Tuesday, October 28, 2003
I noticed on AICN that the upcoming Alamo film has been taken off the holiday schedule and dumped into the wasteland of April 2004. People have been bailing on the project for a long time--Ron Howard was originally supposed to direct it, but got out early--and the test screenings are supposed to be dull. In this day and age, it couldn't be anything but.
The 1960 John Wayne version, clumsy and overwrought as it was, treated the Mexican attackers of the Alamo with complete dignity (Wayne presumably had nothing against Mexicans, as he kept marrying them). But we live in an age where dignity is not enough: every possible ethnic sensitivity (most Christians excepted, of course) must be massaged and stroked at every opportunity. And when you have a movie about what amounts to an ethnic conflict, the sensitivity requirement ensures that all possible life is drained out of it. The new Alamo was doomed from the start.
And I have to quote a couple of jokes from my favorite current television comedian, Triumph the Insult Comic Dog, from last night's Conan:
On Christina Aguilera videos: "It's like watching porn except the music's not as good."
On Eminem: "Hey my mother was a bitch, too, but I don't go writing songs about it."
The 1960 John Wayne version, clumsy and overwrought as it was, treated the Mexican attackers of the Alamo with complete dignity (Wayne presumably had nothing against Mexicans, as he kept marrying them). But we live in an age where dignity is not enough: every possible ethnic sensitivity (most Christians excepted, of course) must be massaged and stroked at every opportunity. And when you have a movie about what amounts to an ethnic conflict, the sensitivity requirement ensures that all possible life is drained out of it. The new Alamo was doomed from the start.
And I have to quote a couple of jokes from my favorite current television comedian, Triumph the Insult Comic Dog, from last night's Conan:
On Christina Aguilera videos: "It's like watching porn except the music's not as good."
On Eminem: "Hey my mother was a bitch, too, but I don't go writing songs about it."
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