I can't wait to hear his explanation for what the Israeli atheletes did wrong that they deserved to die?

He won't go that far. He doesn't believe that.

But the film will feature a Mossad agent torn by the immorality of his mission.

I dunno, I'll wait to see the detailed reviews. It's hard to judge something that hasn't even been completed.

A lot more info here.

First off, I'd always like to caution that no one can judge a book by its cover, or a movie by its press release.

That Spielberg movie isn't out yet, hasn't even finished filming yet, and we're all sharpening axes to grind. I'm not optimistic here, but I'm not willing to condemn based on freakin' Town Hall ranting.

Besides, I'm all for killing terrorists, I think the Mossad had room to sleep at night (even after they made the Norway mistake), but yet. . . I am still open to considering "nuance" in "art." I may recognize good and evil, but I understand that the real world is filled with gray, and to condemn artists for exploring the gray (usually more interesting) isn't very productive.

That said, I'm all with Ace on the larger issue of Hollywood and the war: what a bunch of wussies. Why do they insist on lying to themselves, and always saying that it's not possible to make an intelligent, intellectually challenging movie that presents a *positive* view of our struggle? Again, just because the world is gray doesn't mean that there isn't black and white at the edges (even Hollywood understands that-- after all, Nazis were evil enough to be villainous shorthand for generations of films).

BTW, I brought this meme up before on my site-- are there any *pro* war movies? We couldn't think of many.

Cheers,
Dave at Garfield Ridge

Just more examples of why I don't go to movies much any more. Frankly (and I'm almost ashamed to admit it), I find television drama more well-written and better-acted. Battlestar Galactica is one of the best of the new breed, but I have a soft spot for Farscape as well. Sure, even here you see a pronounced liberal "tilt", but it's not quite so obvious as in the big-name big-budget crap that Hollywood keeps trowelling out.

And leave it to the jerk-asses in Hollywood to turn our victory in Fallujah into some kind of Pyrrhic disaster. This in particular puts me into a "Hulk smash!" frame of mind.

The only real way to stop this kind of thing is just to stay home. (Which, given the horrible numbers coming out of the box office this summer, is exactly what people are doing.)

By the way, I actually read the "V For Vendetta" graphic novel, and it's based on a character modeled on Guy Fawkes, a historical figure who is unfamiliar to many Americans, so I suspect that the cultural resonance will be lost. Alan Moore did better work in The Watchmen (which would make a totally cool animated flick if they do it right).

Still, if Natalie Portman shows her hooters in it, I'll be forced to attend.

I'm only human.

Natalie Portman is quite pretty, but I don't think she technically has "hooters."

Treacher is on Hooterwatch, though.

Damm, Ace! I know you meant the "Dirty Sanchez" thing as a joke, but let me tell you. . . Nothing makes me madder than that phrase. If I could find the originator, I'd stab him in the stomach then kick him there until his intestines exploded out. That's how much I hate the sick nauseating bastards who came up with that act (can't be called sex) and decided to call it.

BTW Sanchez means "Son of a Saint". It's the patronymic of "Sancho" from the Latin "Sancto"

P.S. I'm better now.

Sorry, I'll change it. Was just trying to be hip and edgy for the kids.

Ace: If you peruse AICN, you can always figure out how liberal a movie is by how gushy Harry Knowles is about it. Every adipose cell in is Orca-like body vibrates with liberal passion, so his barely-literate "reviews" are a perfect reverse barometer.

It ought to be a signifier of how great America really is that a no-talent Jabba-the-Hutt-looking liberal bungwipe like Harry Knowles can garner fame and fortune. (It also proves that life just ain't fair, but I knew that already.)

Ross:

But you have to take into account that your response may not achieve what you wish to achieve...

This is an important discussion. But what a lot of lefties and big shot Hollywood types forget is that ultimately we are Americans. And as such, there will be a response. If it accomplishes something positive and effective, great. If not, if we blow up some shit in a futile and stupid gesture, why, that's even better.

As a buddy of mine put it: If you think we're going to respond to 9-11 by knocking over the ragheads in some Third World dustbowl and then turn tail and declare Victory!, you know nothing about America.

What we got away from was the absolute certainty that there will be a response and it may be disproportionate and good people may get caught up with the bad and as far as we are concerned, that's life. Don't hang around bad people and you should be all right.

That's the lesson in our response to 9-11 and I hope for all our sakes we got it across. At the very least, this is what we should "wish to achieve".

You are a good man, Ace.

Ace, if you need to use something other than a "Dirty Sanchez," you can always use the terms "Donkey Punch," "Cleveland Steamer," or "Roman Shower."

Less likely to offend anyone with those terms. Well, anyone outside of Cleveland and/or Rome, that is.

Cheers,
Dave at Garfield Ridge

Ace:

Would anyone in Hollywood greenlight a sympathetic portrait of the Nazis?

Sorry, I'll change it. Was just trying to be hip and edgy for the kids.

for the record, I'm ok with "DB"

Never saw it, but the "humanizing" there was via tragedy, right? That he could have gone two different ways but chose to become a genocidal madman?

I find that different (if I've got the basics right). The movie may "humanize" him, but it still is pretty clear that the decision he made was anti-human, right?

The right analogy would be to have a good Palestinian man who chooses to be a terrorist, while making it clear this is a monstrous choice (though, perhaps, subjectively understandable or, rather, comprehensible).

Spielberg's script -- by lefty agitprop playwright Tony Kushner, remember -- indulges us to "understand" the choices the terrorists made (without remorse) and the dramatic conflict is within the Mossad agents who are seeking justice.

A rough justice, to be sure, but they were denied more civilized and formal justice when the German government conspired with the terrorists to release them.

But Muslim pop culture isn't telling world Muslims that terrorism is bad; it continues to justify it.

Justify? More like glorifies it, it seems to me.

Hollywood has shown itself to be a cocooned echo chamber made up of out-of-touch elitist weasels. Not one filmmaker has the guts to go against the grain of lock-step lefty Hollywood thought police and make a movie about the outstanding heroism shown by our guys in Iraq and Afghanistan. There is a dramatic gold mine there waiting to be used, but these gutless wonders won't because it might make Bush look good. It's depressing, because film is a powerful art form and is influential (good or bad). I just don't understand why an industry as profit driven as the entertainment business is so hell bent on pissing off 80% of it's client base. Fuckers.

And our pop culture demonizes our culture. Go figure.

Has anyone watched the FX series Over There? I don't have high hopes for it.

I think the only movie even mildly critical of Islam was Not Without My Daughter.

I'd love to see Hollywood make a bio-pic about Mohammed. I'm surprised Ridley Scott hasn't done it already. (and yes I know Muslims aren't supposed to make movies about the prophets, but Cedaford said Hollywood was the realm of the dirty Jooos, so what's keeping them?)

"Humanizing" terrorists isn't the problem. They are, in fact, human. Understanding them isn't the problem either; it's a matter of life and death for us, in fact. Seeing the situation in nuanced shades-of-gray terms, too, is important and honest, because that's the way reality is.

But justifying terrorism? Somehow painting those who do all of the above and then anguish over what is the right choice to make in a monstrously difficult situation as if they are no better, or even worse, than terrorists and their supporters?

I just get so tired of hearing this, over and over again. Most of my friends are left-wingers. They aren't bad people, I swear it. So it's very hard for me to come to grips with the monstrous moral distortions that come out of their mouths. I'm just so sad and tired by it all.

I believe that this essay explains where it really all comes from:
http://www.policyreview.org/dec02/harris.html
(Well, that and good old fashioned anti-semitism.) Reading this essay actually really cheered me up, because it allowed me to "humanize" and "understand" my friends who were promoting such monstrous causes. And no, that doesn't mean I excuse them.

Don't forget, Spielberg nearly came in his pants when he met Castro. He later called his meeting with Fidel "The eight most important hours of my life." Here's Robert Duvall's reaction just to show that Hollywood isn't totally hosed.

Ace makes a good point above, but I'd clarify: the difference is between understanding and sympathizing.

Case in point: the superb German movie "Downfall," about Hitler's last days. It portrays Hitler in very human terms, which is quite refreshing since Hitler was, get this, a human being. A monstrous, terrible, evil human being, but one who still wiped his bottom and still wore shoes, still had a favorite food and still listened to music.

However, that understanding-- as important as it is to be reminded of the common man's capacity for evil-- is far different from sympathy. Pity, perhaps; lamenting how things could have gone differently, sure. But sympathy? For a murdering thug who conciously chose his path? No way.

So when it comes to the Jihad, I'm all for understanding. I *want* to see their motives discussed. I *want* to see drama that wrestles with their justifications for their acts. But in the end I want art that acknowledges that may expose, but does not sympathize with-- or worse, glorify as somehow admirable-- evil.

Much like Ace has said-- from what I know about Timothy McVeigh, it sounds like he was a nice kid, and he bravely served this country in uniform. I "understand" why he chose the path that he did.

None of that makes me sympathize with his actions, nor does it change the fact that I wanted the effer dead for what he did.

Hollywood doesn't seem to search for reasons, so much as excuses.

Cheers,
Dave at Garfield Ridge

Forget all those cinematic bombs. Here's the real summer blockbuster:

Ingmar Bergman's Remake of The Dukes of Hazzard

/linkpimp

Dammit, SJKevin. . . stop typing faster than me!!

Iblis:

I'd love to see Hollywood make a bio-pic about Mohammed.

Although western artists never ever talk about them, everybody noticed what happened to Salmon Rushdie and Theo van Gogh. Hollywood won't do it; they'd be too scared.

(close up of Big Mouth Billy Bass)

HAHAHAHAHAHA!

I've always admired Israel's response to the Munich massacre.

This documentary is masterful in its presentation of the events of that horrific episode.

Spielberg had to "grapple" with the idea of using a drone to whack a terrorist?

This is liberal mushmindedness at its outer extremes.

One doesn't "grapple" with the notion of whacking cockroachs with shoes - this is simply something one does without much thought at all when the opportunity p[resents itself. I admit it, I have little concern or empathy for the emotional "hurt" I may cause the roach's family or parents. If you don't want the "shoe treatment", don't bunk in my crib or piss me off.

Do you even remember Saving Private Ryan? The movie'll be fine.

Libertas has become one of my daily reads.

Excellent site for getting insider's poop on Hollywood.

It looks like Apuzzo may have been overstating things a bit. Galley Slaves has a takedown of the piece here.

Iblis - Not Without My Daughter is minorly infected with this kind of stuff. I had never seen the beginning of the movie before this month.
They made it out like the Husband's dramatic change and his decision to move to Iran was because some fellow doctors were making fun of the Ayatollah while he was in the room (they didn't know him).

So it was all the fault of the Americans. They even have the mother, at the beginning of the movie, saying that people in Michigan just haven't had much contact with Middle-easterners, and don't understand!

Yeah, Michigan, with the largest middle-eastern population in the country. If this happened in real life, I bet it was because the other doctors thought he was Chaldean, or Lebanese, or Greek or something.

The movie about the Mossad team's been done, too, at least for TV: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092038/