Posted on 11/01/2005 11:10:17 AM PST by laney
Part coming-of-age story, part military-training horror show, part bawdy male-bonding romp, and part poetic meditation on the murderous impulses of men at war, director Sam Mendes' Jarhead (opening Nov. 4) doesn't offer much in the way of conventional, audience-pleasing payoffs.
It's about being worn down by fear in a combat zone where the war could start at any minute, but doesn't in fact commence for months after deployment. Jake Gyllenhaal stars as a grunt who's molded into an expert sniper, then left with no chance to strut his stuff because the Gulf War is over in a flash. Peter Sarsgaard is his loyal, hard-nosed sniper-scout partner, but it's not a warm-fuzzy, buddy-buddy kind of relationship — no cute clips to push on that score — while Jamie Foxx (pictured with Gyllenhaal), the Oscar-winning star of Ray, takes a peppery supporting turn as a tough-love sergeant.
As journalists take in the film for the first time, Mendes is suddenly realizing that misperception could be an issue. ''I can feel people talking about the movie they expected to see,'' he says. ''They expected a much more specific political commentary about what's going on in Iraq right now. I think they were shocked that it was so comedic, and that it was so specifically about Desert Storm.'' The director, in turn, has been taken aback to see prerelease articles writing off Jarhead's impact sight unseen. ''I've read pieces about why this movie's already in danger of becoming irrelevant,'' he reports, looking incredulous. ''That the problem is, real-life events are going to overtake it. Huh? It's about Operation Desert Storm! How can events overtake it?''
The thing is lots of people like to look up artists' political donations regardless of their being vocal about it. If you do that you may as well not see anything.
What makes me leary is that my liberal cousin told me last year that he was reading a provocative book called "Jarhead".
He wouldn't of read it or spoken of it if it had any redeeming qualities.
See 92 for some explanation. Some films just work for some people and not for others. Books and films with themes like that are interesting to me. I don't necessarily have to agree with them to like them. With that said, I don't see the great evil that American Beauty spawned on the world that so many on here seem to see.
Did you read the book? He mentions "oil" maybe 3 times, and Cheney maybe once.
He says that the group he was in was talking about being in the "Petrol Batallion" or the "oil brigade", I took as nothing more than guys joking around before going into war. The same kind of jokes were made in the book Generation Kill. An he says that Cheney's visit to Saudi Arabia was the first time American military set foot in S.A.
A reference to a liberal talking point doesn't mean the author is spewing liberalism all over the page.
Certainly sounds like garbage.
see my reply #84
Thanks for the very rational thoughts. I agree, the book has alot of embellishment.
I'll put money on your prediction.
$10.00 says you are right.
My dislike has nothing to do with politics. I like 'The Grapes of Wrath' which way to the left of American Beauty. :-) There was just nothing new or insightful about it. It falls into the all my criteria for Bad Art. Tells the audience what to think characters that are complete sterotypes. And being told how 'poetic' that floating bag is made my blood boil. For a great picture of an alientated teen see 'Ghost World' also with Thora Birch.
Exactly, if we boycott every movie with liberal spin, then we'll miss a ton of good movies. We can obviously sort out the liberalism in our movies... no one here watched Apocalypse Now and now hates the military.
I love the irony of politically outspoken people getting mad at others for being politically outspoken. And you could drive yourself insane trying to only deal with people who you can be sure agree with you politically. Especially if you are looking for entertainment beyond watching paint dry.
So did the SF guys who are working in the Southern Philippines - they've taken to seeding their perimeters with coconuts and then centering the coconut in a claymore's kill zone: the MILF assault teams invariably run into a coconut as they try to infiltrate our perimeter, and then it's just a case of waiting until they're all clustered around the nut staring at it, waxing philosophical about why they're there and what war's about, before firing the mine and putting them out of their misery.
I don't think it was CSI. Sounds like "Under Seige" starrring Denzel Washington, Annette Benning, and Bruce Willis, directed by the guy who directed Glory. It was made in 1999, and has the distinction of being the last time a Hollywood film had an Arab/Palestinian villain.
Good or not - I intend to miss them. Hollywierd needs to evolve past its hatred of God and the United States.
See I watched Ghost World and didn't particularly like it. I might give it another shot though. I wasn't really sure what to expect and don't think I was in the right frame of mind for that movie when I watched it.
Perhaps you could support directors that you would choose to see. Or are all movies supposed to fall in line with your thinking of what should be in the theaters? Read the reviews and make a educated judgement based on that.
Iknow, I know, it's about Army Pukes, but other than that any response to it?
I've watched most segments and they've seemed fairly compassionate and insightful in dealing with the issues on the ground and at home.
It's quite critical of the primary character. Unlike AB which makes cheap disaffection seem heroic.
It wasn't the nihilism that got me, nessarily. Most of it was the sick obsession the married suburbanite had with the young girl. That was a large part of the movie.
BTW, if you like actors that don't speak of politics I don't know why you would like Spacey. He was a very high profile suppoter of Bill Clinton.
I'd never believe trailers about a war movie made in hollywierd. They know what they have to do to get an audience. And they also know who they have to please in order to make the movie. And those are two opposites.
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.