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02-07-2012, 07:24 PM
You're flailing. It's an antiwar movie, but don't take my word for it.
The war in Iraq, the war in Afghanistan and the "war on terror" (to use the increasingly forgotten Rumsfeldian formulation) never really got their John Wayne/Green Berets moment in Hollywood: a big movie whose unembarrassed purpose is to endorse the military action. Most of the serious responses have been liberal-patriot fence-straddlers, multistranded stories urgently set in Washington, the Middle East, south Asia and elsewhere, tying themselves in knots in an attempt to acknowledge a dovey point of view while covertly leaning to the hawk's – pictures such as Stephen Gaghan's Syriana, which showed torture in terms of CIA man George Clooney being tortured by an Arab, Robert Redford's mealy-mouthed Lions for Lambs, Gavin Hood's issue-fudging Rendition, and Peter Berg's The Kingdom, with its feeble moral equivalence between jihadist zealots and the US army.
How weird and ironic, then, that the nearest thing we have to Wayne is also the best and most insightful anti-war film about Iraq: Kathryn Bigelow's blazingly powerful action movie The Hurt Locker, whose unpretentious clarity makes for a refreshing change.
Some critics have hailed “The Hurt Locker” because the film “doesn’t take sides” in the Iraq War — like that’s an admirable thing! I wonder if there were critics during the Civil War that hailed plays or books for being “balanced” about slavery, or if there were those who praised films during World War II for “not taking sides?” I keep reading that the reason Iraq War films haven’t done well at the box office is because they’ve been partisan (meaning anti-war).
The truth is “The Hurt Locker” is very political. It says the war is stupid and senseless and insane. It makes us consider why we have an army where people actually volunteer to do this. That’s why the right wing has attacked the movie. They’re not stupid — they know what Kathryn Bigelow is up to. No one leaves this movie thinking, “Whoopee! Let’s keep these wars going another 7 years!”
--Michael Moore
And, the author of the movie, Mark Boal, also wrote The Valley of Elah, one of the most overtly anti-war movies of the previous bombs.
So, if leftists like Michael Moore and the movie reviewer for the Guardian say that it's anti-war, and the author is overtly anti-war, and the movie's opening blurb about war being a drug is anti-war, then yeah, I'd say that it's anti-war.--Odysseus
Sic Hacer Pace, Para Bellum.
Before you can do things for people, you must be the kind of man who can get things done. But to get things done, you must love the doing, not the people!
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02-07-2012, 07:28 PM
No one leaves this movie thinking, “Whoopee! Let’s keep these wars going another 7 years!”
Talk about flailing .....
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Government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem.
Ronald Reagan
We could say they are spending like drunken sailors. That would be unfair to drunken sailors, they're spending their OWN money.
Ronald Reagan
R.I.P. Crockspot
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02-07-2012, 09:44 PM
Solve a man's problem with violence and help him for a day. Teach a man how to solve his problems with violence, help him for a lifetime - Belkar Bitterleaf
Liberalism is what the stupid think is smart.
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02-08-2012, 12:40 AM
--Odysseus
Sic Hacer Pace, Para Bellum.
Before you can do things for people, you must be the kind of man who can get things done. But to get things done, you must love the doing, not the people!
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02-08-2012, 11:06 AM
Education without values, as useful as it is, seems rather to make man a more clever devil.
C. S. Lewis
Do not ever say that the desire to "do good" by force is a good motive. Neither power-lust nor stupidity are good motives. (Are you listening Barry)?:mad:
Ayn Rand
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02-08-2012, 11:16 AM
I didn't quite finish my post, but I was tired and didn't care. It was an indie film with very limited release in the box-office, for an indie movie it did fairly well, in comparison to the other anti-war movies and Iraq/Afghan-themed movies it did well also. Compared to typical movies, yes it bombed and was a POS (part of the reason I've never seen it).
"Should I keep back my opinions at such a time, through fear of giving offense, I should consider myself as guilty of treason towards my country, and of an act of disloyalty toward the Majesty of Heaven, which I revere above all earthly kings..." Patrick Henry
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02-08-2012, 11:21 AM
Between this and the thread on honor killings, he's definitely lost the plot, as my wife would say. http://www.conservativeunderground.c...d=1#post481523
--Odysseus
Sic Hacer Pace, Para Bellum.
Before you can do things for people, you must be the kind of man who can get things done. But to get things done, you must love the doing, not the people!
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