he movie AMERICAN SNIPER opens up another definition of the word “hero” – a sneaky prick who shoots you in the back. And it got me thinking: Just what is this American fascination with the term “hero?” The word is bandied about like a stray volleyball, encapsulating foopball players, ath-o-letes, musicians, actors, to people who are merely doing their job … Read More
AMERICAN SNIPER
The Sheepdog Cometh. Clint Eastwood directs Bradley Cooper as AMERICAN SNIPER Chris Kyle in a heroic story about a decidedly unheroic slimeball. They call Chris Kyle America’s Greatest Sniper, racking up over 160 confirmed kills over four tours in Iraq. Kyle, a Navy SEAL, who supposedly adheres to a much higher code of honor than us regular cucumbers, self-effacingly claims … Read More
WHY WE DID IT
Illicit President, Illicit War. The short answer: Oil. The long answer: Oil, money, prostitutes. First of all: Who’s “we,” sucka? WHY WE DID IT, an MSBNC documentary, narrated by master journalist Rachel Maddow, details the deep background on why president George W. Bush and his slavemaster VP Dick Cheney took the United States to war in Iraq in 2003 under … Read More
WITCHFYNDER GENERAL DEFROCKED | The Resignation of David Petraeus and the Humiliation of the CIA.
avid Petraeus, though resigning as CIA Director under inauspicious circumstances, is being heralded as a warrior poet, a god-king, a “legend” who “saved the war in Iraq,” “one of the outstanding generals of his day”; President Obama effused that Petraeus “served with intellectual rigor, dedication and patriotism.” But David Petraeus is a piece of shit. Why? It’s not because he … Read More
DEAR JOHN
Dear John, I never want to see you again. Who knew dating was so frickin’ BORING?! DEAR JON is a weepy date movie, where army guy Brick Rockchest (Channing Tatum, champion mumbler) meets beach chick Blondie Cocktease (Amanda Seyfried) and they bore us going on talk-dates. Then they get caught in the rain and kiss. Then they have a beach … Read More
THE MEN WHO STARE AT GOATS
The Film That Stares Into Space. Your tax dollars at work. A few years ago, I read about the U.S. military exploring “paranormal combat techniques” in George W. Bush’s Fake War On Terror: using goats as test subjects, the Amerikan Military were trying to train soldiers to kill terrorists by staring at them to psychically stop their hearts. No, it’s … Read More
BROTHERS
Broham Interruptus. Don’t you just hate it when your brother goes off to war and he supposedly gets killed, and you start putting the moves on his wife, and then he comes back? Don’t you just hate that?! What separates Jim Sheridan‘s BROTHERS from Michael Bay’s PEARL HARBOR (same plot, different war) is that BROTHERS is watchable. Starring Tobey Maguire … Read More
THREE KINGS
KELLY’S HEROES without the ragtag. War is not just Hell. In THREE KINGS, it is confusing as Hell. Four American soldiers behind enemy lines on a mission; they’re not here to fight a battle, they’re here to rob a bank. If the plot sounds familiar, it is KELLY’S HEROES for the morally ambiguous generation. THREE KINGS is a stunning, ferocious … Read More
THE HURT LOCKER
Heroic Movie about a Non-Heroic War. Baghdad, 2004. THE HURT LOCKER opens with a quote from journalist Chris Hedges: “…war is a drug.” Apparently, a drug not only to its combatants, but on the populace fooled by its “glamour” and on directors who fuel that glamour. Kathryn Bigelow directs this one-note movie – supposedly a horrifying closeup of a bomb … Read More
REDACTED
Hell on Earth, overlorded by Satan Bush. Iraq calls America The Great Satan. REDACTED shows us why. Written and directed by Brian de Palma, we follow a small cadre of American troops for a few explosive havoc days of rape and murder in Samara, Iraq. Based on a real account of the rape and murder of a 15-year-old Samara girl, … Read More
STOP-LOSS
Nothing Stops the Loss. “FUCK THE PRESIDENT!” I didn’t say it. Ryan Phillippe did. In its stunning 37th minute, STOP-LOSS gets raw as Staff Sergeant Brandon King (Phillippe) protests being “stop-lossed” – involuntarily deployed again after his voluntary service to the U.S. military has ended. The Stop-Loss program is exactly what it sounds like: a fine print clause in military … Read More
LIONS FOR LAMBS
Roaring Thunder for Republican Muttonheads. Lest we forget: Robert Redford once brought down Satan Nixon in ALL THE PRESIDENT’S MEN; in LIONS FOR LAMBS, he goes for the neck-wattle of Demon W. Bush. Razor-sharp writing, controlled direction, magnificent performances, LIONS FOR LAMBS is a wake up call to America – wake up and smell the lunatic euphemisms the Republican administration … Read More
JARHEAD
JARHEAD is the new JACKET. Military men are just dumb stupid animals to be used as pawns in foreign policy. — Henry Kissinger. “Every war is different. Every war is the same.” Kubrick’s FULL METAL JACKET (1987) followed U.S. Marines from boot camp to Viet Nam. Director Sam Mendes keeps the formula and updates the war in JARHEAD (to the … Read More
FAHRENHEIT 9/11
My Fellow Americans (er…kind of), One part of me wants to live the peaceable life, wallowing in my hobbit hole, unmindful of the B-29 Superfortresses amassing off the Normandy Coast, staring out at the stars and asserting that Clint Eastwood is the greatest example of Manhood in our century, whilst another side of me wants to shake the shoulders and … Read More