part and I had to leave the room because I couldn't take it anymore. Part of this was because I actually have a family memeber who perished at Aushwitz, and partially it's because another family memeber, my grandmother, was freed by the Russians only minutes before death. To this day she refuses to speak about her experiances, and no one I know is audacious enough to push her to it.
Cheers,
Translator

Nard-
Fantastic foresight on the copycat thing. If we are indeed about to be subjected to unsolicited cinematic gore for the next 2-3 years, we can expect an adverse and opposite trend to follow that one. That following trend will probably be in the "it's what you DON'T see, that's truly frightening" vein.

Remember the uproar Hitchcock caused with the PSYCHO shower scene, so tame by today's standards. By the way, did RB ever contribute a story to Hitchcock's T.V. show?

I know, I'm off topic again. So many thoughts, so little attention span.

[This message has been edited by grasstains (edited 03-06-2004).]

I couldn't watch SCHINDLER'S LIST for similar reasons. I was educated from a very early age to understand what was done by the Nazis. It was just more than I could bear to see.