tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34344059.post1566826457808273540..comments2024-02-16T14:01:23.523-05:00Comments on THE B-MOVIE CATECHISM: ZARDOZEegahInchttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13055947542189758831noreply@blogger.comBlogger15125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34344059.post-51049216087887780892016-09-03T23:38:55.435-04:002016-09-03T23:38:55.435-04:00Woops! Yeah, might want to show the kids the edite...Woops! Yeah, might want to show the kids the edited TV version.EegahInchttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13055947542189758831noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34344059.post-63860430732287757762016-09-03T23:11:55.804-04:002016-09-03T23:11:55.804-04:00Loved this movie on tv - until I accidentally rent...Loved this movie on tv - until I accidentally rented a videotape copy to show my kids until I discovered that it wasn't even remotely pg.But the ideas presented were very good. Just um don't watch it - um - unsensored with kids. Rocket Scientisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04288373796495213700noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34344059.post-15652974071494583862009-11-30T15:56:39.606-05:002009-11-30T15:56:39.606-05:00OK, ok, maybe an animal skin, caveman's style,...OK, ok, maybe an animal skin, caveman's style, would have suited Sean better, LOL! I'm glad to have found a good blog about this old movie.Alexisnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34344059.post-62465948608259101542009-11-28T22:22:43.532-05:002009-11-28T22:22:43.532-05:00Hi, Alexis. Thanks so much for taking the time to ...Hi, Alexis. Thanks so much for taking the time to leave your comments. Assuming you're not a regular reader, I'll just point out that one of the conceits around here is that I try to drag religious meaning, often kicking and screaming, out of movies which the creators likely never intended to have religious meaning. Sure, it would be easier to do this kind of review with something like Alejandro Jodorowsky's The Holy Mountain, which out-weird's Zardoz in every way AND has blatant religious (and anti-religious)content, but it wouldn't be as fun and challenging.<br /><br />So, that said, I readily concede that many of your points represent ones Boorman himself INTENDED to make. That's why I was sure to point out in the review that Boorman is a secular humanist who believes the Catholic Church to be “a very repressive force, very stultifying.”<br /><br />But everything I said in my review hinges on the film's final scene which, in Boorman's own words, brought scorn and ridicule from his secular contemporaries. They couldn't accept the "simple notion in the face of all these other ideas" that, as you yourself say, "love between men and women is the future of mankind." Boorman actually takes it further than that by introducing the child and showing the couple age together until their deaths. It's not just their love, but their full communion with one another resulting in new life, that wins out in the end. I'm not saying Boorman intended it, in fact he almost sounds ashamed of it, but the final scene seems to indicate that the scaramental model of the family trumps all of the other ideas he introduced. And as a Catholic I really dig that because we believe that when that kind of love is done right, it shows the rest of the world something about God. (Even if they don't believe in such a thing.)<br /><br />As for the diaper... I'm sorry, but I'm a bit of a hairy mustachioed guy myself, and if I posted a picture of myself in that outfit, everyone would laugh their butts off, and rightly so. I understand it's function in the context of the world of Zardoz but... sometimes silly is just silly :)EegahInchttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13055947542189758831noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34344059.post-20314737553167557682009-11-28T02:50:28.677-05:002009-11-28T02:50:28.677-05:00Oh and marriage was never mentioned. At the end, t...Oh and marriage was never mentioned. At the end, the teaching is that <b>love</b> between men and women is the future of mankind.Alexisnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34344059.post-19498380676750797042009-11-28T02:47:01.710-05:002009-11-28T02:47:01.710-05:00I think you didn’t understand Zardoz. It’s a criti...I think you didn’t understand Zardoz. It’s a critique against Christianism (probably Judaism and Islam too) as a religion that represses sex and inspires violence against those whom are supposedly scorned by God (infidels or “brutals” in the movie). It also makes you wonder if the promise of eternal life has really any sense; at least everlasting life on Earth/the physical plane. Wouldn’t people sooner or later get bored after a few centuries of having learned and experienced everything there is to learn and experience? Would immortals evolve fast enough as in normal evolution? Zed was much more genetically advanced than the immortals. It also shows how easy it is to manipulate an ignorant population through an evil religion. And there is the part where it shows how “knowledge will set you free” where Zed is instructed at a library and discovered how he was fooled. The message is “inform yourself and you’ll realize about the evil system we’re in, how we’re being fooled and how we could make it collapse”. Besides, only one person, Zed, changed everything; a way of life that lasted for centuries. It also shows that masters were as unhappy as their slaves. And about Sean wearing a diaper... Brutals were supposed to be savages wearing simple, self-made clothes; not Armani suits. You look too much to the form and not to the meaning. Zardoz is a movie who expresses many messages and leaves you reflecting on a variety of topics. I liked it.Alexisnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34344059.post-73905532998752215302008-12-12T20:45:00.000-05:002008-12-12T20:45:00.000-05:00"I am afraid that my attempt to write a science fi..."I am afraid that my attempt to write a science fiction novel based on the Theology of the Body might have precisely turned into this type of movie"<BR/><BR/>Well, at least you know one person would have watched it :)EegahInchttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13055947542189758831noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34344059.post-80935568271873389782008-12-12T13:11:00.000-05:002008-12-12T13:11:00.000-05:00I too join the chorus of praises to Eegah on a rem...I too join the chorus of praises to Eegah on a remarkable review!<BR/><BR/>Y'know, I am afraid that my attempt to write a science fiction novel based on the Theology of the Body might have precisely turned into this type of movie if I had continued it much farther. Of course, I would not have had Sean Connery wearing a red diaper.Miguel Cuthberthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10079506076545952835noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34344059.post-24179953727906443792008-12-10T09:03:00.000-05:002008-12-10T09:03:00.000-05:00Smiter, perhaps you're right, perhaps I'm just ove...Smiter, perhaps you're right, perhaps I'm just overthinking Zardoz and the whole thing is just the result of mind altering substances. The one small reason that I still have my doubts, however, is that I know Boorman's next film after Zardoz was Exorcist II: The Heretic. Zardoz is a rank amateur in the weirdness department compared to Exorcist II. Now THAT movie was made on drugs for sure! <BR/><BR/>Snuffles, I see you're still giving me anime homework to do. I'll try to catch up on Evangelion.<BR/><BR/>PaperSmyth, I feel your pain. I had some Psych classes in college that, in hindsight, seem more like lab experiments than education.EegahInchttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13055947542189758831noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34344059.post-2958305730006764062008-12-09T23:54:00.000-05:002008-12-09T23:54:00.000-05:00You. Are. Amazing. I used to tell my friends in gr...You. Are. Amazing. <BR/>I used to tell my friends in grad school, "I'm too young for this kind of stuff." (And I still am.) I would have my childhood messed with 18 different ways with this one, probably. (Hoping along with you that it wasn't some group hallucination.)<BR/>“The natural law is immutable and permanent throughout the variations of history..." Amen.PaperSmythhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08813068522979861687noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34344059.post-71381893351165885562008-12-09T23:16:00.000-05:002008-12-09T23:16:00.000-05:00Weird, trippy imagery that doesn't seem to make se...Weird, trippy imagery that doesn't seem to make sense...<BR/><BR/>Is this kind of like trying to watch <EM>The End of Evangelion</EM>?Snuffles the Dragonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17890685269910347007noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34344059.post-86898261145995734552008-12-09T20:35:00.000-05:002008-12-09T20:35:00.000-05:00EegahInc, Your phallophyllic interpretive modality...EegahInc, Your phallophyllic interpretive modality complements tremendously the inherent masculine anthropohegemonizing of the content. I wonder, however, whether your marginalization of the form, with its visual counterpoints and psychointegrating critiques, has not lent itself to a more critical reading than necessary? Could it not be that Zardoz, in the character of the flying stone head, represents man's legacy of flying stone heads through portals of otherness and transcending mere cultural barriers in the pursuit of truth, goodness, and a really really fine pizza pie? (Or, of course, as you say, drugs.)<BR/><BR/>Intriguing... most intriguing. <BR/><BR/>(Okay, I can't maintain the gradschoolspeak with a straight face anymore. Eegah, your work is brilliant and you should be appointed as undersecretary for visual media at the CDF.)<BR/><BR/>Smiter the Archdeacon (hoping to kick open a few doors...)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34344059.post-24293653887960277892008-12-09T00:24:00.000-05:002008-12-09T00:24:00.000-05:00Xena, glad it was worth the wait. As for my art sc...Xena, glad it was worth the wait. As for my art school days helping me out in the RE classes, I wouldn't doubt it. At the very least it's made me pretty much immune to anything the kids can throw out for shock value. After you've spent a semester or two working next to a guy who made art out of baby dolls and razor blades, a few spoiled kids tossing out curse words just rolls right off my back :)<BR/><BR/>Adam, thanks for the kind words. I checked out your site and I have to say I'm a little envious of your skill. Alas, despite my years in art school, I'm still pretty much a mediocre fine artist. Nothing like attending critique sessions week after week and having your art teacher keep asking if you've ever considered writing.EegahInchttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13055947542189758831noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34344059.post-88964118355325260222008-12-08T17:25:00.000-05:002008-12-08T17:25:00.000-05:00this is one of the best movie reviews of all time!...this is one of the best movie reviews of all time! Hilarious and bizarre but genuinely thoughtful and intriguing too; a real feat.<BR/><BR/>I also hate artist statements. I've written a few myself, and I hate those too. These days, if I'm going to say something about a painting, it'll just be about technique or some inconsequential anecdote. But if a work of art needs a statement, the work is probably a failure, in the way I judge art anyhow.<BR/><BR/>Anyway, kudos again on this masterpiece of review.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34344059.post-87549683498626333152008-12-08T13:23:00.000-05:002008-12-08T13:23:00.000-05:00Kudos!! My hat is off to you. You are The Master o...Kudos!! My hat is off to you. You are The Master of All Thing B-Movie, and we are not worthy. My pet triffids prostrate themselves in homage.<BR/><BR/>This art-school induced immunity to gibberish might be related to having high schoolers debate important issues, no? Sounds like your pastor knows a unique qualification when he sees it.<BR/><BR/>Xena CatolicaAnonymousnoreply@blogger.com