Article

2005-09-25 Home Front: Culture Wars

Hollywood About to Launch Major Anti-US, Anti-War Films

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Posted by lotp 2005-09-25 11:10|| || Front Page|| [3 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 Escapism is one thing, but faced with daily news about war, floods, corruption and terrorism, cinemagoers want more intelligent movies.

They want something that is not crap. They want to view it under conditions that don't involve several hours of earned income just to sit in a room with unruly children, cell phones ringing, and munching on simple popcorn and a drink that don't cost more than several gallons of gas. Not only don't we believe the MSM on the war, we don't believe their reviews on the movies. We wait till someone we know comes and tells us whether it is a waste of time, a 'catch it when its released on DVD in a couple months', or a have to see experience. And the latter experience is far and in between based upon the fecal material you promote out of Hollyweird. If all we want to hear is a bunch of overpaid, under developed minds tell us how terrible the world is without having a couple of bootlicking assistances to do our routine daily chores, then we can tune into any bubblehead talking head show on television. To steal a phrase from the 'golden age' - if you want to send a message, use Western Union.

Posted by Hupairong Omoling4672 2005-09-25 11:39|| 2005-09-25 11:39|| Front Page Top

#2 Good they'll make even less money next year than this year.

Posted by BillH 2005-09-25 11:51|| 2005-09-25 11:51|| Front Page Top

#3 The surprise box-office success of Crash, the brilliant, Los Angeles-set film that highlights racism and social problems in urban America

Never heard of it.

Posted by Robert Crawford">Robert Crawford 2005-09-25 11:53|| http://www.kloognome.com/]">[http://www.kloognome.com/] 2005-09-25 11:53|| Front Page Top

#4 In the film, Niccol, who wrote The Truman Show, satirises the profiteering to be had out of provoking war, subtly raising questions about firms such as Halliburton.

Isn't Halliburton in the oil services business?

Are these people this incredibly stupid? Or is this intentional?

Posted by Robert Crawford">Robert Crawford 2005-09-25 11:55|| http://www.kloognome.com/]">[http://www.kloognome.com/] 2005-09-25 11:55|| Front Page Top

#5 Fingers are being pointed and brains, it seems, are back on the big screen, quite literally in the case of Lord of War, a new film about international arms dealing by Andrew Niccol, which opens with a startling sequence tracing the journey of a bullet from its manufacture in a Russian factory to its ultimate discharge via the barrel of an AK-47 into the head of an African child.

Starring Nicolas Cage as a monstrous arms trader, the film is a ferocious and funny satire on a diabolical subject. Unusually for a big budget film with an A-list Hollywood star, it blatantly attacks American foreign policy, concluding that 'the President of the USA is the biggest arms dealer in the world'.

Since when has the US been making and selling AKs?

Posted by Robert Crawford">Robert Crawford 2005-09-25 11:57|| http://www.kloognome.com/]">[http://www.kloognome.com/] 2005-09-25 11:57|| Front Page Top

#6 Blah blah, watch for the hollywood hype this winter and then the follow up story on why it didn't make any money this year. Rinse, repeat.

Posted by mmurray821 2005-09-25 12:10|| 2005-09-25 12:10|| Front Page Top

#7 Isn't Halliburton in the oil services business?

Well, the Hollywood People think it's evil for anyone in the US to get oil in any other way than buying it from the Arabs, and that it's wrong for anyone in the US to be selling the Arabs oilfield services in return (it's something we should leave to the French).

Of course, another branch Halliburton also provides logistical support, which is needed now because of the cuts in support units over the last decade.

Contracting out the logistical support and then turning around and complaining about all the Nasty Profiteers is an interesting way of further cutting military capability.

Posted by Phil Fraering 2005-09-25 12:10|| 2005-09-25 12:10|| Front Page Top

#8 "Are these people this incredibly stupid? Or is this intentional?"

Yes.

Posted by Dave D.">Dave D. 2005-09-25 12:16|| 2005-09-25 12:16|| Front Page Top

#9 Lord of War has struck up an alliance with Amnesty International. 'See the film, sign our petition,' claims its website.

I'm confused, is that too support the arms dealer's defense or to support the stop of arms dealing?

Posted by Charles 2005-09-25 12:18|| 2005-09-25 12:18|| Front Page Top

#10 I'm still laughing over the fact that art imitates art. That is, Cartman was right for saying that film festival movies are about "gay cowboys eating pudding".

Posted by Anonymoose 2005-09-25 12:20|| 2005-09-25 12:20|| Front Page Top

#11 Waddaya mean "about to"? They've been doing this shit for years - they're just not bothering to hide/deny it anymore.

RC asks: "Are these people this incredibly stupid? Or is this intentional?"

That would be a "yes," RC. But you knew that.

Posted by Barbara Skolaut">Barbara Skolaut 2005-09-25 12:26|| http://ariellestjohndesigns.com/page/15bk1/Home_Page.html]">[http://ariellestjohndesigns.com/page/15bk1/Home_Page.html] 2005-09-25 12:26|| Front Page Top

#12 Re: Halliburton, the firm started as a shipbuilding company, then expanded into ship terminal construction - esp. in the oil industry areas of TX and LA.

They developed expertise in emergency response services, beginning with oil well fires and then expanding into other major emergencies such as chemical factory fires.

As a result of their experience in those areas, they developed the corporate world's premier skills for security management in hostile regions. The State Dept. contracted them, under Clinton, to upgrade security at embassies around the world, for instance.

Also under Clinton the military began issuing a 5 year contract for logistical support services throughout the services. They won the first one, lost the second and won the 3rd award, which is currently in progress.

The logistical support contract is Indefinite Delivery / Indefinite Quantity - i.e. it is legally structured to have the govt ask for this or that task and negotiate the number of hours and other costs per task, with the financial basics fixed (how much per hour for, say, a petroleum engineer with 15 yrs experience, how much overhead and the maximum profit % allowable). Congress set up the IDIQ contract
structure back in the 80s to make contracting more cost efficient and take less time to get critical tasks done.

Put these all together: oil, security, emergency reponse capabilities (including a bunch of people holding security clearances from the State Dept. work) plus an existing contracting vehicle and you can see why DOD awarded the "non competed" initial contract to Halliburton for oil field / pipeline-related work on the eve of the invasion of Iraq.

Posted by lotp 2005-09-25 12:30|| 2005-09-25 12:30|| Front Page Top

#13 "Crash" was actually a good film. I hadn't heard of it either until my daughter rented the DVD, but I really don't pay much attention to movies anymore.

I suspect that "brains" in movies will become even more popular as revenues drop. Movies with lesser known talent and fewer special effects will be much cheaper to make. A cheaper movie can make money off of a smaller audience, and Hollywood, like the MSM and the Democratic party are increasingly targeting a core base that shares their values.

Posted by DoDo 2005-09-25 12:39|| 2005-09-25 12:39|| Front Page Top

#14 Yawn, hollywood attacks US foreign policy
zzzzz

EASY TARGET you won't get shot or disappear or get a fatwa placed on your head.

I'll pay my $10.50 when hollywood makes a movie about Islamist terrorists and their evil cult of death that supports US foreign policy for a change.

Y'know, something CHALLENGING and INTELLIGENT to popular culture.

Posted by anon1 2005-09-25 12:45|| 2005-09-25 12:45|| Front Page Top

#15 There's a parallel to be drawn here with the early Seventies, when America, rocked by Watergate, entrenched in a controversial war waged by an increasingly unpopular right-wing President,

I thought Kennedy started the Vietnam war, and Nixon ended it?

Posted by gromgoru 2005-09-25 13:16|| 2005-09-25 13:16|| Front Page Top

#16 Prediction - same time next year: Hollywood movie viewership down for the year, studio executives blame piracy and the Internet.

Posted by DMFD 2005-09-25 13:58|| 2005-09-25 13:58|| Front Page Top

#17 Grom! Whadda you ? Some kinda history nut? Don't be confusing the lefties and simpletons! Or am I redundant? Kennedy = good; Nixon = bad. Johnson = good; Reagan = Bad.

Posted by Bobby 2005-09-25 14:08|| 2005-09-25 14:08|| Front Page Top

#18 Hollywood isn't all bad. Nobody saw "Tears of the Sun"? "We Were Soldiers"? Honorable warriors doing their best portrayed honestly...

of course one was Mel Gibson and the other was Bruce Willis, neither of whom marches to the left

Posted by Frank G">Frank G 2005-09-25 14:12|| 2005-09-25 14:12|| Front Page Top

#19 "Tears of the Sun" is one of the best war movies I have ever seen. I rate it right up there with "The Blue Max" and "Pork Chop Hill" in its portryal of war.

Posted by badanov 2005-09-25 14:22|| http://www.freefirezone.org]">[http://www.freefirezone.org] 2005-09-25 14:22|| Front Page Top

#20 Yeah, Frank, and there was that three-part "Ring" thingy. Oh, wait - Hollywood couldn't make that one, it hadda come from New Zealand.

Posted by Bobby 2005-09-25 14:24|| 2005-09-25 14:24|| Front Page Top

#21 The movies are crap these days, but there are still a couple interesting "guilty pleasures" available on TV, in spite of my local cable company's incompetent channel shuffling: the two "Stargate" series and the remake of Battlestar Galactica.

The sad thing is I missed a fair bit of the new episodes this year because I thought from the stunt casting in the former series that a lot of it was going downhill. But it's been fun watching Rainbow Sun Frederick's character lose his mind and the original series go back to its roots of fighting technologically advanced aliens pretending to be gods...

(And regarding BSG, I ran across this interesting bit at Ron Moore's infrequently-updated blog:

It's up to you to decide who you like and who you don't. Personally, I like all of them. I like their flaws and I like their virtues, and for me, it's not a matter of finding redemption for anyone as much as it is a matter of allowing each character to be true to who and what they are and finding the most emotionally truthful storyline for them each week.

Sure, Tigh's made bad decisions and he'll likely make more, but isn't it interesting how all the good he did last season, all the good decisions he made, are suddenly overshadowed by the few bad choices he made this season? Tigh saved the entire ship during the miniseries, held the crew together through the nightmare of "33", located the lost fleet in "Scattered" and knew how to defeat the Centurion boarding party in "Valley of Darkness," but now that he's made a few bad calls (and some were really bad) he's called a worthless loser. What does that say about the nature of heroism? Does it mean that bestowing the title of Hero is less about discerning the intrinsic nature of a man than it is simply another example of the old game of "Yeah, but what have you done for me lately?" We love you today, but if you screw up tomorrow, you're history. Maybe that's only fair. Maybe that's the way it's supposed to work. Maybe. Again, it's up to you to decide, you're the audience. Me, I love Tigh and Starbuck and all of'em. Warts and all.

Interesting food for thought, at least for me... whether that's applicable to any recent events is something I'm still trying to figure out.)

Posted by Phil Fraering 2005-09-25 15:51|| 2005-09-25 15:51|| Front Page Top

#22 Who would have ever thought that Hollywood would become less cool and less capable of raising cash than those used-salesmen turned preachers that ask for money every 30 seconds on Sunday morning TV.

If you just believe, and send us your last dollar, God will pay for your health insurance!! {adjusts toupee, cries, and bursts into tounges} Cast away thee ~~George Bush~~
Satan

Posted by 2b 2005-09-25 15:53|| 2005-09-25 15:53|| Front Page Top

#23 The whole US media scene is pretty bad. From what's called music to movies. I have been watching Japanese animation, there is nothing much worth watching made here. Screw Hollyweird and their lawyers.

Posted by Sock Puppet OÂ´ Doom 2005-09-25 16:59|| 2005-09-25 16:59|| Front Page Top

#24 Wait, how's anime NOT afflicted by the same??? (If anything, I hate it for much the same.)

Posted by Edward Yee 2005-09-25 21:57|| http://edwardyee.fanworks.net]">[http://edwardyee.fanworks.net] 2005-09-25 21:57|| Front Page Top

#25 I feel the problem with hollywood is that its too 'professional' and its no longer about making movies people can enjoy - but making money and/or advancing a political cause.

Same sort of shait what brings is bubblegum music which is cranked out by a factory somewhere.

Posted by CrazyFool 2005-09-25 23:50|| 2005-09-25 23:50|| Front Page Top

23:50 CrazyFool
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20:54 RWV
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