Escape to the Movies: Act of Valor

MovieBob

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Dec 31, 2008
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Act of Valor

MovieBob aims his attention at the epic Navy recruiting film Act of Valor.

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Zhukov

The Laughing Arsehole
Dec 29, 2009
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I think it says a lot that half that video consisted of apologetic disclaimers.

Shame they went and included the wankier aspects. One would think this movie would have presented a good opportunity to avoid that stuff.
 

CronoT

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May 15, 2010
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I respect the hell out of the military, too, Bob. I also know I respect them best by admitting I don't belong anywhere near them. Awesome review.

Also, Post-Credits Simpsons reference FTW!
 

Rect Pola

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May 19, 2009
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I wonder if Michael Bay is weeping that he didn't get to make this or scoffing that his action scenes would have been more awesome.
 

CrankyStorming

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Mar 8, 2010
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Wasn't there this big horror film this month about a guy trying to sell a haunted house? Because he mentioned it in is article but hasn't mentioned it in these videos.
 

Zenron

The Laughing Shadow
May 11, 2010
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You seemed really scared about pissing anyone off in this review Bob, kind of a change from what we normally see. We're used to seeing you shout off your opinion without a care for who it offends, and I like that. You didn't really need to tell us all how you respect the SEALs every 20 seconds, you could have just said it once.

But anyway, I'm not particularly fond of the whole Gung ho action war movie, so chances are I'm not going to watch this.
 

MonkeyPunch

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Feb 20, 2008
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I find it a shame that someone who is critiquing a movie has to go that far out of their way to mention that they're criticising the movie and not the job which the movie is portraying.
We don't get this before 'Cop Out'... "I'm not saying cops are bad blah blah, but movie is bad".
 

Odin311

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Mar 11, 2010
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he really did seem so frightened to make any negative comments about this movie.

It makes me wonder why he has so much "respect" for some people, but others can go screw themselves.
 

Dastardly

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Apr 19, 2010
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MovieBob said:
Act of Valor

MovieBob aims his attention at the epic Navy recruiting film Act of Valor.

Watch Video
Good, fair treatment of the material. I see this movie as an experiment. It's not meant to propagandize (ie, sway the opinions of the masses) as much as it's meant to appeal to already-fans of this kind of thing, and see if it takes.

And on another hand, I really have no problem with the military working to ensure a mostly-positive spin in Hollywood appearances. What they do is usually not very action-filled, and when it is, it's not "fun" or "pretty." It's flat-out ugly. They're going to get plenty of negative spin because what they do involves killing people. (In addition to the statisticallyextremely uncommon scandalous stuff we hear so much about lately.)

An army has to do awful things, and the public needs men able and willing to do those things. Often, we only hear/talk/care about what they do when it goes wrong. Really think about this:

1. We have a military so that we don't all have to deal with all of the awful things they have to do.
2. Because we don't have to deal with those awful things, we forget about them... or at least lose perspective on them.
3. We make unreasonable demands about how they do/don't do those awful things we originally tasked them to do.
4. They don't get it done, so it either doesn't get done or it falls back to us.
5. We decide to have a military, so that we don't have to deal... and so on.

Running PR for an organization like the military must be an absolute nightmare, because even on the best days, you're an organization whose job it is to kill lots of people(or at least stay prepared to do so). Seems to be that job would be impossible without a little "hero porn" and a bit of preemptive damage control.
 

Spacewolf

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May 21, 2008
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Dont alot of hollywood movies get money from the petagon as long as the Americans are the good guys which is why alot of movies have the mighty american sterotype
 

ZZoMBiE13

Ate My Neighbors
Oct 10, 2007
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I just wanna say that I love the little tidbits thrown in at the end of your EttM videos. Especially when they're informative like today's were. Nice touch Bob.

Thanks. :)
 

Dirty Apple

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Apr 24, 2008
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Odin_kru said:
he really did seem so frightened to make any negative comments about this movie.

It makes me wonder why he has so much "respect" for some people, but others can go screw themselves.
I guess he feels some things are too sacred to criticise, and I tend to agree. It's one thing to criticise the act of war, but the personel are performing a thankless task in often terrible situations. The last thing they need or want to hear are civilians armchair quarterbacking from the safety of suburbia.
 

Revnak_v1legacy

Fixed by "Monday"
Mar 28, 2010
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Great review. Shame this movie wasn't that good. I wasn't really expecting it to be that good, but still.
Odin_kru said:
he really did seem so frightened to make any negative comments about this movie.

It makes me wonder why he has so much "respect" for some people, but others can go screw themselves.
Because most people don't go out and risk their lives for their country, and most people aren't genuine badasses. Also, most people didn't kill Bin Laden. Really, other people can go screw themselves I suppose. Not that I think that, but I can understand why Bob would.
 

Hungry Donner

Henchman
Mar 19, 2009
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The Pentagon had a problem with UFO coverups, but not Randy Quaid?

As for the Act of Valor, it does sound like the sort of thing that would have made a much better documentary.
 

RaffB

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Jul 22, 2008
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Will definitely file this film under I for Interesting...

And as I always say about the military, they are doing a job. Those who do it well should be praised, those who don't should not be.

And yes, I'm aware that its a dangerous job that is often thankless and criticised , but so are garbage men and sewer workers.

Also, I would love to see the same premise done again but with the SAS...all the good points of this movie, plus a healthy dash of Britishness to boot...
 

370999

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May 17, 2010
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I'll probably see it. DEcent enough review Bob.

That said I like how you managed to squeeze in that Transformers comment at the beginning of your review. You really are desperate to keep on picking that stab aren't you?
 

StriderShinryu

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Dec 8, 2009
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CrankyStorming said:
Wasn't there this big horror film this month about a guy trying to sell a haunted house? Because he mentioned it in is article but hasn't mentioned it in these videos.
That was The Woman In Black, and it's North American release was a couple weeks ago. It's pretty good if you want real old school creep factor horror and don't need blood guts and gore to make something "scary."