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One spy wants to feed the LIONS FOR LAMBS to the tigers!
SPOILER ALERT !!
Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with a little review of the upcoming Tom Cruise/Robert Redford/Meryl Streep political flick LIONS FOR LAMBS. This spy didn't like it, but had a lot of fighting with his friends afterwards about the subjects brought up by the flick. Ah, politics... here's the review! Enjoy, but beware of spoilers!
Hey Harry. I just came back from a screening of "Lions for Lambs" at my University theater. I went with a group of friends, none of whom had any idea what the movie was about. For those of you who don't know, the movie tells three seperate stories, all of which are supposed to relate to each other.
The first is Tom Cruise, a US senator, talking to Meryl Streep, a journalist, about the senator's new offensive in the war on terror.
The second story is Robert Redford (the director) playing the part of a college professor who calls in a student (Andrew Garfield) to have a discussion about his grades and politics.
The third story is a tale of two soldiers who fall out of a helicopter in enemy territory, and wait for rescue as the enemy closes in.
First off, the entire movie reminded me of Crash. Not just because it's a hopeless outcry against the current state of affairs, but because Robert Redford is content to just point out the sad state of things, but never offer any potential answers or resolutions. Also the entire movie was just a series of jarring cuts between the three stories with no real relation between any of the stories.
The Cruise/Streep and Redford/Garfield conversation are interesting enough, and bring up several good topics, even if these topics are just reiterations of everything we've heard the last two years. The story of the two soldiers behind enemy lines however, is just plain awful. The entire premise is ludicrous (the one soldier falling out of the helicopter and the other leaping after him, then both survive the fall onto a snow covered mountain) and the CG helicopter and misty breath are laughable, and the entire "mountain" is one of the most poorly constructed sets I've ever seen. Plus the entire story has no relevance whatsoever to the main topics of the movie. Abysmal.
I walked out of the theater very disappointed, as I was hoping for more from Redford, a director I really respect. Still, the entire way back to my apartment my friends and I argued over the themes of the movie, and we all got very passionate about our opinions. I think we're all going to think it over for a while, and discuss more of it in depth, which I suppose is what the movie was trying to achieve.
So as far as trying to spark debate, the movie works. But as for the movie itself? I'd recommend passing on it until it hits the rental shelves, then pick it up and watch it with some intelligent people whose opinions you respect, because afterwords the conversation you have will be worth more than anything you see or hear in the movie itself.
If you use this call me The Future King
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+ Expand All
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Damn you Michael Bay
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Cruise Powah!
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really?
even from watching the trailer, you figure the soldier plot is actually illustrating what the other two subplots are merely talking about: militarism, heroism, etc, blah blah.
Not having seen the movie, I can't say whether it's done well and from the review it sounds like it isn't. But seems on its face that it's hard to say it has 'no relevance whatsoever'.
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For the most part, I agree with The Future King. But it's a little better and smarter than he gives it credit for. It's preachy, and not terribly original or entertaining, and probably not reccomendable on the whole, but the performances are good, nothing flashy, but good, Redford is probably the best, and yes, the convo you have afterwards will be as interesting as the film. The divided narrative isn't great but it works and accomplishes what it set out to, which is to beg the question. DO YOU KNOW WHAT YOU'RE GETTING? I'll leave you with that thought... oh, and I just got back from Dan in Real Life. It was better than I expected. Cute. A real pleasant surprise thanks to Carell and Binoche.
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I haven't seen the film so I won't comment on the particulars and the politics, but to the reviewer making the bold statement about a soldier falling out of a helicopter and surviving being unrealistic... you're in college now... were you watching the news the last few years. The incident in the film is based on the battle of Takur Ghar (Roberts Ridge) on Tora Bora in Afghanistan in 2002 during Operation Anaconda. The battle was triggered when a Navy SEAL fell from a helicopter and his mates went back in to rescue him. Rangers, Seals, and AirForce combat perators fought a bloody battle on the snow covered mountain that started with the attempted rescue of the SEAL who survived the fall but was captured and e xecuted by the Al Qaeda fighters there. For US forces, it was, to date, the single bloodiest battle of the war in Afghanistan. Did the film do it justice? I doubt it. I'm sure they changed it completely. But to say the idea of soldiers falling from a helicopter waiting for rescue is ludicrous, only shows you haven't been paying attention the last few years.
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Cause the thought police are always listening. If you are listening to me right now pigs....FOOK YOU
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America needs a strong, unbiased mainstrem media that doesn't have any political ties at all so it can't be cowed or intimadated. What you poor folks get is Fox News. Movies like this are important for the debates they'll spark more than their content....
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Wasn't the original quote Lions Led By Donkeys? Or was that something else?
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That review is bollocks
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America has plenty of media outlets that are unbiased, if not uninfluenced. What America really needs is Americans who can think critically and sort through the wealth of information available. In a world where Loose Change has a shred of credibility, and where O.J. being "not guilty" equals "he was proven innocent", and where evolution is "just a theory" ...good luck with that.
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...is both a media and a film industry that doesn't seem to be be in bed with the enemy.
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is not some backroom conspiracy. It is a business. It gives the public what they ask for. You can't blame Ann Coulter on any industry. It is the sewer dwelling public that buys her books. In bulk.
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Does the public get what the public wants; or does the public want what the public gets? The "People In Charge" should have the balls to stand up to the mob and the Murdochs of this world that feed the mob bullshit and give the public a fair balanced opinion of everything, and reasons for the decisions they take. I know this'll never happen, but it's a nice dream to have.
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I suppose it depends on your definition of bias. The biggest offence of the major news outlets is that they are biased towards the sensational, as opposed to any political leaning. Yes, the liberal view is given a little more screen time, but that isn't because of any political affiliation. It is simply the fact that by definition, liberals want change, and change is news. But just because the bad in the world is reported on more than the good doesn't mean there is any bias involved. It's just because the bad sells more advertisement. But the trick is to watch more than one outlet. Watch TV news AND read the papers AND read a blog or two. Or here's a mindblower...read a history book. Look up logical fallacies. Then take this knowledge and put it all together. They only way the supposed bias of the media means anything is if you only use one source, no matter what that source may be.
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Michael Moore won el Grande Prizo at Cannes for his mockumentary? Both sides have their outlets. But the fact that you can actually look up how much Bush spent (of course, you have the question the sources) is an indication of how available information is in the US. I'm not saying you don't have to do a little legwork. I'm saying that the "bias" in the media is more the lazy public's fault than any grand conspiracy. It's not that we are only being offered the lunch menu. We are presented with a nearly unlimited buffett. Who's fault is it that we keep going back to the desert table?
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From the trailer, it looked like the most boring movie in existence. It closes with a shitty-acting, gay Scientologist midget saying "Yes or no" without any context, like he's reprising his other shitty acting job in 'A Few Good Men'? Wow! Way to rope me in! [paragraph break] As for news outlets, they're fucking stenographers, as shown by the NYT and Washington Post blithely reprinting Pentagon and White House press releases as though they were fact in the several years leading up to the Iraq War. It's not nefarious, they're just perverting journalism by wanting to maintain their precious access to the high and mighty.
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of almost every article, most newspapers say "according to". Of course they reprint the source. As long as they cite the source, that is their job. The opinions are for the editorial page, not the front page. The problem with the newpapers is not how they are written, but in how they are read.
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Reporting = parroting + investigation. The run-up to the Iraq War, most notably Judith Miller at the NYT, involved only the first part of that equation.
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Are there people here that actually think that the media in the U.S. is biased in favor of Bush or the Iraq war? I'm willing to wager there are those who feel its not anti-war enough, but it sure as hell isn't pro war.
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if you read only one source, or just a few, then you are asking for bad information. Most of the disputes preceding the war (and indeed, at any time), were those not of reporting, but of interpretation. Reporting the "The White House says that Iraq is hiding weapons of mass destruction" is not biased. It is not collusion. It is fact. The White House DID say that. But neither you not I nor anyone else was prevented from watching poor Colin Powell's horrible presentation at the UN. I watched it on CNN myself. But it was available on ABC, CBS, NBC, and FOX. At that point, the general public knew pretty much what it knows today. So all the Democratic flip-floppers crying "it's the media's fault for lying to us! If we only knew then what we know now..." are simply trying to revise history.
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I don't mean to say that there aren't individuals or even individual news outlets ~coughfoxcough~ that aren't biased...
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I agree with you on just about everything you've said on this talk back so far, verg. I think that there is an abundance of news sources out there, but I think most of the mainstream media is greatly biased in what information it focuses on giving joe blow average viewer.
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agree with me? Your talkbacker card is hereby revoked! Like I said, depends on your definition of bias. I agree that it is biased (or influenced) not along the assumed political lines, but along the economic ones.
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...am I missing something here?
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...or so posters like BringingSexyBack would have you believe. Look, Eagles Fans are rude, the Pope is a Catholic and Hollywood is full of Liberals. Whatever. If you want to make a successful movie with a liberal or conservative agenda, you are going to have to work that much harder to make it succeed. If you alienate half of your viewing audience before they even put their asses in the seats, you are in for a lousy showing. Just look at Renditions numbers. Ninth place on opening weekend, just behind a 3D re-release of a film that’s 15 years old and was showing in one-quarter the number of theaters. Actually, I shouldn’t say “just behind”: ‘The Nightmare Before Christmas’ box office was almost 20% better than Rendition’s. Liberal movie goers wonder where it all went wrong. Granted, some of the reviews suggested the film was the cinematic equivalent of its subject matter, but Reese Witherspoon’s likable enough and Gyllenhaal’s got oodles of social-consciousness cred from Brokeback Mountain. I would think that all of you left-AICN Talkbackers would be willing to suffer a little torture for the cause so that I could watch you emote your way to anti-war nirvana.
I’m sure it’ll do gangbusters business overseas. The test of whether this is a fluke or indicative of some larger annoyance with Hollywood’s mindlessly conformist, endlessly predictable politics is coming soon. Can America resist the siren song of Tom Cruise? Again I ask you BringingSexyBack, “Do you want to win the war on terror?!?!?”
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Please read "The New Media Monopoly" and then get back to me. The media is PURPOSEFULLY corrupt. It has an agenda. And considering that about 5 corporations currently own all newspapers, networks, magazines and film studios... just what do you think that agenda might be? Change? Independent thought? Challenging the status quo? Please, save us your rhetoric, put your politics aside and look at the facts. The game is fixed... the deck is stacked... the rich men have all the power... and they're using it to control what we see, hear and think. End of story.
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What's the agenda?
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If you are referring to the Senators who voted yea on HJRes 114, and now say "if we only knew then what we know now", then what you are missing is the fact that they DID know then what they know now. Or they should have. The "mainstream media" didn't lead them astray. They had plenty of access to even classified materials to make a decision and they did. They aren't (most of them) saying "we should have gone to war, but the strategy would be different". They are saying "we shouldn't have gone to war, and wouldn't have if they wouldn't have lied to us." You can't really blame them though. They are only following the results of the opinion polls...
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change your tune: DAMN YOU GEORGE MILLER
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Which politics do you think I'm defending? I have no leanings. Are you saying that the world is, indeed, flat? Bill Gates runs the world from a smoke filled backroom bunker 10 miles beneath Seattle? Like Klattimus said, what is the agenda? The deck is stacked in who's favor? Rich men have the power? That is a fact of life, not some Loosechange, JFK, Floride poisoning conspiracy. That doesn't mean that there aren't journalists out there doing their job, risking life and reputation, putting aside preconcieved notions to present the facts as clearly as they can everyday for us to do with as we will. To bad we too often spit on the facts and glorify the cynical thought which fits our personal view of the world.
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All I know is only a Sith deals in absolutes! And from my perspective, the Jedi are evil!!!!
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The book which states of Time Warner, Viacom, News Corporation, Disney, and Bertelsmann: "These five corporations decide what most citizens will—or will not—learn." So the readers and watchers of Gannett, Knight Ridder, Cox, Scripps, McClatchy, Landmark, Copley, Newhouse, Freedom, Hearst, MediaNews, and Tribune. The Boston Globe. Newsweek. The various flavors of NBC News. The New Yorker and Conde Nast's other titles. PBS. NPR. Reuters. AFP. AP. Bloomberg. U.S. News & World Report. Pearson. Hachette Filipacchi. The Atlantic. The Economist. etc... are only a small insignificant minority? This is the book you want me to read as an authority on media control?
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... Luckily, a majority of this film's audience won't expect Robert Redford, of all people, to have come up with "answers or resolutions" to the "sad state of things."
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"To bad we too often spit on the facts and glorify the cynical thought which fits our personal view of the world." - Vergil, that may be the best piece of opinion that I have ever read on AICN. You came correct with the first part of your post, but then nailed it with this last sentence. I have been guilty as hell of this very thing and I am glad that you had the panache to write this idea down.
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The billion dollars Bush spent "funding television content promoting the Iraq war" actually went to armed forces recruiting. The amount spent "present[ing] the Army's strategy in the global war on terrorism" was more like $2.5 million. (Boston Globe Feb 2006). What a great country. Hell...what a great planet. Even China has limited internet use. It took me all of 10 minutes to find the facts needed to refute your silly claims. Of course, I had to have a descerning mind, critical thinking, and a little bit of common sense to start with. That is something you have to be born with, as most people are. But if you choose to ignore it no amount of Googling help you to better understand the real world.
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I haven't seen it, but from the ads it looks like a better title would be "Strawment for Characters".
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What the hell is a Strawment?
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Yes I'm The Future King that wrote the review. I wanted to reply to a few comments. Brendan3 no I did not hear about those soldiers falling out of the helicopter, but so far as in the movie, if you expect me to buy into a serious film you don't have a soldier fall out of a helicopter and fall a quarter mile onto a mountain and survive, let alone that his friend would jump out after him 15 seconds later and land right next to him, and both of them would survive. Bullshit. Nice Marmot I'm not expecting Robert Reford to come up with the right solution to anything, but I was hoping he would actually be a little bold and say we COULD do this, or that, or the other. The fact he doesn't even try just makes it seem like he's another man on a podium, preaching to the converted. We know the situation is shit. We don't need further reinforcement of that fact. What we need is someone to be brave enough to step forward and actually do something about it. Instead the movie makes Redford seem just like the people he spent an hour and a half complaining about in the film.
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shit themselves. Fucking parents need to watch out for soldiers falling froom the sky. Shitty parenting if I've ever seen it.
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For fuck's sake man, to the Wikipedias with you.
The Future King, you're a fucking dick stick son. "We know the situation is shit." And if Redford had proposed something in this movie, you'd've called him a preachy liberal shill. Instead, he doesn't propose to give you all the answers, so you call him an indecisive liberal shill? Nice. Maybe you could try, I don't know, thinking critically about the situation in Iraq. Since, you know, it's never been done and all.
Honestly, what frightens me most is that you're going to be the 'majority voice' on this type of movie. And that makes me feel like we really are truly fucked. -
Fuck Cruise. Nicholson gave one of the best speeches ever in a movie - 'Son, we live in a world that has walls. And those walls have to be guarded by men with guns. Who's gonna do it? You? You, Lt. Weinberg? I have a greater responsibility than you can possibly fathom. You weep for Santiago and you curse the Marines. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know: that Santiago's death, while tragic, probably saved lives. And my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives...You don't want the truth. Because deep down, in places you don't talk about at parties, you want me on that wall. You need me on that wall. We use words like honor, code, loyalty...we use these words as the backbone to a life spent defending something. You use them as a punchline. I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom I provide, then questions the manner in which I provide it! I'd rather you just said thank you and went on your way. Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a weapon and stand a post. Either way, I don't give a damn what you think you're entitled to!' 'Did you order the Code Red?' 'I did the job I was..' 'DID YOU ORDER THE CODE RED??' 'YOU'RE GODDAMN RIGHT I DID!!' 'I'm gonna rip the eyes out of your head and piss in your dead skull! You fucked with the wrong Marine!' 'You fuckin' people. You have no idea how to defend a nation. All you did was weaken a country today, Kaffee. That's all you did. You put people's lives in danger. Sweet dreams, son.' 'Don't call me "son". I'm a lawyer and an officer in the United States Navy. And you're under arrest, you son of a bitch.' He he. I'm not seeing Lions For Lambs, it's just another political rant disguised as a movie.
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I never went to iraq, or anywhere else, but I did serve in the Army Reserve for 8 years before the neocons took charge and started building their empire. I flew in a helicopter twice, and both times I sat in a metal seat and had a X seatbelt, like the ones race car drivers have, put on me. Baecuase the chopper can and does go lateral - if you weren't strapped in you would fall out. Just FYI.
Kingdom did so-so, and Rendition and Valley of Elah did weak box office. I think the public would have embraced these films two years ago, when Iraq was a hot story and the public tide was starting to turn against the war. Now they just seem like old news, and depressing, so most of the public doesn't want to pay $8 to see it. -
Akroyd had great political Banter with Potier... about there being no moon landing. Political discussion in any 'movie' should garner just as much credence, even if it's coming from Redford and especially if it's being uttered by Cruise.
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This movie brought to you by moveon.org.
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Look man, I'm not a soldier, I'm not a politician, and I'm not someone whose opinion lots of people are going to respect. I would like to be an individual with as many people tuning in to listen to me as Redford does, but I don't. I have my opinions, doesn't mean they're right, but I have thought about the problems addressed in the movie before seeing it. What I'm saying is that with a major film with lots of star power behind you, be a little bold. This film was billed as being controversial, but instead it's just another lecture from a history professor. If it had gone farther maybe more people would listen, but since it just reviews the facts it fails to do anything. The audience I watched the movie with just laughed at the ending and most of them shrugged it off. If you want to make a political movie, god damned say something. Don't just whine and say that something needs to be done, unless no one knows that the situation even exists, which is not the case with the Middle East.
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Living in a bubble out in Hollywood, assuming the rest of the country sees the military and governement as evil and utterly corrupt, yeah, easy to see how this movie got made. Of course the world is a wonderful place when you are an American movie star, everyone wants to see you and be seen with you. The Hollywood elite just cant figure out that that is the ultimate truth, they are dumb puppets to be used and thrown aside when done.
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is this one of those movies where we see how many camera angles there can be inside government offices with everyone trying to out yell and leer each other while some clusterfuck is happening in an african/middle eastern country? like a new subgenre, office-war. maybe they should just have it be all in offices, maybe the office crossed with black hawk down. have it be where the rift over foreign-policy is too great to bear and they start attacking each other straight out, and get the help of the newbies on the lower floors who have been plagued with too many broken staples and awkward eyes all to happy to join sides. maybe have a willard character take a voyage through the building, see heads on polls and people fashionig armor and weapons like in road warrior from office supplies.
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"Bush spent 1 billion funding television content promoting the Iraq war."
errr...the President doesn't spend any money. Congress does. -
I can't vouch for the content (good/bad, falling from copter, stagey or not, etc.) -- but just judging it as what it was, I love this review. No rambling whatsoever. Short and to the point. Even the spoilers were compact and efficient. There was more content in the first four paragraphs of this review than in some HUGE reviews elsewhere on this site. If you keep it up you'll have to carry a gun to keep from getting hired by Entertainment Weekly.
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"it's a hopeless outcry against the current state of affairs, but because Robert Redford is content to just point out the sad state of things, but never offer any potential answers or resolutions."
Its not suppose to do that jack ass... its for u to decide. Thats what movies are meant to do. (Well, the good movies) And didn't it get your balls in a fuery!! I think the more we have movies like this the better. And there should be a movie about Robert Kennedy assasination as well. Nice and juicy.. like JFK.
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Hell motherf'n yeah.
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