Monday, April 30, 2007

Hostel 2 Hits A Nerve With The NY Times

The NY Times are making all sorts of spurious connections between Hostel 2 and the Virginia Tech shootings, and pretending Lionsgate are in some way exploiting the tragedy by sticking to Hostel 2's previously announced release date. Tiresome stuff and really very desperate with it.

If part two is anything like part one, this new Hostel is going to provide some much needed commentary on violence, America's attitudes to violence, and the kind of ingrained cultural prejudices that lead to such sickening, blinkered, ignorant nonsense as Old Boy being held up as a catalyst for mass muder. While Hostel is confronting issues head-on, critics of such violent films are hiding from the truth and scapegoating cinema. In certain circles, films like Hostel provoke interesting and informed debate, and in others... The NY Times, Nikki Finke and their ilk trot out the same reactionary wails of foaming hysteria.

The NY Times piece also includes comments for Roy Lee, the producer of proposed American Old Boy and Battle Royale remakes. In this section, the journalist, Michael Cieply, spuriously claims that Battle Royale is a Japanese videogame, not a film - why is this person even allowed to write about films? Was he even listening to his interview subjects?

Cieply has been a film producer himself, in the past - though Alleycats Strike is his only credit on IMDB. At the very least we can be relieved that period is over.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

It isn't ironic that the NY Times didn't have the balls to go after the Bush administration for years (still doesn't), even with all the evidence in favor of doing so, but it takes mere days for them to start making spurlious connections (via "research") with the Vtech killer and schlock-y horror and Korean films? This is why any intelligent person in America loathes the press right now. Oh, and NYT, how about another article on Alec Baldwin's voice mail while you're at.