"Let's be careful out there ......"
Posted on 07/24/2005 6:36:13 AM PDT by Flavius
Hill Street Blues strays into the Iraq war zone Sarah Baxter, New York AN American soldier leans over an anonymous Iraqi corpse. “This dude was right there when I capped him,” he says. His friend whistles and says: “Nice shot.”
Is it a depiction of war, a celebration of killing or a fair portrayal of the Iraqi conflict as experienced by US troops? American viewers will make up their minds this week with the launch of Over There, a drama series by Steven Bochco, the pioneering creator of Hill Street Blues and NYPD Blue.
It is the first television dramatisation of a war in progress. While M*A*S*H satirised the Vietnam war from the safe distance of Korea, Over There aims to reflect the life of ordinary grunts who are still being sent on their first tour of duty in Iraq.
The violence is unsparing. In one episode an American opens fire at a speeding vehicle at a checkpoint and finds a young Iraqi girl in the wreckage, who blinks at him before dying. A soldier has his leg blown off by a landmine. Inevitably, after the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, one of the characters is a sadistic female guard.
Some critics are already suggesting that the series is too gung-ho. “If you are going to cue amped-up electric guitars every time American soldiers lift their machineguns, it is going to feel a trifle hawkish, yes?” commented the New York Observer.
The Iraqis are treated in early episodes as a backdrop to the dramas facing US soldiers. Rarely accorded a name, they are often hooded or masked and they fall and die as the twists of the plot dictate.
Bochco will not give his views of the conflict. “The moment you take a political position you are providing answers, not questions,” he said. “I’d just like people to ask questions.”
The action in Iraq intersects with the lives of wives and soldiers back home coping with absence, affairs and the loyalty shown by army families.
Michelle Joyner of the National Military Family Association, who has not yet seen Over There, said she was apprehensive about it: “One of the greatest sources of support for military families is the civilians who stand up and say we understand your sacrifice. Is it going to raise awareness of what we’re going through or is it going to cause stress for those who have a loved one serving in Iraq?” Bochco and Chris Gerolmo, the director who wrote the civil rights thriller Mississippi Burning, hired a war veteran, Staff Sergeant Sean Bunch, to put the actors such as Lizette Carrion, who plays a private, through boot camp.
The rapper Kirk “Sticky Fingaz” Jones, who plays a character named Smoke, said: “We bonded like a real platoon. They taught us how to walk, how to carry a gun, how to be an official army.”
>>The rapper Kirk “Sticky Fingaz” Jones, who plays a character named Smoke, said: “We bonded like a real platoon. They taught us how to walk, how to carry a gun, how to be an official army.<<
Yeah. . .sure they did.
Should be good for a laugh....
Shrillary's campaign is officially launched by the Hollyweirdos.
Fixed it
This is going to be as helpful as an upcoming movie about Fallujah with harrison ford.
The "directors" really ought to stick with making movies about aliens and bug out.
Note the use of the word "still". Lefty pap.
Agree on that. . .when Hollywood makes movies about things they know nothing about, or with an agenda, or both, the result is bile.
Say what?
"Let's be careful out there ......"
Telling sentence here. Not that we shouldn't ask the correct questions to make sure our troops in the field have all they need to do their job, but somehow I don't think those are the kinds of "questions" Bochco will want to generate.
http://www.themovieinsider.com/news/nid/1451/Harrison_Ford_Battles_'No_True_Glory:_The_Battle_for_Fallujah'
Harrison Ford is set to play one of the main characters in the first major film about the war in Iraq, according to Daily Variety.
The film will be based on the upcoming book "No True Glory: The Battle for Fallujah," which will be published next May.
Ford will play Jim Mattis, the General who led the US assault on Fallujah following the murder of four Americans.
"No True Glory: The Battle for Fallujah" was written by former marine and assistant secretary of defence for international security affairs Bing West.
Now a foreign correspondent covering Iraq, West will write the script for the movie with his son Owen, a marine rifleman who left the service for a job in the financial world but returned to serve in Iraq for a year.
Figures that it got canceled.
Who can forget "Cop Rock". Nuf-said.
Thanks for the info. On paper it doesn't sound bad, but I'm sure with Ford involved there will be a lefty slant somewhere.
Or more recently "Blind Justice".
Yeah, a new movie is currently in production about the Marines in OIF, with Harrison Ford playing Major General James Mattis, the kick-a$$ Marine general who helped bring the Taliban to its knees by leading Joint Task Force-58 deep into Afghanistan in November 2001 and then helped take Baghdad in April 2003 as the CO of the 1st Marine Division. Mattis recently got into trouble with the liberal MSM by saying that it was fun to shoot islamists who beat their women since they lacked "manhood." We need more men like Mattis, and I hope that Hollywood doesn't try to portray him as a nutjob warmonger right out of Apocalypse Now.
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/08/27/1061663852052.html?oneclick=true
Harrison Ford blasts US Iraq policy
August 27, 2003
At a safe distance from his homeland, veteran Hollywood actor Harrison Ford launched a broadside at US policy on Iraq, his country's gun laws - and the film industry for producing "video games" for teenagers.
"I'm very disturbed about the direction American foreign policy is going," said Ford, with US post-war casualties having exceeded those during the actual conflict.
"I think something needs to be done to help alleviate the conditions which have created a disenfranchised and angry faction in the Middle East.
"I don't think military intervention is the correct solution. I regret what we as a country have done so far," said Chicago-born Ford, 62.
I think we've already got a pretty good idea of what your views are, Steven. The mere fact that you are producing one of your slick television series about a war we are still fighting speaks volumes.
Kinda funny to have a stoned-out aging actor who shacks up with a teenager playing the role of a real man...
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