Posted on 03/03/2006 6:23:00 AM PST by blitzgig
Nothing tells you more about Hollywood than what it chooses to honor. Nominated for best foreign-language film is "Paradise Now," a sympathetic portrayal of two suicide bombers. Nominated for best picture is "Munich," a sympathetic portrayal of yesterday's fashion in barbarism: homicide terrorism.
But until you see "Syriana," nominated for best screenplay (and George Clooney, for best supporting actor) you have no idea how self-flagellation and self-loathing pass for complexity and moral seriousness in Hollywood.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
This is definetly not the hollywood of Jimmy Stewart, Clark Gable, Don Adams, David Niven, Lee Marvin, and above all of them Audie Murphy.
The only bit I'm interested in are the opening remarks by this year's host. Just to see just how much sweetener he puts on his otherwise caustic remarks.
To say nothing of The Duke.
bump
We used to have Audie Murphy, Clark Gable, Jimmy Stewart.....
Now we have Clooney and Damon and Penn and Robbins....
'Nuff said!
Where is Joe McCarthy when we need him?
From Town Hall:
Nothing tells you more about Hollywood than what it chooses to honor. Nominated for best foreign film is "Paradise Now,'' a sympathetic portrayal of two suicide bombers. Nominated for best picture is "Munich,'' a sympathetic portrayal of yesterday's fashion in barbarism: homicide terrorism.
But until you see "Syriana,'' nominated for best screenplay (and George Clooney, for best supporting actor) you have no idea how self-flagellation and self-loathing pass for complexity and moral seriousness in Hollywood.
"Syriana's'' script has, of course, the classic liberal tropes such as this stage direction: "The Deputy National Security Advisor, MARILYN RICHARDS, 40's, sculpted hair, with the soul of a seventy year-old white, Republican male, is in charge'' (Page 21). Or this piece of over-the-top, Gordon Gekko Republican-speak, placed in the mouth of a Texas oilman: "Corruption is our protection. Corruption is what keeps us safe and warm. ... Corruption ... is how we win'' (Page 93).
But that's run-of-the-mill Hollywood. The true distinction of "Syriana's'' script is the near-incomprehensible plot -- a muddled mix of story lines about a corrupt Kazakhstan oil deal, a succession struggle in an oil-rich Arab kingdom and a giant Texas oil company that pulls the strings at the CIA and, naturally, everywhere else -- amid which, only two things are absolutely clear and coherent: the movie's one political hero and one pure soul.
The political hero is the Arab prince who wants to end corruption, inequality and oppression in his country. As he tells his tribal elders, he intends to modernize his country by bringing the rule of law, market efficiency, women's rights and democracy.
What do you think happens to him? He, his beautiful wife and beautiful children are murdered, incinerated, by a remote-controlled missile, fired from CIA headquarters in Langley, no less -- at the very moment that (this passes for subtle cross-cutting film editing) his evil younger brother, the corrupt rival to the throne and puppet of the oil company, is being hailed at a suitably garish ``oilman of the year'' celebration populated by fat and ugly Americans.
What is grotesque about this moment of plot clarity is that the overwhelmingly obvious critique of actual U.S. policy in the real Middle East today is its excess of Wilsonian idealism in trying to find and promote -- against a tide of tyranny, intolerance and fanaticism -- local leaders like the Good Prince. Who in the greater Middle East is closest to "Syriana's'' modernizing, democratizing paragon? Without a doubt, President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan, a man of exemplary -- and quite nonfictional -- personal integrity, physical courage and democratic temperament. Hundreds of brave American (and allied NATO) soldiers have died protecting him and the democratic system they established to allow him to govern. On the very night the Oscars will be honoring "Syriana,'' American soldiers will be fighting, some perhaps dying, in defense of precisely the kind of tolerant, modernizing Muslim leader that "Syriana'' shows America slaughtering.
It gets worse. The most pernicious element in the movie is the character who is at the moral heart of the film: the physically beautiful, modest, caring, generous Pakistani who becomes a beautiful, modest, caring, generous ... suicide bomber. In his final act, the Pure One, dressed in the purest white robes, takes his explosives-laden little motorboat head first into his target. It is a replay of the real-life boat that plunged into the USS Cole in 2000, killing 17 American sailors, except that in ``Syriana's'' version, the target is another symbol of American imperialism in the Persian Gulf -- a newly opened liquefied natural gas terminal.
The explosion, which would have the force of a nuclear bomb, constitutes the moral high point of the movie, the moment of climactic cleansing, as the Pure One clad in white merges with the great white mass of the huge terminal wall, at which point the screen goes pure white. And reverently silent.
In my naivete, I used to think that Hollywood had achieved its nadir with Oliver Stone's "JFK,'' a film that taught a generation of Americans that President Kennedy was assassinated by the CIA and the FBI in collaboration with Lyndon Johnson. But at least it was for domestic consumption, an internal affair of only marginal interest to other countries. "Syriana,'' however, is meant for export, carrying the most vicious and pernicious mendacities about America to a receptive world.
Most liberalism is angst- and guilt-ridden, seeing moral equivalence everywhere. "Syriana'' is of a different species entirely -- a pathological variety that burns with the certainty of its malign anti-Americanism. Osama bin Laden could not have scripted this film with more conviction.
"Syriana," however, is meant for export, carrying the most vicious and pernicious mendacities about America to a receptive world."
How about the even worse movie that's been made in Turkey. With American actors, who? Gary Busey I seem to recall and somebody else famous. They even have the eeeeeevil Jeeeeewish doctor abusing corpses for organs. Disgusting, sorry I can't recall the title. Will they show that one here? Will it play in Peroria?
I think that rather than watching the Oscars I'll watch my DVD TEAM AMERICA....
Modern-day Babylon:
Worshipping everything except One True God... (especially the god of the gold statue)
Disparaging those worthy of honor....
Honoring only the dishonorable...
I'm just sayin'.....
Turned into Pervertywood.
Oscars? WGF anymore!
The reason the Duke wasn't on my list, is that the people on my list are all combat veterans.
Jimmy Stewart - USAAF WW2 ETO bomber pilot
Clark Gable - USAAF WW22 8th AF B17 Gunner
Don Adams - USMC - Guadacanal
David Niven - Royal Commandoes Normandy ETO
Lee Marvin - USMC - Saipan
Audie Murphy - US Army - N Africa, Italy France Germany
CMO
John Wayne is/was a great American film star, but these guys were just a little different.
I saw an ad that Ollie North's war stories Sunday night is going to be about how Hollywood helped the WWII effort. Huge contrast with today!
Thank you, I think I'll be able to remember it now. I just wasn't thinking it was real for a while. I never could stand that Gary Busey, he strikes me as one of the most self-satisfied people, with the least reason for being so.
I cannot bring myself to see Syriana. And of course the other one, fuggetaboutit. My Israeli-born friend who is a director wryly pointed out to me last night that the so-called Palestinian film is really an Israeli film, as the filmmaker is an Israeli Arab. *There is no Palestine.*
I love Krauthammer.
In my apartment building the leftists who demonize the oil companies are also the first to demand that the heat be turned up and the first to whine about energy surcharges on their monthly bills. For the life of me, I can't figure out their reasoning.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.