Two Movies and a Book (Review)

This is kind of odd, driven by a couple of movies I've seen and a book I've read in the last couple of weeks. No particular theme holding them together.

Lions for Lambs. Ok, I knew this was an anti-war film (Robert Redford directed it, after all) and I didn't figure there would be much redeeming in it, but after being pleasantly surprised by "The Kingdom," I thought what the heck. Wow. Talk about pathetic. A two-hour sermon by Al Franken probably would have been less painful.

The story is that Redford, as Prof. Steven Malley, is trying to talk a student (Andrew Garfield) into "being more than he can be"---except, of course, he hates the military and wants Garfield to become some sort of activist. Malley relates the story of two of his "best and brightest," Ernest and Arian, who after impressing the professor, joined the Army, despite Malley's pleas. Now, unknown to Malley, they are on their way into the mountains of Afghanistan as part of a new "surge" strategy in Afghanistan.

Tom Cruise (Sen. Jasper Irving)---a pro-life, pro-gun Republican---has invited Meryl Streep (Janine Roth---a somewhat less offensive looking version of Helen Thomas) to his office for an exclusive on this new strategy. They engaged in an hour long debate over Iraq, the War on Terror, and torture, in the course of which Streep obediently parrots every single leftist talking point used in the last 7 years. Cruise answers with pitifully unconvincing rejoinders, displaying truly poor screenwriting (and even worse propaganda, as no one really takes his character seriously). It comes down to, "So we lied to get into these wars. But we're in them now, and we have to win. We need you to help us." Streep wrestles with her conscience (but not for long).

As the two soldiers, through an accident, fall into the snow-covered Afghan mountains, they are surrounded by Taliban. American forces get there too late. The movie ends with Garfield pondering his future, either as a money-making greedy businessman or as an activist who "makes a difference." The soldiers, of course, didn't make a difference. Thank God for fast forward. This movie lasted about as long as the life of a firefly at the box office. It's a wonder it stayed on screens that long.

There Will Be Blood is even longer (almost 3 hours) and boring as hell. Now the fast-forward button really comes in handy. But there is a difference: whereas LFL was pointless, boring, AND featured uninspired acting, TWBB---in between the endless pans of California desert---has one of the most chilling acting performances you will ever see. Again, use the fast forward.

Daniel Day Lewis, as Daniel Plainview, trundles around California in 1900 buying up oil land. He encounters the Sunday family, including son Eli Sunday (Paul Dano), a wanna-be preacher (get it? Sunday? Get it? Ah, these clever writers). Plainview builds his derrick but an accident causes his son to be permanently deafened. This is an embarrassment to Plainview, and a sign of weakness. Already a little screwy, Plainview starts to deteriorate into pure evil, but an evil of an almost unpredictable kind---much different than the uber-creepy air-gun toting assassin of "No Country for Old Men" played by Javier Bardem.

Plainview tricks his son into climbing on a train for San Francisco, then abandons him in the care of an employee and a school for the deaf. Meanwhile, Mr. Sunday returns with access to a key piece of land that Plainview needs in order to build a pipeline. Plainview must submit to a humiliation "sin fest" in which he confesses to everything except the Kennedy assassination in front of Eli's church group. A "relative" also shows up---Plainview's half brother, played by Kevin O'Connor (who was terrific as the smarmy Egyptian "Bennie" in "The Mummy"). But when Plainview learns that the half-brother is, in fact, a fraud, he shoots him through the head.

The final scene features Sunday's return, now as a bankrupt, requesting money from Plainview, who humiliates him---they way he was humiliated---before beating him to death with a bowling pin. And the son? He has returned to notify his father that he is going into business for himself, which is the ultimate insult: "We're competitors now," he screams.

Daniel Day Lewis again proves he has absolutely no equal when it comes to malevolence on screen. After playing "the Butcher" in "Gangs of New York," you might have thought he can't get any worse. This is a believable evil, an off-the-cuff evil, but not Bardem's professional no-conscience evil. Plainview knows what he's doing, and doesn't mind. Bardem's assassin runs from the police. DDL doesn't care. "If they find Eli's body, I'll kill them too," is the mind-set.

One other thing made this movie even mildly interesting: the score was exceptionally strange, building up over long cinematic drifts across scenery. It makes you think something is GOING to happen, but rarely does. Most of the time, there is more action in the score than on screen (sort of like any Striesand movie).

Book: Charlie Wilson's War. Although this has been out for a while, I just got around to reading it, having seen the movie a few weeks ago. The movie is ok, and given that you had to condense a lot of material, it's reasonably faithful to the book. But this is an important and valuable book, because it shows that well-intentioned people in, say, the CIA can differ over the MEANS needed to obtain the same goal. CIA station chiefs in Pakistan and some of the top brass there do NOT want Wilson's money to result in a Soviet reaction that will allow them to win the war. Charlie Wilson, a Texas congressman on the House subcommittee that doles out all the funding to the CIA, becomes enamored of the Afghan "freedom fighters," and cannot understand why we were not providing them with anti-air weapons. He sets out on a quest to get them aid. Along the way, he puts together an astounding alliance, including Israel, Saudi Arabia, a beautiful Texas woman just to the left of the John Birch Society---who happens to have the ear of Zia al-Haq, President of Pakistan---and the Pakistanis. He also learns that the CHINESE are involved in funneling weapons to the Afghans. With the power of the purse, Wilson gets $50 million, then $100 million, then eventually $400 million for the muj---all of it matched by the Saudis, dollar for petrodollar. They agree to buy Israeli weapons---"Just no stars of David on the boxes!" they insist. At one point, Wilson brings a Texas housewife belly dancer to entertain and distract an Egyptian official while he negotiates still more weapons. Finally, a combination of anti-air cannons and Stinger missiles reach Afghanistan in the CIA's biggest covert op ever, and the Soviets lose.

Two key points: 1) many officials feared that if they were "too effective" in killing Soviets, the Red Army would come in with a WW II-type offensive and not only take Afghanistan, but also Pakistan; and 2) while the idiot Dems were holding up $20 m in funding for the Contras, they had to agree to all of Wilson's demands of many times more so as not to appear completely "unpatriotic." As a result, inadvertently, the Dems poured money into the REAL turning point, whereas Nicaragua was later won at the ballot box.

The book is full of "we helped arm the Taliban" types of retrospectives, but to my knowledge not a single American plane has ever been shot by one of our own Stingers. Instead, Charlie Wilson, through a detour of unbelievable proportions, implemented exactly what Ronald Reagan wanted to do when he said we needed to kill more Soviet soldiers there.

Can I add two?

“No Country for Old Men” - Although I feel that the mass murderer was one the of creepiest people I have ever seen on screen, the movie itself needed an ending. After watching this film, I told my hubby, “I want my two hours back.”
I had to turn on “Enchanted” to recover from it.

“Alvin and the Chipmunks” - I wrapped presents at Christmas time while Netmilsdad took Net and Mil to see this. They all loved it (and secretly told me that I missed the preview for “27 Dresses” at the showing). I just got it on DVD and loved it. They did not take the characters over the top and stayed pretty true to the old cartoon. The special features are fun.
Understanding that this is the year of the Chipmunk in our house (see “Enchanted” above), I wasn’t disappointed.

No wonderful conclusion to this post, unlike the original, but there it is.

I rented both of these at my local $1 Redbox machine.

I feel neither was worth a whole dollar nor two hours of time.

First, Lions for Lambs fails as a movie because it is nothing more than a liberal sermon by Robert Redford packaged as a story (and not a very interesting one). To top it off, it ends with a sort of imitation of Butch Cassidy and Sundance resigning to accept death bravely. A true soldier would have fought to the bitter end rather than intentionally exposing himself to enemy fire. And he would seek to take out more of the enemy even if death or capture were inevitable. I did like the one dramatic moment when the two students ended their presentation by showing their enlistment papers. That was the one redeeming moment of the film.

I expected There Will Be Blood to be better. (My expectations were not very high for Lion for Lambs.) The message seems to be similar to Treasures of the Sierra Madre (deadly price tag of greed) mixed with that of Remains of the Day (regret of a wasted life politically and emotionally). These older movies are much, much better in every way.

TWBB did show some artistic skill, particularly in the music which you pointed out. The score seemed to create an atmosphere of horror. I thought that the movie did not deal with faith evenhandedly. Typical Hollywood portrayal (betrayal ?) of evil and crazy Christians. The movie was simultaneously a commentary on the writer / director’s view of oil being symbolic of life blood which it caused to be spilled AND his hostility to the blood of Christ which is portrayed as merely a means to scam naive people.

There were no significant portrayals of the benefits of faith or oil. No examination of how faith instilled important values including the American work ethic. No examination of how oil equals work equals wealth building. Liberals don’t get that. Oil consumption is a sign of progress.

My recommendation is not to waste time or money on either of the reviewed movies.

>>So do you recommend “Enchanted?”<<

With all my breath and being.

If you can, get it on Blu-Ray. The “D Files” special feature is worth the money.

The man in tights is one of my absolute favorite human beings on Earth. One day his son will marry my youngest daughter and he will sing at their wedding. (in my dreams)

It’s a fun and refreshing movie.

proviso — “we helped arm the Taliban” — heh, there was no Taliban at the time.

Buckley Online
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Posted on Saturday, April 12, 2008 02:25:02 PM by AZLiberty
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2000607/posts

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