The Narrator Returns, I really dug this movie for all the exact reasons you list. It's the ape revolution movie I didn't know I wanted.

Bonobo Lyndon
Langurlita
Semnopithecus

I think that comes with any considered valuation, TomorrowsBacon. Nothing I like is perfect.

61 people can fucking burn in hell.

Awareness
I believe in a self-aware Elvis Costello, but Kanye's a little harder to swallow. I've always seen Kanye's self-depreciating bravado and nerdy misogyny as the hip-hop equivalent of vintage Rivers Cuomo—he makes great albums "about" his shortcomings because he's going for honesty, but probably doesn't have a…

Most moms I know love the Beatles, but pine for their innocent Ed Sullivan days. This gimmick rings false.

I don't see how McCartney's ex-wife can get mad at these tabloids; they were made to go out and get her.

Well then, I retract my "The Hangover is a Kubrickean masterpiece" statement. I only meant that in terms of what works and doesn't work, the direction isn't actively bad and gives me something interesting to look at every once in awhile. The catering was probably good too.

Corleone, I do think Phillips has a touch of visual flair—though that's probably more a credit to his DP Lawrence Sher. It's the kind of odd thing that holds up upon 20th goddamn viewing among my friends.

Every good thing about the Hangover movies came from direction and performances,
The script always felt like a bunch of deuchy frat fucks giving each other high fives. "People do crazy shit when they're fucked up, right? Delta fucking sigma omega testacles buttfuck!"

My opinion:
When I see James Franco announcing "the cure," I groan hard. When I see monkeys going to fucking war, I'm all like fuck yeah.

Well then, I think all religions should be subject to criticism, you think none are, at least we're consistent. Good talk.

Savage's mistrust of some Muslims is contextualized alongside his mistrust of some Christians, Jews, men, women, etc—he's never held Islam to a special standard that I can see, nor I hope have I. I think we all agree that would be wrong.

(the link above regarding killing disbelievers should instead be http://quran.com/4/89)

Irrational Atheist sums it up quite nicely. To the extent that Dan Savage and I have criticized Islam, it's been within the context of wider disapproval of religious intolerance generally. I think we all agree that Islam should not be held to a different standard than any other religion, either positive or negative.

I think this is boiling down to different attitudes toward religion in general, Tom. I actually do hold the Crusades and Inquisition against Christianity: devout faith was then and is now an easy justification for terrible atrocities, a brainwashing tool to convince common people honestly trying to do the right thing…

Good point about Indonesia, Tom, and I think everyone agrees that many Muslims are peaceful, and that extremism is by no means unique to Islam—Savage himself is pretty clear on that in every writing cited so far. Where I must disagree with you is when you say that the horrible shit "has absolutely nothing to do with…

Oof. Again, I think that's pretty clearly coming from a place of frustration with religious oppression rather than bigotry, but yeah, that's embarrassing.

@NSH
I don't know much about his Iraq War statements. My knowledge of his views comes from the above blog post and listening to his podcast. Neither of those suggest a racist xenophobe in my opinion, merely someone critical of regressive religious culture generally.

Tom, I'm operating on the assumption that nearly all religions are institutions, seeing as they're codified structures or mechanisms of social order and cooperation governing the behavior of a set of individuals within a given human community (Wikipedia's definion, http://en.wikipedia.org/wik…. Regardless of its…