Posted on 07/18/2005 3:32:19 PM PDT by rang1995
Hollywood tiptoes around terror
David Koepp, who wrote the screenplay for "War of the Worlds," says the Martian attackers in the film represent the American military, while the Americans being slaughtered at random represent Iraqi civilians. I see it differently. I think the Martians symbolize normal Americans, while those being attacked are the numbskulls who run Hollywood. Perhaps the normals went a bit too far in this easy-to-understand allegory, but think of the provocation.
Koepp made the "there-is-no-Internet" mistake, carefully masking his analysis in U.S. interviews, but saying it flat-out in Rue Morgue, an obscure Canadian horror magazine, which he apparently thought nobody would notice.
But as the movie makes clear, once the normals begin to track you with their newfangled technology, there is no escape. They can find you even in Canada.
Hollywood has grown eye-poppingly angry with the rest of the country, mostly over Bush and Iraq, but partly, at least, because the left-coasters apparently thought they were somehow entitled to a string of Democratic Presidents after Clinton.
"There is a tremendous drive in Hollywood to exculpate Islamofascist terrorists," columnist Michael Medved says. No movie has been made about the terrorists since 9/11, nothing on Al Qaeda, the Taliban, Daniel Pearl, Saddam Hussein, the USS Cole, the embassy attacks, the daring and impressive attempts to track down terrorists. Nothing.
Not even a movie about heroic action after 9/11 - the firemen who ran upstairs to their deaths to save others in the twin towers, the people who drove all night from Texas and the South to help New Yorkers cope with the disaster.
But wait. Help is on the way. Hollywood is still reluctant to irritate terrorists, but a few movies about 9/11 heroes are on the way.
And whom did Paramount pick for the highest-profile one? Oliver Stone, the unhinged director/screenwriter who refers to 9/11 as a justified "revolt" against the established order and the six companies he thinks control the world.
At a panel after 9/11, Stone said that the Palestinians who danced at the news of the attack were reacting just as people responded after the revolutions in France and Russia.
He thinks 9/11 may have unleashed as much creative energy as the birth of Einstein.
Internet commentators are going berserk over the idea of a wacky pro-terrorist paranoid directing the first big 9/11 movie. It will focus on two American heroes, not terrorists.
But it could well turn out badly. Besides, why pick Stone? What can be done about the Hollywood brain? And where are those Martian attackers when you really need them?
Originally published on July 18, 2005
"Who in the world is Gary Johnston????????????????"
Top Gun Actor! Former Broadway star, now secret agent with Team America, heck yeah.
That's all spying really is -- acting. And Gary's the best.
Most of these Hollywood 'blockbusters' can be summarized in a paragraph or two - and now they are...
If you have to know a movie's plot or outcome go to themoviespoiler.com - takes a nickel out of H-wood's pocket and makes you realize that the movie probably wasn't worth wasting your money on.
"Gary Johnston is the kind of guy who knows that when you ..."
Does anyone know how long it took Hollywood to produce a war movie after Pearl Harbor? I'd wager (if I wuz the wagerin' type) that it didn't take over two years.
There are no heroics in 'War of the Worlds'!
What ARE you talking about?
The Thunderchild?
The gunner?
I should have said heroics that actually pays off in the long run. What eventually saves humanity is sheer chance. Human beings are up against something completely beyond their ability to combat. Again in this movie you have the American military acting honorably and saving civilians even though they know that they don't really stand a chance.
There were films as early as 1942. However back then the Studio Heads were in direct contact with the Federal goverment and produced such films on demand.
And those films supported the war effort.
This film doesn't? It's about the way American react in times of calamity. Koepp is trying to get European audiences to flock to the movie. Spielberg has made statements in support of invading Iraq.
He's a hack with one good movie...his first.
Duel....he's a small screen guy and should have stayed there.
Doesn't know how to paint a picture with a wide lens.
He's no David Lean, certainly.
Most people aren't. Anyway Lean was a pictorialist with no overridding themes. See 'Empire of the Sun' which was a tribute to Lean. Anyway SS has one of the most astonishing visual imaginations in movie history so I don't know where you get that. You can take his movies to a film school to teach directorial technique. Very few scenes in his movies are routinely directed. Look at the D Day scene from SPR. As a picture of Hell on Earth that's equal to Guernica.
Perhaps we are just pointing out what moves us.
Whoops...I meant to add that I can't stand Picasso except for a few of his Blue pieces.
I'm a Van Gogh, Degas, Seurat type of guy and wouldn't walk across the street to see Pollack or Picasso.
astonishing visual imaginations in movie
Translation: He's just another an AFI film-head who copies those better than himself and hopes nobody notices.
You can say that about all the filmmakers of his generation I guess. The difference his relationship with the 'classics' of the field was much less troubled then say that of Coppola or Scorsese. But I'll say it again his command of the language and grammar of his medium is akin to Mozart. No real formal traning. Just a complete natural.
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.