D'Souza and Coulter on Aliens

June 2, 2003 10:34 AM

Unused Audio Commentary By Dinesh D'Souza and Ann Coulter, Recorded Spring 2003, for Aliens Special Red-State Edition DVD, Part One and Part Two.
posted by homunculus (16 comments total)

This goes nicely with the commentary of Chomsky and Zinn on LOTR.
posted by homunculus at 10:38 AM on June 2, 2003

Now, we all know Ann Coulter isn't as eloquent as that.
posted by SweetJesus at 10:57 AM on June 2, 2003

Given that the Chomsky/Zinn commentary was so un-funny because it was painfully clear they'd not bothered to read enough of either author or LOTR to do a decent parody, I ignored this installment.
posted by eustacescrubb at 11:04 AM on June 2, 2003

Like the fake LOTR commentary, this one seems to have a lot of deliberate mistakes intended to tick off fanboys (mixing up Jules Verne and Joseph Conrad, e.g.). Which leads me to this: I've never heard of this mythical "Red-State Edition" of Aliens. Isn't the subject under discussion just the director's cut?
posted by Prospero at 12:27 PM on June 2, 2003

I've never heard of this mythical "Red-State Edition" of Aliens

That's because it doesn't exist.
posted by SweetJesus at 12:35 PM on June 2, 2003

I ? McSweeney's, but this piece is poorly executed. The potential of writing DVD comentaries in the voices of well known political figures is great, but the authors have failed to capture the proper tone and diction of their commentators that would've made this comedy gold. Sometimes they just try too hard and somehow come off as lazy at the same time.

What's odd is that they are trying to sell this as a
book.
posted by elwoodwiles at 1:24 PM on June 2, 2003

I ? McSweeney's, but

I question McSweeney's too.
posted by kindall at 3:29 PM on June 2, 2003

Well, it made me laugh, but then I am easily amused.
posted by homunculus at 3:58 PM on June 2, 2003

When I saw the Zinn/Chomsky thing, I was worried that my annoyance with it was just partisan stupidity--that I was letting my political opinions get in the way of enjoying a good joke. This post frees me from that doubt. Thank you.

At any rate, I do very much like: "The cat could be a liberal. It wouldn't surprise me."
posted by moss at 4:33 PM on June 2, 2003

ok, this has basically ruined the alien movies for me.

I think of this as the film's abortion subtext, something that, unbelievably, no one has yet thought to address.

*shudder*
posted by mcsweetie at 5:19 PM on June 2, 2003

I like Sarah Manguso's work over there, like Things I Realized in 2002 and The Fourth Man. I think my attention span is too short to deal with the
posted by onlyconnect at 5:48 PM on June 2, 2003

They just need to condense it down. Get rid of like 3/4ths of the material and tighten up what's left. It's a solid idea, but they just drone on and on forever.
posted by Hildago at 6:05 PM on June 2, 2003

hildago: Ever listen to DVD director's commentary? I think this is true to form.
posted by kaibutsu at 6:33 PM on June 2, 2003

I ♥ Mcsweeney's, the icon got dropped after previewing twice, it's somekind of habit of the server.
*shrugs*
I was going to correct it, but there was a Meta thread that users expressed annoyance at users who correct their own diction, spelling and (in this case) sloppy-ass-HTML. The lesson: People correct themselves in order to be corrected by others who will do it to make an opposing point.

BTW, well played Kindal
posted by elwoodwiles at 6:57 PM on June 2, 2003

not to be corrected....... Oh nevermind.
posted by elwoodwiles at 6:58 PM on June 2, 2003

The Zinn-Chomsky thing was mildly funny, but this just fails to sound like Coulter or D'Souza. It sounds more like the authors said to themselves "Hey, let's do this for the right-wing now!" They'd've been better off having Hanson and Kurtz as the interlocutors, if only because those two really are monomaniacal academics like Z. and C., which is the real source of the humour, not the political bias of the speakers. On the other hand, I frankly doubt that anyone at McSweeney's is politically savvy enough to know who Hanson and Kurtz are or how their writing sounds.
posted by Pseudoephedrine at 7:31 PM on June 2, 2003