Tuesday, January 20, 2015
Why I won't be seeing "American Sniper"
It's not that I think it's an immoral movie or the late US sniper Chris Kyle didn't do what was necessary during time of war but philosophically I'm not really into violence so I don't feel the compulsion to go out and see it. What he did in Iraq, his job if you will I can't really quibble with but should it be celebrated? Personally speaking I never held up the pilot of the Enola Gay as a hero of mine, I prefer to think of MLK, Ghandi or the police officers who are killed yearly in the line of duty. I very rarely actually go out to the movies anymore, maybe once or twice a year at best. Last one I saw was the Mockingjay movie only because I read the Hunger Games trilogy and I want to be consistent. Drone strikes against terrorists, sniping and all that - BB's more of a fan but the problem is more Hydra-like. You drone one or two terrorists and ten or twenty more are ready to take their place. I'm reminded of cockroaches and the problem is it's never really solved. In fact it's easier to get rid of cockroaches. OK so I'm not on this movie bandwagon to go out and see it at least not right now:)
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Uninterested as well. Not against the war genre, I liked the 'Band of Brothers' series.
ReplyDeleteOf the films
about D-Day, I liked The Longest Day (so many stars) and "The Americanization of Emily (which a black lieutenant and I went to at Ft. McClellan
in '64). Trivia of interest- the Brit actor, David Niven was an officer in a commando
unit during the invasion of Europe. He summed his experience:
"I will, however, tell you just one thing about the war, my first story and my last. I was asked by some American friends to search out the grave of their son near Bastogne. I found it where they told me I would, but it was among 27,000 others, and I told myself that here, Niven, were 27,000 reasons why you should keep your mouth shut after the war."
I will watch an occasional war movie and I really liked "Saving Private Ryan." Most war movies are multifaceted and I guess Sniper is that too but to me it's just got a single focus, some guy who's good at sniping the enemy. Likewise I'm not really that into Westerns but if I'm flipping the dial one occasionally catches my interest.
DeleteConservative commentary of late. I had thought the great porn debate was kinda settled along the rough consensus of it's generally in poor taste but most of it should be legal. Well apparently a debate that's so Edwin Meese is being revived again in Britain where certain lawmakers want to ban depictions of spanking and such (I'm leading up to a point here). Some social conservative commentators on this side of the pond are cheering them on and are greatly disturbed by what folks can watch (we have to do something). Take those same conservatives and they're not as troubled by depictions of violence in films if it's kind of along a right-wing direction. "Death Wish" where Bronson is reading a paper on the train and shoots a potential mugger with a knife, conservatives LOVE that scene. Sensuality, erotica, porn - bad for Society and maybe we should legislate against it but many of them probably have the complete and original "Hawaii Five-O" on DVD in their entertainment cabinets. Just sayin'.
ReplyDeleteYou should be excited. President Obama is gonna call for raising taxes on the rich tonight.
ReplyDeleteNot excited. Never watch those things. I DO predict that sooner or later, the
Deletemajority will recognize that once we lowered corporate and wealthy taxes, wages stagnated, the rich got richer, the poor poorer and the middle class
shrank, our public iinfracstructure went to hell and we will return to raising taxes on those who won't miss it. Not socialism, just the way we used to be.
Bank on it.
I just read today in the paper the 1% own most of the world's wealth. I'm starting to adjust my thinking.
DeleteWell it's official, most of the right-wing seems to love the movie. It's also official, you're not supposed to criticize the movie.
ReplyDeleteI see Micheal Moore described the guy as a coward, arousing the RW ire.
DeleteFrom one POV, since he earned a lot of medals and was wounded twice,
Moore is out to lunch. From another POV, shooting folks through a scope
at 2000 yards is not the same as hand-to-hand combat. As for the RW crowd, the also loved '300', the tale of the Spartans fighting to the death
at Thermopylae. We progressives only note that there were 400 Thebans and 700 Thespian warriors that fought alongside them. (RW folk ignore than, thinking it was Lesbians, not Thespians, who were hop lite swordsmen from the city of Thespiae....) IMO, the '300' seemed like a reprise of the
'Sword & Sandal' movies of the fifties..'Hercules Against the Tyrants of
Babylon' etc. You could see them at the Cameo for 45 cents back in the day.
I'm guessing "Brokeback Mountain" is not in their DVD collection. BTW Rich Lowry just wrote a gushing column about Sniper.
DeleteThat Brokeback Mt. should have been cast years ago...Liberace and
DeleteRock Hudson as cowpokes.
IMO, part of the RW fascination with the Spartans was the elite oligarchy and a shredded middle class known as helots, to wit:
ReplyDelete"Like all Greek societies Sparta was dominated by male citizens and the most powerful of those came from a select group of families. These were the landed aristocracy, and following reforms credited to Lycurgus in the 6th century BCE (or even earlier), citizens could not indulge in agricultural activities - this was the lot of the helots - but they had to devote themselves to athletic and military training and politics. Helots could not own property and so could not rise to become full-citizens, and this lack of social mobility would come back to haunt Sparta in later centuries."
...and so it came to pass that Sparta was destroyed by simple barbarians, Alaric and
his Visigoths. Only the ruins and movies remain.
Meandering rumination - I know some folks who commute great distances to and from work everyday. First off you're really packing on the miles if you drive everyday. Farthest I ever worked was White Plains from Yonkers. What there's no jobs closer to home? I never had any trouble and some of these people have fairly good resumes. I mean if you live in Poughkeepsie manage something up there like a Walgreen's ya know?
ReplyDeleteDunno, I always lived just a few miles from my job; last 30 years it was a
Delete2 mile trip on a country road. But back during VN at the Twin Cities Ammunition Plant, there were production workers that came 75 miles daily
(although they usually pooled) getting on the road at 5 AM and getting home
at 6PM, Money was good. At Dugway Proving Ground, we had people
commuting almost 100 miles from Salt Lake City (although some of the secretaries would shack up for the week with some soldier). That was about 50 miles through the Stansbury Range and another 50 across Skull Valley,
so traffic was unbelievably light. And my daughter has a fellow professor, of east Indian descent, who daily commutes between Kansas City and Topeka
via the tollway. Ya know, when I was a kid, my Dad walked back and forth
from work!
Unless you're a professor offered a prestigious post at some university or a young doctor just starting out it would seem to go against logic. Might've been reasons in the old days as you pointed out, factories and plants but I just don't understand the modern-day great commute.
DeleteFor some reason, this NRA graph reminds me of Donald Trump's hair.
ReplyDeleteThat was one of the most impressive links you ever hyperlinked to. What is it just you and me now? no Saty?
DeleteWell, I think that you are an IDIOT, then go see SELMA, that may be more of your type of Bull-Shit.
ReplyDeleteFunny but I have no interest in seeing either at the moment. If something is considered some type of cultural requirement then I especially go out of my way to not see it.
DeleteHey BB I got one without even mentioning abortion!
ReplyDeleteCongratulations! IMO, Wayne Lapierre's brother in law. Not sure where
DeleteSaty went. You could try a post about Hindu religion.
or vegan burgers.
DeleteFYI, Mr. Billc is a commenter on far RW blogs and specializes in scatology and excremental obscenities. Where IS Saty?
DeleteWhew I got off easy then! Maybe he misread my post. I simply have to be in the mood to see this flick probably in the DVD stage. WHY is this an issue???
DeleteThe entire government in Yemen resigned. The streets in Sana'a are awash with
ReplyDeletecompeting terrorists. I'm thinking embassy evacuation by helicopter, sort of like they
did in Saigon back in the day. Pondering: GOP congress invites Netahyahu to meet with them, NE Patriots letting the air out of their footballs and the place cards at the
press luncheon before the State of the Union address read ABC News, CBS News,
NBC News - but for Brett Baier and Shep Smith, it just said FOX. And how come we
want to wipe out the wolf, but pitbulls are great pets, huh?
We're bombing the hell out of northern Syria and yet Jihadi John still has this safe haven in the desert somewhere and still stars in beheading videos. Japanese PM Abe might want to ask the coalition why he ain't somewhat dead yet or seriously ailing.
ReplyDeleteThe GOP invited Netanyahu to address congress. He accepted (since he doesn't
ReplyDeletespeak to Obama). Wonder how that will turn out?
Over here our NYS Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver is facing assorted corruption charges and he doesn't even look that upset in 'cuffs.
ReplyDeleteOld Shelly was a basketball player in his younger days. I think he invented
Deletethe partly deflated ball trick.
Oh I knew we'd come around to this.
DeleteThey never had a movie for this guy-
ReplyDelete"Simo Häyhä, a Finn,.... Nicknamed “White Death” by the troops of the Red Army — whom he tormented, dressed in his snow camouflage, during the bitterly cold Winter War of 1939-1940 — Häyhä is, according to statistics, the deadliest sniper in history. Before joining the war, he was a farmer and — in what would surely help for what was to come — a huntsman. Häyhä’s family home was filled with trophies that he received for his superlative marksmanship. Incredibly, he preferred to use iron rather than telescopic sights, which ensured he presented less of a target to enemy gunmen (though even so, he did suffer a disfigurement of his face after being hit by an enemy bullet). When he was asked in 1998 (shortly before the end of his long life; he died aged 96) how he had become such a good marksman, he answered simply, “practice.” 542 confirmed kills...and no sissy scope!
How come no GOP-endorsed movie yet? you know to take the whole family.
DeleteHow about 'Hannity Does Dallas' or 'Fifty Shades Of Conservatism'?
DeleteFunny but modern conservatism does have about that many shades.
DeleteI see Winter Storm Juno is predicted to bring blizzard conditions to the NYC metro
ReplyDeletearea. Better reinforce your igloo and prepare for a non work snow day. Just don't tell Soapy.
I'm wondering if soapie lived in the Tri-State area if he'd venture forth to his hedge-fund job.
DeleteWe've got hardly any snow cover here in Mpls. It's been in the 30-45 degree range and honestly...I couldn't be happier about it.
DeleteIf it gets too ugly I can work from home.
It was the blizzard that wasn't. The media is out of control in this country.
DeleteWe note the GOP is fighting with
ReplyDeleteitself over the abortion bill. Gender against gender, naturally.
If a person who supports mid and later-term abortions is a "moderate" what in blazes is a liberal??
DeleteHow much snow there? Looks like you missed the worst. Moderate =
Deletemiddle of the road, in between. You think the GOP ought to dump all those women and moderates as RINOs? Off-topic observation: your
governor sure looks like one of those Godfather dudes.
8" in Yonkers which would be ok for a porn shoot but not for shutting down the NYC Subway system. Cuomo actually acted like a goombah in issuing his edicts.
DeleteIn the political lexicon moderate used to mean among other things a supporter of early abortion. Now it's kinda Pro-Choice Macabre.
DeletePerhaps the term 'moderate' is defined by the extremes? Like what is a
Deletemoderate stance on gun law? The death penalty ( For, Against and Who Cares?) IMO, Cuomo doesn't measure up to the old man as NY guv..
First off as I've said the son doesn't even qualify his pro-choicism by saying he's "personally-opposed-to-abortion" as the elder Cuomo constantly did. OK so this moderation thing - with pregnancy that'd seem to lend itself easily to a basic math approach. Trimesters, however you do it you can see the gestational process as one long mathematical line if you will and the further pro-choicers are willing to go into the pregnancy the further extreme they become. I'm just saying the Nat'l Journal article constantly referring to pro-choicers who support later-term abortions as "moderates" just doesn't feel right to me, some semantic sleight-of-hand if you will. You apparently disagree.
DeleteI don't disagree. I'm just not sure where on the gestational process a
Deletemoderate should be placed. While there are many who would not permit
abortion for rape, health or religious reason, I doubt many would be in favor of aborting the day or week before birth (unless, physicians trying to
save the life a woman with an idiopathic ectopic pregnancy, etc) I am quite sure, though that in certain S. American countries where women are jailed for up to 30 years for having a miscarriage, moderates are few.
Even in libertine France you can't get an abortion after 12 weeks. Seems to me modern pro-choicers cater to folk who can't make timely decisions (though I may disagree with those decisions).
DeleteI think this movie did what it was intended to do which is to serve as an effective propaganda tool which would inspire more young Americans to want to join the armed forces to (based on the flurry of Twitter commentary) "kill rag heads".
ReplyDeleteA pitty. A real pitty.
I'm still not in the mood to see it.
DeleteIf snipers aren't your bag, there is a different sort of movie that might pique your interest.
ReplyDeleteIf I go to Barnes and Noble after the movie will I be followed by one of the sci-fis?
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