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A test screening review of the Mike Nichols' directed, Aaron Sorkin scripted Tom Hanks starrer CHARLIE WILSON'S WAR comes in!!!
Ahoy, squirts! Quint here. This flick is one of my most anticipated left in 2007. Was there any doubt that a Mike Nichols directed, Aaron Sorkin scripted flick starring Tom Hanks and Philip Seymour Hoffman would be anything but great? This sounds fantastic. Keep in mind while reading that this is an early review of an unfinished film, but it seems like it's already pretty much there. Enjoy!
Hello Harry, I was lucky enough to get into a showing of the upcoming Tom Hanks/Julia Roberts/Philip Seymour Hoffman film CHARLIE WILSON’S WAR.
I haven’t heard much about this film and wished I had even known what it was about before attending this as it us a lot to process – that said, it’s a uniformly excellent film with some of the best actors we’ve got.
The best way to describe it is to understand it is a Mike Nichols/Aaron Sorkin movie. So its witty, its snarky. Its passionate, socially conscious and quite complicated (both a good and bad quality here) and even subversive in its politica – and by that I mean even the liberals get taken to task.
Charlie Wilson is a great character for Hanks. And a little bit darker than his usual roles.
We first meet him in a Caesar’s Palace hot tub with a crew of cocaine snorting strippers. Still, the tit soup isn’t even enough to drag Charlie’s attention away from Dan Rather on TV in a turban. Dan’s talking about Afghan rebels who are covertly fighting the Soviet occupation of the early 80’s.
Right here I was hooked because essentially these ‘rebels’ transformed over time into the ‘despicable Taliban’ that dear George and Dick are bravely hunting down. The script only hints at the unforeseen effects that this rebel support caused but the irony is certainly there. Its funny, I just looked up the Mujahaideen Army who were the group that sent that open letter to America in 2005: warning about our electing of ‘criminal Emperors’ time and time again.
The movie shifts tonal gears when it gets to Pakistan. And to see the real human suffering that –mostly child – citizens in these countries endure while we’ve just been at a fabulous cocktail party where rich people in gowns are strategizing on how to milk the situation for their own gain…well, it’s a kind of creepy wake up call when I think of my own flippant conversations with friends over what we are doing in Iraq right now. I felt like a total limo liberal. We were giving these people weapons that we knew were USELESS against Soviet helicopters that bombed them!
So Charlie sets out to raise money to get the kind of weapons/ammo that will defeat the Reds. The story becomes a journey of is negotiating of the Congressional shark infested waters to get the money he needs to do this -- all with the crafty help of Joanne who will seduce anyone to get what she wants.
I wont divulge anymore of the plot as its just too darn complicated to describe. But this is a ballsy movie. And one that deserves attention.
No shock here – the dialogue is first rate Aaron Sorkin tongue tinglers. In fact, a little less ‘clever clever’ than STDIO 6 jokes which is fine by me. Here’s two of my faves: (Phil Seymour Hoffman) “I’d like to hold a meeting to review the 10 different ways in which you’re a douchebag” and when asked why Charlie only uses big breasted women as his secretaries, one answers: “Mr. Wilson has a saying – you can teach a girl to type but you can’t teach her to grow tits.”
It all probably sounds a bit HBO-ish - but the superstar version. These people are the best we’ve got: Hanks is a brilliant actor – always finding a way to surprise me. Julia is basically royalty now and owns it so well that her world wariness in the part of Joanne comes off as a kind of ‘grand dame’ role that Bette Davis or Ingrid Bergman did in their work in the 70’s.
Hanks doesn’t grandstand here – just a great character actor when it comes down to it.
Julia is different in this: wiser, cynical and mature. Crafty but righteous. SEXUAL. Which I forgot she could be – she doesn’t seem too concerned about being ‘likeable’….more serving the overall film here. She plays Joanne Haring, the ‘6th richest woman in Texas.” A ‘ weekend ladyfriend’ of Charlie’s and right wing socialite with a huge political agenda.
Like I said, the writing is of course great BUT sometimes the info download (about the ways in which Afghan’s culture was being under siege by Russia, about our own initial half hearted investment in supporting them, etc.) is so dense that I was missing stuff while trying to absorb what I’d just heard. And that’s not good – while filmmakers should never talk down to their audience, making them play catch up is also a frustrating experience.
But hell, this movie is honest – its realistic. It made me think. It wins its goal but then comes back to Earth.
I’ll leave you with this statement Hanks makes after he’s reached his goal. And how in a way its so meaningless.
“As usual, we come in change the politics and leave. But you know what? That Ball? It keeps bouncing…even after we’ve left.”
Ominous. But the truth.
Best.
PENNENINK
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+ Expand All
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or not
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I love Sorkin and wish him all the blow.
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It's amazing this guy got to go to this "special screening" and was able to remember exact (and pretty long) lines of dialogue. Please, give everyone a break. If you're going to post tripe like this, at least make sure it isn't tripe sent to you from some studio hack. It makes the credibility of this site... not credible.
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you think this reviewer isn't on the up & up, simply because he posted a coherent (and verbose) review? You think that because he remembered long lines of dialogue at a screening, that he had no preparation for, this makes him a plant? Well, I agree. P-L-A-N-T so say we.
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in that non-sexual way that is.
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When's the release date (I'm guessing Christmas Day oscar contention)?
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I usually ignore the PLANT accusations, but this one stinks. Coherent and verbose reviews mean only one thing on this site.
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I'm sold.
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You gotta love the phrase "tit soup".
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Apparently being coherent and verbose makes you stick out. Also, if you're not a plant, dumb your review down so you don't look like a plant. Simple vocabulary, a few grammatical errors, superlatives galore and a couple of fucks and shits for good measure. Coherence and verbosity are what plants CRAVE.
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"Charlie Wilson is a great character for Hanks...a little bit darker than his usual roles. We first meet him in a Caesar’s Palace hot tub with a crew of cocaine snorting strippers." That's such an understatement you've entered the earth's core.
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Actually the canard that "We created the Taliban" is a myth. Our Afghan allies became the anti Taliban Northern Alliance who proved to be such good help during the 2001 campaign.
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Tell that to MiraJeff.
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You can hear an interview with one of the co-stars of this film by visiting:
http://blogtalkradio.com/hostpage.aspx?show_id=37843
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I love reading REAL reviews on this site. Sometimes Harry's blinding love of film can obstruct real problems with films and he sort of rationalizes bad aspects so that he won't have to admit he hated a movie (he is being paid to write the reviews by advertisers of films on his page). Great review though, I read it from beginning to end. It was brief but it took a movie that I wasn't too interested in and now I am very interested in seeing it.
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...check out the book the movie is based on. Very good read if you are interested in recent history and politics in general. The book kept my interest so I hope the movie at least lives up to that.
http://tinyurl.com/2xmvnx -
Hmmmm a couple hours of being preached to by Sorkin? Sign me up.
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alive. Period.
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Although we purposely trying to rip them (The Rebels) off as they had no way of paying for the weapons. Everything came from countries from China, Egypt and even Saudi Arabia. We did not want to get to heavily involved and put too much of an American stamp (literally) on the conflict as the Iran Contra scandal was just heating up during Reagan years of this war.
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No one cares. The Bush administration is over. It's such an easy target. You're about 2 years too late, Nichols!
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like Syriana did?
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...for the sole reason that I'll be expecting him to yell "WILSON!" constantly.
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...today they are too verbose and coherent? GEE WHIZ is A.Noy.YING. And needs to get laid.
Who wouldn't remember a line like "You can't reach a girl to grow tits." Come on! I remember HALF of PRIMARY COLORS ("You had me stuck out here talking about fly fishing for 5 hours. Have you ever made it to 5 minutes about fly fishing?? Yes, THAT was my day!")
SO THERE. This sounds pretty freakin' great to me. I'm there. -
Charlie Wilson's War has been pulled; and any further development or production has been cancelled, because Aaron Sorkin doesn't know how to make things funny.
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I have no idea what the Daily Kos is but I will be watching this. My sort of film :)
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I really get sick of actors and their fetishes. Tits. (.)(.)
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To say any movies about the U.S. involvement in the MidEast is "2 Years Too Late" is like saying movies like APOCALYPSE NOW and DEER HUNTER and FULL METAL JACKET are "2 Years Too Late" because the Vietnam War ended in the mid 70's. The best time to examine history with movies is from a remove, although I think any movie about what this country has done to the MidEast, whether past or recent past, is completely timely and relevant.
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This story takes place about 25 years ago. The Afghan-Soviet conflict is a fertile ground for good films, but off the top of my head, the only ones I can think of are stuff like "Rambo 3" and "Spies Like Us," so there is still a lot of room to work with. To write this off and not see the potential for drama is to basically admit your ignorance of what was going on in Afghanistan during the 80s.
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Fighting the Reds in Afghanistan. I think at the end he says he knows a good place to eat in Karachi.I guess there aren't alot of films that deal with this period in history with realism, so I hope this one is good.
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...to tell me what to think. Honestly, I would be lost in this world without his machine-gun style sermons to light the way.
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I am having trouble even getting through Sports Night. He can write a decent monologue, but Sorkin-scripted shows contain some of the most contrived, inauthentic dialogue I have heard since "CRASH".
I haven't seen the West Wing, but Studio 60 had some cringe-inducing blowhardy speeches. Sports Night is horribly overrated, even though it had a few sporadic moments of greatness. It is just way outclassed by Larry Sanders. -
is not firing all their brain cyllinders...you're basically saying West Wing is on par with Walker, Texas Ranger...and A Few Good Men is on par with Crash...Sorkin has larger than life characters, and often very grandiose dialogue and situations. the difference is, he EARNS IT, rather than cooking it up as a contrivance like Haggis.and no offense, azmodien, but anyone who has never seen the West Wing, but stll feels compelled to offer up their opinion on Sorkin, is...shit, how can I put it...an idiot? an asshole? how about an idiot-hole? yes, that's good. you're an idiot-hole.how's that for inauthentic dialogue, you peabrain?sorkin and haggis, indeed...hmph
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I guess I shouldn't criticize without seeing his best work, but I still think he is a hack.
I wasn't really equating him to Haggis when I said he was the biggest hack NEXT to Haggis. Like, next in line. They are similar in that they both have written good stuff in the past ie. (EZ Streets) but have since made some horrible shit (ie. Studio 60).
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