Mark Steyn: Time for some serious art about war

Chicago Sun-Times ^ | 06/06/04 | Mark Steyn

[Dog Gone]

Oh yes, Algore the famous movie reviewer who also endorsed Howard Dean.

How come everything he endorses becomes an object of ridicule?

[Paul Atreides]

Well, when you are an object of ridicule yourself....

[knighthawk]

Ping

[MEG33]

I learned to dance to Big Band music and the popular music of WW2 was popular for years after.

Where are our Andrews Sisters...our Irving Berlin?...Where are our John Wayne war movies?...Where is a depiction of what we faced and are facing still...

We have heros...why no movies?

[MeekOneGOP]

bump !

Flash forward 60 years: The old Allies are gathered at Normandy for the D-Day anniversary at a time when we're well into a new war. This time around, the only pop star in uniform is Madonna. On her current world tour, she wears a blue burqa and, when she disrobes, as she inevitably does, she's wearing a U.S. army uniform underneath. Geddit? The Taliban and the Bush administration are both equally oppressive, see?

Not so long ago, Madonna knew her place. It was hanging naked over a wall with her bottom in the air and a German wolfhound giving her the come-hither look while a gay dance troupe cavorted in the background. See Page 67, if memory serves, of her 1992 picture book Sex. If only Madonna went to as much trouble to take a novel position when it comes to war. But no, there's only the usual lazy vapid soul-deadening equivalism: Bush, Saddam, Ashcroft, Mullah Omar, what's the diff? The herd mentality of celebrity ''dissent.'' Would it kill 'em once in a while to dissent from their dissent and try something other than the stultifying orthodoxy of Hollywood cardboard courage?

[Travis McGee]

Even when some hapless studio exec accidentally options a property that happens to have Islamist terrorists in it -- like Tom Clancy's The Sum Of All Fears -- the first thing they do is change the enemy to German neo-Nazis. Imagine it's 1943, you're in a script meeting about ''Casablanca,'' and Jack Warner says, ''I like it. But do the bad guys have to be Germans? How about if we reset it in Massachusetts and make them sinister British neo-Redcoats?''

[xp38]

Watch True Lies. Islamist terrorists there. Pre 9/11 but they are there. The trouble is the star ain't making movies anymore and at the time the movie came out muslims protested their depiction. I wouldn't be surprised if a new version comes out some day with terrorists suddenly being neo nazis.

[DUMBGRUNT]

Thoughts?

Danger, danger two heads and not enough blood.

[xp38]

Also the 1988 movie Frantic with Harrison Ford has some Iraqi agents trying to get a hold of nuclear bomb detonators although most of the movie is a kidnapping mystery.

[expatguy]

"...it's about the loss of that ''cultural confidence'' James Lileks wrote about...[sic]"

This is something I am very interested in ~ does anyone have a link to what he is refering to by James Lileks?

[Redcoat LI]

Un-Quidnunc hacked Stein,back at Ya'.

[fella]

I'm guesing this guy doesn't listen to any country stations.

[daviddennis]

If Al Gore endorsed it, he must not have seen it. Either that, or he's wacko. Wait ... I suppose that's established already, no?

I thought it was an amazingly bad movie. I think She was impressed by the special effects, as was my friend Bill. I thought even the special effects were a little cheesy. Bill told me that the special effects were great, and that's what people saw it for.

I don't think it was effective in bringing any kind of great morality to people. If the moralizing was the purpose of the film, it's a failure.

But it looks like a significant financial success no matter what your other thoughts, so I guess we're doomed ... to see a whole bunch of weather-related disaster movies in the near future.

D

[altura]

That's so sweet!

Ain't love grand?

[Oatka]

" When the Chrysler Building comes crashing down due to a freak cold snap brought on by Dick Cheney (I hope I'm not giving any plot details away), it's the reductio ad absurdum of the lengths Hollywood's willing to go to avoid saying a word about the fellows who actually did bring down a New York landmark".
BANG! He nailed it!
This is his best yet!

You nailed it too. That sentence literally jumped at me from the screen. Steyn is a National Treasure.

[Paul_B]

Ironic that the dynamic portrayed in "Reds" has been turned around, so that when someone like Mel Gibson, or a Charlie Daniels, breaks orthodoxy the persecution begins in earnest. All I can say is thank God for much of the new country music. Guess that makes this New Yorker a bit of a counter-eletist.

[Paul_B]

I will. Thanks for the reco.

[Salman]

The only part of The Day After Tomorrow that I like hearing about is when the tornado rips through Hollywood.

Never mind the politics, it's a funny movie. It's science fiction, the key word is fiction.

I'm not even convinced it was made as propaganda, though the 'rats are using it that way.

[Gritty]

Steyn takes on Hollywood.

Hollywood loses!

Thanks for beating you-know-who to this Steyn masterpiece, Pokey78.

[MEG33]

I am a Texan,loved big bands.. Country when I was growing up was really twangy and I didn't really like it. Patsy Cline I did like..

Now country is different...I have saved the good country songs you talk about to my computer...