Posted on 08/05/2007 3:59:25 PM PDT by PJ-Comix
Perhaps we should have expected this but apparently The Bourne Ultimatum which opened this weekend is chock full of liberal proganda. So who is making this charge? Some vicious rightwinger with an axe to grind against liberal Hollywood producers? Nope. This is the claim of a liberal movie reviewer, Anthony Kaufman, who wrote the following in his Huffington Post blog, Jason Bourne: An Anti-Cheney American Hero?
A stinging rebuke against Cheney-esque black ops and torture tactics, Universal Pictures' The Bourne Ultimatum is more than just a heart-stopping international espionage thriller: It is Hollywood's most direct attack against the Bush Regime since George Clooney's one-two punch of Good Night and Good Luck and Syriana. If those more "sophisticated" dramas preached to the choir about our deteriorating civil liberties and oil-fueled overseas obsessions, the third film in the mega-successful Bourne action franchise offers up a picture of corrupt clandestine leadership for all to see -- where every Matt Damon fan can also enjoy high-powered American government officials as arch-villains committing treasonous and reckless activities without oversight.
In case we have any doubts that The Bourne Ultimatum is a liberal fantasy, Kaufman "reassures" us that it is:
But is the film really a liberal fantasy, where the bad CIA leaders get punished for their penchant for waterboarding, "experimental interrogations," "rendition" and the manipulation of American soldiers' minds with intimidation and humiliation? It sure seems so, as bullish Rumsfeld-like strategies are depicted as inept, while the sensitive, sympathetic touch of Joan Allen's CIA head Pamela Landy is shown as the most effective way to combat renegade forces. If conservatives like to label Tinseltown as leftwing, The Bourne Ultimatum should do little to assuage their concerns.
Thank you for that admission of Hollywood being leftwing, Anthony. At least that is something that most in the media won't admit. Kaufman finishes his review with an admiring look at a scene involving "moral complexity" chock full of nuances that a John Kerry would love:
Then again, perhaps the film allows us to have our blood-soaked cake and eat it, too. Matt Damon's Jason Bourne is a guilt-ridden CIA assassin, who glowers and suffers every time he swiftly strikes a rival down. But as audiences, we still bask in his every murder. Even though Bourne hates being a killing machine, I suspect audiences like it very much. After all, that's the chief source of the movie's thrills. I'd bet director Paul Greengrass (who showed some sensitivity towards depicting the 9/11 terrorists as human beings in United 93) intentionally tried to offer some moral complexity to a scene where Bourne strangles to death an obviously Arab enemy assassin. But how many people will pick up on that? Or will they just whoop and holler with the rising body count?
Most likely, no matter how hard Hollywood tries, most of the audience will overlook the obvious liberal propaganda of The Bourne Ultimatum and "whoop and holler" over the "rising body count" action. Something similar happened with another recent movie, Shooter, starring Mark Wahlberg. It also featured the standard leftwing proganda including a portrayal by Ned Beatty as an absurdly charicatured EVIL rightwing senator who practically drooled bile all over himself. So ridiculous in the propaganda department was Shooter that one of the few good guys in the FBI wore a Che Guevara T-shirt when he was off duty. Therefore be prepared for another leftwing proganda onslaught if you see The Bourne Ultimatum. The physical action, as in Shooter, is good but you will have to put on your political proganda filters in order to keep from groaning out loud.
I saw it yesterday. The herky jerky camera shots weren’t quite as annoying as the last movie, and the action was pretty good.
The overall message I got from the movie was that it wasn’t a good thing for US field intelligence to unilaterally order the execution of US citizens, which is actually something that I agree shouldn’t be allowed.
I agree...great movie.
If Cheney could be proven to have done something illegal, most of us would approve of him being taken to task just like anyone else. The real problem here is that Cheney is merely the focus of those who hate this administration. And I won't stop there. They hate this government. No not just this administration, they hate this form of government. They are doing their damndest to change it. I don't care if it's an AU (similar to the EU), the FTAA or even a lowly transnational security agreement, they want our checks and balances destroyed. Any of these will do that.
Why would they dump on Cheney to further their cause, if he actually desires an FTAA or international security agreement? Well, by destroying the top leaders of the Republican party (the titular head of conservatism even if it isn't operating that way now) they can kill any chance of resurgence. "We don't want more Ronald Reagans than you very much..."
Cheney is a very capable individual and has the eagle eye. This unnerves the left. How could a person be this competent and at the same time be this confident? That’s it! “He must think he knows everything!” Now string him up.
Here we see the democrat party dipped in a socialism undercoat and painted with Marxist flamboyance for all to see. It’s a party more suited to Marxist Europe if not Russia itself. No lesson from history is acknowledged by them. Whee, let’s do it all again people.
We have the left incorporating fascist tactics to gain control of energy and the environment. This translates into an attack on our freedoms, namely land ownership and movement. And it translates to them dictating to everyone else what they can and can’t do. Where have we seen this before? Russia? Germany? China?
We also have the left trying to destroy the war effort. If the terrorists gain ground, freedom looses ground. Hmmm, that might not be all that bad for someone intent on gaining absolute control themselves. Let the terrorists do our work for us, then we can swoop in and probide safety through absolute control.
There’s a power play going on there. Socialists and Marxists can’t sell their world view based on the hard cold truth they represent. No, you have to find some cause to veil it in. Do you want to kill the planet? Join us! Are you an evil warmonger for backing a military response to terorism? You better not be. Nevermind that not standing up to an evil enterprise is faciliting evil, or plain evil itself. No, you better join us! If you don’t you are evil! What’s that you say, Socialism and Marxism are evil. Look, get your priorities straight. The ends justifies the means.
We critique our government on point. If the government is growing too big, we challenge. We don’t want to destroy it. We would rather get it back under control, tweak it, make mid-course corrections. These folks don’t mind demonizing our government for all the wrong reasons. They don’t want to fix it. They want to destroy it. If they can undermine faith in our Executive, Legislative and Judicial branches, they’ve done their work. When we see bad actions on the behalf of these government branches, we see the effort to gain control of us being played out. Leftist Legislators, Judges and Presidents are hell bent on destroying our confidence. The worse the decision (at this point) the better. Yes we're tht far down the road. No need to hide the goal any longer.
Now, when the right participates, it just dumb luck. It plays into the long term plans of the left. It furthers the left’s cause. In the end they hope to install the type of governance that has killed hundreds of millions around the planet just in the last century alone.
Today we see a full court press from the left. They are intent on crippling our economy over the environment. They are intent on spreading disinformation from every possible edifice. They are seeking to break down the government, the community and our families. In the past you have asked yourself, "How could any sane person back that policy?" Well now you know. They are technically insane. They are dedicated. And of course, insane to act as they do in light of historical evidence.
In the 60’s my dad used to get angry when he’d see people try to tear down the government. In some ways I thought he was over-reacting. Today I think he was just ahead of his time. In today’s environment ignorance is the only excuse for saying it really doesn’t matter.
Folks, it matters. McCarthy may have been somewhat of a fool, but if you think what he was trying to prevent was a vapor trail, you’re just not tuned in. Well, that's how I see it. Even if it may not be clearly expressed or expressed the way you'd like to see it.
I think so too. He was a fave of mine.
Except the Johnathan Ryder and Michael Shephard books... he should have never copped to writing those.
I won’t be watching either....they lost me last season.
Didn't see much left wing propaganda in it - the coming attractions previewed two that seem to drip with Bush bashing, though: Lions for Lambs and Rendition... Can't wait to see those (sarc)...
Yes, Frank Miller has a way with metaphor that the audience can connect to. I’m glad that his story remained intact when it was translated to the screen.
I suspect you’re right.
“Regime” is such an insult and used by little minds. It is the “Bush Administration” and would be called such by any civil, respectful opponent.
I thought you had it right the first time. ;-)
In other words, our own “Manchurian Candidates”?
Before the movie started the theatre showed a trailer for “Rendition” starring Reese Witherspoon which will shortly be making its debut all over the world.
“Rendition is multi-layered story centering on a CIA analyst (Jake Gyllenhaal) based in Cairo who finds his world spinning out of control after he witnesses the interrogation of a foreign national by the Egyptian secret police.
Reese has been tapped to play Isabella El-Ibrahim, the pregnant American wife of an Egyptian-born chemical engineer whose family emigrated to the States in the mid 1980s, who is shipped off to a third world country for interrogation after he is deemed a political prisoner in our post-9/11 world. Alan Arkin will play a senator who tries to help Reese’s character in her search for her missing husband. The investigation eventually threatens the senator’s position in Washington.”
Watch the trailer and puke:
http://r-witherspoon.com/newsroom/?cat=4
I thought “Shooter” was laughable. Where did they get the bullet for the assassination? Dug out of a mountainside? Who the heck pulls their firing pins? Why not just pull the bolt? I can see someone looking at a particular firing pin and wondering which gun it goes to.
Grassy knoll garbage again? Oh please.
Paper patches save rifling?
Standing in the middle of a river with a .22 and shooting into a darkened boathouse? Yeah, right.
How come the African knew where the snipers were shooting from? Gilley suits didn’t work?
I’m out of time.
Enemy of The State is one of my favorite movies, and was released in 1988, during Clinton's second term, and three years before 9/11. There is early on in the picture a scene in which Will Smith's wife -- an ACLU lawyer (played by 24's Regina King) -- is screaming at the TV while watching Larry King Live as King's guests are debating the rights of suspected terrorists. She is, natch, on the side of the terrorists.
LOL, you may have me there. I think a lot of people on the left mean well but have bought the whole program without thinking it through. Thus they are not clinical, but just idiotic through ignorance.
I agree. The CIA is so off the reservation these days that any damage a fictional character does to a fictional CIA in the middle of a fictional movie is fine by me.
great, great flick. I’d pay to see it again.
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