Lions For Lambs

It’s totally insulting for any thinking individual.

Politics-4-dummies is probably more sophisticated than Redford’s selfimportant piece of crap.

Frank — You obviously have a problem with the first paragraph of a lot of our reviews… I think we should explore this. What about your childhood makes you hate movie critics that can’t write a good first paragraph?

Would you like to write your own first paragraph for us? I think that in order for our writers to live up to your (currently mysterious) standards, we are going to need an example of what a good first paragraph is…

Kevin Carr’s review is so insultable, I find myself at the height of my insultability…Kevin should show more insultinglessness in his writing.Goodwin is the man

Kevin: Meet the new intro… same as the old intro!
But thanks for responding to my comments. You’ve got one thing seriously wrong, though. I don’t hate the critic. I hate the review, or more specifically, the critic’s failure to give any real critique, and to replace it with mindless opinion, which means nothing to me.

Perhaps you could look at my response to Nate’s comments on my comments.

Thanks… Frank

OK, Kevin, of course I expect you to stick to your guns. And you might remember that my original comments here just explained why I refused to read past the first paragraph, because I am looking for reviews that will give me analysis and insight about what happens on the screen. I think you’re probably right that the vast majority of reviews are just giving their opinion of the film. I think all of these people are in the wrong business. They should be culinary critics. Tell me whether you like the burgers from McDongle or BurgerPrince better. Tell me how it tasted to you. Lots of people want to know. I’m just not one of them. If I did want to know about the burgers, I’d go try one myself. If you wanted to write your review for me, I’d like you to skip telling me the opinion part of your review, and focus on why you hold that opinion. Something like: I liked the movied because of the fact that Tom Cruise has a new haircut. Now tell me something about his haircut… something about why you decided you liked it. Do you see how this is different than telling me your opinion about beef flesh? You can’t say anything significant about the beef, other than it tickled your palate or it didn’t. With movies, you can deal with ideas. And the funny thing about this analogy is that with films, if you take the time to analyze and dig for insight, the taste of the burger actually changes, which doesn’t happen in the restaurant!

So, in your vehemence at trying to convey the bitter taste this film leaves in your mouth, you actually start to touch upon the substance of the film, but as I see it, each time you get it wrong. You say the professor is trying to motivate the slacker to become an intellectual like himself. I think you didn’t listen to the dialog carefully enough. Prof sees the potential in the student, and tries to help him free himself from the pervasive apathy of his slacker-generation values. He tells you point blank that doing this is what has made his career worthwhile to himself. Why should we doubt him? Or what evidence do we have that he really is recruiting for the intelligensia? What is great is the way the dialog proceeds, and there you could make some significant comments, whether you took the side of the prof or the student, instead of dismissing it all as “straw arguments and platitudes” without a single example of how you came to that conclusion. As you might have seen from my review of Elley, I think the real purpose of the whole college scene in the movie was to illustrate the decision-making process for the students who became soldiers, and that Todd Hayes, just like the audience, is really just a witness, left to make up his own mind about it all.

What I applaud is how well Redford captured the dynamic of what is going on in our culture today. I cannot for the life of me understand how people are raging about the moving being liberal propaganda. I want someone to take some scene or statement from the movie and explain what they think it means, and why. But sadly, most people, despite… or rather because of the fact that people are constantly being assaulted with news and media spin… are unable to clearly grasp the situation, so they fall back to their “party line”. I thought this movie did a good job of letting people see the issue clearly… which could only help to move toward a solution. If you think Redford is putting a spin on it, point it out, referring to the film, and then you would have written a review I could read.

Last point. You cast shame on Redford … shame, by the way, being a way of stopping the dialog… instead of engaging him on the issues. ( Funny thing, that point of view was examined in the dialog with student Hayes.) Here’s a comment from a response to my review of Elley by Loukas:

There is nothing idealistic about being a professional soldier, it’s pure extortion by the state of a class-based economy and of course it affects only the underprivileged.

So, here we have someone’s opinion. But what Redford did was give us “what if” picture. What if there were an American who thought that being a professional soldier could be idealistic? What would that person be like? What would they say? How would they defend their position? What would be the consequences of that decision. Once you have the example up on the screen, then you can talk about it in context…. which offers hope that in the process of examination, common sense might be forged. And you are free to make the case that the soldiers on the screen are just the victims of extortion by a class-based economy. Point out what is missing from the film, what isn’t believable, what doesn’t ring true. The only restiction, of course, is that you need to stick to the film. You have to work with the scenario on the screen, not whatever ideas you want to bring in for whatever ax you want to grind. How could you rewrite the scene in the college where Malley’s class debates the two would-be-soldiers, exposing the extortion of the class-based economy?

So you see, far from casting shame on Redford, I applaud him for creating a work of art that engages people, and helps them get a handle on the issues important to their lives.

Thanks again…. Frank

I won’t see the film. I’m sick to death of America bashing jerks.

Wow… that’s quite a verbal beating, which is hard to take coming from someone, like Kathy above, who hasn’t seen the movie. Yes, Francis Li gets a great kick out of watching people make fools of themselves when they refuse to think.

Ok, I’ll admit that I’m a “tiresome…political hack, a loser and ….a snoozer”, but Democrat? Nope. This is what cracks me up. Not only is the film not America bashing, it actually makes the case for winning in Afghanistan! True, Redford paints himself as a liberal professor who had his head bashed while marching in the streets of Chicago in the 60s, but his only message…. and he talks alot… is that he wants people to engage the issue and come out of their slacker indifference. He gives you the view of the hawks through Tom Cruise’s character, and the doves with the character of Meryl Streep, and the view of the true patriots, the “Lions”, who actually fight the battles. Whose perspective comes out on top? Oh… you’d have to see the movie to figure that out…. and I do mean figure it out, because Redford refuses to dish it onto your plate. I guess Redford must have come to the same conclusion Buckminster Fuller came to years ago…. if we’re going to get out of the mess we, the human species, have gotten ourselves into, it’s going to take using our brains.
So please, Leash Your Dogma, then go watch the film.

Hi Kevin,
I’m writing from New Zealand. Now I know some Americans think non Americans don’t have the right to have a view on US politics/foreign policy, but just remember you guys are so big that when your Gov’t farts we get the awful stink, even this far away. And boy oh boy have GWB, Dick C and co been stuffing themselves with beans of late!
I, like the vast majority of NZers, (And I suspect the majority of Americans as well!) just shake our heads in bewilderment at the mind boggling bumbling stupidities of your President and Vice President. When will you guys realise it’s not that the most of the world is “anti-american” as such, rather it is anti the phenominal foolishnesses of the current Presidency. The Americans I have met are all wonderful people.
But to the movie in question. I confess I went (I’ve been twice) expecting precisely what you have accused it of, namely a Democrat propoganda exercise. But Kevin, honestly, I and the five others with me, came away amazed and thankful that we had seen a very fair presentation of BOTH points of view. I thought the defence presenting the republican view point put out by the Senator was at times powerful and thought provoking. (The ‘talk fest’ criticism didn’t worry me at all as I rather like lots of well done debate in a movie and the fact that this film moved quickly from scene to scene helped prevent any boredom)
Further none of us thought that it “TOLD US WHAT TO THINK”, just the opposite. Rather it just asked the hard questions of BOTH sides of the debate. I suspect that the Republican Taliban lurking in you makes you so wounded by all the bad news and sometimes valid critiism that you guys have brought on yourselves that you have become totally paranoid and you end up immagining critcism when little if any exists.
NOW TO THE QUESTION, IS IT ANTI-AMERICAN??
As non Americans maybe we are in a better position than you are to answer this question. All I can assure you is that all of us came away with a significantly INCREASED respect for the US (especially the US military) and the very difficult and complex issues it has been stuggling with over the issues in question.
For us ‘down under’ we didn’t see it as being ‘anti-American’ in any way whatsoever. I hope this causes you to ponder why you saw it differently. Maybe you are just too close to be a reliable judge.
Lastly - Is there a way that the two camps over there can somehow start talking
WITH each other. Rather than shouting insults at each other?
Have a blessed Christmas, by the sound of it many in the US will be having a white Christmas. It is high summer down here.
Go well

As an Australian I have to say, “Bruce, why are sheep always mentioned around Kiwis?” Pings made this page worth reading, if just for the hole dam truth about retards.

I thought the movie was boring, but could not see it as left wing propaganda. Come on, two guys dying bravely in the snow, with a baby faced kid thinking about heading over there after taking to his left wing mentor??

What’s new about portraying a polititian as self serving and journalists looking toward the editor/publishers view. Personally I thought it made a case for fighting this war in Afganistan not Iraq, even if past mistakes are to be repeated.

Best wishes to all coalition troups overseas.

Man he got it all wrong, there is no chance this is an anti-US,?Liberal film.

It’s more a right-wing piece of propaganda that tries to convince us that nobody wants to support the war in Iraq. In all of the political debates at the University the right-wingers shoot down the the left-wing majority and right at the end the most intelligent guy decides to sign up for the army because seemingly nobody else cares.

Sorry my mistake, I was wrong… it was Afghanistan, not Iraq. Sorry for the mistake (and the double… no triple post… maybe someone can delete my posts where necessary?)