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2006-12-10 -Lurid Crime Tales-

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Posted by Sneaze Shaiting3550 2006-12-10 00:00|| || Front Page|| [2 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 People are so dang judgemental. A few human sacrifices, a pyramid of skulls and suddenly you are "bloodthirsty savages". Jeez.

Posted by SteveS 2006-12-10 00:18|| 2006-12-10 00:18|| Front Page Top

#2 Steve S:

Actually, there are no skull pyramids pictured in the film. After an Ayatollah stabs a sacrificial victim and yanks out the heart, another Ayatollah cuts the head off and bounces it down the pyramid steps to the cheers of the multitudes. Then the heads are stuck on the end of poles.

This is how they do it in Qom:
http://www.ncr-iran.org/images/stories/repression/hanging-public-jan.jpg

Posted by Sneaze Shaiting3550 2006-12-10 00:31|| 2006-12-10 00:31|| Front Page Top

#3 Not that it matters much; I guess Gibson has as much right to make up stuff as anyone else. Although there is plenty of evidence that the Aztecs, who came along much later than the Mayans, tore out hearts and such, and even indulged in cannibalism (even first-hand accounts from the Conquistadores), as far as I know there is no evidence whatsoever that the Mayans did likewise. Maybe they did have human sacrifice as did so many cultures around the world. But there's more evidence that the Iranians and the Arabs like cutting off heads and slitting throats than for the Mayans. But then, Mayans, Aztecs, what's the difference, hey?

Posted by Whomoque Gravimp8761 2006-12-10 06:43|| 2006-12-10 06:43|| Front Page Top

#4 WG8761:
The movie is worth a look if only to watch the hero risk his life to save his family. I know the reviewers are out for Gibson's blood; but the film engages audiences and isn't a film variation of Al Bore (or Gore) speak as one Eastern conservative said.

Posted by Sneaze Shaiting3550 2006-12-10 06:53|| 2006-12-10 06:53|| Front Page Top

#5 "The calendar [angle] is so rich," Hansen said. "It would have been a marvelous part of the story."

Yeah, a calendar-based movie, when the protagonists spend 2h 20 mn going through the minutiae of the said calendar, while sitted in circle around it. What an excitment-filled motion-picture it would be!

Posted by anonymous5089 2006-12-10 06:54|| 2006-12-10 06:54|| Front Page Top

#6 A key consultant among several archeologists who served as advisors on Mel Gibson's "Apocalypto" said he is disappointed that the film overlooks many of the Mayas' cultural and scientific achievements and portrays the people as "bloodthirsty savages."

If you want a cultural documentary watch the History Channel [which sometimes is no better than what Hollyweird would put out]. Otherwise, if western Europeans civilization has to put up with constant portrayals as 'barbarians', it's good enough for everyone else.

Posted by Procopius2k 2006-12-10 08:21|| 2006-12-10 08:21|| Front Page Top

#7 That's right, if it's good enough for Mel Gibson and his Western European buddies it's good enough for everyone else. So there.

Posted by Whomoque Gravimp8761 2006-12-10 08:39|| 2006-12-10 08:39|| Front Page Top

#8 Glad to see you finally get it Whomoque Gravimp8761 it's taken you about 510 years. BTW how's that axle thing coming along? Got it yet? No, try again, two wheel, two wheels.

Posted by Shipman 2006-12-10 09:23|| 2006-12-10 09:23|| Front Page Top

#9 Multiculti horse $hit. It's a movie.

Posted by SR-71 2006-12-10 09:28|| 2006-12-10 09:28|| Front Page Top

#10 Economist article: Then, as now, maize was the staff of life in Central America. The Maya thought of human beings as in some way made of maize: they distorted babies' soft skulls to make them look like a head of corn. They probably practised cannibalism: for them, it was like eating maize. And in Mayan cosmology there was a maize god who was beheaded every year (like the crop) and reborn in the underworld. But not as maize; rather as a magic tree from which all fruit sprang.

Posted by Zhang Fei 2006-12-10 09:39|| http://timurileng.blogspot.com]">[http://timurileng.blogspot.com] 2006-12-10 09:39|| Front Page Top

#11 Amaizing.

Posted by Nimble Spemble 2006-12-10 09:44|| 2006-12-10 09:44|| Front Page Top

#12 Good lord folks, it's just a movie. It made no claim to be a documentary, let it go. Geeeze!

Posted by 49 Pan 2006-12-10 09:51|| 2006-12-10 09:51|| Front Page Top

#13 Multiculti horse $hit. It's a movie.

Indeed. And people don't go to the movies for a lecture on the glories of the Mayan Calendar.

What cracks me up is that, until this weekend, all the people ranting against the film were doing so based on a three minute trailer.

Personally, I'm more concerned about the truthiness of "Waterworld".

Posted by SteveS 2006-12-10 09:56|| 2006-12-10 09:56|| Front Page Top

#14 Shipman, 1496? Actually I still don't get it. I understand what everyone else is saying. I just don't understand what you're saying. At least I admit it. Of course I don't understand anything you say except maybe now and then.
Or am I just a moron? Don't be afraid to say yes.

Posted by Whomoque Gravimp8761 2006-12-10 10:19|| 2006-12-10 10:19|| Front Page Top

#15 It's supposed to be a unicycle.

Posted by Whomoque Gravimp8761 2006-12-10 10:31|| 2006-12-10 10:31|| Front Page Top

#16 Or am I just a moron? Don't be afraid to say yes.

Well, if you have to ask...

Posted by Mick Dundee 2006-12-10 10:34|| 2006-12-10 10:34|| Front Page Top

#17 Personally, I'm more concerned about the truthiness of "Waterworld".

It's been a while since we had the pleasure of Mr. Costner paying us a visit. I hope's alright.

Posted by anonymous5089 2006-12-10 10:38|| 2006-12-10 10:38|| Front Page Top

#18 This is Hollywood, first and foremost," Hansen said.

...directors take creative license with the facts.

Most of hooywood is based on pretend and make-believe. It might have been Spencer Tracy that said acting wasn't fit work for a man.

Posted by JohnQC 2006-12-10 10:39|| 2006-12-10 10:39|| Front Page Top

#19 The story is about the end of a civilization. Sure the Mayans were intelligent and advanced in many ways. So are serial killers. Again, the story is about the END, not the PEAK of their civilization. It's not History Channel fare, it's entertainment. Fiction, with an historical base. Like Patriot. Like Michael Moore's stuff--except an accurate portrayal of life in that part of the world at that time. Heck, you could make the same themed movie about a gang warfare situation and a man trying to save his family, and have it set in Los Angeles or Iraq, and it wouldn't be very much different--except for the setting. I'll bet it's terrific and I plan to see it. Go Mel. And yes, some Jews are baddies, just like everyone else. Mel's just a little overboard on that, and when he's shit-faced drunk, his upbringing wacko-ness surfaces. About the same for everyone else, methinks.

Posted by ex-lib 2006-12-10 10:50|| 2006-12-10 10:50|| Front Page Top

#20 Modern scholarship is showing that the Myans indeed participated in bloodthirsty rituals. Early archaeologists like Hiram Bingham created a fanciful portrayal of the Mayans as a perfectly peaceful group living in harmony with the earth and everyone. Further digging has shown a different picture that puctures that balloon.

Posted by Sgt. D.T. 2006-12-10 12:30|| 2006-12-10 12:30|| Front Page Top

#21 It's supposed to be a unicycle.

HaHahaha! Touchy!

Posted by Shipman 2006-12-10 12:53|| 2006-12-10 12:53|| Front Page Top

#22 Touche Touchy

mor 6r flummox medicine

Posted by RD 2006-12-10 17:12|| 2006-12-10 17:12|| Front Page Top

#23 SNL ruined it yesterday. Can't see this movie now without laughing.

Posted by E.W. 2006-12-10 17:52|| 2006-12-10 17:52|| Front Page Top

#24 It's a gift.

Posted by Whomoque Gravimp8761 2006-12-10 19:23|| 2006-12-10 19:23|| Front Page Top

#25 "Degradation ... Consumption ... Corruption" > See REGNUM.RU = as per the Ultra-Left USSR, even BORIS YELTSIN admits USSR = SOVIET UNION, SSSSSHHHHHHHHH NOT the decadent evil Capitalist Americanskis, twas on the edge of COLLAPSE ANYWAYS, due to unstoppable dynamic INTERNAL FORCES/PRESSURES. Can positively surmise that not even Commie TOTALITARIAN GUBMINT-ARMY STATE WOULD'VE STOPPED IT.

Posted by Angish Angeresing7804 2006-12-10 20:33|| 2006-12-10 20:33|| Front Page Top

#26 Sorry, #25 should be Me.

Posted by JosephMendiola 2006-12-10 20:34|| 2006-12-10 20:34|| Front Page Top

#27 Really?

Posted by Nimble Spemble 2006-12-10 20:51|| 2006-12-10 20:51|| Front Page Top

#28 JM,

We WOULD >never have guessed >it wasn't YOU.

Posted by Dreadnought 2006-12-10 20:53|| 2006-12-10 20:53|| Front Page Top

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