A few thoughts on what I might scribble this week…
(1) My friend brought over the film V For Vendetta last night. I hadn’t given the movie much thought when it was released, bouyed by the controversy that it was twisted & changed beyond the vision of its original author.
Good lord, was I wrong!!!
It was a magnificent, powerful, thought-provoking movie, and I’ll try to do it justice in a proper review later in the week. Until then, I strongly recommend that you rent/buy/see this movie as soon as possible. In this day and age, it speaks to many truths and fears that people are ignoring…at our peril.
(2) Speaking of this day and age, tomorrow is the fifth anniversary of the 9/11 attack…and tonight, CBS is scheduled to show a revised and updated showing of the powerful documentary 9/11, put together by a French documentary team that accidentally caught the events of the day on film, while making another documentary about firefighters. There has been some controversy about the broadcast, as its raw, unedited language & scenes could violate the oversensitive censor-gods of the United States, forcing many CBS affiliates to reschedule the showing to a later time slot…or not to show it at all.
Good god, just SHOW IT! This was a massive disaster! The idea that a television station would be punished for showing the unvarnished truth — a savage, violent, distressing account of a seminal event — is an insult to the people who died on that day. The censors didn’t have a problem with the previous two broadcasts of the documentary…so why now?
Television and film in the US seem to have no problem showing copious amounts of violence…but the moment some one swears or flashes some skin, the puritans pour out of the crevices like rats!
Rats…a succinct description of FCC.
