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Capone feels that REDACTED will unfortunately be redacted!
REDACTED
Hey everyone. Capone in Chicago here.
I wish I could remember which comedian it was who first made the joke about how there was at in all likelihood at least one person who died in the World Trade Center attacks who beat his wife or kids. The point was that the hero-ification of the people that died on that horrible day had maybe gotten out of hand. I'm not saying I agree with that philosophy, but I'm guessing that same stand-up comic thinks the same thing about the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. Brian De Palma's often shocking REDACTED is going to infuriate many U.S. citizens, especially ones with family members serving in the armed forces. But the simple fact is that there are assholes and reprehensible figures in every line of work. Some of them are office workers, some are soldiers, and some are filmmakers.
De Palma's story of a small group of U.S. soldiers that participate in the rape of a young Iraqi girl and the killing of her and her family is deliberately inflammatory, bordering on exploitative. But I don't consider this a bad thing. In the last few months especially I've easily seen a dozen or so feature and documentary films that have been almost sterile in their depiction of the war and our troops. Everyone is so afraid of offending or appearing to insult the wrong group that the films seem to skirt some of the uglier aspects of the war. That doesn't mean the films are no good, but it's always left me with the sense that something is missing. These are the sort of missing pieces I'm guessing were also absent in films about the Vietnam War that came out during that conflict, but were later exposed in a handful of films that came out in the 1980s.
De Palma's statement with REDACTED appears to ask, "Why wait?" He wants the atrocities of this war to be exposed now. Since films about torture/interrogation have already been done, De Palma structures this fictional account of events that are based on a real event in a highly unusual and effective format. All of the footage in REDACTED is meant to look as if it were taken from pre-existing footage (one soldier's home movies/video diaries; closed circuit surveillance footage; news reports; a French documentary; videos to loved ones back home), all of which are fake but seem very real. The cumulative effect of this format is like watching compiled evidence against these men for their crimes. In essence, De Palma has remade his underrated 1989 work CASUALTIES OF WAR about a young girl's rape in Vietnam. But this latest work feels more immediate and raw. De Palma exposes how the military drills a killer mentality into these young men and sets them loose in a land where they were probably not be held accountable for their actions. But he's also making statements here about the media and the military superstructure that would rather bury this sort of event than deal with the public relations consequences of a hearing and disciplinary actions.
The truth is even if I thought some of the performances were way over the top to the point of being too ferocious at times, it's exciting to see a master like De Palma so pissed off about something and then make a movie about it. There's a spirit of aggression and passion in REDACTED that you simply never see in feature filmmaking by such a well-known director. Not even Oliver Stone has put out a film this angry in years. De Palma has spent much of his career exploring themes regarding what is real and what is manufactured image, but never has he taken these ideas and applied them in such a fiery format. All of that being said, my guess is that very few people will go see REDACTED. If the world even gets a whiff that this film might be anti-troops (it is not), they'll avoid it like the plague (Bill O'Reilly has already said De Palma should be arrested for treason for this film). That's a shame, because REDACTED is exactly the kind of kick in the ass some people need to be driven to outrage. If Robert Redford made LIONS FOR LAMBS to get people talking, then Brian De Palma made his work to get people marching in the streets. This is a film that will probably disappear without much impact today, but will be looked at years from now as a solitary voice of cinematic dissent against this current war. De Palma's wearing his balls on his sleeve with this one, folks, and they are indeed mighty and pendulous.
Capone
I can't think of anything appropriate... email me to bitch at my liberal bias!
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And I agree with your liberal bias. I am not sure if I will see this; not because I don't agree with DePalma for making it, to the contrary. I think it's almost a heroic film-making effort. I just don't think I could sit and watch it all without getting so angry that I have to get up and go out into the lobby and start punching holes in walls (or punching ushers).
And in regards to Bill O'Liely, who gives a flying fuck what this blowhard thinks?
http://falafel.ytmnd.com/ -
"I love the "brave" Hollywood filmmakers that go out of their way to make America look bad."
Don't worry about this one, we Americans are doing this pretty well ourselves... -
Of course you don't."I've easily seen a dozen or so feature and documentary films that have been almost sterile in their depiction of the war and our troops."Right. Who wants sterile documentaries anymore? Who wants to be presented with facts and make up their own mind?I stopped reading after this point.
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Has the whole world gone insane? The only parts that seemed 'real' in "Redacted" were the French documentary scenes. For the most part, everything else was overacted, and looked very fake. The video journals looked like they were filmed by the same guy as the news reports. I'm guessing that's because they were, but still. And the worst part of it all were the performances. The two rapists soldiers (one of whom is inexplicably obese for a soldier in combat - guess they don't plan on him dodging any bullets) act like the bad guys from "Robocop" for crying out loud. Speaking of the rape scene, that whole part in the film was nearly devoid of dramatic tension, because it was staged like it came from, "I Spit on Your Grave." Sad thing is, "Redacted" could have been a decent film in the way it was made. DePalma, a venerable, old-dog working filmmaker if there ever was one, was simply too set in his polished photography ways to master the new tricks needed to pull of the film's attempted chaotic stlye of a multi-media collage. He should have just produced the film, and handed it off to someone young and new to direct. The best anti-Iraq films this year were "In the Valley of Elah" - which some conservatives tried to attack, though, not as visciously as "Redacted" because they knew the film was good and that Tommy Lee Jones might have to kick their asses - and "No End in Sight." "Redacted" is the worst kind of 'controversial' film, in that no one would have had a reason to see it - let alone release it theatrically - had conservative pundits not kicked up a shit storm about it on TV. Mark Cuban was right to praise Bill 'O Reilly. After all, Cuban probably knew the film was too awful to generate ticket sales based on it's own merits.
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Deal with it.
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Nov 18, 2007 6:58:35 AM CST
I thought In the valley of elah was compeltely exploitative
by industrykiller!
Instead of showing one instance of US troops criminal actions like DePalma it shows many and they all happen around the same time to the same group of people. From the constant cell phone videos of troops commiting war crimes to the guy drowning his wife to the killing of one of their own it seems to try to bash every possible crime into your head in one two hour period. Haggis throws every possible evil troops escapade out there at once. That film felt more like an anti-troop film to me.
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"In the Valley of Elah" had realistic characterizations. It was a well-made film - something I cannot say for "Redacted." And you are right to say that we see many criminal actions from troops in "Elah", but there is some goodness in all of the characters as well. Even the guys who killed Jones' son seem like they could have been decent people had they been given decent psychological treatment after returning home from the war. The 'bad guys' in 'Redacted' act like the goon squad from a cheap "Death Wish" sequel. It's like there is no downtime from evil for them. They wake up, put their socks and pants on, and become evil people each day. You would have to wonder why even the 'non-evil' solders would hang around them in the first place? That evil acts can be perpetrated by wholly evil people is no big deal, but what 'Elah' shows us is that even the person you share a bottle of liquor with could have stabbed your son at least forty-four times, hacked his body to bits, charred it, and left it in the desert for animals to eat. In that sense, "Elah" was the less anti-troops than "Redacted," because it at least gave their wayward troops a different running speed besides 'evil.' You can't make a movie where there are 'evil' characters and expect me to take it seriously. Entertaining, sure, but seriously? No way. But "Redacted" is neither.
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Especially Jones' performance, but that one aspect was so overbearing I think it really killed the film. I mean Jesus every time one of those cell phone movies was "unlocked" (a ridiculous plot point btw) it showed them doing something new and awful. After a while I felt I was being screwed with. It's a fact troops do some very disgusting things in times of war, but rather than cast a light on individual incidents I felt like Haggis was casting a light on all US troopers and I found it a little insulting. I actually havent seen Redacted so I cant comment on its actual quality, but I at least know that DePalma makes it stick to one very true incident at a time. It doesn't surprise me at all that his characterizations are over the top. did you see the Black Dahlia? Hartnett is a given for wooden, but how the hell do you make Aaron Eckhart suck?
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"This is a film that will probably disappear without much impact today, but will be looked at years from now as a solitary voice of cinematic dissent against this current war."
There has not been one film out of Hollywood so far that is even pro troops, not to mention pro war. Redacted is not so much of a "brave" statement" on the Iraq War as a statement on De Palma's radical chic politics coupled with his well know fixation on rape. It is, to put it pluntly, pro Islamic Terrorist porn. -
Hopefully these traitorous pieces of shit in Hollywood will finally understand that even though most Americans don't think the war in Iraq was handled correctly, they are NOT "anti-war" and don't think of our brave military men and women as psycho killers.
Shame the insulated, masturbatory liberati here are deluded enough to think everyone shares their views. -
I cannot imagine what a country run by some of the conservatives here would look like. I mean these filmmakers are traitors for making a movie about a war that 90% of the American public thinks is wrong and we should have never gotten into? How can you delude yourselves in such a capacity? Terrorist porn? You really think terrorists watch these films and THAT is what inspires them? I think its probably something closer to the tens of thousands of dead Iraqis that are where they are as a result of the severe mismanagement of the war. It doesn't matter how many pro war or anti war films get made, the blame for this clusterfuck is going to fall squarely on us in the future. Not because that is how liberals want it or are trying to spin it, but simply because that is how it looks to the rest of the planet Earth. So bitch about every human being who doesn't live in America who finds this war repugnant if we look bad, not Brian De Palma.
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No matter what your personal feelings are about this, he is not going to convert anyone. But if people like him were around during WW 2 we'd all be speaking German now.
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Nov 18, 2007 7:43:12 AM CST
If you thought 'Elah's' cellphone vids were ridiculous, Industry
by the tao of joe
That's basically the entire premise of "Redacted." The movie comes from all these 'sources,' most of which feel very contrived. We have a surveillance camera which caught scenes that should have had some people court marshaled before they had the chance to do anything wrong, but the worst part was the 'video diary' made by a hispanic soldier. The soldier said he was working hard to try and get into film school, and yet his video footage was fraught with the types of video editing tricks no hopeful film student would ever use (think: star-wipes, etc.). Then, to capture the the rape scene, the soldier knows he can't just bring a video camera SOLDIERS GONE WILD-style, so he somehow manages to have an expensively nice hidden camera system that he can somehow hide on his helmet. The whole device was just completely far fetched. And you are right about "Black Dahlia" - what a horrible movie. DePalma should quit while he's ahead, and start teaching film class or do something else so he can pay the bills.
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You criticize the CONTENT of the film, not the conceit of it. Which is a completely baseless argument given that its based on a true fucking story. Now tao is making total sense and actually sounds like a normal human being with valid complaints about what sounds like a flawed film. Not a frothing at the mouth maniac intent on destroying something simply because it exists, which is something only someone who hates the idea of America would do. If its a bad film, explain why, don't just piss and moan because it disagrees with a war that only the most naive bafoon would think was a brilliant idea.
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I think we often forget how close Saddam came to conquering Europe. We would all be speaking Arabic right now if we hadn't "won" the war in Iraq.....
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From Fox itself;
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,229879,00.html
FORT CAMPBELL, Ky. — A soldier was sentenced to 90 years in prison with the possibility of parole in 20 years for conspiring to rape a 14-year-old Iraqi girl and kill her and her family. Spc. James P. Barker, one of four Fort Campbell soldiers accused in the March 12 rape of Abeer Qassim al-Janabi and the killings, pleaded guilty and agreed to testify against the others to avoid the death penalty...
"I want the people of Iraq to know that I did not go there to do the terrible things that I did," Barker said, his voice quivering as he began to weep. "I do not ask anyone to forgive me today."...
"This burned-out corpse that used to be a 14-year-old girl never fired bullets or lobbed mortars," Fischbach said as he held pictures of the crime scene. "Society should not have to bear the risk of the accused among them ever again."
The killings in Mahmoudiya, a village about 20 miles (32 kilometers) south of Baghdad, were among the worst in a series of alleged attacks on civilians and other abuses by military personnel in Iraq... -
Nov 18, 2007 8:13:16 AM CST
IndustryKiller it's about the defeatist attitude so prevalent to
by big dan
The point is whether you're for it or against it we're in it now. He has the right to do and say whatever he wants that's the beauty of America. But with Iran already posessing 3,000 operational centrifuges they are well on their way to enriching Uranium. If you think it's just for energy purposes and not nukes you are sadly mistaken. They will use them if given the chance and your life and the lives of your family and friends will come to an end. So you're right, it won't matter what language you're speaking you ass clown.
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I've seen the film as well. I am against the war and I get what DePalma is going for, using various mediums to tell his story. It's a cool gimmick and maybe someday someone will make a good movie with it. I don't think this is it. I am against the war, but I thought this was a horrible movie... poorly acted, poorly written, and lazily directed. As to it's portrayal of the military, sure there are bad apples in all walks of life, but this was the most basest of negative stereotypes and it is obvious DePalma did no research to see what soldiers do or how they act. ...the final indignity was the end of the film where DePalma inserts fake photos of dead civilians in his slideshow titled "Actual images from the war in Iraq" That's not being artistic... that's an insult to the civilians that really died. Once upon a time Brian DePalma made great films. Just because it's trying too be an important statement film is no reason to rally around it... or to overlook that it's just not good. So... message aside Capone, how would you rate it as a film?
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Finally, some people are talking sense. I couldn't agree with you more.
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would love to kill meself some.
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my apologies to IndustryKiller.
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Some of them need to pay for college and they are an exception but the others who are about patriotism and fighting the enemy bullshit should kill themselves. no tears will be shed for the soldiers of war returning in bags. their chocie to fight a stupid war for a stupid government, if they get blown up, it was their choice. no glorification. and if you support nixon, eat aids and die.
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because right wing people are cunts, and rather be forced to hear something from people who are less assholes than those that are pure assholes. i don't understand the right wing, sayng the left wing preaches etc, but if it's coming out of compassion etc why is it so bad?
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On my family and friends are zealots such as yourself. If we were fighting for a just cause, ala World War 2, then I would be behind it all the way. But since we fight under the delusion that a bunch of foreigners can roll with tanks into the middle east and fundamentally change a culture that is thousands of years old and predisposed to hating intruders, no matter how miserable their lives already were, with the fire and passion of a thousand suns, I'm not gonna stand up and cheer. And as for your pointless invocation of Iran, im not exactly positive how fighting an endless war we can barely keep a hold of would help us in a different country that is far more well equipped and trained. Your logic only makes Iraq an even more massive disaster than it is considering it takes valuable resources away from fighting an enemy that actually posed a threat. In fact fighting a war with Iran would probably force us to re-instate the draft, and the backlash sustained from that would crumble both the efforts in Iraq and Iran to the ground making America look like even bigger fools. With that said Iran has a completely shit economy AND a large opposition movement within its borders that, with time and effort could do a FAR better job of diffusing any possible nuclear war than the American war machine could.
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and is completely out of touch with Liberals as a whole. i just want to make that abundantly clear.
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All we ever hear is the war is lost, and we're the bad guys, and to quote Messi "fuck the troops". What does commentary like that prove? It isn't constructive or thought out or useful. If someone in the Democratic party actually proposed a viable idea other than Bush sucks more "zealots" like myself would be more inclined to listen. Sorry I insulted you before.
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I'm watching the troop increase in Iraq, something that should have been done from the word go, closely and trying to keep an open mind and hoping that things will at least get slightly better. believe it or not if that were to happen I would take it as fantastic news despite my negative feelings toward Bush.
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Nov 18, 2007 8:38:54 AM CST
wow, a zealot and a liberal actually conversing and getting alon
by big dan
there is hope for the world.
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we are at the point where anyone who says they have a concrete solution is grandstanding. its not as simple as doing this or that. Im willing to give the troop increase a marked deadline for approval, not forever as Bush constantly asks for, but a reasonable timetable. If it doesn't work what can we possibly do but pull our troops out? It's gotten to the point where the war is tangibly weakening our country. I understand that you could persevere someday if we left our troops in indefinitely, but at what cost? How far into the financial hole can this country afford to go? We will eventually be feeling the effects of it on the economy, and with gas prices are already, what happens if it gets exponentially worse? Its also taxing our troops and, more dangerously, making people lose faith in our military, which always has been and should necessarily remain a point of national pride. The best we can do if the latest plan fails is to pull out, regroup back here, and rebuild the national faith in our military, not through rhetoric, which wont work after what we've been through, but through action.
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These kind of movies are always bullshit because they want you to be outraged at the entire war over the action of a handful of guys... guys who were later turned in by fellow soldiers who had heard about the crime, and investigated and prosecuted by the military. There are always a few scumbags in every military. You should not damn them all with a fuckin' movie WHILE SOLDIERS ARE IN THE COUNTRY. Anyone who demands people see this piece of shit is a traitor and should be shot.
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process. This is maybe the most egregious part of the Iraq problem, not the troops. If someone really wants to make a movie with some gravitas show us why the fucking Iraqi people don't have working water yet. Make a film about corrupt contractors, not troops. If the people of Iraq had the basic amenities to live their lives I guarantee they would be alot more open to the possibility of their own brand of democracy. Yes the insurgency often lays out sabotage plots, but billions upon billions have been squandered with absolutely nothing to show for it. At least part of the blame for this lies with the Bush administration, who are really the only people who could police that situation. I know nothing about contracting, but I cannot imagine that it had to be this way and that there aren't definitive ways to improve the situation. Maybe someone on this talkback who knows more than I could enlighten us.
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Read what he says. This is exactly how most liberals feel about America and its troops. Good to see one of them admit what they all admit behind closed doors. Fuck America. Fuck the troops. They want American to fail and they want the troops to die.
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we aren't going to change their culture...ever. I think we've done some good there but we can't force them to step up and take control of their own country. I'm afraid whenever we pull out it's going to return to Sadam days all over again. I think America will need a prescence of some kind there for generations. Clinton sent our troops to Bosnia over 10 years ago and we're still there. That's what irritates me, nobody ever complains about that. Not saying we shouldn't be there just why isn't the criticism equal? NBC reported just last week that the surge is working and attacks in Baghdad have lessened so the surge appears to be having an effect and that's a good thing. But the blind faith that people seem to have in an ineffective organization like the U.N. confounds me. They enforce nothing and it's why we have the situation there to begin with. Just sayin'...
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and killing German women in WW2? Did Warner Bros ever make a film like that?
De Palma must really have a hard on for the military. He thinks of himself as Upton Sinclair, but this is more like yellow journalism.
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Liberals hate this country and everything it stands for. They SAY they love America, but basically they want to change everything upon which it was built and make it into a perverted version from their twisted political fantasy. 60 years ago, someone like DePalma or Redford would have been ostracized and probably wound up having to leave the country in shame, which is exactly how it should be for traitors like them.
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Interesting that you shoot down Magorium's Emporium and yet you send up Radacted. You should watch Redacted again. Its a terrible piece of communication. The acting is simply poor. Unacceptable. Unbelievable. The camerawork and concepts studenty. The sum of all parts here just doesnt add up. The ending with the still photographs was the icing on the cake. Mixing fact and fiction like that is unforgivable. This film is a gross miscalculation like the invasion of a sovereign state for its resources and geographical positioning to continue an imperial plan for hegemony. It was a good idea executed a moron.
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Hello again.
Friendly reminder on how to hang on to your human decency despite your most passionate anger:
If you haven't seen the film, don't judge it. Be suspicious, be careful, but don't be decisive in your judgement of a thing before you actually converse with it. Where's THAT value in this discussion?
If your post was in response to Capone's "liberal" bias, I suppose this is a response to your "ignorance" bias, by which, if you haven't yet contemplated the premises and techniques of the actual film, you are inarguabley consumed. If you have seen the film, I retract the accusation of your ignorance. If you haven't seen the film, it's between you and your integrity whether or not you retract your post. Peace. -
By "caught" I mean DVR'd it, fast forwarded, and deleted within 10 minutes. What a piece of unwatchable crap.
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American troops were sent to Bosnia as part of a NATO-centered military intervention to a genocidal event. The number of troops in Bosnia is much lower than the number of US troops in Iraq. The quality of a deployment to Bosnia is radically different to an Iraq deployment, in terms of experiencing/witnessing/participating in violence and chaos. The differences between the two are both quantitative and qualitative.
I believe troops will have to be in Iraq for years to come, as part of a totally re-imagined strategy focused on a new multinational alliance. I am opposed to a total withdraw. But to argue that the withdraw argument has no power because of American presence in the former Yugoslavia is not terribly effective. -
ENOUGH ABOUT THIS FUCKING FILM. It's a LIE. It is a distortion of the truth. It is anti-american, anti-military. AICN is acting as the public relations firm for Al- Qaeda and Al-Jazeera, not to mention the Stalinist left in this country. It's embarrassing.
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Have you seen the film?
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If not, then YOU are acting as the public relations firm of the preposterously ignorant and reactionary. How could you argue otherwise? Why can't we elevate the conversation to negotiating with premises rather than shouting about our ideological advesaries? How does that serve our country or our civilization?
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Preaching to the Choir?
This film has only polarized the extreme left and extreme right even further; if that's possible. The folks that matter - the Great American Middle who can actually end this Iraq nonsense - are left out in the cold once again. You can't change the hearts and minds of The Great American Middle by telling them their troops are rapist assholes.
Is DePalma planning a prequel? One in which we get to see Uday and Qusay yucking it up in their Rape Room!? -
I consider myself a libertarian so there are some issues I feel I am kind of conservative on and some issues i am more liberal on. I try to base my thoughts on specific issues one at a time instead of embracing one of 2 ideologies and then applying that ideology to all issues. It's interesting not being a Democrat or Republican and watching these people from a distance. It seems to me that our media outlets have gone way beyond simple biases and just decided to wear their ideology on their sleeves. Fox gives us Bill O'Reilly and MSNBC gives us Keith Olberman. The broadcast news and print news are left leaning while talking radio is dominated by the right. The problem here is that nobody in the media today seems the least bit interested in providing the public with the truth. They are interested in advancing an agenda rather than objectively providing the public with truthful reporting and letting the public decide what to think of it. The conservative side of the media tells us the war is going well and the liberal side tells us it is a complete failure? Which is it? It can't be both at the same time. The conservative side of the media tells us global warming is a hoax while the liberal side says it may be too late to stop global warming from killing us? Which is it? Again, it can't be both things at the same time. My guess is that the truth lies probably somewhere in the middle.
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Journalists/Analysts with integrity: Jim Lehrer, Gwen Ifil, Ray Suarez, David Brooks, Bill Moyers, Jeffrey Brown. All are on PBS, as well as other places. Some will doubtlessly cry "liberal bias" about the PBS-ness of the list, but if they're honest with themselves they'll realize they don't really know why they can't take public television seriously. If you can argue cogently about a bias there, please do so. If you can't, please don't try.
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Not that YOU would bitch about bias; I was referring to the more obviously arragant on the talk back.
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I am sure there are individuals journalists out there who are still working hard to get it right. In addition to your list I would throw Tim Russert out as a journalist trying to avoid bias and get it right. The point I am making is painted with a larger brush. It just seems to me that most of our media outlets today have taken a side and objectivity has been thrown out the window. These media are advancing one of two ideologies and the truth is taking a beating.
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I am very disappointed by your comments, but you have the right to place them here on this talkbakck, of course.
That right is of course garaunteed in the Bill of Rights. The same people that you villify ensure that Bill remains valid and who take an oath to that effect. -
I agree completely. The problem, I think, stems from the consumer element of our super-connected, highly technologized, 21st century culture. I feel like this "flat", post-9/11 world of global issues (economics, labor, hunger, economics) and highly localized immense power (suicide bombers, nuclear access) has sewn seeds of immense anxiety and uncertainty in the contemporary psychology. Issues not only of security, but of loyalty and identity, have baffled the typical American (or first-world human) to the point that reasoning through these terribly complex, terrifying powerful nuances of this new world is just too overwhelming to contend with. Genres of journalism, then, that don't attempt to sift through the data and the implications but focus instead on a clear identity ("conservative", "liberal", "religious", "secular", etc) have become terribly attractive and, therefore, profitable. We have been carried away by technology and confusion, and choosing sides is a way to recognize ourselves in the midst of the whirlwind. I think of our identities as those failing fluorescent signs in bar windows; hollering insults at an ideological adversary lets that light flicker on for a few more seconds. It's a bit scary....
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There is a broad sweep of Hollywood and the left that will embrace DePalma for this treatment of the Iraq conflict. He won't be "not invited" to parties or be blacklisted by his chums out West. It wasn't 'brave' in the sense of jeopardizing his future opportunites in the film industry. Far from it. Now, perhaps making a story about the opponents we face there, that butcher journalists for political cartoons, blow up 5,000 year old Buddhas that offend thier sensibilites, crush homosexuals by toppling walls on them, cut off the heads of hostages and put fatwas out on authors, etc, etc...now THAT would be brave. Full credits for guts to someone who films that. All we will do here is bitch and moan when we see something we disagree with. Pundits here have yet to decapitate someone they disagree with.
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Weaklings have way too much of their psyches invested in nation-state worship.
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What are we going to do, blog you to death? If Hollywood really had any guts they'd take on the true villains, Islamic terrorists.
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Seriously? EVERYONE understands that Islamic terrorists are wicked, chaotic, dangerous individuals. NO ONE sheds a tear for the incarcerated or killed terrorist. I suppose I've got a bit of Christian charity reserved for the human being that was somehow twisted away from the values of human decency toward hatred and violence, but from a practical point of view I have NO problem taking care of that person by force. But why would you give "guts" points to a story teller who tells you that? Does that story really take more guts than confronting the systems that have taken America, founded on principles of decency and generosity, and asked the viewer to consider the wisdom of her decisions? Is telling a story that says "Terrorists Bad!" more useful or courageous than a story which attempts to root out sources of corruption or incompetence or wickedness or apathy in a country that insists it stands for justice, freedom, and democracy. I'm not defending Redacted in particular; I haven't seen it. I'm just saying: courage is going after truth that is both dangerous and hidden.
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it's at least ignored.
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of being stabbed in the chest with a knife like that guy in Holland if they say anything negative about Islam. And they're afraid of being seen as "politically incorrect" by their liberal peers in Hollywood. So the "terrorists" in Hollywood are white supremists, or the Russian mafia, or new-nazi's, or greedy corporations.
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...the need to blindly denounce or praise a film based upon its supposed POV or the perceived politics of its director.As with any film, you will either be educated, enlightened, or entertained. If not, and it turns out to be a piece of shit, just say so.
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Back that up please.
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of a single film, which attempts to deal seriously with the anxieties and dangers of the day, that goes for "easy" villlain like white supremacists, nazis (neo or otherwise), or the Russian mafia. As real as those threats may be, I don't think that they could be considered the central defining conflicts of our time. The war in Iraq, however, along with how the corporate structure interacts with the general cynicism cum ignorance of the typical consumer, do seem to me like defining issues. Even though very few contemporary films have dealt with them as well as I'd like.
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call me "Holy".
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"Hole", if you're feeling cranky.
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was my father's name.
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I think Hollywood hasn't churned out simplistic adventures set in the middle east with condescending caricatures of American heroes and devilish terrorists because this situation is far too real and terrifying to be dealt with in surface strokes.
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True Lies.
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I'm as chickenshit as the next guy. I don't want any whacked out Islamic crazy stabbing me in the chest either. But Hollywood shouldn't pretend they're a bunch of heroes for talking truthiness to power when in fact they are just jumping on the bandwagon against an unpopular war. I'm just saying that it would take a lot more courage to attack the kind of radical Islam that makes it OK to murder thousands of innocents.
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What does "attack(ing) the kind of radical Islam that makes it OK to murder thousands of innocents" actually look like? How do YOU think Hollywood should do that? In order to tell a story with a modicum of wisdom involved, you have to do more than tell a story of Americans killing Islamic terrorists. The film would have to ask a very complicated and unsatisfying question: why does terrorism emerge from many parts of the middle east? It is NOT as easy as the "they've been tribes of warring factions for centuries" argument would like to believe. There are issues of corruption and neglect by the Ottoman Empire in the 19th century, mis-informed border-drawing and occupying done by Europe after the first world war, the forces which created the state of Israel after WW2, the heany militarization of the region during the Cold War, western economic relationships with the archaic feudal system of government which dominates much of the region, and YES, all of this has occurred before a centuries-long backdrop of Islamo-tribal identity. I'm all for a film that tries to sort all that out (Syriana is the ONLY major film that has in some way tried), but many of the people who moan about wanting Hollywood to depict the muslim terrorists as villains in their films DON'T want such a complex treatment. They want a story conforming to action/adventure/war movie conventions that insist upon a mythic understanding of America as "good" and Islamic terrorists as "bad". That is overly simplified to the point of condescension and will perpetuate a theological ignorance that tends to breed violence and chaos. It is fundamentally irresponsible and astonishingly dangerous to insist upon films which continue to mythologize the narrative of "West" vs "Muslim".
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I would love that story, truly. But to tell it in a way which isolates it from the confusion, incompetence, apathy, and perhaps wickedness which created the situation in which Mr. Smith's life was valiantly given in defense of his brothers would be a betrayal of our time. Reality is not a mythic story of good and evil. It has heroism in it for sure, just as certainly as it has corruption, but the story of our war in Iraq needs to be treated with serious contemplation. I want and need for my artists to ask tough questions of the systems and forces that have created or nurtured violence, chaos, and death on a mass scale. TELL that story of individual heroism, but ALSO tell the story of HOW and WHY the war machine was put in motion. Especially for this war, which is ongoing. We can't afford for Americans to turn off their minds even more and rally behind this war because there are heroes over there. We owe it to our heroes to understand why we've asked so much of them, and we owe it to our children to do our best to make sure we don't ask their heroism to be spent on such callamities. If you want a very decent devotional film about soldiers, try We Were Soldiers Once. It's pretty good.
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I can't really say for certain or anything, but I believe that the decline in solid journalism is caused mostly because of a lot of news agencies reliance on "human interest" stories to sell their product. With actual reporting you get facts and those are boring to most people. With human interest stories you get human drama which is more entertaining, but with that also usually comes a particular point-of-view. The reporters can choose which story to run which is when their own bias shines through.
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Absolutely nuthin'! But for serial, no war is begun with truly wholesome intentions. Don't dillude yourselves. It's nothing new for the super-rich to instigate a battle they'll never have to fight. Meanwhile the poor get shat on yet again. Even the human animal must abide the laws of nature, I guess.
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Terrorism. You're saying it's our fault. Oooooo-kay.
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OK, sure. You don't have to live through the holocaust to know it was horrible. But you DO need to see a film and think about it's techique, logical premises, and evenual conclusions before you pronounce the FILM either useful or tripe.
And are you suggesting that because a person has a point of view that he or she can't either be correct or have interesting points to make in the argument? You know I've read the Village Voice piece that you linked a while back, and I've heard other pieces about DePalma's agenda with this film, and it is certainly inarguable to say that he is VERY anti-war and hopes his film inspires its viewers to think and act as he does. No question. But why does it follow that his film, as an assemblage of techniques and arguments, is bereft of insight? Strong viewers can converse with and about a film despite their fundamental disagreements with the film-makers' agenda. I think that's the only honest and useful way to have a conversation. -
in 2009 is Ewan McGregor. After playing Iago on london stage he will then play a reporter for a red top in the first british movie to tell the story of the aftermath of July 7th 2005 bombing. this character is by all accounts a heartless bastard, who befriends a victim of the 7/7 bombing and sells her story with her knowing it. It is welcome to see McGregor at least playing challenging Darker roles. The new version of Othello also star Chiewtel Elijfor and will be directed by Micheal Grandage.
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Nov 18, 2007 12:14:16 PM CST
How to sway the remaining 30% who think this war was a good idea
by lovetoall
In a brilliant move (unlike Redford), DePalma made a film that speaks to these 30%-ers. It speaks their language. You don't want to make a highbrow film about iRaq, it will only go over the heads of these right wing-nuts. This film is simply brilliant (saw it on HDNET) and probably will be considered a masterpiece of this era. FInally, a liberal film that gets it. Kerry lost the election because he spoke down to the voters. DePalma did libs proud. Balls-out aggression and tactless attacks is how we're going to win the ideological fight, boys and girls.
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Huh? I'm certainly not! I'm suggesting only that human beings do not emerge from their mothers' wombs either angelic or demonic. Especially on a cultural scale, human beings are conditioned by the cultural history into which they're born, a history, in turn, which has been shaped by the agendas, both altruistic and exploitive, of its' leaders and the other cultures with which it has interacted.
I'm suggesting that in order to stabalize the world, which is bound together like never before, we can't shout "evil" and blow it up. And that's not an ideological perspective only; it's practical. It hasn't worked yet.
Tell me where you disagree, not merely THAT you disagree and can sadly shake your head. -
is like saying Son of Sam is anti-postman.
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I disagree that Americans are the problem. Islamic terrorists are the problem. Having said that does mean that I think we should be fighting overseas. Let's bring our boys home, not because they're monsters, but because they are too good to waste over there.
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I am the biggest De Palma fan I know. I usually find something good in all of his films. I saw Redacted last night and it was terrible. It makes Mission To Mars look amazing. The problem? As John Lovitz would say, "ACTING!" This film has some on the worst acting I've ever seen. De Palma should have known better. Did he even look at the footage? By the time you get to the dramatic center of the film (the rape scene). You don't even care because you are reminded of how much better the exact scene was done in the much better, "Casualities of War", as much as I didn't want to compare this film to C.O.W. I couldn't help it. De Palma made a much better war film the first time around. On a side note I have no political opinion when it comes to watching the film. I am a cinephile and I judge films purely on story, acting and filmmaking. So it doesn't matter how you feel about the war in iraq. This is still a bad film and it's not gonna change anything. To Mr. De Palma I know you have some great films left in you. Please drop the film school bullshit and make a real film please.
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The issue of "fault" is almost irrelevant. It can't be all about WHO fucked it up bu about HOW we fix it. We can't fix it unless we know WHY it collapsed. Did America policy and attitudes toward the region after the second World War create conditions in which middle eastern culture produced terrorism? Sure! But so did the feudal clan structure of the region's many "governments". So did the local power-play of the ayatoellahs and mullahs. So did the ethnically random carving up of the region after WW1. So did the Soviet war in Afghanistan. So does the developed and developing world's consumption pace of petroleum. So does America's mismanaged occupation of a muslim country, and subsequent indulgences in uncivilized incarceration and "interviewing" techniques. So does....
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If we take our soldiers home, THEN what? What is the strategy of the civilized world in dealing with a region of the world that is ferociously proud, full of resentment and hate, and willing to kill? The point is that we HAVE to ask the tough questions if we have a chance of settling shit down and strengthening the world. Artists, including our film-makers, are a big part of setting the parameters for the conversation. If they indulge in simplistic myths of "American heroes" vs. "Islamic devils" then the discourse is robbed of wisdom. We NEED wisdom. These times are far too real for bullshit.
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If you're so deadset against the war, go over there and show us what's really going on. Don't just sensationalize an alleged incident with terrible actors on a soundstage in Brentwood. Watch "Heavy Metal in Baghdad". I think you can find it on the Vice magazine website. Those guys at least had the balls to risk life and limb to show you something real.
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Relax. Read the review of non-political films if you're so offended by people struggling with topical issues. It's a reality of the cinematic landscape, though: political films are emerging in a pretty sizable cluster right now. They're going to be reviewed, and talk-backers are going to talk back about them. Deal.
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I suppose I understand that people pretty easily confuse "criticism" of America's policies with "hatred" of America, but who's said anything anti-Semitic here?
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Although, I would kind of like to see more genre news, too. That's a reasonable point - where's the rumor mill at?
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a shite about what happens in the outside world. or outside america. America is so great in terms of its size and its population that it potrays any country outside of its borders as being un-democratic or need of reform. The Us govt wants to Control the worlds oil supply. So it invades Iraq. Topples Saddam and his awful, dreadful family. Then sets up bases in the middle east so that it can invade, oh iran. Why? the overly evangalisitc US govt, run by Cheney hates Muslims. But you wont see that in Print. Alan Greenspan former head of the US Federal Reserve said the Invasion was all about oil. It of course about many things. Including the Destruction of United States goverment into a corporate utopia. The US govt knew Katrina was coming, just like they knew Al-qaeda was coming but when both forces attacked and left a path of misery and destruction behind The US govt did nothing about them. The poor suffered not because they were poor but because the rich decided they werent godly enough. The wealthy have god on thier side and the poor dont. Remember Bush helps the wealthy and when he visited New Orleans there was that nice photo op outside Trent Lott's house. Paul Bremmer Enacted 100 laws when he became the head of the CPA. brought in Private operators Like Blackwater to run Security after the bush adminstration de-bathified iraq. Anyone who criticised because the tropp number were too small was fired. One of worst stories to come out of iraq, was what happened to Tim Collins. Collins was afforded Hero status after his stirring speech to the british army in Basra. That speech was even hung in the oval office. Collins Career in the army came to an end when he was invovled in an incedent. Collins said that these sort of things happen in the army. On arrival back from Iraq, he was summoned to the armies english HQ, where he was stripped of all his military medals and effectively told that his career in the army was over. Collins to this day has never recieved an explanation for his dismissal. Though he thinks that it may have something to do with him condraticing the american version of the incident in which he was involved. I still find it stunning that no one listened to the consequences of the Blair and bush lack of planning they had. But to leave the last word to Noami Klien" i think in many ways bush is a genius. it looked like they no plan. but that was the plan. to go in and create chaos. in the political vacum bring in the private operators to strip iraq bare".
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Yet for this one incident Hollywood ignores the thousands of other stories about our military over thre opening schools, hospitals, freeing neighborhoods from al Qaeda, fixing infrastructure... the list goes on and on of the positive things done by our troops and our allies. And this is why America won't flock to see Redacted, or Lions for Lambs, or any other piece of shit Commie Anti-American movie that Hollywood throws out while throwing its anti-Bush tantrum. I am sure the women in Afghanistan would much rather go back to getting their heads blown off in soccer stadiums rather than walking down the street safely.
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that brought bush to power. It was the thinnest of all election victories. But Bush's plan for electoral chaos was all ready in action. the bush family hate black people, so all black people were de-listed. The bush family knew the people who who owned the Database company. They were given orders to manipulate the database and team bush sent in the sherrifs as a crowd control method. The sherrifs had the names of the people who "criminal" types.
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There has been NO evidence that Bush and company had a "no plan" plan. I would almost prefer that reality, but there's no evidence to support it. The protracted chaos of the occupation certainly created profit opportunities for many corporation in which members of the administration have interests, but I think a stable Iraq would've offered other opportunities that would've been just as easy for them to exploit. To clarify: I suspect there was some profiteering influences at play within the larger arguments for invading Iraq, but the inability to stabalize the country seems to me just old-fasioned incompetence.
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the Book seller of Kabul. Afgahistan is an awful country. it was even bad before the taliban took over.
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I have a logic problem here. . . .
If Redacted is an act of treason because it chooses a subject matter that it negative to America, and/or the troops, than what is the alternative?
What, pray tell, does a "correct" portrait of the Iraq War look like?
Redacted is based on true events, and certainly there are also other true events . . . choices, I guess. . . a solider saving a child from a burning building, the work of guards protecting the embassy, the saving of a man's life when he got his leg blown off by a car bomb, a bunch of marines decide that the stack of porn in the shitter is immoral, and so on. . . What does that movie look like? How do you shoot it? What is the message? Is the goal of moviemaking to glorify America and the troops? Should there be controversy regarding what kind of glorification is apprpriate . . . or should we all parcipate in a singualr vision of how awesome, badass, and self-sacrificial our troops are being by serving in Iraq? Perhaps we can also glorify the American worker, who provides food and munitions to the brave soliders who defend our motherland? Perhaps any movie that does not activally seek out the positive glorification of America and its citizens should be considerd a tratorous act? Should not Art itself be a tool of American glorification, a way to explain to voters how obvious it is that we are number one in the world, and that anyone who disgrees with us is a traitorous scum. . . . Our Art should seek to change minds, and continuously reinforce to every decent American worker that those fighitng for the the motherland, the nation-state that gives freedom to its people, should be an undisputable truth. . . . after all Freedom is Slavery. War is Peace. We have always been at war with Eurasia. -
Your paranoia seems wrapped in ignorance. Name the database company, please. American voting machines are not uniformly managed by one database company, nor is their a single database for indexing the results. Republicans do not expect African American votes, so they certainly don't waste resources courting them. Certain elements certainly try to "win" elections illegally through intimidation, etc., but there is so Wizard of Oz here. Oz exists because of very complex market, cultural, and geopolitical reasons. Oz exists as a result of all the forces that have emerged and collided as a result of this new, interconnected world. It there was a puppet master it would be much easier to fix. This is an issue of public paralysis, of discourse collapse, of cynicism momentum, not of a backroom god father.
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"Don't just sensationalize an alleged incident with terrible actors on a soundstage in Brentwood." "Alleged"? No, it's fact - http://www.foxnews.com/story/0 ,2933,229879,00.html
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But it doesn't change the fact that the movie blows.
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He said . . . . "To clarify: I suspect there was some profiteering influences at play within the larger arguments for invading Iraq, but the inability to stabalize the country seems to me just old-fasioned incompetence." . . . . incompetence yes, plus add in a little, "flight suit" machismo and a dollap o' "bringing freedom tot he world" hubris.
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For the record, I think DePalma is a shadow of his former self, but all these crazy right-wing posts are as mindless as they come. You can keep your glorified black-and-white fantasy land of Bush America. That doesn't change the reality of what really happened. War is cruel and people are ugly, no matter what John Wayne tells you in The Green Berets. This film pisses you off? Good. Go bury your head in the sand some more.
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Thanks, man.I had forgotten that you're still on the mend. I hope your rehab is going well. Do us all a favor and make a really large point with that one. :^)Cheers!
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That's what she said.
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but people who complain that Hollywood is some giant monster controlling the media, or that all media are 'liberal' seem to forget about network and cable television. Sure, this movie sounds like propaganda, but remember, it's all relative. Ask anyone from the rest of the planet if they think America's media is more 'liberal' than 'conservative'. Canadians, Mexicans, Europeans, Australians, etc laugh at the conservative paranoia that the American media are too liberal. Even Americans themselves have to look at other country's media just to get a more (dare I say it?) fair and balanced view of their own country.
And why is it, pray tell, that the people who are so deeply offended at a bit of anti-war propaganda- fictional, fake images of the brutality of war, troops being slaughtered in technicolor, are the same fucking people who have NO PROBLEM sending real, live, actual human beings into these actually very real situations? What's more offensive, a cartoon drawing of a soldier with his leg blown off, or an actual 19 year old kid from Oklahoma with his actual leg blown off? -
is anti-troops. Troops could never murder innocents and rape little girls, even if the facts say they have. That, of course, doesn't mean that every American soldier has a war crime on his resume, but it does mean this happens and probably more often than is reported (there is little accountability in a war zone). That being said, from what I've seen this movie looks pretty bad. The acting is over-the-top atrocious. The idea looks interesting but from what I've seen of the execution it looks like the whole enterprise falls apart.
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Nov 18, 2007 2:17:08 PM CST
"Hollywood was the No. 1 exporter of the American Dream?"
by industrykiller!
I will tell you when that changed. Vietnam. It was a ridiculous gruesome war that served nothing but to get a bunch of Americans killed and make the country more cynical. And it was perpetrated by our government against the will of the people. After Vietnam we began to dig a bit more and found that post WW2 we had not been acting in the most savory manner. Watch the Good Shepherd for examples. Now comes post 9/11 Bush led America. Frankly, as far as national identities go, America isn't what it used to be. That isn't to say that we can't get back to those days, but instead of readopting a naive pre WW2 mindset we have to use the knowledge that is now at our fingertips to move forward in a practical manner. Nationalism is no longer an option in AMerica, we are better than that. Conservatives would rather have us say what a great nation we are over and over than prove it. In a post internet world this will not stand, as shown by how the rest of the people with whom we share the planet views us currently. We have ceased to become a place of social progress and technological marvels. Conservatives would have us believe that in order to regain those traits we must act EXACTLY like we did when we had them, this is erroneous and precisely why we lost them in the first place. You can't move forward by staying the same, boundaries must be pushed and societies must adopt new balances, tolerances, and most of all be brutally honest with themselves. We are past the point where we have tot ell ourselves how great we are constantly, rather we should always be looking inward and seeing the wrong while using the right as a bedrock for moving forward. This country was founded on a healthy distrust of authority and no one would agree more with criticizing ourselves than the men who founded it.
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Could you clone yourself please? I don't think I've ever read such thoughful, fair-minded and rational posts on a political-themed AICN thread. Your point of view is much appreciated here.
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All too often blowhards on both sides (or many sides) of the argument have a tendency to speak for the troops. I'm guilty as well. But even though one might think he's speaking on behalf of the troops, what he's really doing is using the idea of the troops to serve his argument. This is at the very least unfair, and at the worst, exploitive and gross. It's nice to have you around to remind us that we actually don't know what the fuck we're talking about most of the time. Cheers.
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If you don't like people making movies about American troops raping and murdering children, tell them to stop raping and murdering children. Don't give em any source material. Quite simple. Also those claiming that the movie is anti-troop and and anti-american seem to be taking the stance that you have to be pro rape and murder to be pro troop and pro american. Weird.
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Actors, directors, and writers as individuals have their viewpoints that they may wish to instill in their works - but corporate cinema is interested in the bottom line. So labeling Hollywood as "liberal" is kind of silly since really what they want is finacial return.
Aside from that people Mesi, Anchorite, Razorback, etc are just enjoy the anonymity that the message boards provide - instead of engaging in any genuine discussion of the topic they play the roles of vitriolic ideologues. I have difficulty at times believing that the viewpoints aren't somebody pretending to be someone from the "other side" of the political fence in an effort to make that side look ignorant and foolish. That said I have met those people - liberal and conservative - who are nothing more than ideological parrots - without a single analytical thought in their heads. -
...If you want to see Pro-War movies, go fucking make them yourself. Seriously, you want some pro-troop movies, go watch Home Of The Brave. Oh, thats right, its a piece of shit. You know why? Because its dishonest. The reason you don't see many pro-war movies, is because the people who take that stance are generally fucking idiots who wouldn't know how to load a camera or turn on a light. Besides, the majority of this "Pro-Troops!" carry on is bullshit. You fucking hate troops, as can be evidenced by the reaction to another Iraq film, Stop Loss, which is pro troops, yet is anti chickenhawk, therefore, in your warped eyes, is left wing commie islamicidal propoganda.
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I appreciate it.
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In fact, we live in a much more demonstration-rich culture now than ever before. People romanticize the '60s for being a protest generation, and for the power of the people to stop a war theough peaceful public demonstration of their civil rights, and there is some truth to that, but we forget that real 'anti-war' protests in real numbers didn't start happening until a couple of years after conscription. Compare that to the largest anti-war protest in history that happened everywhere in the world on Feb. 15 2003, before the Iraq war even started. I think one of the major differences between now and the '60s is that the powers that be that have a vested interest in neutering the power of the public protest have learned some lessons in the intervening decades, and are more sophisticated about preventing others from learning about just how widespread and powerful public dissent is towards this war. When tens of millions of people in sixty countries around the world take to the streets (on the coldest fucking day of that year, I might add) to publicly denounce a war that hasn't even started yet, and George Bush says it's just "a bunch of students and hippies", who sounds desperate? The truth is the government is afraid, it's why they're so desperate to make people think that radicalism is something for pot-smoking hippie loudmouths.
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'nuff said.
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So you want to know what's wrong with America? read above. People on the left saying fuck the troops. People on the right saying that's how all lefties feel. My god, people. Is there no middle ground? Is there only black and white (or red and blue) in your worlds?
No one want America to fail...except the extremists. The extremists want us to fail not because they are jealous of what we have, they want us to fail because we are pushing our way of life on them. Some other people in this world don't want our lives, our money, our greed, our freedom. But we are in Iraq, depending on which version of things that comes out of Bush's mouth you believe, to spread democracy. He's even said something like how could anyone not want freedom? But the point is not that, the point is we do not have th4e right to shove what we think is better for someone down their collective throats.
The people here that are my way or the highway are just as bad. That's what's worng with America people. You folks that only see 1 way. -
... You and 90% of the people who post on this board have no idea what the phrase self sacrifice truly means.When's the last time you gave up anything for someone or something else. When's the last time you put aside your American greed for the greater good or to protect an idea that is bigger than yourself?I served for five years. My handle is a reflection of my rifle qualification on the KD Range, not about any expertise about movies or televison.Movies like this never help the discussion, they just inflame anger, and they inflame anger at the wrong people. Brian De Palma should be shot for the way in which he depicts our soldiers. Do horrible things happen in war, yes, they do. But do we need some hateful son of bitch like De Palma to create films which approach the subkect with an extreme sense of bias instead of objectivity. No. We don't.Just like that fat fuck Michael Moore, the only truth De Palma wants us to know is the "truth" in which he believes. Why doesn't De Palma create a film about the massive human rights abuses by the Taliban, Saddam's regime, or by the current terrorists we're fighting in Iraq?Could it be because De Palma is so slavishly devoted to his off-kilter ideology, that he actually sympathizes with monsters like that?This movie is filth created by a sick man. And Capone, you can go fuck yourself. The next time you sacrifice anything of yourself for someone or something else will be the first time.
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... or the way it has been handled by the Adminstration. I'm a Libertarian and tend to hild my own, non-idealogical view to politicsBut a piece of shit film like this whcih portrays our armed forces in this way is reprehensable and just flat out wrong.And by the way, Scarface fucking sucks.
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And the Vietcong were nowhere near surrendering. That is just total bullshit. So if fighting Vietnam was so important what exactly was the consequence of losing? Everything is fine, communism, with the exception of China, is largely known to be the pathetic sham that it always was, and the world keeps on a spinnin'. What exactly did we forfeit by leaving?
As far as the failing of conservative social mores, god where to begin. First of all the fight against abortion, which is just never going to happen. You can't win a fight on "Jesusland" ethics alone and more because the American conciousness has adopted it as a way of life and no one but religious maniacs have the stomach for seeing scared little girls getting abortions on the black market, which is an inevitability of getting rid of abortion. The conservative stance on gay rights is ridiculous, ill informed, and nothing less than bigotry at this point. No one chooses their sexual proclivities, and since being gay is as valid as heterosexuality and involves two consenting adults they should have all the rights of straight couples. Once again the only argument against this is religion, which is a bullshit non-argument. Stem cell research could be a medical revolution if given the proper chance and support, and shit even most conservatives are behind it. Saying embryonic stem cell research is destroying life is as ridiculous as saying masturbation is destroying life. The catalyst for the conservative point of view on this? Religion. Which brings me to my next point, teaching abstinence instead of contraception. Teaching abstinence doesn't work. Why? Sex is fun jackass, sex before marriage doesn't, and never will again, have the same social stigma it did in the 50's. Sex is more fun than religion, therefore the sex is going to win out in the eharts and minds of youth. Creationism. Enough said. The attack on civil right, which is signified by the NSA wiretaps and Guantanamo Bay. Holding someone in a prison without a trial is wrong, no matter who you are or what you have done. As is spying on Americans on American soil without a warrant. All of these things are cancers on our society and further degrades our positions as innovators and progressors. -
A lot of those 'mores' aren't mainstream conservative ideas, but rather aspects of an extremist fringe group. We need to remember that most conservatives don't believe that Adam and Eve hung out with dinosaurs, and that a little red guy with a pitchfork is going to poke us in our tuchus if we play with oursleves. Most conservatives are more rational than that, the same way that liberals by and large don't believe that humanity is an alien biological experiment and that JFK was murdered by a cyborg clone of Frank Sinatra.
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First of all, thanks for serving. No matter what the principle reason was driving you to the service, it took guts and a certain amount of faith to do so.
My brother in law recently got back from a 12 month tour of Iraq, and my brother was medically retired from the navy after serving in Afghanistan. Needless to say, those were my first two calls on Veteran's Day.
Regardless, those who have not served personally in the armed forces nor have immediate family who have are not only entitled to wrestle with the ethical/strategic/artistic issues of the war, there have a responsibility to. Just as President Bush and President Clinton, neither of which served, had the responsibility to authorize missions, the citizenry has the duty to be informed, rational, and outspoken. People need to be held accountable for their arguments, but we can NOT get so emotional about an issue that it clouds our judgement. You, too, have a responsibility to be logical and fair-minded when it comes to discussing the war, not despite your sacrifice but because of it. I've said this before and it applies to you, too: Don't judge a thing before you've conversed with it. After you've seen it, argue against it's flaws in an intelligent way. You are not doing that, and that is a betrayal of American values. At least the values my brother and brother-in-law fought for. -
Good shit.
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Also good shit.
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... this piece of shit film isn't a discussion about the war. It's a flaming piece of propaganda which is going to hurt the wrong people and only comes from a highly biased and insanely ideological point of view. The only truth in this film is the "truth" that De Palma believes in, much like Michael Moore. Meaning, there is no truth in this film.Once again, to make it more plain, my anger towards this film is about this film and that piece of shit De Palma. It has nothing to do with my views on the war, which I've never made known on any of these boards. Most would assume I'm for it. Let them assume what they want. Once again, it's about this film, not about the war. You can be against the war and against this film.This film is beyond reprehensable... it is EVIL. That's right. This film is evil the way in which adults touching little children is evil, or like Leni Riefenstahl films were evil.
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I make no assumptions about your views. Have you seen the film?
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Bill OReilly is an analpussy. He likes young twinkies to insert their finger up his back passage while he gets sucked off by a bearded man with a bad cough. OReilly needs to come out of the closet and start going to gay nightclubs so he can participate in the "dark room" with a bottle of poppers.
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This is why it's important to listen to the other side, even if you don't agree. Just saying that everyone who doesn't agree with you is crazy or dumb is, well, stupid.
On the other hand, Greatone, for shit's sake, really? That's your argument about homos and abortion? Really?? that rights for homosexuals and the right for a woman to have an abortion can't be "found" in the constitution? As if the constitution is some divine tablet handed down from God? No, sorry, people wrote that thing, and in fact, are still writing it. Laws change, culture, civilization, changes. It also took great 'twisting' to shoehorn in the emancipation proclamation, it was called the Civil War. then there was the Suffragette movement, you know, the one that got women the right to vote, even though at no other time in the history of America was that behavior considered normal or appropriate.
I ask again- REALLY??? -
General Vo Nguyen Giap said the decision to persevere and ride out the war occured between 1967 and 68, the war ended in 73'. You are telling me that an army on the very brink of defeat decided to persevere for another 5 years of brutal fighting? Give me a fucking break. The good general is fucking with you. An army as close to defeat as described couldn't possibly hold out for that long. they didn't simply persevere, they fought a long drawn out brutal war for five straight years. There was nothing close to defeat about them. Why don't you ask some of the US troops that were there if they would have liked to stay even longer and how close they felt the vietcong were to defeat. Its also funny how you say the anti war movement put an abrupt end to Vietnam, but also that the anti war movement was exagerrated. It cant be both. If it was exagerrated then it certainly wouldn't have ended the war. The 2004 election also proves that a president can in fact get re-elected int eh midst of an unpopular war, which even Bush himself admits this war is. It says more about Americans being nervous to switch Presidents int he middle of a war than it does on said peoples views on the war itself. And about the contractors in Iraq, if you think they are doing a good job, then you have lost your god damned mind. basic living needs of the Iraqi people STILL have yet to be met. Rebuilding has been a disaster. Its maybe the single worst thing about the war thus far. These are basic documented facts. Its as simple as googling it. Also, whether or not homosexuality and abortion are guaranteed in the constitution is irrelevant. Drinking alcohol isn't guaranteed in the constitution but no one is going to take that away. In fact they tried once and it didn't work out so well. Being gay or getting an abortion are two completely valid choices that have absolutely no effect on anyone else nor do they infringe on anyones rights. Its a completely personal decision. Its also a personal decision that million of Americans engage in and no one will ever get rid of. I don't think we are stupid enough that we have to make a god damn Christmas list in the constitution of everything that we are allowed to do and own. Anything that I do in private that doesn't infringe on what you want to do IS a God given right. The fact that you said 'the right to engage in homosexual behavior" rather than "the rights of gays to marry" shows your bigotry. Apparently you think simply the act of being gay shouldn't be allowed. that tells me a lot about who I am dealing with here. As for the term Jesusland, its just that, a term. Slang, not for an entire part of the country, but for the space that occupies the minds of many conservatives who believe everyone should be forced to live their lives by strict Christian standards. Well it aint gonna happen chief. Im sorry to say but we arent getting any more religious as a country. Case in point: Pat Robertson, as violent a conservative as you can get, is supporting Gay rights and abortion condoning and gun control (something I do not personally agree with) loving Rudy Guiliani as the next president. You guys can be as steadfast as you want in your religious ideals, but you will make concessions as time goes on and we delve further into the information age.
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in the post above
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be back later
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I didn't see it quite the way you did. I saw it as what's meant to be a portrayal of what these people are having to deal with over there. I don't really think it portrayed the soldiers, and I mean specifically the main characters, as evil people. I thought it was pretty good but the one major flaw is the cast, since I don't think I've seen that kind of ensemble acting since CABIN FEVER. But he couldn't hire A-listers for this could he? I mean a) I don't think it was in his budget and b) they wouldn't be brave enough to do it. But apart from that, the message I got was that having these people in this situation is going to create enough stress and paranoia that people, relatively normal people, will be pushed to the limit of their psychological capacity. You take two guys who were not really model citizens to begin with and this is what can happen. And when you think about that you do think "Get them out of there!!!" You don't think that these guys are evil, unless you can only see in black and white, and you don't think anti-American thoughts either.
When I saw SAVING PRIVATE RYAN all those years ago I didn't like it that much but it really got me thinking about war in general. And honestly after that film I felt like kicking a few old veterans. I sat in the theater thinking "it's a goddamn video game". All I saw was people shooting each other because they were on the opposite team. I really felt like I was looking at the worst of humanity, the worst we could possibly ever be, and I didn't want to know that. So coming out of the theater I had a bad attitude about soldiers and war in general and in the weeks following Tom Hanks and Steve Spielberg were doing all these war hero cermonies and whatnot and I was confused as to whether they saw the same movie that I did but they made the damn thing.
So I thought about it for a long time and I realized that the real problem was that the soldiers were there at all. WAR IS THE STUPIDEST FUCKING THING EVER. Putting people in that situation and you turn them into reactives who have to kill or be killed. That's it. They're not people anymore. It has next to nothing to do with who they were before they got there, but a lot to do with who they're going to be when they get home. And when they do, we call them heroes to make ourselves feel better for what we made them do. I think that was also illustrated quite well at the end of REDACTED. But at the very end I thought the editing of the pictures was really unfortunate. It would have had a lot more impact had they been left alone. -
Was published in 1976, when there was still a great deal of fighting going on in Vietnam. He had every reason to make America look as bad as possible and say anything to strengthen his side at this point in time. Especially something like how the poor shaken North Vietnamese on the brink of defeat regrouped and battled back for a further 5 years of the most brutal combat on the power of their will alone. I find it ironic that in making case for the Vietnam war that you use the voice of our enemy.
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That floating ad has interfered for more than a week.
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Hollywood just loves to stick to the troops. By De Palma's fiulm you would think that every soldier is a fuckign rapist eagerly looking to fuch the next young Iraqi girl. Why not make a film about the thousands of soldiers risking their lives every day and that are ACTUALLY protecting and helping Iraqi citizens from their own fucking people who are trying to kill their own. To Hollywood, suicide bombers are freedom fightters fighting a just cause while the soldiers are evil incarnate. WHAT A LOAD OF FUCKING BULLSHIT!
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after more than sixty years of mostly unwanted US intervention in the rest of the world, so many people are still willing to say 'it's Islam's fault' etc, et fucking cetera. again, the same myths and bullshit prejudiced bias is being thrown around under the guise of information and truth. Seriously, as an outsider watching US news I'm fucking stunned at how amazingly shit it is, the information supply to an entire nation being controlled by a few, ie Newscorp, etc. It's short sighted and ignorant to blame Islam or 'terrorists' for the world's woes. The word 'terrorist' itself has become just another catch-all, watered-down meaningless phrase used to invoke fear in a herd mentality populace. Have you noticed how every act of disruption or protest is now blamed on 'terrorism'? The japanese are saying Greenpeace are ecological terrorists, the Indonesian government say it's protestors are terrorists, all fucking meaningless now. Just lable something you don't want to listen to or understand as 'terrorism' and start chucking missles at it. Why does 'Islam' hate the US? Think about it, and don't use that bullshit 'because we're free' excuse. it might be something to do with the political, economic and social manipulation that's been rampant in the last few decades all in the name of US (business) self interest.
I really don't appreciate feeling threatened in my own country, and the funny thing is, the fear isn't just because of the so-called 'terrorists'. -
Never mind
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you do understand that it's not a giant monster with a thousand eyes that's going to come and "get" you, right? Don't worry, you're safe under your covers.
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Nov 18, 2007 5:12:35 PM CST
ANCHORITE'S PISSED BECAUSE THIS MOVIE WAS BASED ON REAL LIFE EVE
by bringingsexyback
that apparently weren't "brutal and inhumane" enough for his taste. I suppose if the girl and her family were marched into a gas chamber that might warrant a movie?
As usual, go fuck yourself. -
...I can't get the comments to display any more. Probably an overload of liberal bullshit.
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but people sound pssed
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Looks like you got pinched.
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Steven Spielberg. Not Steve. We're not that close. :)
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But not through war. The Viet Cong were ultimately defeated by the will of its own people to demand change and a free - socially and economically - society. Eventually, North Korea and Cuba will follow suit.
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and the fucking fringe come out with pitchforks and torches. If you don't like a free society where filmmakers can criticize and condemn actions because they're WRONG - AKA RAPING A YOUNG GIRL AND MURDERING HER AND HER MOTHER, FATHER AND 5 YEAR OLD SISTER - I suggest you ship your asses to Saudi Arabia where they'll welcome you and your mindset with open arms.
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Religion isn't "getting" politicized. It's been a major source of political activity forever. Forever. Indulgences, wars, liberation movements, etc. That was a ridiculous statement.
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is that focusing on this instance creates the false impression that these incidents are common. That is indeed anti-troops in general rather than simply critical of the insignificant number of US troops who have committed war crimes in iraq(about 3 at Mamoudiya, 3 at Hamdaniya, 4 at Abu Graib, and Haditha was not a crime). Capone acknowledges that the incident that Redacted is based on was an extremely isolated event, but people will see this movie and jump to the wrong conclusion that this only the tip of the iceberg. Horrible atrocities do indeed happen semi-regularly, but they are committed by the insurgents, ethnic millitias, and especially by Iraqi Al Qaeda. In other words the very people US troops are fighting. If those troops left then US casualties would stop but atrocities on Iraqis would more likely increase rather than diminish. For Depalma to repeat his laughably bad movie Casualties Of War with this needlessly distorts what's happening in Iraq and increases the already serious anti-american sentiment around the world. Depalma doesn't need to add fuel to the fire of hatred towards the american people by presenting the same stereotypical "ugly americans" caricatures we've seen in so many other films including depalma's own.
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BringingSexyBack, no-one is saying that a terrible event fo raping and murdering a family si right, you fool. In four years of fighting, this is ONE event but by focusing a biased film on this one event, it clouds all the other good and right things that have happened. For fuck's sake, even Oliver Stone was more balanced in PLATOON!!! Do you honestly think that ANYONE thinks that what those troops did was RIGHT! How fucking stupid does Hollywood and De Palma think the American people are? Well, they actually aren't that stupid which is why REDACTED along with the other liberal-biased Hollywood films on Iraq and Afgghanistan are box office disasters!
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You sure have a lack of faith in the American public to think that this movie would reflect poorly on the entire military. I don't know what kind of people you hang with, but people I know don't judge every soldier for the actions of the few, just as they don't judge a race by the actions of a few either.
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Best anti-Redacted argument I've heard. I'm still not sure that you're right, though. I haven't seen it, but it seems like DePalma might being doing more than telling the story of an isolated atrocity. His use of different, increasingly common digital photography media (cell phones, home movies, pseudo-pro doc stock, etc) suggeste he may be trying to have a meta-conversation about how stories from this war are mediated and disseminated. Hell, even the widely lamented "bad acting" may serve a purpose in a discussion of artifice in the chronicalling and "redacting" of contemporary war stories. Maybe not; I haven't seen it yet. Again, thanks for your thoughtful argument, but I don't think we should come down on the film one way or another until we've seen it.
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You don't 'win' an argument by proving that there isn't a religion that doesn't approve of some behavior or other, unless you're advocating a theocratic state. (You aren't, are you??)
All I was saying was that your argument for disapproving of either abortion rights or rights for homosexuals was a terrible one, it made no sense, and you haven't really helped your position at all here. I never mentioned prohibition, incidentally...
When laws change to support a cultural shift that fits your description of 'liberal', you seem to take it as some kind of anti-American aberration of law, but if it supports your views, which seem to be ruled by some particular religious beliefs) that's what, more American?
If you just hate fags, and you think that abortion is wrong and disgusting, just say so. Have the guts to admit it. Don't try to wrap your argument in the flag, because whether you like it or not, homos and abortion-loving feminists are just as American as you are. Until the Christian right performs a coup and starts shipping the queers and feminists and whoever else they don't like off to camps your arguments are going to be seen as little more than fringe-radicalism at best, hateful, rabid bullshit at worst. Just a heads-up. -
You're calling this film "biased". Since you've seen it and I haven't, would you please explain how it's biased? Does the epilogue condemn all soldiers as rapists?
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then there was about THE ACTUAL REAL EVENT THAT THE FILM IS BASED ON. thats what i find amazing. o'reilly has gone on and on about his disgust at this film for weeks now yet whenever he broaches the real life case this film is about he brushes it aside with a lame "of course there are few bad eggs".
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Kindly don't argue for America's discerning taste by citing box office receipts. Titanic, anyone? Fucking Shrek the Third?
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Then what's the point of the film, then, if not to villify the military? That wrong things happen during a war? If De Palma wanted to make a film showing the evils and futility of the war and violence then why not make one of Muslim extremists blowing themselves up in crowded markets full of fellow Muslims including women and children? Of course, he never will make this film because in Hollywood, suicide bombers who kill women and children are justified in their cause of their noble fight against an evil Israel and US.
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you are also forgetting that other truth in the film. the rape and the murders. because they actually fucking happened.
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Nov 18, 2007 6:06:57 PM CST
I'VE WATCHED MORE THAN MY FAIR SHARE OF DOCUMENTARIES
by bringingsexyback
on this war, and my clear impression is that our soldiers are ceaselessly brave and honorable. But there are rotten apples, like the ones involved in this incident. All the soldiers involved - with the exception of the leader - admitted their guilt. If anything, this movie seems to condemn the leadership that put these soldiers in the position to commit the crime, and the media that covers it up, as much as it condemns them. I'll reserve full judgement until I've seen the movie, but it's too bad its dissenters won't.
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TRY to answer your own question about the film's purpose. See if you can't see this project from a different point of view. Be generous with people.
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These 3 movies all depict evil fucking radical leaders brainwashing innocent people into suicide bombers. Just because DePalma didn't make a movie about them doesn't mean someone else didn't. And just because DePalma chose to make a movie about this real life incident, doesn't mean it's an outright condemnation of the entire military. Again, if you've already seen Redacted, please tell me how I'm wrong in that regard.
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You're a stupid sick fucking coward who will call anything un-American as long as it conflicts with your agenda of pushing for endless war. Fuck you and the mother who shat you out.
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Wassup - I got a lot of reading to catch up on here, I see. Sure to be good stuff. Later.
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A higher percentage of movie directors are known rapists than are US soldiers.
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I guess your predictive powers are as fucked up as your idiotic politics, since I am back.
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"Doctrinal reasons"? What do you think those are? All institutions reflect the attitudes of their participants. The "doctrine" defining homosexual behavior and abortion as "sinful" were created by committee as the church reorganizes and reasserts its values over time. Even the Bible is a compilation of four gospels chosen by Roman political appointees from a source of dozens of scared apostolic works. It's always been political. Always. Even "doctrine" on abortion and homosexual, as well as anti-Semitism, dietary habits, and the relative position of the pulpit to the altar. All decisions made were made by religious politicians. Religion exists between the individual and the sacred.
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Welcome back. Can't say you were missed though.
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Nov 18, 2007 6:28:51 PM CST
If everyone understands that Mahmoudiya was only an anomaly
by walterego
and nobody is drawing larger conclusions about the US troops' behavior based on that incident, then that renders the movie meaningless, Bringingsexyback. I suppose I'm only echoing AlexD's comment above, but I think Depalma intends for the audience to base their opinions of the behavior of US troops in iraq on this one incident to some degree, that is why he cast the characters with generic everyman actors played by unknowns to seem more like typical randoms. The use of these actors with raw video like one would see on youtube or cable news is intended to convey the averageness of these characters, as though every platoon in iraq has the resident psychotic primed to go on a rape-murder rampage at the first opportunity. If that isn't his intent then the movie is pointless, as Alex D already mentioned.
Holy Hell- I think I can form an opinion of the movie before seeing very much of it because it seems a retread of Casualties Of War, and Depalma has a bit of a reputation for repeating himself. -
Yeah, it's been pretty spirited. Happy reading!
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That "doctrinal reasons" post up the column was meant for you. I forgot to label it.
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No you can't! Well, at least you shouldn't....Honestly, man, you can be suspicious or even in na state of cynical anticipation about the film, but you can't judge it before you've seen it. That's just not as informed an opinion as you could get, it's just bad research. Don't see it if you assume it'll be some inane retread, that's fine, but both ethical and logical integrity insists you withhold judgement as a consequence.
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Nov 18, 2007 6:42:00 PM CST
I SUPPORT THE RAPED AND MURDERED YOUNG GIRL ON THIS ONE
by bringingsexyback
I'm just not brutal and inhumane like some cocksmokers want to be.
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... forgetting the horrible evil that this film is, why don't we all combine our forces to combat the TRUE evil in this world...The fucks who oversee the SciFi Network for not releasing BSG Season 4 until April, and then holding the last 10 episodes until 2009! These insidious people must be stopped and must pay for their crimes against humanity!
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especially from a soldier in recovery. I hope you're stateside and don't have to go back. Best wishes on your recovery. If only we can pass a bill that takes care of all our wounded vets with the ample time and care they deserve, no limits and strings attached. I'd support a special tax just for that, as would any American, I would think.
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The war is over -- Saddam is dead, his government replaced. What's going on right now is the effort to save the new Iraq. The alternative is chaos, genocide, civil war. I'm not a Bushie, but even I can see that preserving the new Iraq is the right thing to do. What we need right now is less hand-wringing about whether we should be there (we're already there, and it's our responsibility now) and more support for the good that's actually going on. Just imagine what Iraq could become -- a powerful, wealthy democracy in the Middle East, a force of change for the entire region. Now that's something worth fighting for, and we don't need assholes like De Palma (who I had liked until today) planting yet more negative thoughts in the American psyche about the conflict. What we need is to recognize the enormous good that we are on the verge of accomplishing. If we did that, the assholes in Congress would not feel like they had the political capital to deny funding for the troops. People who are in favor of pulling out of Iraq and causing civil war, genocide and general chaos should be ashamed.
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Many of the issue you mention, especially abortion, have absolutely gone throught he American system of jurisprudence just as the founding fathers intended. It is the right and duty of all Americans who witness tolerated behavior that they believe is counter to the authority of the constitution to argue their case in the federal courts, including the supreme court, whose members are appointed, according to the constitution, by democratically elected presidents. The ideological tendencies of the courts therefore reflect the will of the citizenry (to a point) which is why liberals can't bitch that the court has drifted to the conservative side of the spectrum over the last seven years. The newly protected behaviors you lament have, on some level, been through this democratic system. What's the problem?
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My there's alot of greatness here today.
I agree with alot of what you say. We need to succeed in Iraq. The problem is that we're not really. We have to do more than hope we can do it and continue to rally the will of the people with empty rhetoric and theatrical gestures. The problem the "get us out" people have is that they have no confidence in this administrations ability to solve the problem. And I completely sympathize. They have given us every reason to stare agape at their lack of effectiveness and shocking overconfidence. The record is very, very bad. I hope that whoever is elected in 2008 can somehow really re-imagine a strategy and rally support behind it. Bush has made cynics of most of the world, and I totally sympathize. -
To get the bitter taste of this movie out of right-wingers' mouths. That is, if they ever see this movie.
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Nov 18, 2007 7:22:50 PM CST
Brian DePalma can really be proud that people like you, like his
by darthbinks1220
'nuff said
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Nov 18, 2007 7:27:42 PM CST
DePalma can really be proud that people like you,like this film.
by darthbinks1220
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how many tours you did in Iraq or Afghanistan? My point is, I hope you're stateside for good and won't have to be called back. I don't know what your injuries are (that's our private business, of course) but I hope you come out of rehab better than ever. Godspeed, dude.
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That's what I meant.
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... by aintitcool. Everytime I post, the screen is whited-out. When I sign out, I can read the posts, but when I'm signed in, I can't... it's whited-out.Wow, Capone, or the site adminstrator, just proves my point when it comes to people who are slaves to their ideologies. That's ALL ideologies, conservative or liberal. They don't care about discourse, they only want to hear their side of the argument. So they censor people who disagree vociforously, like I have.I served my country to protect fucks like that, and now I can't speak?And Spazatronic2000, you may have the right to say it, but son, it's too bad I don't know where you live, because you've just cashed a check for a Jay and Silent Bob-style BEATDOWN, you son of a bitch!
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Actually, if any of these bozos would watch The Kingdom, that would wipe away their anti-Hollywood biases in an instant. It had a hardcore shootout between the Americans (Foxx, Garner, Cooper and a Saudi policeman) and a fucking terror cell that was about to behead Jason Bateman.
I have no clue how this movie got lumped with the other "anti-war" movies because it was clearly not that at all. -
Nov 18, 2007 7:39:14 PM CST
EXPERT_40, YOU ARE EXPERIENCING THE "WHITE SCREEN OF DOOM"
by bringingsexyback
It's some site glitch and I have no idea what's causing it, but it happens to everyone at some point regardless of their political stance. Too bad it doesn't just happen to Anchorite full time. That piece of fuck.
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A great and interesting read.
For the record, I just want to state that there is a difference between anti-war and anti-troops.....a lot of people seem unable to discern the difference. Support the Troops seems to have become the standard sound bite for those who want to shout down people who question the war in Iraq. We do support the troops, we just realise that the reasons they were sent there to die were wrong and unjust. If it was all about helping the Iraqi people, the Allied forces wouldn't have pulled out of Iraq after the first Gulf war and left those who opposed Saddam then to be killed. -
what the hell darthbinks was trying to get at? Very strange...
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Jeez, what a shitstorm this talkback has become. Yes, it's just a movie fellas. Probably not a very good one, considering De Palma's spotty ham-fisted style. As David Mamet once said, there is not a single movie in the history of motion pictures that has actually changed history. Grow a cock and go outside once in a while. Oh, and all this political him-hamming flim-flamming? It's all about oil. There. Case closed. Now go eat a hot dog or something.
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if a straight couple want to get married but have no interest in having children should they be allowed to marry? what about couples who cannot conceive? if a woman finds out her womb is barren should she be allowed to marry? and if a couple do get married try to have kids but after what...say ten years repeatedly fail to do so they should be forcibly seperated I guess.
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how you spend the entire review tea bagging De Palma and how he's full of moral and ethical outrage and never say one fucking word about how goddamn shitty this movie is. For a person who reviews movies for a living the fact this piece of shit is almost unwatchable seems to have escaped you. Perhaps you were jacking off to a pic of Bill Clinton and choking yourself to the rape scene to realize that this pig vomit was terrible. Jesus, could you pull your head out of your ass next time or at least look up from sucking DePalmas nuts long enough to actually watch this atrocious garbage? Goddamn, I don't even give a flying fuck what this movie is about but at least I can see how fucking pathetic it is.
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The people who are "for" this film need to get fucked immediately. Big deal, a child was raped and her family killed. Who gives a shit? Just shrug it off. In short, THE UNITED STATES ARMED FORCES ARE ALWAYS THE GOOD GUYS. PERIOD. If they wish to have some amusement at the expense of human life...so be it. Doesn't bother my ass. But not a one of you has the right to slander their good names. You fuckin' liberal pussies.
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Seriously, this site needs to get its act together.
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You appear vile and nonsensical. Get control of yourself.
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Glad to hear that rehab is going well. I hope the prognosis is even better for "super duper rehab"! And thanks for taking the time to share some of your personal circumstances and experiences with us. (I think we all tend to forget that there are real people - with real life triumphs and tragedies - behind our Talkback handles.) I'm sure that getting to go home next week will be worth more than all the money in the world.As for that "large point" - what I was trying to say was make it for a full recovery.Take care and get well soon.
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Regardless of what this film may or may not be, be forewarned...I have already declared my war on the SciFi Channel. A million programming executive deaths are not enough for them.DO YOU HEAR ME SCIFI??? FROM HELL'S HEART, I STAB AT THEE!
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Thank you for your thoughtful reply - I appreciate it. I just put THE AFGHAN CAMPAIGN on my reading list. Thank you. 5 years in combat. Damn.
Judging from your posts I can see why you were a good liason to the Afghans. Personally, I think the invasion of Afghanistan made more sense than Iraq, and driving the Taliban out, killing Bin Laden and focusing on a liberated Afghanistan that's not a haven for Al Qaeda would have been a strategic victory, and rightful retribution for 9/11. That, and a diplomatic partnership with the Saudis and the Egyptians to crack down on terrorists. Unfortunately we followed the NeoCon plot and went down the wrong path towards Iraq.
Seeing as how the fighters in Afghanistan are so direct, am I correct in assuming that you came out unscathed because you fought alongside the Afghans?
As for DWTS ... I'm so glad you watch it. I was even about to suggest it to you! It may seem funny and stupid to quite a few people, but as you likely understand, as a viewer, it has an indescribable innocence that transports you for the short time it's on. I'm rooting for Helio/Julianne, first and foremost. I really think it will boil down to them and Maksim/Scary Spice. Marie Osmond and Jenny Garth just don't seem to have the wow factor going. If you really want to read a funny message board, try the DWTS boards at abc.com. They're petitioning for Mark and Sabrina to come back - it's hilarious. I don't post there though, as they don't allow foul language and flaming. Who has time to be polite on the Internet?! -
Probably a site error. Although, I wouldn't be a bit surprised if it was something everyone's favorite TB-hacker managed to pull off. Jackass.
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....we humans are all stupid and not equipped with the "humanity" or intelligence to ever truly be good or know what is wrong or right. In short, we all suck!
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...against this current war."
Not hardly. In fact, it's being lost in a tideswell of 'solitary' and 'brave' voices of dissent from Hollywood. It would have been braver for DePalma to make a pro-war film.
And it's not being released solely because it wouldn't make any money, not because of any controversy. -
Nice to see a fairly reasoned talkback on a touchy subject. This film appears to be shite from all that I've read and far from being brave (or a lone voice Capone are you kidding?!) it is pretty sure to be a hell of a tool for AQ to use. If you don't think that's a sure thing, consider that many of their followers buy the Jews making pies out of Arab babies bullshit and let the kiddies watch Mickey Mouse telling them it's cool to blow themselves up. Not a stretch to think that this movie could be portrayed in that part of the world as typical of all U.S. service members. As far as the war goes, it's dishonest not to look at it in phases: vs. Iraqi Army and Saddam...check. vs. Iraqi insurgents...check. vs. both sides after the shrine was blown up...ugly but post-Surge appears to be a check. vs Al Quaeda...looking pretty good right now. Bush screwed up the post convential war in a big way but for whoever above said that they'd be following closely to look for some progress, it's here. The military says it, the Iraqi's are saying it and the papers we get from bombed AQ's say it too. Not going to end any time soon but it sure in hell looks a lot better than it did a year ago.
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Nov 18, 2007 9:47:11 PM CST
XIPHOS - HERE IS A POST FROM A MOTHER ON THE DWTS MESSAGE BOARD
by bringingsexyback
This is a recent post (and the link to it) about her son meeting Helio. It generated over 500 replies.
http://tinyurl.com/2ek32s
"IndycarRocks 1 of 534 Nov-14
I have hesitated to post this, but in light of several comments about Helio being phony and a fake, here goes.
My 8 year old son died last month after a 4 year battle with cancer. One of his big dreams was to meet Helio, so I wrote Helio a letter, telling him we would be attending one of his races this last season. Helio wrote me back HIMSELF, in his own hand, saying he would be honored to meet my son.
When we got to the garage area, it was very crowded. We waited in line to get Helio's autograph. When Helio saw me and my son, he said, "Are you (my name)?" When I said yes, he apologized to the fans waiting and said he would return shortly. He then came to me and my son, and pushed my son's wheelchair over to his car. He lifted him out of his wheelchair and put him in his car.
I wish you could have seen the look on my son's face. Helio spent 20 minutes with us, and we left with several souvenirs: a t-shirt, a ballcap, and several signed photos for my son and his friends. Helio was choked up when he told us goodbye.
THAT'S the kind of man Helio Castroneves is. The real deal. Caring, compassionate and kind. This is not meant to insult or criticize any of the other dancers. Just wanted to share my experience with Helio."
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The hottest body, by far, has got to belong to Edyta Sliwinska, and unfortunately she got booted last week. But I'm sure she's gonna make an appearance on Tuesday's results show during the guest music appearances.
Your horse riding with the Afghans reminds me of Rambo when he played that horse soccer game with them just before the Russians attacked, and how he gained their respect with his riding skills. I guess if a country doesn't change in 1,000 years, it ain't gonna change in 20.
And if you're aching to unload a vulgar tirade on someone, feel free to do it on Anchorite. The vulgerer the better! -
Is there a comment limit that causes the white screen?
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..however that doesn't represent the whole fucking military. There are looney fucks in every facet of society, and DePalma fits well into the looney tank.
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Nov 18, 2007 10:14:21 PM CST
The Middle East has been a cancer of the worls since time began.
by alex d
They are still unclvilised savages and are about 1,000 years away from being close to being a civilised society.
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If only George Miller watches DWTS. Someone send him a pic please.
Do you think Afghanistan is too isolated with little access to news media and the Internet? I know it's a mountainous country with probably a 19th century infrastructure, but if the country were somewhat modernized do you think the country could be improved, democratically and progressively speaking? -
please I just do not for the life of me understand why anyone other than the 2 guys or girls who want to get married gives a shit. I am happily married but if the 2 gay guys down the road decide to gte married I just do not in anyway see that as a slight on my own marriage. It does not effect anyone in anyway shape or form. If I was gay I would be forming a movement to refuse to pay taxes until I got to live with all the same rights as the supposed "normal" people.
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Michael Medved, who is an actual film critic, has a more jaundace view of this piece of offal:
I am actually one of the few people in the country who has seen the new movie. It is called "Redacted" ... And let me just tell you, before I go to actually reviewing it: It could be the worst movie I've ever seen. I mean, the out and out worst, most disgusting, most hateful, most incompetent, most revolting, most loathsome, most reprehensible cinematic work I have ever encountered. This is having reviewing movies for more than 25 years. [It] covers a lot of disgusting ground, but none more disgusting than 'Redacted,' which portrays the Marine Corps, one of the finest organizations ever assembled by human beings, portrays the U.S. Marine Corps, as corrupt, vicious, racist killers and rapists ... (snip) ...
It portrays the members of our Marine Corps in the most disgusting way imaginable. They hang out in barracks, drunk or stoned, with Confederate flags all over the place. And the head Marine, who is the leading rapist and murderer, is a big fat guy, I mean, hugely out of shape, right - just the typical Marine (sarcastic) - Marines tend not to look like that - big fat guy, overhanging belly, cigar-chomping, loud-mouthed, sort of fair-complexion. His name is Rush. Nothing in movies is an accident. They're clearly trying to indict and smear Rush Limbaugh by saying that secretly he wants to rape and abuse 14-year old girls and murder them and then burn their bodies ... (snip) ...
The film is atrociously acted. It's incredibly badly done ... (snip)
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BSB is a loser who has nothing better to do than post incessantly on these boards. Do you even have a job, you treasonous slattern?
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please.....
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His word on the movie means shit. Fuck him and the cock he's sucking on.
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Yes, and in fact I own my own company. Anytime you need a job cleaning the dogshit off my shoes with your tongue, send me your resume.
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According to most of the posts on this thread, to appreciate the genius of Brian DePalma, you have to be incredibly vile and/or immature. The director should be quite proud to be admired by such classy and outstanding Americans. Unfortunately, you're all a bunch of frightened little babies who cannot stand even a lone maverick like the big, bad Bill O'Reilly - a man who dares to be the only dissenting voice among the avalanche of liberal media. Cowards attack in numbers, I guess! That's what the heck I was getting at, pinhead.
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I won't disagree that the Bush administration has made some major blunders, but the decision to try and preserve the new Iraq is not one of them. HOW they've gone about doing this (dissolving the govt., etc) was not particularly smart and caused massive harm, but they seem to have course-corrected now. People are actually returning to Iraq. In any event, the U.S. withdrawing from Iraq would only cause mass chaos, civil war, and genocide, as the Sunnis and Shiites try to wipe each other out. Plus there are the thousand ancient tribal fueds waiting to explode, and Iran gaining influence in the confusion. Also, if we let Iraq collapse, no other country could ever trust us again. Added to all this is the greater hatred we would engender in the Middle East for having abandoned yet another country. Now, if you're saying the next administration should have a better strategy for sticking it out, that's all well and good. But if that strategy includes pulling out, I'm voting for the other guy (or gal). Withdrawing from Iraq would be the greatest evil we could do.
What we really need is a president that can unify the country once more. The only one that can do that, to my mind, is Rudy. He's very liberal, pro-choice, etc, but he's Republican, and thus is the only candidate out there that can bring the two halves together. I would rather not vote Republican, but the Democratic candidates suck.
Oh, and for some perspective: not that many U.S. troops have died in the recent campaigns, compared to past wars/police actions, etc. In the Civil War, over 600,000 people died. And they were fightng mainly with single-shot rifles and blades. Now THAT'S a war. And how many tens of millions died in WWII? I believe it was over thirty, all told, but I forget off hand. And people whine about three thousand? Of course, back then the liberal media didn't portray the lives of each fallen soldier before us to make us feel guilty about what we're doing in the conflict (in this case, saving Iraq, the fuckers!, and changing the very face of the Middle East in the process, from darkness and tyranny and fanaticism to a multi-cultural democracy, yes we should feel so guilty).
Anyway, sorry for the long post, but few others seem to be saying these things, and they're things that need to be said. And people need to listen. Otherwise they'll vote the wrong way and we'll all pay the price later. -
No sweater, but definitely some nice meat in there ...
http://tinyurl.com/yoedsl
Thanks for sharing your war story. Always good to learn something from a vet. -
Kidding about what? Ain't nothing funny going on here. Soldiers need to relieve stress somehow. The Iraqis (civilian and otherwise) are sub-human at best. They don't even deserve to live as far as I'm concerned. Let us, as responsible vastly superior human beings, drop a supplement of neutron bombs, like an exterminator fumigates for pesky insects. After four years of redundant combat, let us claim victory over these pitiful animals by using the most efficient military tactic out there: ERADICATION. No resistance, no American casualties. Seems fair to me.
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Kidding about what? Ain't nothing funny going on here. Soldiers need to relieve stress somehow. The Iraqis (civilian and otherwise) are sub-human at best. They don't even deserve to live as far as I'm concerned. Let us, as responsible vastly superior human beings, drop a supplement of neutron bombs, like an exterminator fumigates for pesky insects. After four years of redundant combat, let us claim victory over these pitiful animals by using the most efficient military tactic out there: ERADICATION. No resistance, no American casualties. Seems fair to me.
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My apologies.
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1-White Screen Of Doom (NOT a liberal conspiracy, Expert_40) it's been all over this site for at least a week. There is a way around it, but it's annoying. try signing out, then clicking on one of the first few posts. It doesn't always work.
2- Trolls who obviously write incendiary shit from both sides of the ideological fence in order to make the other side look really bad. SpiceWonBruce, and Spazatronic, I'm looking at you.
GreatOne- interesting and informative, I admit I'm not as familiar with the inner workings, but assuming you're telling the truth your post was very educational. However, I'm forced to wonder if your problem with these so-called 'social issues' is simply that, that the technical course of law wasn't followed to the letter in these cases? I'm not an expert, so I'll take your word for that, but even if it's totally true I would still argue that 'rights for homosexuals' is a human right, something that should absolutely already be found in the Constitution. The same could be argued for the right for a woman to have sovereignty over her own body. These issues transcend the somewhat disingenuous label "social issues", which seems to do nothing more than relegate them to the ideological backwater of "special interest groups". I remember when Newt Gingrich transformed that phrase into a euphemism for "liberal meddling" in the '90s. Do you really believe that it should take constitutional amendments in the 21st century to enshrine into law the human rights for women and homosexuals? -
I'm not some creature from The Lord of the Rings...you fuckin' dork.
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That answers a lot, actually.
I believe that your work in Afghanistan is far and away humanitarian in nature, more so than military. As coherent and informative as your answers already are, I won't hamper you with more questions. I'll save them for later. I know you visit AICN for much the same reason I do - to flame assholes and talk about titties and Michael Bay. But thanks for the convo - don't forget to watch DWTS tomorrow night. -
I don't watch that show but from the sounds of it she seems to be a good fit for WW. My vision of WW comes right out of the Alex Ross, classic WW mythos. A tall, strong, smart bigger than life hero who just happens to be a hottie. I know George Miller's got a totally different vision, one that to me is completely contrary to the JLA mythos. I can only guess that he's hiring young to suit the WB execs. No other reason.
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I'll definitely check it out. In fact I'll watch the first season on Netflix online. I wasn't a Heroes viewer but recently started to watch the first season on Netflix's site (for free with my subscription).
Good talking to you- have a good night. -
Don't bother posting an answer, I won't be able to see it.
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...That Americans REFUSE to watch! Sorry about that Capone... maybe you consider that most Americans DON'T like seeing their nation denigrated for entertainment, in propaganda films that look like they came straight out of 1930s Germany.Believe it or not, hating the United States DOESN'T make you sophisticated or urbane, regardless of what your friends in California and Europe have told you.
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Lesser countries have been destroyed from within by less than the vile and hateful likes of those who call themselves conservatives because "fascist" got ruined by Mussolini and carries negative connotations. I'll see this just to piss the fascists off. Fellow liberals - time to reconsider your idiotic stance on the Second Amendment. It's there not to protect us from burglars, but to protect us from those who'd seize control of America and scuttle its principles. The Founders were clear on how to deal with those who would do this to us. It involves lots of bullets. Conservatives call you pussies because you ACT like pussies. When someone gets in your face, don't whine about how unfair it is - stab them in the balls. Then stomp the wound. Then start in on the face. You can't fight clean against dirty.
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what an asshole you are for saying that.
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I'm basing my thoughts on some of the talkbacks here, plus what I've read on forums on Rotten Tomatoes. So, Capone says "deliberately inflammatory, even exploitative. But this is not a bad thing." Since when are accusations like these NOT a bad thing. Sensationalism is a bad thing too, and this sounds like what DePalma has done. Also, the director made this movie "to get people marching in the streets". Marching for...what? Bringing the troops home? Calling the troops baby-killers and child rapists? We already have plenty of protests against the war itself, and Hollywood bigshots have made their feelings and ideas very clear that they are against the war. Also, DePalma may not have wanted to do many takes on the movie to clean it up or have the actors re-do their lines so that he could have this movie get to theaters as quickly as possible. But if I remember correctly, these soldiers have been/will be tried in court. Is this brought up in the movie??
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There has no doubt been more. I've seen videos myself of American troops committing atrocities. And, you can debate endlessly, but the standard of American troops is not as high as those of other western countries. Sure, you DO have troops who are probally more well trained, funded and experienced than other countries, but your admittance standards are extremely low, and as such, allows through the sort of folks that would be rejected from Australian or U.K forces for example. Not to say they don't commit attrocities, because everyone knows they do. What I take objection to, and what gets my blood up, is that people take affront and someone daring to make a movie about the very real and horrible incidents that are occuring because of this war. I don't judge all these troops as war mongering psychos. They clearly aren't. But some very well are. And theres no reason the army should get a free ride based on the fact that its the actions of some individuals. After all, why the hell are you waging a war in Iraq then, if it was only a few rotten apples spoiling the batch.
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I find these anti-war films reductive and redactive. No-one actually wants to have a war but, as history has shown, it is sometimes necessary. Can you imagine where we would be if there was no WWII to stop the Nazis and fascism from spreading throughout the world. Younger generations don't understand this. War is terrible but after 9/11 somethign had to be done. Yes, I know that Saddam was not responsible for 9/11 but he was an evil dictator. The whole premise of going to war in Afghanistan and Iraq was to curb the MUslim fundamentalism and extremism. Clinton tried for years to do this diplomatically but failed. After 9/11 there was no choice. All the smartasses who know are aginst the war, where did you stand the days after 9/11? I was in Toronto on 9/11 and the first thing my friends and I said is we got to get those motherfuckers. And those are the Muslim terrorists who for years have been plotting attacks against the US and its allies. Look at London and Bali bombings. And yest these low-life scum STILL get the full support of Hollywood while our own troops and government get villified. If you don't lik it here then GET THE FUCK OUT AND GO TO YOUR DREAM PLACE IN THE MIDDLE EAST!
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"De Palma exposes how the military drills a killer mentality into these young men and sets them loose in a land where they were probably not be held accountable for their actions." Yea...nevermind that the soldiers were courtmartialed, disgraced and imprisoned.The soldiers broke the law, they got punished...just like the rest of us americans.What turns this movie into a propaganda machine is the fact that DePalma is insinuating that there was a massive cover up...that military is evil...it breeds rapist and psychos and lets them run lose. DePalma even admitted that a substantial amount of research he got was from the internet...gee that's a big coverup. Good thing some retard behind a camera is here to blow this conspiracy out of the water...yea...gg.My question is where is DePalma's outrage at the other thousands of rapes that happen in Hollywood alone? Oh that's right...those are harder to spin against the bush administration...my bad...
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expert_40, your a libertarian who supported, through your voluntary actions, to invade a country that was of no threat to you? Interesting.
GreatOne2, I default to the fact that you lost. Thats it. End of story.
I still don't get Peoples fighting madness at the lack of authenticity and truth in regards to the film. The incident happened. You can bitch and whine and call traitor all you want, but its there for all the public to see. They ADMITTED to it.
I have no idea how this film is evil? What the hell goes on in your head? A celluloid strip, containing images of actors recreating a murder is evil? You are warped.
Also, to say its wrong to focus on this incident, because of its negative conontation, yet want to see them focus on heroic, and also isolated incidents makes no sense. If you want them to paint a broader picture, how about a movie of soldiers sitting about playing videos games and cleaning their boots with the occasional bomb going off.
"Then what's the point of the film, then, if not to villify the military? That wrong things happen during a war?"
Yes, this is most likely the point to the film. That wrong, and fucking horrendous things do happen during a war. Thats why you should only wage them when you absolutely need to. Not to fuel the colonial fantasies of some rich fat white chickenhawks.
Also, why preserve Iraq? It's not necessary, and it won't lead to piece. You got at least 4 major ethnic groups who have never, in history wanted to have anything to do with each other. So let em split. But hey, that would up the plan of setting up Israel: 2, a western friendly, non-sectarian, cheap labour producing Middle Eastern state. Right next to Iran! Yay. I'm not saying thats a bad thing, but my personal belief system doesn't allow for violently forcing someone to adhere to my way of life. If they want to see the light and move towards a more productive and peaceful social system, than cool. If not, I'd leave them the fuck alone. By the way, I think the first Bush had the right idea for the war, and thats an anti hollywood stance. Just ask George Clooneys Three Kings.
Oh, I have heard from left leaning critics that Redacted sucks balls though. I seriously couldn't care less. If I want to watch horrendous home video from Iraq, which I do, I'll just go online. Watching a cheap ass artsy fartsy recreation of it just seems kind of useless.
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i saw this piece of crap "film" and its awful. bad acting. bad camera. bad dialogue. terrible plotting. Any legitimate message that was to be said in this "film" was lost in the complete-awfulness that is REDICULIOUSED. as in, its effing rediculious that this piece of crap is even getting reviewed anywhere because its such low quality straight to VHS crap. I can understand the anti-war and anti-troops stance, i mean, hippies have gotta complain about something. but at the VERY LEAST can you put some QUALITY into your hippy-products?! its so sad to see people get outraged and speak out, only to forget to put on pants and spell their protest signs wrong. that's what this movie feels like. its a slap in the face to everyone. not as a democrat, or a republican or even as an American. but as a fucking movie viewer. if i paid to see this garbage, i would have demanded my money back. There was more production value in that OVERHYPED trailer than there is in the whole movie. its trash, garbage and will be forgot in a year not because people over look it, but because its an AWFUL movie. If you're against the war, then great, but don't back films like this. it just makes you look really bad. please. honestly. we have better things to do than watch an old man's lame "edgy" film making. this is about as edgy and thought provoking as Scifi's Saturday night movie. DONE.
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I've been voting for Maks and Mel, but I'll miss her. I'd want to be her when I grow up, if I wasn't older than her.
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Tourist, by that statement, i assume you mean democracy. How can you "force" someone to be free? If my assumption is correct, then your whole statement there is absurd.
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...Of going to war in Iraq was to CURB fundamnetalism? So, wait, you do that by invading a country and removing a dictator who was one of the few in the region who was successful at suppressing fundamentalism, you fund and aid extremists, and create one giant event to inspire and enrage the fundamentalists and push moderates against you. If toppling fundamnetalism and dictators was a real issue, why not invade pakistan. After all, far more extremists anti western terrorists came from there than Iraq. But no, you also support a violent dictator there too. Man, they targeted iraq hoping for a domino effect. It wasn't a bad choice either. A hated, despotic murderer who no one will miss, an Army so ineffectual a strong wind could have blown them over, and a nation thats seen christians, shiites and sunnis live (not so peacefully though) side by side. Who knew, you may have had another lebanon. Of course, they had to go and fuck it up and completely fail at what they were doing, thereby making the world just that little bit more horrible to live in. Thanks.
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...Of going to war in Iraq was to CURB fundamnetalism? So, wait, you do that by invading a country and removing a dictator who was one of the few in the region who was successful at suppressing fundamentalism, you fund and aid extremists, and create one giant event to inspire and enrage the fundamentalists and push moderates against you. If toppling fundamnetalism and dictators was a real issue, why not invade pakistan. After all, far more extremists anti western terrorists came from there than Iraq. But no, you also support a violent dictator there too. Man, they targeted iraq hoping for a domino effect. It wasn't a bad choice either. A hated, despotic murderer who no one will miss, an Army so ineffectual a strong wind could have blown them over, and a nation thats seen christians, shiites and sunnis live (not so peacefully though) side by side. Who knew, you may have had another lebanon. Of course, they had to go and fuck it up and completely fail at what they were doing, thereby making the world just that little bit more horrible to live in. Thanks.
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...Of going to war in Iraq was to CURB fundamnetalism? So, wait, you do that by invading a country and removing a dictator who was one of the few in the region who was successful at suppressing fundamentalism, you fund and aid extremists, and create one giant event to inspire and enrage the fundamentalists and push moderates against you. If toppling fundamnetalism and dictators was a real issue, why not invade pakistan. After all, far more extremists anti western terrorists came from there than Iraq. But no, you also support a violent dictator there too. Man, they targeted iraq hoping for a domino effect. It wasn't a bad choice either. A hated, despotic murderer who no one will miss, an Army so ineffectual a strong wind could have blown them over, and a nation thats seen christians, shiites and sunnis live (not so peacefully though) side by side. Who knew, you may have had another lebanon. Of course, they had to go and fuck it up and completely fail at what they were doing, thereby making the world just that little bit more horrible to live in. Thanks.
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...Of going to war in Iraq was to CURB fundamnetalism? So, wait, you do that by invading a country and removing a dictator who was one of the few in the region who was successful at suppressing fundamentalism, you fund and aid extremists, and create one giant event to inspire and enrage the fundamentalists and push moderates against you. If toppling fundamnetalism and dictators was a real issue, why not invade pakistan. After all, far more extremists anti western terrorists came from there than Iraq. But no, you also support a violent dictator there too. Man, they targeted iraq hoping for a domino effect. It wasn't a bad choice either. A hated, despotic murderer who no one will miss, an Army so ineffectual a strong wind could have blown them over, and a nation thats seen christians, shiites and sunnis live (not so peacefully though) side by side. Who knew, you may have had another lebanon. Of course, they had to go and fuck it up and completely fail at what they were doing, thereby making the world just that little bit more horrible to live in. Thanks.
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...Of going to war in Iraq was to CURB fundamnetalism? So, wait, you do that by invading a country and removing a dictator who was one of the few in the region who was successful at suppressing fundamentalism, you fund and aid extremists, and create one giant event to inspire and enrage the fundamentalists and push moderates against you. If toppling fundamnetalism and dictators was a real issue, why not invade pakistan. After all, far more extremists anti western terrorists came from there than Iraq. But no, you also support a violent dictator there too. Man, they targeted iraq hoping for a domino effect. It wasn't a bad choice either. A hated, despotic murderer who no one will miss, an Army so ineffectual a strong wind could have blown them over, and a nation thats seen christians, shiites and sunnis live (not so peacefully though) side by side. Who knew, you may have had another lebanon. Of course, they had to go and fuck it up and completely fail at what they were doing, thereby making the world just that little bit more horrible to live in. Thanks.
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...Of going to war in Iraq was to CURB fundamnetalism? So, wait, you do that by invading a country and removing a dictator who was one of the few in the region who was successful at suppressing fundamentalism, you fund and aid extremists, and create one giant event to inspire and enrage the fundamentalists and push moderates against you. If toppling fundamnetalism and dictators was a real issue, why not invade pakistan. After all, far more extremists anti western terrorists came from there than Iraq. But no, you also support a violent dictator there too. Man, they targeted iraq hoping for a domino effect. It wasn't a bad choice either. A hated, despotic murderer who no one will miss, an Army so ineffectual a strong wind could have blown them over, and a nation thats seen christians, shiites and sunnis live (not so peacefully though) side by side. Who knew, you may have had another lebanon. Of course, they had to go and fuck it up and completely fail at what they were doing, thereby making the world just that little bit more horrible to live in. Thanks.
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...Of going to war in Iraq was to CURB fundamnetalism? So, wait, you do that by invading a country and removing a dictator who was one of the few in the region who was successful at suppressing fundamentalism, you fund and aid extremists, and create one giant event to inspire and enrage the fundamentalists and push moderates against you. If toppling fundamnetalism and dictators was a real issue, why not invade pakistan. After all, far more extremists anti western terrorists came from there than Iraq. But no, you also support a violent dictator there too. Man, they targeted iraq hoping for a domino effect. It wasn't a bad choice either. A hated, despotic murderer who no one will miss, an Army so ineffectual a strong wind could have blown them over, and a nation thats seen christians, shiites and sunnis live (not so peacefully though) side by side. Who knew, you may have had another lebanon. Of course, they had to go and fuck it up and completely fail at what they were doing, thereby making the world just that little bit more horrible to live in. Thanks.
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...Of going to war in Iraq was to CURB fundamnetalism? So, wait, you do that by invading a country and removing a dictator who was one of the few in the region who was successful at suppressing fundamentalism, you fund and aid extremists, and create one giant event to inspire and enrage the fundamentalists and push moderates against you. If toppling fundamnetalism and dictators was a real issue, why not invade pakistan. After all, far more extremists anti western terrorists came from there than Iraq. But no, you also support a violent dictator there too. Man, they targeted iraq hoping for a domino effect. It wasn't a bad choice either. A hated, despotic murderer who no one will miss, an Army so ineffectual a strong wind could have blown them over, and a nation thats seen christians, shiites and sunnis live (not so peacefully though) side by side. Who knew, you may have had another lebanon. Of course, they had to go and fuck it up and completely fail at what they were doing, thereby making the world just that little bit more horrible to live in. Thanks.
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...Of going to war in Iraq was to CURB fundamnetalism? So, wait, you do that by invading a country and removing a dictator who was one of the few in the region who was successful at suppressing fundamentalism, you fund and aid extremists, and create one giant event to inspire and enrage the fundamentalists and push moderates against you. If toppling fundamnetalism and dictators was a real issue, why not invade pakistan. After all, far more extremists anti western terrorists came from there than Iraq. But no, you also support a violent dictator there too. Man, they targeted iraq hoping for a domino effect. It wasn't a bad choice either. A hated, despotic murderer who no one will miss, an Army so ineffectual a strong wind could have blown them over, and a nation thats seen christians, shiites and sunnis live (not so peacefully though) side by side. Who knew, you may have had another lebanon. Of course, they had to go and fuck it up and completely fail at what they were doing, thereby making the world just that little bit more horrible to live in. Thanks.
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...Of going to war in Iraq was to CURB fundamnetalism? So, wait, you do that by invading a country and removing a dictator who was one of the few in the region who was successful at suppressing fundamentalism, you fund and aid extremists, and create one giant event to inspire and enrage the fundamentalists and push moderates against you. If toppling fundamnetalism and dictators was a real issue, why not invade pakistan. After all, far more extremists anti western terrorists came from there than Iraq. But no, you also support a violent dictator there too. Man, they targeted iraq hoping for a domino effect. It wasn't a bad choice either. A hated, despotic murderer who no one will miss, an Army so ineffectual a strong wind could have blown them over, and a nation thats seen christians, shiites and sunnis live (not so peacefully though) side by side. Who knew, you may have had another lebanon. Of course, they had to go and fuck it up and completely fail at what they were doing, thereby making the world just that little bit more horrible to live in. Thanks.
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...Of going to war in Iraq was to CURB fundamnetalism? So, wait, you do that by invading a country and removing a dictator who was one of the few in the region who was successful at suppressing fundamentalism, you fund and aid extremists, and create one giant event to inspire and enrage the fundamentalists and push moderates against you. If toppling fundamnetalism and dictators was a real issue, why not invade pakistan. After all, far more extremists anti western terrorists came from there than Iraq. But no, you also support a violent dictator there too. Man, they targeted iraq hoping for a domino effect. It wasn't a bad choice either. A hated, despotic murderer who no one will miss, an Army so ineffectual a strong wind could have blown them over, and a nation thats seen christians, shiites and sunnis live (not so peacefully though) side by side. Who knew, you may have had another lebanon. Of course, they had to go and fuck it up and completely fail at what they were doing, thereby making the world just that little bit more horrible to live in. Thanks.
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...Of going to war in Iraq was to CURB fundamnetalism? So, wait, you do that by invading a country and removing a dictator who was one of the few in the region who was successful at suppressing fundamentalism, you fund and aid extremists, and create one giant event to inspire and enrage the fundamentalists and push moderates against you. If toppling fundamnetalism and dictators was a real issue, why not invade pakistan. After all, far more extremists anti western terrorists came from there than Iraq. But no, you also support a violent dictator there too. Man, they targeted iraq hoping for a domino effect. It wasn't a bad choice either. A hated, despotic murderer who no one will miss, an Army so ineffectual a strong wind could have blown them over, and a nation thats seen christians, shiites and sunnis live (not so peacefully though) side by side. Who knew, you may have had another lebanon. Of course, they had to go and fuck it up and completely fail at what they were doing, thereby making the world just that little bit more horrible to live in. Thanks.
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What a load of trite.
Man is AIN'TITCOOLNEWS scraping the bottom of the barrel?
Bye...not interested in your political views just was here for movies...
But sadly...movie making seems only about political statements and not the craft. Laters...enjoy... -
Even Republicans are distancing themselves from the habit of comparing Iraq to WW2. it's a really bad analogy. You should stop using it.
Shagdrum, the concept of democracy isn't immune to people believing in it without understanding it. Like any ideology, it can be perverted and corrupted, the same way religion can. One of the deepest contradictions being discussed by the left and the right concerning this war is how to reconcile profound cultural differences like the definition of "freedom". How do you bring democracy to a people that don't want it? Do you force it on them? Is it still democracy at that point? It's a complex issue, and certainly won't be solved here, but to dismiss the complexity as 'absurd' because "you can't "force" someone to be free" is a bit simple minded. -
Oh and the yawn was directed at the review...which whether Capone admits are not is not a review but a political trumpet....
YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWWWNNN again
Hoping for better days at AINTITCOOLNEWS....until then... -
we get it... everyone has an opionion. Everyone is right. Everyone has the right to freedom of speech and "suck it" if you don't like what I have to say... the Constitution guarantees that right. You know what, The Dixie Chicks exercised that right... they spoke out against Bush and the war. They found out that while everyone DOES have the right to freedom of speech, you also have to be accountable for the words you do speak. Hell, even President Bush, their target, said they had the right to say whatever they want... but also had to face the consequences. I voted against that fucker twice, but I agreed with him there. This coming from a DEMOCRAT. Don't label me as liberal bullshit, either... cause I ain't "liberal" nor "conservative."
Only reason I say all this is so many fucktards here are "telling it like it is... and if you can't accept it, you are blind to the truth." Note to all the conservatives... it IS possible to support the troops but not the war. Hell, I love the troops... they are put in a dangerous situation following orders. Yeah, they are supposedly given the chance to back out if they feel the orders are not ethical, moral, etc but you know damn well no governing board would agree with them and they would be court martialed and in military prison. And don't give me any bullshit about the "lone maverick" Bull O'Reilly. Anyone that follows him drank the fucking kool-aid and allowed themselves to be brainwashed. O'Reilly's only good at arguing... and he's pretty fucking entertaining at it... that's why his show is the #1 show on all the news networks. But his views are fucking bullshit and he cuts off peoples mics when they make good points that are contrary to his own. Watch Outfoxxed. Better than any documentary fuckhead Michael Moore could ever put out (yeah, a Dem just bached Moore...)
As for DePalma and Redacted... I love how all these fuckers form opinions of it without seeing it. Bill O'Reilly or Rush told me to feel angry about it? Fuck yeah I'll get angry about it! Give it a fucking break. See the movie... or don't. But why are you so busy bitch about a movie you haven't seen when there's so much other positive shit to be doing out in the world?
Supporting the troops or getting angry over a movie, being the angriest or loudest fucker yelling doesn't prove your patriotism. Thanksgiving is this Thursday... try fucking donating your time serving meals at a homeless shelter, help your fellow man. That's what we're supposed to do as Americans, as good Christians (for the right wingers). Can you bothered to do that? -
to the AICN staff... someone PLEASE suspend Tourists account and delete all those fucking reposts. fer crying out loud...
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Why so many posts??
Second, in reguards to your last post(s)....what? Was there any substance there? -
...its a form of government. I agree, it will be interesting to see how democracy mixes with that culture. But we are not "forcing democracy" on anyone. That is impossible! You can't "force" freewill. The Iraqi were aprehensive of it at first. They had been promised to be liberated by America before (Bush senior) only to be let down. Then, anyone caught simpathizing with the would be liberators would be punished by the dictator in charge. But how can you say they don't want democracy?! the percentage of them voting per capita is much larger then most any election in the past century here in the states (somewhere around 80%, if I am correct). The went to vote under direct and legit threat from Al Queda. The democracy that results won't be american democracy. To say they don't want democracy is absurd; they had been worried about retaliation for vocally supporting democracy due to retaliation. That dynamic is changing.
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Have you ever listened to Limbaugh?
"I love how all these fuckers form opinions of it without seeing it. Bill O'Reilly or Rush told me to feel angry about it?" While O'Reilly (as well as Hanity) can get angry and let their emotions get the best of them, Rush never does. To imply that he does is to do what you criticize others for; namely form an opinion without listening. Besides, the logic of "can't judge until you walk a mile in their shoes" that you are basically subscribing to is flawed, at best. -
The things which are happening in iraq should not go untapped. Its up to hollywood to step up and give this idea to the public. This film good or bad is essential at the current time. This war should be ended.. And maybe we can atleast make some correction to the biggest mistake americans have made in recent time. >>>
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*Industrykiller! tips his hat then returns to his side of the battlefield*
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he will forever be tainted as the drug addict who would rail about how drug addicts should be put in prison. His credibility is completely and utterly destroyed seeing as how so much of what he says depends completely on his moral authority, which he has none of considering he has proved himself a hypocrite.
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do me a favor and re-read that quote of mine you chose to post. Where did I ever say that Rush gave in to a fit of anger? I said that Rush tells people to be angry about things, and that he does do. How do I know? Because, yeah, I HAVE listened to his shows. You are absolutely correct... Rush does not fly into a rage, but he OFTEN says to his listeners "..this upsets me, listeners. This upsets and angers me and it should anger you, too." BUT... Rush does do it in a very calm, slowly worded manner. the man knows how to speak calmly and rationally.
And before I get accused of just saying I have listened to it without being truth, I have a couple close friends who are conservatives, one of which listens to Rush daily. He would often turn the radio on when we were hanging out. It often sparked wild debate between us. This is how people grow and learn, though... constructive conversation. My dad also tries to force me to listen to Rush... -
I actually agree with you on the Iraq democracy thing. I know weird right? The problem is that that region of the planet has always been itchy when it comes to outsiders trying to enforce anything, no matter how reasonable, on them. I think they do want freedom, I mean who the fuck wouldn't, but if we were going to make it a reality we had to go about it far more delicately than we did. You see in times of trouble the middle east will always fall back on hardcore fundamentalism, its just what they do, so you have to be very careful not to stir the beesnest too much. I know as Americans its hard to fathom a people denying freedom on principle alone, but only the incredibly naive wouldn't have seen it coming. That and the fact that we don't have their country up and running in any sort of tangible technical capacity (water, electricity, etc.) makes our job there extremely difficult.
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"is flawed at best."
I LOVE this argument. It's the end all, be all. At least, that's what people pull out withour any evidence to the contrary. How many times has someone explained something, a differing opinion, and you (in that general, everyone way) say "okay, yeah... I can see where you're coming from... makes me think a bit differently." Hell, I'm man enough to admit it's happened to me. I'm not right all the time... newsflash, no one is. But, seriously... how can one make an INFORMED opinion about a movie without actually seeing the movie? How many people look at critics reviews and completely disagree with the review? How many Transformers fans crapped all over the movie for 2 years, from pre-production until release date, and totally changed their mind when the movie came out? I can be told what's wrong with a movie, or what's right about it... but until I see it, my opinion is speculative at best. -
Nov 19, 2007 7:22:22 AM CST
RE: Since no one is actually talking about the film itself...
by the tao of joe
I thought I would do so right now. Here is my review:
The Iraq War drama Redacted is the worst kind of 'controversial' film. What I mean to say is that it's a movie so poorly made and acted, that no one would have had any reason to see it or talk about it if all the right-wing pundits - many of whom never even saw the film - simply kept their mouths shut for a change.
Whether or not you agree with the politics of Redacted, it's a work of bad filmmaking, plain and simple. However, because these Fox News and radio personalities bashed the film on the air and in print, it has suddenly become a far more 'important' film than it had any right to be. Mark Cuban, the film's producer, wrote on his blog that Bill O' Reilly was his "new best friend." Now that I have seen the film, I think Cuban should buy O'Reilly some flowers and a gold watch, too.
Redacted is an entirely fictional faux-documentary based on the 2006 Mahmudiyah killings, wherein a group of U.S. soldiers raped a 14-year-old Iraqi girl, and killed her along with her younger sister and parents. In the fictional recreation, there are two soldiers who are directly involved in the assault. The two soldiers are played by actors Patrick Carroll and Daniel Stewart Sherman.
As characters, Carroll and Sherman's soldiers lack so much dimension, it's almost like the actors decided to play their characters at one speed: "villain." Their performances might have been passable as the bad guys in a cheap revenge movie from the 80's, but for a drama that demands to be taken seriously, it's very distracting. By the time we get to the rape scene, which should have been harrowing to watch, I was reduced to a state of apathy because of the duo's over-the-top performance and the exploitative manner in which it was shot.
Sherman's role as a soldier might very well be one of the greatest intentional casting blunders in film history, and I found him to be most distracting of all. The actor is too overweight to play a combat-ready soldier. This was obviously a cheap attempt by writer-director Brian DePalma to further demonize a character who was already bad enough because of his crimes, vulgarity and frequent racial slurs. On top of that, every time I saw Sherman onscreen, I couldn't help thinking that the U.S. military would not deploy a soldier who could not run, and would be the least-challenging target for enemy snipers.
But what really hurts Redacted from the very beginning is its premise of pretending to be a multi-media collage culled from several video sources. These sources include Middle-Eastern news footage, scenes from a French documentary, internet videos and a video diary from a U.S. soldier among others. Strangely, despite the fact that these videos supposedly came from different sources, most of them look like they were shot by the same photographer using the same cameras. While DePalma might have been kind enough to include a caption at the bottom of the screen to let us know where each source came from, it's apparent the filmmaker did not master their visual textures, styles or even potential.
Comprising most of the film is the video diary, which is also the most vexing of the movie's sources. The Hispanic soldier recording it (Izzy Diaz) claims to be doing so because he wants to get into film school. However, his footage is too dumbed-down by amateur editing transitions to believe anyone who studied film today - and had any hope of continuing to do so in college - would have used them. More importantly, since the film was culled from various sources, why wouldn't the 'real-life documentarian,' who purportedly combined the various footage together, not edit out all the foolish mistakes himself? Just because Redacted is a 'fake' documentary does not excuse it from the same criteria we give actual documentaries as well as all films in general. There's also the highly-contrived manner in which the soldier records the assault. Knowing the offending soldiers would not let him carry a video camera to record such damning evidence, the soldier gets his hands on a hidden camera which he installs on his helmet and then somehow manages to capture high-quality video. Where did the camera come from? The mail? Better yet, how was the soldier able to pay for it?
Having made well-polished films like "Scarface," "Blow-Out" and "Carrie," DePalma has proven to be skilled at what he does. That said, he's obviously out of his element with Redacted. A young visionary director could have handled the movie's faux multi-media aspirations, but DePalma was simply too old to learn the new tricks a movie like this would have required. Redacted should have been raw, and yet it felt overwrought; it should have been a natural portrait of life on the warfront, and yet it was a shallow melodrama; more importantly, it should have hit my brain like a well-aimed needle of subversion, and yet it knocked me down like a claw-hammer to the skull.
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Good post.
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All there is a stalemate. Northern Ireland is an hour away from where I live. Nobobdy won the war or the troubles. Out of stalement came an agreement based on compromise. The victors were the two biggest secterian parties in Northern Ireland. The hardline DUP and Hardline SF. The middle ground SDLP and UUP were squeezed. Blair is simply amazing. This is the same guy who sent british troops into Iraq to depose Saddam. For bullshit reasons. and yet at the same time, allowed two bigots to run Northern Ireland. unbelievable. This is also the same blair who had plenty of time to deport abu hamza and Mohammad bakri. but didnt. all the 7/7 families wanted was an inquiry but they, the blair govt refused that. When a bunch of experts tell you what will happen when you go into another country and take down the leadership and his family and dont have a back up plan. Maybe name of the general in charge was MOnty Python. The deabcle in Iraq could well be called a flying circus. Homer S calls the Current Pres, commander Cuckoo Bananas.
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did a vanishing act at the boxoffice. In regard to its transfer to DVD (witin another week or two), it'll be voted the film to exorcise your home of unwanted relatives and obnoxious guests. Tom Cruise's agent is scrambling to remind Hollywood brass that "THIS ISN'T A CRUISE MOVIE! HE WAS ONLY A SUPPORTING PLAYER (sob)." Yeah, this movie is a real icon.
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That what every fucking war is about: Religion (my God's better than your God) and money (generated by war profiteers whom we now call "contractors" in Gingrich-speak).
The locals are fighting a war of religion. The Americans and "coalition of the willing" are fighting a war for money, with religious undertones. NONE of this is to promote Iraqi freedom or give them the same Constitution we've been enjoying for a couple centuries. If it were that simple, our involvement would have ended when we deposed Saddam. It didn't. We're still there, "helping" them "get on their feet."
They will NEVER be a mini-America. They will never be free from their holy wars. As long as they are into killing each other over religious differences, American war profiteers will be there to milk the battles for every penny they can. As long as Blackwater and various other war profiteers are still there, making their fortunes, we'll have troops there to serve as cannon fodder, both to continue fueling the "need" for the war profiteers, and to protect the guys who are REALLY in charge-- the money-grubbing executives-- from the danger of the warzone.
What happened in "Redacted" is based on reality... And it's not an "isolated incident" by far. There are plenty of stories out there, and this is the only one the news media ever caught or ran with. If you look around the Internet, you'll see more, and worse, from soldiers who have clearly become (or maybe always were) sociopaths. Maybe some are lying about raping locals or killing anyone who walks in their sights, but some of them aren't lying... And we need to know that the "collateral damage" consists of REAL PEOPLE who died because we're down to the bottom of the barrel in our recruitment standards.
You know this is true: Those "heroes" you defend are very often the same people who you revile when they're here in the States, living their normal lives. They hang out on the street with their pants down to their knees, menacing the people in their neighborhood, packing a pistol, and you call them "punks" or "hooligans" or "worthless gangsters". Slap a military uniform on them, and these same guys are suddenly "brave heroes"-- Nevermind that they joined because it was the only option they had to make some money, or perhaps it sounded cool to be able to shoot people.
When the majority of these "heroes" get back, they're going right back on to the streets, but now they're trained in urban warfare.
I'm not talking about brave Anglo-Saxon redneck right-wing Billy Smith here. I'm talking about the people Billy Smith considers "the bad guys" when he's at home. I'm talking about the fact that the military isn't lining up intelligent, ethical, good people to be soldiers at this point-- They're grabbing anyone who can hold a gun, and who wants to make money. They're ignoring psychological factors and intelligence requirements. They're recruiting young, foolish, violent, angry young men who wouldn't have been allowed to join in the past... And they're sticking them into a nightmare situation.
NO, I'm not saying all people of color are stupid or violent. I'm saying the military is now recruiting the imbalanced people of all races, where before they tended not to.
What this means is that we're sending some real BAD people to be our representatives in this war, and some of them (from what I've read, a LOT of them) are going off-mission and killing locals, raping locals, and stealing from Iraqis they're supposed to be defending. They're using the craziness of the war to mask and even justify their criminal behavior... Because they know that people are calling them "Heroes" and will defend them, even if they get caught red-handed.
Look at the situation in Redacted: There are people here actually APOLOGIZING and JUSTIFYING the behavior of these men who RAPED AND MURDERED a teenaged IRAQI girl, and slaughtered her whole family for kicks.
This isn't about shellshock/PTSD or what the war is "doing" to these kids. It's about a nation that turns a blind eye to atrocities committed by people whom they would have no problem incarcerating if it weren't for the uniform they wore while committing the crimes.
It's sick. It almost seems that if you want to get away with rape and murder, all you have to do is join the National Guard and wear a uniform and wave the flag while you're fucking the screaming child beneath you... If you have the right allegiances and uniform, you'll have all sorts of fucked-up people defending your actions...
At least until the war's over and you're no longer a soldier. Then you're back to being a thug who "deserves what they get".
It's all about perspective, people. -
Nov 19, 2007 12:04:20 PM CST
"All of the footage in REDACTED is meant to look as if it were t
by -guyinthebackrow
Except it doesn't. It all looks like it was shot on a very expensive hi-def video camera with a steadi-cam. And the acting is awful. And those bloody wipes made me want to kill someone.
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I actually agree with you on REDACTED. It's an awful, awful film, but did you see IN THE VALLEY OF ELAH? I thought that was pretty good.
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You're gonna have to outvote me on DWTS. I've got the online, phone and text lines ready to go tonight ... good thing they regulate this voting as well as they do the Diebold machines.
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Good post. I'm surprised too by the so-called people here bashing DePalma and trivializing the murder/rape of a child and her family. If it's shitty movie, then that's one thing. But to criticize DePalma for making it because of the subject matter just shows a complete disregard for morality. Which doesn't surprise me with some of these fucks in here.
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ahem. You dont see very much of the monsters. There is a very good and frightening scene of what appears two monsters or people you are not quite sure sticking something through the stomach of a woman. Basically Beasites turn upo and destroy New York. The trailer is strung together clips of Robert Hawkins(Micheal Stahl-davies) film footage. There is ominous conversation between a soldier and the friend of a young lady and its a kind of your friend is fucked conversation. whatever it is says the same soldier its winning. The ginat monster that we get a more view on is is lizard like and green. Maybe David icke has something to do with this film. The 2nd trailer is 2 min long. But this thing looks epic. lots of running, cars on fire, something attacking a helicopter that you dont see and shot of a makeshift battlefield hospital.
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"democracy isn't any ideology", Sorry Shag, but yes, it is. It happens to be the one we agree on and live by, but in terms of simple definitions it's still just that.
You say you can't 'force' free will, why not? You can 'force' anything. I could try to 'force' you to love your mother, if I had a gun and was crazy enough.
You ask "But how can you say they don't want democracy?!" I can say this with confidence, since there are still may war zones, and someone is shooting at our troops over there. -
isn't anyone on here gainfully employed other than myself?Or perhaps married?Uh wait...I'm both, and I'm posting...moving on...
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Do you look at conspiracy websites all day long? Hate to burst your hate-soldiers rant bubble, but this was an isolated incident. Even the supposed "true story" in the Valley of Elah concerned one soldier, not several. You were obviously brought up to hate on soldiers, that's your thing... I guess to you, WWII was just another unneccessary battle, of course, right? To you, Hitler was just a poor, misunderstood man who was just trying to help his people(!!) Of course, to you, all U.S. soldiers going back to the Revolution were hate-filled rapists and murderers...
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Talk about an exposed agenda. Your post, as always, reeks of talking point, paint-by-numbers posting. Certainly you hit the proper notes by throwing in Sean Penn and Michael Moore in there.
Try reading this whole Talkback for an example of how people from both sides of the divide conduct proper discourse on the subject. It basically puts your grandstanding argument to shame. Not that that's hard to do.
Later, fuckface. -
I don't get how you got the 'hate American soldiers' vibe from Zero's post. You're way the fuck off the mark, buddy.
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BTW your boy Optimuscrime tried to stand up for you. Give him a cookie for me and tell him nice try.
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*Industrykiller! tips his hat then returns to his side of the battlefield*
Nice! -
Guess I misinterpreted what you said. Though I have never seen him try and incite anger in his audience, I will look for it.
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You're deeply self-delusional if you think you deserve better.
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I can see that you too are impervious to shitty acting and atrocious story telling. Am I honestly supposed to give a flying fuck about you or anything you have to say when you're obviously a fucking retard? If you can keep a straight face and tell me you enjoyed the "acting" in this you need to lay off the fucking ganja you ignorant fucking wretch.
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sory bud, but the only emotions you can ever invoke in someone through force (specifically a gun, to cite your example) are negative ones (anger, hate, fear,ect.). Though some may consider love a bad emotion (j/k), you can never force love. You can force an imitation of love, or the appearance of it, but not true love (ever heard the term "you can't legislate morality"? It's along those lines). You really must distinguish between ideology and form of government. There are similarities, and they do overlap, but they are not the same. Democracy is the most natural form of government. It has always worked, when given the chance. The country as a whole wants democracy (see 80%+ voter turnout), you can't say that because a small minority want to create havoc means that the country as a whole doesn't want democracy. We a few wackos in this country who would luv to overthrow the government for anarchy, so we don't want democracy, by your logic.
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Nov 19, 2007 3:37:32 PM CST
anchorite vs. BringingSexyBack vs. the world!!! (and messi)
by bill brasky
Fellas, fellas, please. I am definitely not a peacemaker here, but since I share many of the same views as you Anchorite, yet at the same time seem to have a decent talkback thing going with you Mr. Timberlake, let me try and mediate this.
BSB, although I know that you abhor military action and prefer the use of diplomacy. Point taken, I won’t agree with you on this subject with Islamic extremism, but you have your ideas and I have mine. Anchorite is stating that De Palma's film is a way of stereotyping US troops...i.e., the movie Platoon. The average moviegoer watches platoon and goes away thinking that every platoon that served in Vietnam burned villages, raped innocents, murdered unarmed Vietcong and practiced fratricide on a constant basis. While these incidents did in fact happen, Stone puts them all into an amalgam platoon that he claims comes straight from his experiences. Since I am a generation removed from Vietnam, I watch Platoon and enjoy it; always waiting for that classic scene when Willem Defoe reaches up to the sky as the Huey flies over him. Fast Forward to today: I have been to Iraq, in 1991 for three months and in 2004-05 for 13 months. I lived that shit and I have to tell you, this movie bothers me. No, I haven't seen it, and to be quite frank, I probably won't. To address one of your main points BSB, I know that it is a horrible tragedy that this really did happen to an Iraqi family. I know that it is something that we should all know about. But at the same time, De Palma is throwing this in our faces for the same effect that Stone did; to make the average moviegoer feel as those that watched platoon did when they walked out of the theater back in '87. And I am here to tell you that that shit ain't right. NEVER did I or any of my men, or anyone in any of the units that I was attached to, worked with or trained ever commit any war crime or anything like what is portrayed in this film. (again, I haven't watched it, but I have read all of these posts and done some research online and it doesn’t seem to be my cup of tea). There was one rape incident that occurred since the Iraq invasion. Those sick fucks are being taken care of as we speak. Life in prison and the possibility of the death penalty of the main perpetrator. Yes, Abu Ghraib is a stain mine and my fellow soldiers honor. And believe me, I have paid the price for those little twisted freaks and their bullshit. I had to survive for over a year in country, after that shit went down. Not fun. Bottom line for me: Yes, the public needs to know about atrocities that occur on both sides of any war, especially the atrocities that happen at the hands of our own; but American film makers can do other things to make anti-war statements without trying to force the wrong perception of the American experience in Iraq.
*** Oh, and Zerocorpse, I think that you are a complete idiot. The event that is falsely portrayed in Redacted is an isolated incident. There has been ONE rape (one too many) during the war in Iraq and it was perpetrated by Pfc. Steven D. Green and three accomplices (one was charged with the lesser crime of dereliction of duty for not reporting the rape/murders when he first became aware of them). It happened in March, 2006 in the town of Mahmoudiya, Iraq.
The men and women that I have had the pleasure to serve with over the last 17 years are the best in the world. Even the “Gangsters” and “hooligans” of today’s modern military are professional and outstanding individuals. They are heroes in their own light. They could be “hanging out on the street with their pants down to their knees, menacing the people in their neighborhood, packing a pistol” but instead have done something with their lives. Have you Zerocorpse? Have you ever done something with your life? Silence… wind blowing… uncomfortable moment… trying to think of a flame… ugghhh… It is not because they just want to shoot some people. Maybe it is because they want to accomplish something, earn college money, get a skill, didn’t feel like going to college, earn their citizenship, impress a lady, do something for their country(gasp!!) impress their parents (double gasp!!!) or even just to know that they will have food and a place to sleep each day. God, I could go on all day. No “intelligent ‘good’ people?” You fucktard, what the hell is your problem? The draft hasn’t been instated yet and as far as I’m concerned, we still have an all voluntary service. And all of these “young, foolish, violent, angry young men who wouldn't have been allowed to join in the past?” Again, I serve with them every day. I command a company of 126 of them. You know what? I would feel comfortable with ANY of them watching my back any time. Can you say that about the Cubical Farm that you work at? Or the local Applebee’s? How about the Mall? Can you say that you trust all of your coworkers at Best Buy? Would they take up for you, defend you if need be? If your girlfriend broke up with you, would you be able to go from house to house with your co-workers, looking for someone to talk to? I could, and not feel the least bit of shame doing it. And guess what else, you miserable piece of Amphibian shit?!?! I’m not “Brave Anglo-Saxon redneck right-wing Billy Smith here.” I’m an average, Italian, Catholic, moderate Bill Brasky and you my friend, are a stereotyping, racist, pathetic human being.
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I wouldn't use the term enforce when it comes to democracy (don't think it is the most accurate), but that is beside the point. The fact is we are trying to get democracy a good foothold in Iraq, however you wanna phrase it. I would say that the "times of trouble" are usually due to hardcore fundamentalists, a small (well armed) minority trying to enforce there religious views. Iran is a good example, the vast majority of the poulation is against the government, but can't do anything. The Aytollahs (I think thats spelled correctly) prop up the current regime; namely Imadinnerjacket, or whatever "muslim hitler's" name is. There is a good article written by of all people, Orsen Scott Card (Ender's Game, ect.) on the eve of the 2006 election. For the most part Card, a liberal, emplores voters to vote republican due to the war on terror and specifically Iraq. The part you might find interesting though, is the part where he breaks down the dynamic in the middle east with two sides trying to one up each other. Very good read.
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I thank you for that post. Obviously I regard you in a totally different light than the hysterical Anchorite. You see, despite a *remotely* similar viewpoint you share with him about this movie, you're speaking as a soldier with a unique and understandable opinion that I honor. You worry about the movie's implications on those who are still serving. You express anger and remorse for the rape victim and victims of Abu Ghraib. I can't help but regard your opinion as respectful, informed and authoritative on the subject.
The difference is, Anchorite could not have written your post. He speaks from a different point of view that is fed by an agenda. The agenda being to advocate endless war at all costs. He writes with a purely Liberal-hating voice filled with the usual cliches and catch-phrases and name-calling du jour. Not only that, he regards soldiers as nothing more than tools to advance his agenda while he sits comfortably in his home. And on top of that, he belittles the rape/murder to advance his argument.
I acknowledge your trepidations about Redacted, and although I do intend on watching it, I know full well (instinctively and with the input of soldiers like you and Xiphos above) that the portrayal of soldiers in this movie does not apply to other soldiers by default. No one I have seen from the Left, Center and Right who oppose this war have ever faulted our soldiers for the war. It's very clear to all that the blame falls squarely on Bush and his NeoCon manipulators. Nothing you nor Xiphos did put this country in this predicament. All you have done is your duty to its fullest.
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SPOILERS: In case no one's pointed this out: out of the 5 main characters in "Redacted" serving in the same unit, 2 are responsible for the rape/murders, 1 opposes it from the time it is first proposed even as a joke, 1 tries to stop it (and is held back at gunpoint) and later turns the 2 guilty ones in to the authorities, and 1 passively films it (and later pays a high price, psychologically and-- eventually lethally-- for his passive "camera" view). In other words, the tally is: 2 guilty, 2 opposed, and 1 silent in the middle. While the film is hand-handed at times, particularly in the acting, anyone saying DePalma paints a picture of all the troops as crazed or criminal clearly hasn't seen the film (what DePalma does do is draw his characters-- both good and bad-- way too broadly and hands the parts to lesser actors). If anything, DePalma's 2 good/2 bad/1 passive observer set-up for the 5 main characters is a little too schematic. But its hardly a mass condemnation of "the troops," even within the unit where the crime actually takes place.
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To compare Limbaugh to a crack head, is very much apples and oranges. Limbaugh got addicted to oxycotin due to it being perscribed to him after a surgery, before anyone knew it was an addicting drug. That is different then someone deciding to do crack (or whatever else) just for fun knowing about the drawbacks. As to hypocracy, it needs to be placed in context. Technically, if you messed with drugs when you were younger (college) then later relize the error of your ways and tell your kids not to do drugs, that is hypocritical, but it is perfectly justifiable. In fact, former addicts are some of the best advocates against drugs now. If it is someone blatantly applying a double standard at an intellectual level it is different. For instance, saying killings for the good of the state under Nazism is bad, but the same thing under Communism is justified, or not as bad, a neccessary evil, is unjustified hypocracy. Addiction is a terrible thing, but hypocracy due to addiction in different then hypocracy due to intellectual double standards. Also, not so sure Limbaugh is against drugs so much as he is against changing the law. It is a subtle difference, but one that should be recognized.
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Where did all the assholes come from all of a sudden? You go to work for a while and everyone's psyche collapses.
poet warrior: I haven't seen the film. I'm not defending the acting. What the fuck are you puking about?
anchorite: why are you being a dick? What's with the "brokeback BSB" bullshit? You are certainly competent enough to argue points instead of bile. And BSB: stop fucking throwing rocks at anchorite. Holy shit, I feel like a god-damned pre-k teacher.
Greatone: if your still here let me know and we can talk more about the federal rulings on abortion, etc.
Greatwhite: I can't remember anymore.
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If I choose to see this film, and it seems to be nothing more than a reductive, polemic, anti-Republican allegory, while hijacking an authentic story of wickedness and depravity, I will say so loudly, clearly, and as rationally as I can manage. No matter what your position on the war is, to engage in rhetorical and exploitive theater to make your point is both inexcusable and a shot to American discourse's solar plexus. I will not condemn it, though, before I see it. That is the only ethical and logical position to take.
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engaging in rhetorical and polemical theater is what many talk-backers of guilty of. It is killing us.
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you really need glasses, if you think Zerocorpse isn't spitting and hating on soldiers.
Here's what Zerocorpse said (a fraction of):
*REAL PEOPLE who died because we're down to the bottom of the barrel in our recruitment standards.
*When the majority of these "heroes" get back, they're going right back on to the streets, but now they're trained in urban warfare.
Zerocorpse hates U.S. soldiers so much, he'd like to believe that all soldiers are committing atrocities in Iraq, or whatever DePalma would like him to believe. Maybe you're like that too?
So get those glasses or contact lenses, read Zerocorpse's post again, then get back to me.
Oh, and Bill Brasky -- good points, and thanks for your service.
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woe is me
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Nov 19, 2007 6:10:31 PM CST
If a "ripped from the headlines" story can damage the military..
by ebonic_plague
...the military must be comprised of a bunch of pussies. "Support the troops" is the new "Think of the children." Sorry, but this war and those naive or stupid enough to fight it will have to do without my "support." Choke on it, blowhards. I'm sure all this petty internet bickering will prove to be significant and valuable in... SOME way.
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When a Hollywood director gets around to making a film that shows war protestors as less "anti-war" and more "on the other side," then I'll call them brave. After all, in modern Hollywood, they might very well be blacklisted.
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Thanks for your smugness. It's very refreshing to hear a jaded point of view for a change.
Sorry for the sarcasm, world.
I bet you know that your post was pretty silly. Is there a pretty popular anti-war attitude coming out on Tinseltown? Yes. Is there probably, then, some sort of peer pressure influencing projects toward that point of view? Probably. Would today's Hollywood refuse to hire people who are not anti-war? No, and you know it. Equating Hollywood's trend against the war to the McCarthyism of the early Cold War, where studios actually wrote down lists of alleged Communists to exclude from the industry, is useless and inane. -
HOLY: I got a special relationship with Anchorite. We loathe and detest each other. It would be easier to make peace between the Zionists/Palestinians, Turks/Kurds, Shiites/Sunnis all in one day than to make peace between us. But that's okay - we wouldn't have it any other way. That Brokeback thing ... it's part of some delusion he has that I am a reincarnation of some former Talkbacker named BrokebackCowboy who outright humiliated him. Since I am doing the same thing, his damaged psyche has me confused with that guy.
XIPHOS: You're talking about those extreme loons who protest at soldiers' funerals? It speaks volumes about the honor soldiers have when they hold back from kicking the living shit out of these crackheads. You're right, they're so on the fringe they don't even register as regular people. Hey, DWTS starts in 1 minute - tune in pal!
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I think I've reached a level of idiot-fatigue. Much like outrage-fatigue, except I'm not so much 'outraged' as I am disappointed with the kids these days. I think I'll take a page from Xiphos' book and go to the Heroes talkback where posters acting like idiots makes me want to laugh, rather than cry. Rolling my eyes in solidarity...
-Sam -
I don't want to be the friggin' maturity police, necessarily, and I guess you and anchorite locked in heated bickering operates as entertainment on some level, but don't you think it diminishes the conversation at all? Maybe I'm just too damned serious, I don't know, but you and he possess different points of views and values that would be interesting to sort out rationally and generously, rather than (forgive me) childishly. Whatever- I've got papers to grade and football to watch, and you've got your real life to get to, too. I don't mean to be a killjoy or a tweedy tight-ass; peace.
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here, here. I'm unplugging for a bit. Good stuff, man, it was good riding the wave with you. take it easy (but not too easy).
hh, out -
Those wackos you are talkin 'bout who protest at soliders funerals, they are based right here in my home town. Been doing this for years. Free speech whores is what they are. They always have a video camera with 'em. Anyone who yells anything at them they will pursue legally. Any town that tries to outlaw their activites they sue under violation of 1st amendment and always will (because on that issue they are in the right). They are a family of trial lawyers. I have worked with one of 'em to (was the captain I worked under at the local jail). Very intellegent.
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Before you start trashing him, as it stand you are showing yourself for the ignorant hack you are.
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And didn't he remain an apologist for all the VC/NVA atrocities? Of course he'd say the big reason the US pulled out was the supposed propaganda put forth by the US media and protestors. Did he also go on about how inept his campaign against Khe Sanh turned out? Nopers, not a word but you absolutist right wingers keep swilling his bullshit. "Oh, that was our victory plan all along!" Uh-huh. The victors will always tell history to make themselves (or those they are against) look good/bad. On another note, this movie does sounds pretty turdy and I agree, why not tell a story about some heroic Americans or allies instead? How about a story about Iraqi's who've turned against alQuida? Honestly, who wants to sit through something like this? Isn't the fact that the perps got punished enough? Do we really have to see some torture porn reenactment? Will I use another question mark ??? Here's a pint to less incendiary movie topics and remember this: Keep up the hate and polarity folks. The next American Civil War will be fought with nukes. "From sea to sizzling sea!"
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You know this to be true. That is all.
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NYT: People moving with freedom around much of Baghdad; Commerce returning, even liquor stores are reopening... Developing... and somewhere Brian Depalma is screaming.
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he is a comedian.
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What I find equally hilarious and disturbing is the fact that the people bitching about how movies should instead be made showing the noble side of the American military (a notion I support as well), rather than movies like Redacted, want us to believe that they'd be lenient towards critical movies once some sort of balance were reached in the portrayals of the men and women in uniform. The fact is that they'd be railing against less than flattering movies about the American military no matter what.
That having been said, I have no doubt that Redacted is shit since De Palma is basically a hack -- a red wine Renny Harlin. -
The FDA approved OxyContin in 1995 and Purdue Pharma introduced the drug in 1996. Purdue aggressively marketed OxyContin to doctors who were unaware of addiction potential or unfamiliar with opioid therapy. Since the introduction of OxyContin in 1995, there has been a dramatic increase in abuse of this narcotic. Limbaugh said he first became addicted to painkillers "some years ago," following spinal surgery. However, he added, "the surgery was unsuccessful and I continued to have severe pain in my lower back and also in my neck due to herniated discs. I am still experiencing that pain." Limbaugh didn't get the surgery for this due to fact that the surgeon would be very close to Limbaugh's vocal chords and the risk to his career was too great. As stated earlier Limbaugh was perscribed and became addicted to OxyContin before it was generally known in the medical community that it was addictive. These are the facts, don't know what "expertise" you have in the medical field, but I doubt it is that much. I have two doctors and three nurses in my family that find this perfectly believable.
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on this side of the pond, in the uk and ireland, we were all watching a very sad story unravel before our eyes. Blair had taken the decision to go to war. sidelining the cabinet. The Bush administration were gung ho about the invasion and were saying we are going to do this and we are not going to let anyone get in our way. one man who had been to Iraq Was Dr David Kelley. He was the worlds most respected and formost exepert on Chemical and bioloigical weapons, nobody had a bad word to say about this very shy and exteremly decent individual. Kelley was getting close to retirement and was looking forward to spending more time with his wife and children and he was also having huge doubts about finding WMD in Iraq. He knew all about this after all, he lead the british and american team of un inspectors in 1991. He was of the opinion that Saddam did not have any WMD. HE watched the US/UK WMD drama with growing alarm. He was due to go out to Iraq and report that Saddam had no WMD. He never went there. Word had reached the Govt of Kellys concerns. While the build up for War was heading towards it climax. Kelly, a shy man was stripped bare emotionally on tv and was thrown to the Wolves. The Bastards in the UK govt knew that kelley was cracking up. AS we all know kelly was a keen hiker and liked to go for long walks, near his home. Kelley had recieved a mysterious phone call from a source in the govt, the day before he was due to commit suicide.In andrew gilligan's now famous report which lead to the gutting of the BBC. He was qouted as the govt source in the press. Gilligan then went on to say that Blair had lied to the public. The Uk's govt head of communication Alistair Campbell. put Kelly's name into the press. This added to kellys sense that he had been shafted by people he trusted. the reaction to kellys death was shock and horror. However not everyone thinks that Kelly died by his own hand. The allegation is that the US govt who knew of Kelly, through his work in iraq in 1991, wanted a clear path to the invasion. to them Kelly was a bump in the road, that had tobe smoothed over. So under the cover of shadow the US sent over a team to get rid of kelly and make it look like kelly had committed suicide. I have no idea if its true or not. But if it is then it means that the govt has kellys blood on thier hands and that they did everything they could to go to war including the murder of a thouroughly decent man. bastards. what is horrfying is that there will be no kelly types to stop this belligerent set of warmongers that is the bush administration attacking Iran. Iran is not Iraq. and the conseqences will be to awful to bare thinking about. The bush administration doesnt seem to care what people think. in the run up to the Iraq war the set aside all warnings about the aftermath and we are where we are.
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thanks for the apology... but none needed. I think 'anger" is one of those maleable words. Someone can be angry without being violent, but anger can also be tightly associated with violent acts. "tomato" "tamahto" (phonetics there... not spelling) :-)
As for the debate itself, the only thing I really have against O'Reilly and Limbaugh and the other conservative pundits' opinions is I highly doubt they have see the movie, though I may be wrong. O'Reilly in particular has a history of this. I can see his smug face, "I'll tell you what... no, I didn't see this movie and I'm not going to. There's absolutely no reason for me to see it and I refuse to..." Like I said, wouldn't be the first time for O'Reilly. Another reason I don't like them advicsing us not to see is they often make it well known that they have their own perosnal freedom of expression, yet they want to silence any dissenting voice. They call things like Redacted traitorous. How is it traitorous... especially if it is based on a true event???
But this is also a time to look at DePalma and ask "did this film really need to be made? a remake of something you've done before? Stirring up shit for no real reason?" -
I don't buy the "he's not a hypocrite because it wasn't crack" excuse. Here's why...
A) he OBVIOUSLY knew what he was doing was illegal in how he was manipulating doctors to get the multiple subscriptions. B) and more importantly, prescription drugs are, by and loarge, the most abused drug... far and away over illegal drugs. More people abuse prescriptions that illegal drugs. Basically, he was in a majority of drug users over that of crack or meth. Just becuae they were legal doesn't make it ok. and the ONLY thing that makes him a hypocrite is how outspoken he has been on his show about drug abusers WHILE he was taking drugs.
fun fact: I actually had a family member in rehab at the same time as Rush, same facility. They have assumed names in the rehab they attended, but his look and voice were unmistakeable... and this particular family member is conservative, so it was just gravy form them. -
Typical bullshit red-blue argument. This will be utter shite, as Depalma hasn't made anything good in fucking donkey's years. But he did give us Scarface...
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the people who really must share some of the responsibility are The Iraqi exiles. Their leader was a fantasist called Ahmed Challabi. Who was eventually exposed as a fraud and was disowned and hung out to dry by the american govt. His group was instrumental in the toppling of Saddam and argued fiercely that there was no excuse not to topple saddam and Challabi said that he knew where the weapons were. his group of exiles killed david kelly. Because he knew that were no WMD and these group of lunatics would not tolerate anyone who dismissed their nonsense, he was killed by and the police knew of it but were too late stop it. The autopsy report threw up strange things, people who knew kelly knew that he was allergic to tablets and yet half a tablet was found in his stomach. Outdoor sucides victims are usually found slumped over yet kelly was lying straight on the ground. There was cut on his wrst which suggest suicide. But according lib dem mp Nick baker and author of the strange death of dr kelly, he cliams that according to information that he has, the ulna was severed. This meant kelly died from internal bleeding. To get to the Ulna you need very specific medical training. Baker says that kelly was murdered, the body was moved to make it look like suicide. Baker said he was very careful not to jump to conclusions but in the end Baker thinks kelly was murdered by Iraqi exiles and that it was possible done at knight. the exiles were living in london at the time and were pushing for the removal of Saddam and wanted to set up thier own version of Iraq. I listened to an interview with one of these people, female and all I heard was anger, fury and incomprehension as tow why there was a delay in toppling iragq.
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Becoming addictd to opiates. In fact, I feel sorry for the guy. Drug addiction is powerful and devastating. The problem I have with Limbaugh is that he's a smug, self-righteous, judgmental windbag. He preaches personal accountability, and then makes excuses for his own behavior. That's what makes him a hypocrite.
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"very few people come out of surgery and become addicted to painkillers"... because the surgeries are successful. You don't wanna let Rush off the hook here. I am not trying to make excuses, I am trying to set the record straight. Besides, Rush himself said there was no excuse for his actions, and he got the help he needed. But, as stated before, he was perscribed oxycontin before it was known to be addictive. Just because it was "as potent, or more then morphine" doesn't mean its neccessarily more addictive. He had (and still has) lower back pain from the botched surgery; perscribing OxyContin was standard proceedure then. You are trying to blame him for the actions of a doctor who was perscribing what any doctor at that time would have perscribed. I have made my point, you just don't wanna accept it.
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By your logic, you can't hold yourself to certian standards if you can't always keep them. Therefore, morals have no meaning. Everyone falls short of their morals, that doesn't mean they shouldn't still aspire to those standard. same goes for standards of others. Otherwise, laws have no meaning. If you have ever stolen something in your life, then (by your logic) you can't criticize someone for doing the same. Think of all the little mistake you made as a kid. You can now never criticize your kids for making those same mistakes, or try to keep them from making those mistakes. Have some common sense here!
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O'Reilly I take is small doses. It is possible to reasonable judge films like this due to certian factors (what directors, actors, producers, ect. involved with it say about it, their track record), in fact hollywood banks on that (sending actors and directors to talk shows, promotional tours), they try to get you to judge the film before you see it by putting it in a positive light. Everyone had a good idea what this film was about (politically) before it came out. I haven't seen it, and won't; but I haven't commented on it either. I have commented on the talkback created by it (or in this case a review of it). I much prefer Glen Beck to O'Reilly. O'Reilly was much better in his earlier days on the show, now he has gotten too full of himself. He is still entertaining, and is dead on in certian areas (his push for protection of children from sexual abuse), ect. Personality flaws don't effect credibility. But, personality flaws can effect watchability. As for Rush, I have only heard him laughing about the failure of Lions for Lambs at the box office, and making broader comments on hollywood pushing out these political films that keep failing. On the addiction, as I pointed out here, he was perscribed and became addicted to oxycontin back when it was the standard drug for his woes (sever back pain due to a botched surgery). At the time the extreme addictiveness wasn't known to the medical community. You can't really expect purely logical intellectual activity in reguards to that drug (or any drug) once your hooked. That is what makes addiction so terrible. The point at which you blame someone in the addiction process is at the beginning, when they first become addicted, and then for not getting help. As has been show, in Rush's case, the situation was unique. As to his "rallying for drug laws", I can't recall him ever spending time justifying drug laws. He may has expressed support for their enforcement as a letter of the law issue, but I can't recall him commenting on whether they should or shouldn't be on the books. An important distinction.
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Since I was living in the UK at the time, I can tell you that the Kelly theory was formulated by conspiracy fanatics. To say the U.S. went over there to eliminate Kelley and you don't know "if that's true or not" means you believe that theory. So just say it, why don't you? People forget that the UK intelligence service gave the U.S. government the evidence of the WMDs in Iraq in the first place - trying to blame it all on the U.S. and saying that the U.S. hires undercover assassins (which would have come to light by now, surely!) to kill someone as harmless as Kelly is the idea of a quack. And you take the word of a LibDem on this??? For those of you not in the know and taking Emeraldboy's fanatical musings to be that of truth, the LibDems are the third political party, most of them are crazy as bedbugs and their party hasn't been elected in what, 200 years? Emeraldboy, please. Stick to the conspiracy sites, okay?
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No, if anything he's trying to turn the American people against the way the war is being fought in Iraq by showing the subsequent breakdown of morale and morals which follows when our troops are sent to fight what is increasingly becoming an unjust war.
I'm more concerned with the additional danger our troops have been put in by the twin policies of prison atrocities and the attempted covering up of said atrocities. The potential terrorists and haters of America these things have created amount to nothing less than a betrayal of our men and women in uniform by the current government and the dregs they utilize for the hands-on part of the job.
If anything, the fact that films like this can still be made in America should be the perfect argument for conservatives like you since it proves that freedom of speech still exists in America. I suppose that's just too much of a leap in logic for most of you to make.
You talk the talk, but let's see how you react to Oliver Stone's My Lai movie when it comes out since it focuses heavily on the brave American troops who refused to partake in the massacre and even turned their weapons on their own in order to prevent more from joining the slaughter. -
I am the one telling the facts to put this in the correct context. What "facts" have you presented? Just ignorant claims that you are now trying (and failing) to find clever ways to support because you know they aren't accurate. no point debating someone who doesn't wanna see the truth.
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Give me a break! Please justify your absurd claim.
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Just read the rest of your post, "twin policies of prison atrocities and the attempted covering up of said atrocities"?! WTF? prove that one. "The potential terrorists and haters of America these things have created" = absurd backwards thinking. BTW, you forgot to mention Haliburton in that rant, as well as Black Water, Katrina, "conservative culture of corruption", Bush planned 9/11, ect...
BTW, your foaming at the mouth a little... -
I have connected the dots on this at least two times. You try to a couple of these "dots" and distort them while ignoring the rest. For the last time: FACT#1: Libaugh had a back surgery that was botched. He still has pain today from this. FACT#2: his doctor perscribed oxycontin, which in the mid to late 1990's was the typical perscription for severe back pain of this type. FACT#3: unbeknownst to the doc (as well as the medical community at large) and Mr. Limbaugh, Oxycontin was (and is) extremely addictive. By the time this became known, Limbaugh had already developed an addiction. That's three times I have spelled this out. Are you still going to ignore parts of it to spin the story here to mean what you want it to? BTW did you notice that in your previous post all you could cite were facts I presented, because you hadn't presented any?
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That case is done and over with. That is a whole other issue, if you wanna open that can of worms. The fact of the matter is the case is overwith and an undisclosed plea deal has been reached. As far as I know, they never proved any "doctor shopping" which would have been the only thing he could've done in this case that was illegal. If he did do that it would've been after he was already addicted. So now I see your a doctor?! give me a break. If anyone is the koolaid drinker here it is you, who wants to believe a distorted truth here, in the face of the facts. Was there ever a lawsuit? Who knows? Why don't you try to find out, though you legally probably can't. Remember, doctor patient confidentiality, or am I misinformed here as well? He does have a private life, you can only draw conclusions from the facts availible. You are trying to move the bar as far as burden of proof is concerned here, to such a point that no one but Limbaugh himself could give you the level of evidence you seek. Even then you still wouldn't believe him. BTW, stop trying to claim rationality, you have proven yourself anything but, on this issue anyway. "You can keep on posting the same thing all you'd like, but that won't make it true" Actually that does add to my credibility. I am not changing the story, or moving the bar on the burden of proof. You still haven't cited any facts, you just keep getting more irrate. Now your trying to change the subject to the doctor shopping thing. He was addicted to legal drugs and got addicted to them as a consequence of legal perscriptions and legal doses.
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"And he loved getting high. I have no agenda regarding Rush Limbaugh, it's just odd to me that you can't simply admit that he fucked up". I said I wasn't making excuses, just wanted to put it in the correct context and you have a problem with that. "He loved getting high"? so now you know all about his addiction? There is no evidence that he was using it to get high, so much as hold the addiction at bay. No way to know unless Limbaugh himself says anything. There really is no way for you to know anything you have said in this discussion. No blind faith here. I enjoy his radio show, but if he had been found guilty of doctor shopping and gone to prison, I wouldn't have a problem with it. The fact is he wasn't found guilty, but you seem hell bent on assuming he is. It's called "innocent unitl proven guilty", thats the way the justice system works. The burden of proof rest on those trying to prove his guilt, not the other way around as you seem to think. You are purposely twisting my words here. " you just can't admit that he took a controlled substance on his own accord for years". I never denied it, unless you consider due to addiction "not of his own accord". You want to paint him out as pure evil here, when he was initially a victim of circumstance in getting addicted. The questionable activities came after that. Why do you want to hate him so much?
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You are confusing facts with excuses. You are really hell bent on not exception the truth here...
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It is patently obvious you don't wanna accept the truth on this. It has been spelled out three times, and you try everything to ignore the truth. You distort my words, ignore inconvenient truths, and try to move the goal posts (in reguards to burden of proof). When that doesn't work, you try to turn it to being about me; claiming I am a koolaid drinker, making "excuses" by citing facts, ect. All the time you keep getting more irrate. You have proven beyond a reasonable doubt, that you are not capable of be rational on this, and refuse to debate substance.
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Nov 20, 2007 8:39:36 PM CST
IndustryKiller, "I cannot imagine a country run by cons here"
by immortal_fish
"I cannot imagine what a country run by some of the conservatives here would look like."Really? I think you can. But I doubt it would look like the country I imagine under the same terms."I mean these filmmakers are traitors for making a movie about a war that 90% of the American public thinks is wrong and we should have never gotten into?"As of when? Are we talking Hillary/Edwards fiscal 03 or Hillary/Edwards fiscal 07? Or are we talking Obama fiscal never since he never had the burden of the decision?"How can you delude yourselves in such a capacity?Indeed. How can you as well, given the facts outlined just above?"Terrorist porn? You really think terrorists watch these films and THAT is what inspires them?"In part? Certainly. But as a Marine, I can tell you first hand that impact and outcome is worse elsewhere."I think its probably something closer to the tens of thousands of dead Iraqis that are where they are as a result of the severe mismanagement of the war."Right. And Bosnia was a cakewalk by comparison. No nose have been struck off any faces since the turn of the millenia. And no schools have been invaded neither."It doesn't matter how many pro war or anti war films get made, the blame for this clusterfuck is going to fall squarely on us in the future."If only that were the case. One side has been posturing for some time now and continues to posture with the help of the media. Guess which side."Not because that is how liberals want it or are trying to spin it, but simply because that is how it looks to the rest of the planet Earth."Izzat so? Iraquis look to US Democrats as "useful idiots." Google an article by Victor David Hanson on the same title for his opinion piece."So bitch about every human being who doesn't live in America who finds this war repugnant if we look bad, not Brian De Palma."But they didn't make a mass-market film packaged for consumption like DePalma and Cuban did. I hate them. And there is nothing you can do to make me think otherwise. That whole first amendment thing. It cuts both ways, despite what the Dixie Chicks will tell you.
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That is all
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I have absolutely no idea what you wrote. you see I have a nasty case of the White Screen of Doom that has gone on nigh 48 hours and doesn't seem to be stopping anytime soon. Just pretend I said something witty and clever.
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Screw you, and you "witty" and "clever" non-response....
LOL -
Nov 20, 2007 11:24:55 PM CST
"I hate them. And there is nothing you can do to make me think o
by industrykiller!
Nor would I dare try Immortal. Merely offering a different pov. First things first, this is an unpopular war, that is a fact. Bush ahs admitted it. All the polls show that. Go to pollingreport.com and see for yourself. It's not a liberal conspiracy that people don't like the war, its thousands of dead kids with no end in sight that'd the culprit. If you want to blame someone blame Bush, he is the guy who fucked the whole thing up. And comparing it to Bosnia is ridiculous. Apples and oranges. As for noses being cut of, I dunno maybe you're right about that, but I know more than a few heads have been. As for terrorist inspiration, don't be ridiculous. These people were fanatical before Brian De Palma ever picked up a camera. They've been fanatical for thousands of years, they'll be fanatical for some time yet. They live with carnage and destruction and death every day and no poorly acted Hollywood movie will enlighten them on that subject further. If there is any inspiration, its completely overshadowed by their families being killed from the fighting in the streets. I admit maybe some Marines could be angered by films such as these, but, and I'm treading as carefully as I can here, I think its tough for someone so involved to form an unbiased opinion on the subject. I don't think De Palma is trying to cast a negative light on ALL Marines, after all there are good ones in the film, he's merely saying that these things actually happen and even if they happen seldomly, combined with the rest of the mess, it isn't worth it. Just because you disagree with him doesn't mean he's automatically wrong. And Im sorry but his freedom to make that film is what marines are fighting for, censoring art is a bastardization of that fight. I do not stand for censoring art in any capacity if illegal means aren't used to create it. As for the article by Victor David Hanson, ummm...the guy writes for the National fucking Review. Maybe I should steer you toward an op-ed piece on moveon.org? BTW I thought it was funny how you said "given the facts just outlined above" when you hadn't given a single fact. Like not even anything that could be remotely considered a fact, or even like a metaphor or something for a fact. That was funny.
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Nov 20, 2007 11:44:19 PM CST
He wasn't getting high...just holding the addiction at bay???
by industrykiller!
WTF?? No really Shagdrum WTF??? Yeah he was holding the addiction at Bay....by getting fucking high. thats how one satiates an addiction to drugs. You feel bad, you take the drug, you feel better, you know, cause you're high. I'm not making any statements on the case itself, but the guy was getting high, that's what happens when you are addicted. I don't think he's a douche bag for being addicted, I think he's a douche bag for condemning people in the past for the very same thing he later did and then acting as if he was still a prince. I don't care if he is a criminal or not, our prisons are already too full with addicts, I care that he continues to shoot his mouth off when he has zero moral authority.
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that someone mentioned Guiliani using "Rudy Can't Lose" by The Clash as his campaign song. That may be the most asinine and insulting thing I've read all day considering The Clash embodies Liberal politics and stands against everything the Republican party stands for.
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Former White House spokesman Scott McClellan admits:
"The most powerful leader in the world had called upon me to speak on his behalf and help restore credibility he lost amid the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. So I stood at the White House briefing room podium in front of the glare of the klieg lights for the better part of two weeks and publicly exonerated two of the senior-most aides in the White House: Karl Rove and Scooter Libby.
"There was one problem. It was not true.
"I had unknowingly passed along false information. And five of the highest ranking officials in the administration were involved in my doing so: Rove, Libby, the vice president, the president's chief of staff, and the president himself."
They outted Plame to punish Wilson. Pure and simple. I always found it odd that Ari Fleischer left the Administration at the height of their power. And McClellan wasn't as good a liar as he was, that much was obvious. I guess now we know why - he had a conscience. -
Condemning people for accidentally getting addicted to perscription (legal) drugs? When? I wanna hear that sound bite. I think you are making an assumption on that one. As to the getting high... I could've phrased that better, I was responding to the claim that "he was getting high and loving it". There is no way to know that, and that was the point. You can't know his motivations unless he tells them to you or you can read his mind. Apparently "Dramacidal" can read Limbaughs mind, or is on real friendly terms with him. You can't know if Limbaugh was getting high simply for the pure joy and experience of it (as Dramaticidal implies), or if he was getting high to simply to hold the addiction at bay and go on with his life. While we can't know, the evidence we do have suggests it's the later (judging by the way he got addicted and that he had no history of prior drug abuse, legal or illegal, that we know of).
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It's pointless to argue with Shagdrum. He's perfectly comfortable in his ignorant skin. Anyone who refuses to see Limbaugh as anything but a hypocritical drug addict (Using his maid to score for him? That's total addict behavior) and spins the NSA/AT&T wiretap issue by saying the lead witness involved in the case was paid off by lawyers (remember that gem?) is not worth debating.
Not to mention he accused DocPazuzu of "foaming at the mouth" despite Doc's calm and reasoned post. This guy obviously has a very limited bag of tricks. -
http://www.buzzflash.com/ analysis/03/10/ ana03004.html Mind the pauses.
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Love that projection. The one with the "limited bag of tricks" turns that on others. I never said anything about DocPazuzu. Read my posts fully before you respond. Interesting how you are willing to discredit anyone who doesn't hold the same view as you. How very intolerant of you.
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Not speaking of paleo-Conservatives, mind you. His ilk thrives on hypocrisy. Where Limbaugh extols the value in morality while hiding his own drug use, guys like Mark Foley, Larry Craig and Richard Curtis vehemently denounce homosexuality and vote against gay rights measures while hiding their own gay affairs.
In them, the value of words lose all meaning. That's what hypocrites do - they destroy the concept of truth and honesty. -
You must have anterograde amnesia, because scrolling upwards to your 7:05PM post you can see what you wrote:
"Docpazuzu; you really are out there...
by shagdrum Nov 20th, 2007
07:05:14 PM
Just read the rest of your post, "twin policies of prison atrocities and the attempted covering up of said atrocities"?! WTF? prove that one. "The potential terrorists and haters of America these things have created" = absurd backwards thinking. BTW, you forgot to mention Haliburton in that rant, as well as Black Water, Katrina, "conservative culture of corruption", Bush planned 9/11, ect... BTW, your foaming at the mouth a little... "
Thanks for demonstrating my point on why it's a waste to debate you. -
coulda swore I said that about "dramacidal". my points on Limbaugh still stand, though
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I'm drawn to a wide spectrum of political philosophies, many to the Left, and a fair amount to the Right. But I stay away from radical elements of all kinds, and anyone who would blame soldiers who are bound to perform (lest they risk court-martial) really don't understand how difficult a position those soldiers are in. You can't ask a soldier to drop their arms. They have a family to feed, and comrades to back up. Granted, there are larger-than-normal number of soldiers who have gone AWOL in this conflict, but they have decided to face the consequences of doing so too. It's complex, and I reaffirm my belief that any and all faults in the handling of this conflict belong at the top. Why are the Abu Ghraib soldiers being punished while Rumsfeld and the secretive torture instructors who trained them walking free? Makes no sense to me.
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Or you would've read my post responding to you about what Zerocorpse wrote about his hate of soldiers (when you said I was "off the mark") - again, you need to get glasses or else contacts - or maybe you are just getting early dementia
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Is hardly a credible site. All those quotes are blatantly out of context (same thing "Media Matters" did with the phony solider thing). But lets look at them... The 1st three comments are about illegal drugs, so are not relevant the last quote (broken up for some reason) is still out of context, but even as it stand it is pretty obvious that he is talking about illegal drugs, not legal (perscription) drugs. Either way, it doesn't matter; if you fall for a moment in the standards you hold yourself and others to; it doesn't negate the standard. You are effectively saying it does. Remember, the best advocates against drug use are former addicts.
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Nothing in Zerocorpse's post indicates a "hate of soldiers". What he said was that the military has resorted to recruiting people who would otherwise fall below their own standards. Have you not read the news reports of recruiters faking drug tests and hiding incriminating information on potential recruits just to get them in so they can meet their quotas? Do you think that's actually GOOD for our military, to send these people to fight alongside the competent soldiers?
Seriously Dudeone, to infer that Zero hates all soldiers is, as I said, off the mark. It's tough enough for the military to maintain a well-disciplined force without bringing in drug addicts and criminals. It's not fair to get well-trained soldiers mixed up with incompetents who could fatally fail them at the worst time, just so the recruiters can collect their quota bonuses. THAT is what I call hating on the soldiers. -
I appreciate your trying to keep the peace; it's a valiant thing to do. And definitely not a killjoy thing either. Someone's got to inject some sanity around here.
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ALL those quotes are taken out of context? Give me a break. I mean the guy that frequently says things about drug addicts that are that frequently taken out of context. Many of the things there are very clear. Limbaugh very clearly has a disdain for drug addicts, until he became one at least, then of course he did absolutely nothing wrong. And an addiction to legal drugs is every bit as powerful as an addiction to illegal drugs. A lot of experts would tell you they are even more dangerous since they operate under the guise of medicine, which they are, until you start abusing them. And if Limbaugh was addicted to painkillers trust me he was taking more than the legal dose. the way painkiller addiction works is that as you take more the effects become less and less potent which requires more pills to get the buzz you were getting before with fewer pills. You cannot be an addict and get by on the legal dose. That quite simply isn't the way it works. He was getting extra pills from someone, whether his doctor was purposely over prescribing him or he was using a third party (BSB says his maid) I don't know. but in the words of Guns N Roses, a little wasn't doin' so a little got more and more. As for buzzflash, unlike the article Immortal touted, I didn't send you an op-ed piece. Simply quotes. Quotes you can find on plenty of other websites. All Im saying man is that Rush Limbaugh is not a great man and he wont be remembered as a great man, trust me he isn't the guy you want to wave in our faces as the pinnacle of moral authority. he doesn't have any. he's proven himself a hypocrite and a bigot over and over. Occasionally he'll be take out of context, like I agree he was ont eh "phony soldiers" case, but oftentimes he just says repugnant things. Like Anne Coulter, except every know Anne Coulter is really just pulling an Andy Kaufman like prank on us all, Limbaugh really means it.
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"Right. Who wants sterile documentaries anymore? Who wants to be presented with facts and make up their own mind?
I stopped reading after this point."
Let me guess, you're a sophmore in college? Taking some art courses, maybe?
Trust me, the day will come when you'll get bored with the clinical, banal nature of 'objective documentation' and realize that it's a cop-out of sorts. You'll admire anyone that makes anything with any true passion, brashness or virtuosity, even if you disagree with it in principle.
Films like Redacted make the cinematic landscape a lot less boring. -
"Has the whole world gone insane? The only parts that seemed 'real' in "Redacted" were the French documentary scenes. For the most part, everything else was overacted, and looked very fake. The video journals looked like they were filmed by the same guy as the news reports. I'm guessing that's because they were, but still. And the worst part of it all were the performances. The two rapists soldiers (one of whom is inexplicably obese for a soldier in combat - guess they don't plan on him dodging any bullets) act like the bad guys from "Robocop" for crying out loud."
You're kind of missing the point.
The character's performances did ring "false" and hammy, partly because they went to war not only BE soldiers, but to indulge in their fantasy of what they thought a soldier would be. Their histrionics where consistent with their immaturity and sociopathic nature.
You hate the ACTORS, because you fell they acted unrealistically. I hated the CHARACTERS, because they were more interested in acting like "bad boy soldiers" than being actual adults.
The hamminess of the performances work for me, because I see it as a comment on how self-involved and melodramatic the average person is. What is considered 'realistic' and 'unrealistic' behavior has been increasingly hard to define. When someone dies, people are much more likely to bawl there eyes out and throw themselves on top of the casket than grieve in some kind muted, sophisticated silence. Maybe their imitating what they saw on TV. Who knows?
People acting "fake" is actually VERY realistic. -
"The hamminess of the performances work for me" is not a sentence that should appear outside a review for an ironic B-movie. This is a very serious subject and at the very least deserves good actors to bring it to life. I expect you'll be in the minority on your point of view.
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can you be a militant moderate? I know it is a touch oxymoronic, but if you can then I would like to burn all extremists on both sides at the stake...heh. An AnimalStructure/ Zfisk fire would be a marvellous thing.
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As if it weren't enough that you're defending the hypocrisy of that loathesome shit-hook, Limbaugh, you're also doing it by uttering what is perhaps the most asinine thing I have ever read on AICN during the past seven years I've been coming here, namely that he was taking drugs in order to hold his addiction "at bay". Clearly, you are one of those people who will defend anyone and anything - no matter what the crime - as long as they originate on your side of the political fence. That, my friend, is fanatical behavior, and not worthy of my time in a serious debate.
Although I find anchorite to be a political gnome, he can at least be argued/debated with on somewhat sensible terms.
Get back to me once you evolve past your flat-earther mentality, chief. -
I keep expecting this TB to die off soon, but no! This thing's got legs.
Tal- your review a while back really makes me want to see this film. The notion that this film doesn't operate only on the narrative level, but negotiates issues of popular media dissemination, personal and political artifice in the telling of war stories, etc, seems really important. It is impossible to create a film in our cynical, media-saturated, identity-craving/howling mad culture without commenting on the meta-systems at play.
Industry: irony does not exist only in a b-movie absurdiverse. In fact, the brutal irony of cheesy b-movies is what makes them feel relevant at all. Irony exists in human affairs, as it is the recognition of logical/ethical/moral absurdity, and every project which attempts to wrestle with contemporary anxieties had better be ready to negotiate with authentic irony- to drive through it toward hope, of course, rather than to indulge in it's bleak comedy. -
He's got more legs than this immortal talkback. Look, he is an enormously important part of of America's conservative sub-culture. But that's devestatingly wrong. If you can't see that Limbaugh (as well as Franken on the left) embody the absolute worst qualities of what passes as "political conversation" in America today then you've simply got to try harder. They absolutely and willfully refuse to follow reason and wisdom into a discussion and stop, over-confidently, when the "conversation" reaches a foothold for their amazingly stale/shallow partisan "view points". Personalities like theirs, which control the parameters and rules of their programs, work as radical poisons to what we need in this country. They are routinely and brutally easily discernable as hypocrites, and they breed cynicism and hatred between Americas. They are not charitable, generous, or respectful of the essential humanity of anyone who identifies as something other than Limbaugh or Franken disciples, and they are just two major examples of scores upon scores of viral media personalities who have laid American conversation up for so long that her ass is covered in bed sores. You people prattling endlessly about whether Limbaugh is a drug-addict and a hypocrite are dangerously close to dead. Stop it, and get well soon.
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Hey there! I actually like your anti-Stone, anti-anti-war movies, argument (while thinking you should withhold judgement of particular, unseen films, of course). I like how you suggest that you are anti-cynicism rather than anti-challenges to the dominant power. I agree - sometimes films that challenge the dominant power are shallow indulgences, or can be received like that culturally. Certainly, artists have a responsibility to abandon principles of propoganda in their work, regardless of their point of view. Sometimes, though, the cynicism exists as a result of cultural forces that work on individuals before they bare witness to specific films. Take the Stone talk back, for example, or the many, many Redacted ones. It is apparent that the table has been set for a cynical reception of these projects. Lefties assume it is truth that the right is too stupid or brain-washed to accept, and righties wax-poetic about how it's anti-American propoganda. The perspectives have been established prior to conversing with the pieces themselves. The culture has been magnificently cynicized, and conversations about film have, too (perhaps we should relabel the medium "cynema"). I think that's a problem. I'm not suggesting that artists are above being worked on by those cynical forces at all, but who's responsibility is it to re-institute sanity? Answer: All of ours. We've got a choice. We can be powerless before the polarized cynicism of our times and shout presumptuos insults at one another while assuming a posture of superiority (which both left and right do in equal measure), or we can restore our central American values: generosity, charity, logic, problem-solving, conversation. And we need to do it RIGHT NOW. If DePalma, Stone, Limbaugh, and Medved aren't responsible or enlightened enough to do it, then anchorite and BSB need to take up the slack. Why not?
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1) Xiphos- It was a joke, mate, not a particularly funny one- so sorry about that. Aside from that, I do totally agree with you about the bumper sticker thing.
2) Anchorite- I can sort of see your point, but you are vastly oversimplifying things. Firstly, if they believe this war is unjust- and a fuck up of the magnitude of Vietnam, then can they not draw their little parallels? It is their right to do so, after all, just as it is your right to complain about it and not spend your hard earned dollars on their “Art”. As this is the case, and I have seen you hold freedom of speech sacrosanct before, can you please explain what should be done. Should all films that criticise the current war, either directly or indirectly, be banned? Or should all media outlets effectively ban them by starving them of the oxygen of publicity? I do have another question for you. BSB has been lambasting you for your post on what would have to be done to win the type of war that is currently ongoing in Iraq. If you don’t mind, can you either expand on what you meant or confirm this. I think that you were explaining that to win a war like this the only effective method involves atrocities on an unprecedented level. I don’t think, as he has been saying, that you were advocating that the USA pursue such a course.BTW, this is an “unjust” war. To claim it is anything else is naïve to say the least.
3) Holy Hell- GREAT FUCKING POST MAN- top fucking draw!.
4) Where the fuck is Animalfascist? Surely he should have a few things to say about this
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Most Americans already oppose the war. Putting the "blame" for this on movies is as simplistic as blaming violent crime on movies.
That there are similarities between atrocities in Vietnam and Iraq is no coincidence, obviously, and that the film is being made right now isn't a coincidence either.
However, the conclusions you draw as to WHY are conjecture at best. An equally relevant reading of the situation could be that the film is meant to show that it's not just a case of "hey, war is hell, shit happens" but that it takes a special kind of moral stature to live up to the ideals we as Americans are supposed to hold dear, especially in time of war. This goes as much for Vietnam as it does for Iraq. With the rhetoric being spouted today by right-wing dickheads calling people "haters of America" for objecting to current policies, that kind of moral stance is all the more important.
You know me well enough to know that I'm not a left-wing asshole and that I don't suffer creeps on that side of the aisle any more than their right-wing counterparts. -
I can't believe I waded into this. I promised myself I wouldn't. Finally, Emeraldboy- give it a fucking rest on the David Kelly shit. If anyone capped him it was MI5. I'll bet on suicide though.
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Backatcha
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Sorry guys, I had to get that out of my system.
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Anchorite, and before you accuse me of misquoting you I could find the TB if needs must. And you know that I'm not a tree hugging hippy type, so I'm not making this shit up or siding with BSB- he knows I have vehemently disagreed with him on many an occasion- I'm just aiming for some balance. Is Rush Limbaugh really a junkie? what a fucking hypocrite- could he be posting here disguised as M-O-M?
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I don't know if you've read any of Seymour Hersh's investigative articles, but here is a great one that is relevant to the Abu Ghraib issue (also check out his other articles), and why I believe that the soldiers who were prosecuted were, in fact, the *least* culpable in the torture.
http://tinyurl.com/ywgmeg
Let me pull out this quote that illustrates how the guards were *instructed* on techniques. Those who gave them the instructions were never ID'd nor charged. And it goes without saying that Donald Rumsfeld, who explicitly authorized the torture, walked away scott-free:
"Myers, who was one of the military defense attorneys in the My Lai prosecutions of the nineteen-seventies, told me that his client’s defense will be that he was carrying out the orders of his superiors and, in particular, the directions of military intelligence. He said, “Do you really think a group of kids from rural Virginia decided to do this on their own? Decided that the best way to embarrass Arabs and make them talk was to have them walk around nude?”
In letters and e-mails to family members, Frederick repeatedly noted that the military-intelligence teams, which included C.I.A. officers and linguists and interrogation specialists from private defense contractors, were the dominant force inside Abu Ghraib. In a letter written in January, he said:
I questioned some of the things that I saw . . . such things as leaving inmates in their cell with no clothes or in female underpants, handcuffing them to the door of their cell—and the answer I got was, “This is how military intelligence (MI) wants it done.” . . . . MI has also instructed us to place a prisoner in an isolation cell with little or no clothes, no toilet or running water, no ventilation or window, for as much as three days.
The military-intelligence officers have “encouraged and told us, ‘Great job,’ they were now getting positive results and information,” Frederick wrote. “CID has been present when the military working dogs were used to intimidate prisoners at MI’s request.” At one point, Frederick told his family, he pulled aside his superior officer, Lieutenant Colonel Jerry Phillabaum, the commander of the 320th M.P. Battalion, and asked about the mistreatment of prisoners. “His reply was ‘Don’t worry about it.’ ”
This was an early article written when the scandal was still fresh. Other articles (and Hersh, in subsequent interviews) revealed worse abuse such as female and child rape that was recorded on video but never released. Certainly the guards directly involved were rightfully court-martialed. But in my opinion, it was those who gave them the orders who are more culpable. Here is another quote from a Guardian article on the matter ( http://tinyurl.com/3xner ):
"It is not clear from the testimony whether the rapist de scribed by Mr Hilas was working for a private contractor or was a US soldier. A private contractor was arrested after the Taguba investigation was completed, but was freed when it was discovered the army had no jurisdiction over him under military or Iraqi law."
Imagine that. No jurisdiction over the people who personally ordered soldiers to torture. What a rabbit hole we've fallen into. It's my opinion that the leadership utterly failed those soldiers by making them the scapegoats of what was otherwise an authorized but illegal official policy. -
You can see Anchorite's own words by Googling "Anchorite brutal and inhumane" ...
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and remember the post really well. I just can't be arsed to find it- if I have to I will.
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I know you love to quote the Guardian, but it is in no way at all a fair and reliable newspaper.It frequently manages a quite breathtaking balancing act of being rabidly pro-labour on the one hand and hugely anti- america on the other. It is also the only British Paper to be for the new constitution. If I saw that article in the Telegraph I would give it more credance, as the Telegraph is strongly to the right and has no axe to grind. just take anything in "The Grauniad" with a pinch of salt.
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Nov 21, 2007 9:50:16 AM CST
LP - I tried to pull a similar article from the Telegraph
by bringingsexyback
but no dice. I can't even access their homepage - are they limited to UK browsing?
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I'll get back to you with a link.
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http://tinyurl.com/24hlh8If this is true then someone's up at the top should fucking swing....
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Great article - I was trying to link to another but that was one I hadn't read before. I wasn't aware that Sanchez was present at Abu Ghraib.
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because it is- It's just more trustworthy on issues like this. The guardian is FAR better on lots of other things. They're both miles ahead of the extreme papers on both sides. British Journalism seems to be in a right fucking mess at the moment- ever since the emasculation of the BBC in the Hutton report. (Not that the BBC seems to be anything more than the propaganda wing of new labour)sorry, I'm rambling- just bored at work
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Get over it.
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Funny shit...
Make a pumpkin pie or something. Happy Thanksgiving. -
That there almost as many posts here as the number of people who paid to see Redacted last weekend? It's already being pulled at theaters where it did bubkis...
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I'm gonna preface this by saying, Shag, I have enjoyed debating with you here. Some people want to make snide, rude comments. You do so by sticking to your guns and not being an ass. That is admired and appreciated.
However.........
Here's where your argument falls apart. If ANYONE tells you a painkiller is not addictive or it is unknown how addictive it is, they are lying. Plain and simple, all painkillers are adictive. That's the nature of the beast. I had all four wisdom teeth extraced and was prescribed Percoset before it became the hot drug to abuse in Hollywood. I knew painkillers are the most addictive of all drugs. I knew to monitor myself and not overmedicate. Any MD worth their salt will tell a patient that ANY painkiller is addictive. Yeah, I know I've said it again and again, but it can't be said enough. If Rush truly believed that Oxy wasn't thought to be addictive, than he was a fool for listening to whoever told him that. -
Tal, it wasn't just the bad guy soldiers who overacted. Even the 'good guys' were way off target performance-wise as well. Wouldn't be surprised to find out this movie was made in one take a la the 'Saw' franchise. And if your statement about 'overacting' being real were true, there should still be a scene wherein we breach that artifice and find the real. That simply did not exist within the context of this film. I am against the war in Iraq, but I have loved many anti-war docs and narrative films not because of what they were about, but because of how they were about it. I cannot stand behind a film that pretends to show the gritty reality of a horrible thing that happened, only to do so in a trite and sensationalistic fashion. If I wanted that, I could easily watch the TV news.
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Brian DePalma is not.Any questions?
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Despite all of the press and hype generated it bombed horribly. It made approx $25,628. Apparently 3,000 people went to see this turd of a movie. In the NY Post one person said, "Not even people who presumably agree with the movie's antiwar thesis made the effort to see it". Regardless of subject matter it was a big piece of crap.
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