In Baghdad, A Top Video Rental Is Gibson's 'The Patriot'

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[Hazzardgate]

In Baghdad, A Top Video Rental Is Gibson's 'The Patriot'

People in Baghdad have been spending their evenings watching Hollywood action movies as their city is being pounded by American bombs and artillery, according to an article appearing in Rupert Murdoch's Australian newspapers.

News Limited papers reported today (Tuesday) that a favorite is the Mel Gibson movie The Patriot, in which Gibson plays a revolutionary war figure who reluctantly takes up arms against the British.

One video dealer remarked, "During an evening of air strikes, provided there's electricity, customers want to wind down and be taken in by a story in which the good triumph over the evil, like us against the Americans."

[ItsTheMediaStupid]

You have a point. Look what happened when France's version of GW was Degalle. (SP?)

[Justa]

Hey Ronnie, wouldn't that have been you depicted getting hit in the helmet in the movie?

[ItsTheMediaStupid]

Emm, actually it did happen, not just once either.

[Maedhros]

Then u know more than I do.

[Ditto]

....did you know why this movie was rated R??? I was told that it is because it had KIDS...WITH....GUNS....horrors.

No, it was because of the graphic violence. Heads blown off, people burned alive, stabbed, shot, hacked with tomahawks.... The "kids with guns" upset some of the Brady Bunch, but the R rating was for the violence --- the same with Blackhawk Down and We Were Soldiers. They are not movies for young kids to see.

[Poincare]

The whole church inferno scene has no basis in history and was in fact adapted from Nazi atrocities.

The British burned Irish in locked churches--that's history. As for the Nazi atrocities, you don't have to go further than Waco for a recent episode.

[KsSunflower]

My family thought the movie was great! My husband and I saw it a the theater, but when it came out on video we rented it and my sons (16,13) liked it. My 13 year old had recently been studying about the Revolutionary War and with a background of knowledge, thought it was great. It is absolutely his favorite movie and we now own our own DVD.

He,last year, pitched in a national baseball tournament and when he pitches he repeats the line,"aim small, miss small", from the movie to focus.

[Blue_Ridge_Mtn_Geek]

It sounds that way, but keep in mind that people who sound otherwise tend to lose their tongues, if not their heads and other body parts. . . .so until everyone is sure that Saddam is at room temperature (or perhaps much hotter!) they are likely to continue making conventional noises.

Meanwhile, between watching "The Patriot" and "We Were Soldiers", perhaps some local comic can regale them with these "Iraqi 1-liners":

What is the Iraqi air force motto?
I came, I saw, Iran.

Have you heard about the new Iraqi air force exercise program?
Each morning you raise your hands above your head and leave them there.

What's the five-day forecast for Baghdad?
Two days.

What do Miss Muffet and Saddam Hussein have in common?
They both have Kurds in their way.

What is the best Iraqi job?
Foreign ambassador.

Did you hear that it is twice as easy to train Iraqi fighter pilots?
You only have to teach them to take off.

How do you play Iraqi bingo?
B-52 ... F-16 ... B-1

What is Iraq's national bird?
Duck.

What do Saddam Hussein and General Custer have in common?
They both want to know where the hell those
Tomahawks are coming from!

Why does the Iraqi navy have glass bottom boats?
So they can see their air force.

[Rightwing Conspiratr1]

However, at no time in the Revolution did any British force ever lock the citizens of a town in a church and burn it down, or anything close to that.

Hmmm.. well how about this then (from page 25 of The Life of Andrew Jackson: The Border Captain by Marque James): "A body of British dragoons moved on the Waxhaws to help the Tories, and Major Crawford gathered his squadron to resist. One of the points of assembly was the church. On April 9, 1781, the Jackson brothers and forty others were there when a group of mounted men in country dress was seen approaching by the road. A reenforcement under Captain Nesbit, thought the party at the church. When a few hundred yards away the screen of men without uniforms, who were Tories, turned aside and a company of dragoons with sabers drawn charged the meeting-house. Eleven of the forty men were captured and the church was set on fire. Andy dashed away by the side of his cousin, Leiutenant Thomas Crawford, with a dragoon at their heels."

Quite possibly this is the event which Gibson chose to portray.

[Rightwing Conspiratr1]

Oh by the way Andrew Jackson was 13 at the time, and was captured a day after the church burning at a farmhouse, was forced to clean the boots of the dragoon commander and spent much of the rest of the war imprisoned in Charleston.

[rattrap]

yes, you're the only one...

[Savage Beast]

"a story in which the good triumph over the evil, like us against the Americans."

You got it just backwards, pal. Maybe you'd better watch it again.

[<1/1,000,000th%]

In fact the British frequently tortured and killed Colonists. The families of the signers of the Declaration of Independence had to tolerate their families being executed, starved to death or worse. Are you familiar with this period of American history?

[Maedhros]

I was only denying the specific "burn-down-a-church-with-the-whole-village-inside" scene, which took artistic licence to depict cruelty to the extreme.

[Toespi]

If the Iraqis would like a sense of what our President is like, maybe they would like to see "Braveheart." FREEDOM!!!

[strela]

The guy getting decapitated by the cannonball was cool. (And I got in so much trouble for that - I screened it for my aunt, who had some harsh words for me for not warning her about that scene).

[Busywhiskers]

"BTW, that movie sucked."

I thought it was a great movie. Particularly the part where he and his two young sons ambush the British column. The great thing about that scene was that it drove anti-gun liberals nuts.

[alethia]

I hear you -- and agree wholeheartedly. I am immensely proud of my mostly Scottish heritage (have some German and Cherokee Indian as well).

[Textide]

Good call. The trick is to find the mythic/historical figure that didn't become famous for killing infidels.

[Oztrich Boy]

Major Crawford gathered his squadron to resist. One of the points of assembly was the church. ... a company of dragoons with sabers drawn charged the meeting-house. Eleven of the forty men were captured and the church was set on fire

Quite possibly this is the event which Gibson chose to portray.

And you see no difference between this engagement and the massacre portrayed in The Patriot?

Bagdhad Bob sounds more credible than you.