tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4481691725314537521.post3137905994755051191..comments2023-09-20T14:34:21.102+02:00Comments on Postcards from the Gods: Make it stop!Andrew Haydonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05568061302451610140noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4481691725314537521.post-77211841760141763252007-10-19T19:30:00.000+02:002007-10-19T19:30:00.000+02:00I've just seen a fantasy TV news sequence includin...I've just seen a fantasy TV news sequence including items such as Kim Jong-Il signing up to a nuclear treaty, India and Pakistan signing a final peace agreement, the withdrawal of the last U.S. troops from Iraq being welcomed by President al-Sadr and so on. What kind of world could achieve such utopian goals so quickly? Answer: one run by pod-people, or actually spore-people in the case of the latest Body Snatchers remake <I>The Invasion</I>, judged so poor (and rightly so) that it hasn't been given any U.K. advance press screenings.<BR/><BR/>And it struck me afterwards that one way in which it fails to resonate is that it doesn't have the right sort of enemy to match the predominant cultural bogey. In the Cold War climate of Don Siegel's '50s original and Philip Kaufman's late-'70s remake (the definitive version), any one of us could turn out to be a godless Commie intent on poisoning Mom's apple pie; when Abel Ferrara's underrated version hit in the '90s, we were in a demonological no-man's-land, not knowing what we were or might be up against, and that too fitted. But in 2007, we know the enemy, and it is swarthy and bearded. (For the avoidance of doubt, I'm being cynical about this stereotype, not endorsing it.) Who knew that living with war would mean one more box-office tank for Nicole Kidman?<BR/><BR/>Oh, but imagine if it had been made with the right image system: Kidman dozes off for a few minutes, then wakes suddenly to find with horror that a five o'clock shadow has sprouted on that perfect jawline...Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4481691725314537521.post-82188393730431623722007-10-19T17:59:00.000+02:002007-10-19T17:59:00.000+02:00Really? I read the whole more as disdainful athei...Really? I read the whole more as disdainful atheism.<BR/><BR/>Damn, which reminds me, I had things to say about Richard Dawkins watching Burma on the telly at the end. Oh well.Andrew Haydonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05568061302451610140noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4481691725314537521.post-91356656032912865462007-10-19T17:52:00.000+02:002007-10-19T17:52:00.000+02:00The radical part of Ravenhill's idea there is that...The radical part of Ravenhill's idea there is that it calls for a moratorium on marketing. Now <I>that</I> would be exciting.<BR/><BR/>Of course it's all a bit undermined by the plug for his radio play at the bottom of the article.<BR/><BR/>Amis, on the other hand was even then displaying far more of the Daily Mail Left tendency exemplified by Cohen and Hitchens than of the liberal/left tendency so hated by Coulter (and Hitchens, and Cohen). It's all there in the "Medieval agonism of Islam" and way he places his work and at the centre of the Clash of Civilisations (Cultural Division: The Greatest Intellectual Struggle of Our Time).<BR/><BR/>It's a very short step from there to making up silly phrases like Horrorism.alexfhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08663311179979081963noreply@blogger.com