So this movie was made for veterans and not the general public. I didn't know that better tell my friends who have seen it that they shouldn't think about it at all what so ever because it was for the veterans and not them. If non-veterans can't have valid opinions on the film than why was it made by and marketed to non-veterans? While you might have a point that you shouldn't listen to non-veterans about certain things, this movie is not one of them. It isn't a film used by the military to adjust people back into civilian life, it is a movie made to make money from general audiences. It doesn't matter what veterans do, because it is a movie it is not real life. It might depict real life events, but that doesn't change the fact it is a fictional version of them.jacobbanks said:
The Big Picture: American Sniper Sucks (And It's Okay To Admit That)
- Thread starter MovieBob
- Start date
I think one of the dynamics is that liberals and various other anti-war activists haven't yet had their "Platoon" or "Full Metal Jacket", let alone an "Apocalypse Now". Many of those same people feel vindicated due to how each war played out, and yet it seems even Hollywood seems rather unsure about blatantly waving that fact in front of people, many of who will only begrudgingly accept that the wars (my use of the plural is not a mistake) were a poorly-handled mistake.
This brings us to the sort of "compromise" of the servicemen. We can glorify the servicemen instead of saying anything definitive about the war, that way America can continue to feel proud that we have a competent and very professional military.
I haven't seen the movie and I refuse to make any judgements on a movie I haven't seen positive or negative, however it does seem like this movie is not being judged for what it is but rather what people want it to be based on their politics, and like Patton before it (repeat: I'm not directly comparing the quality of the two movies as I have not seen one), people are projecting whatever message they want it to be about. And in some ways, that could work to be a quality of the movie, more than a detriment. Or maybe not.
This brings us to the sort of "compromise" of the servicemen. We can glorify the servicemen instead of saying anything definitive about the war, that way America can continue to feel proud that we have a competent and very professional military.
I haven't seen the movie and I refuse to make any judgements on a movie I haven't seen positive or negative, however it does seem like this movie is not being judged for what it is but rather what people want it to be based on their politics, and like Patton before it (repeat: I'm not directly comparing the quality of the two movies as I have not seen one), people are projecting whatever message they want it to be about. And in some ways, that could work to be a quality of the movie, more than a detriment. Or maybe not.
It's stupid shit like this that makes me come out of lurking...
As a veteran of the Iraq War (affording me infinite film criticism cred) I still think it's a bad film for some of its messages, but mostly because of the absurdly gung-ho reception it garnered. Clearly, something is wrong. On the other hand, I believe the bulk of other critics are correct in thinking it's a technically good movie.
I think Fury, aside from letting the wet blanket live at the end, did a better job.
As a veteran of the Iraq War (affording me infinite film criticism cred) I still think it's a bad film for some of its messages, but mostly because of the absurdly gung-ho reception it garnered. Clearly, something is wrong. On the other hand, I believe the bulk of other critics are correct in thinking it's a technically good movie.
I think Fury, aside from letting the wet blanket live at the end, did a better job.
I was inordinately amused by Sarah Palin spouting off about the "Hollywood Left" not valuing veterans. I wonder what she had to say about Michele Bachmann's plan to freeze VA health care spending and cut veterans' benefits?
As for the movie's hot performance, I think there's some deep-seated need for some of my fellow Americans to believe that our people in uniform are pure, unsullied heroes- and sadly, they're not. They're human beings doing a difficult job in a harsh environment, and to romanticize them is to do them a serious disservice, because then we treat these soldiers, sailors, Marines and pilots like some kind of untouchable ascended beings rather than people like us, with pains and regrets of their own. And that only adds to the feelings of exclusion and alienation that too many of our servicemen and women suffer from already.
As for the movie's hot performance, I think there's some deep-seated need for some of my fellow Americans to believe that our people in uniform are pure, unsullied heroes- and sadly, they're not. They're human beings doing a difficult job in a harsh environment, and to romanticize them is to do them a serious disservice, because then we treat these soldiers, sailors, Marines and pilots like some kind of untouchable ascended beings rather than people like us, with pains and regrets of their own. And that only adds to the feelings of exclusion and alienation that too many of our servicemen and women suffer from already.
If you ask me, one of the primary reasons the US gov't went after Saddam is because he started trading Iraqi oil for Euros in early 2000, thus challenging the almighty Petrodollar.Nixou said:
The national disaster resulting from the Iraq war sent a pretty clear message to other oil producing nations: trade in another currency and this is what will happen to you.
...or maybe just read the book, which is at least a (probably mostly) true account of Chris Kyle's life (seriously... the book is a good read!) and skip the movie (which is a fictionalized pile of drivel).jacobbanks said:
Veteran or not.
I haven't seen American Sniper, and from what I have heard about it I never will. I'm always on the look out for good military history films, but they are really damn rare. I suppose Fury was half decent, as was Unbroken (not really military history though). I have heard that the Imitation Game is an excellent film, but it is also heavily fictionalized. That was something I picked up from watching the trailer, so I gave that one a miss as well. Oh well...I will hold out for the new Spielberg-Hanks miniseries on the 8th Air Force and Spielberg's new film about the Gary Powers U2 flight.
Oh damn it. See, I bought a car the other day, and I tried turning it on this morning, but it wouldn't start. I checked with my roommate--who is an English instructor--and he said that the battery had been removed. Now that sounded plausible to me, especially considering I definitely saw a gap under the hood where the battery could fit, but I guess I need to talk to an actual mechanic, huh?jacobbanks said:
Look, the idea that the only people who can comment on a field are the ones directly involved in said field is laughably moronic. It flies in the face of just about every form of expression, in fact. For example, why would Clint Eastwood make this movie if only soldiers and veterans are allowed to have opinions on it? Why do artists make art if only artists can comment on it? If my power goes out, do I need to be an electrician to say that the lights won't turn on? Hell, whole fields of marketing are devoted to finding out how other demographics feel about things to improve a product's reach--if anything, feedback from non-veterans is more valuable than feedback from veterans.
And yes, I do enjoy my freedom of speech. It allows me to say that you are not a particularly interesting person, whose worldview is laughably dated and predictable, and who depresses me by reminding me that there is a political majority of people like you across this country. Now, you could punch me in the mouth for saying that, but you won't because 1: you can't find me and 2: if you did, you would be arrested. You see, that's what legal/illegal means. It relies on the individual's restraint to deter crimes. Sure it can't prevent you from punching me in the mouth, but it does ensure that reactionary assholes who lash out with violence at anybody who disagrees with them spend more time in prison, which can only be a good thing.
P.S.--War is nothing to be glorified. Soldiers should be commended for surviving and helping their comrades, but in today's modern battlegrounds, they can hardly be called exemplars of patriotism for fighting politicians' wars.
The amount of emotional attachment this film has received is truly mind boggling. You can be attached to the guys story, you can feel that what he did was super important, that is fine, but the fact that this movie was about that man does not make it a good movie at all.
As I said, a bad movie is a bad movie. You can love the guy, you can love the movie, you can love the book, you can love the service. No one is saying that you can't or even that you shouldn't. But to say that this movie was made for veterans actually does a disservice to veterans. You should expect better, not make excuses for the bad bits. When someone says it's not a good movie, they are not indicting the US military, not saying your service isn't respected, not saying that you don't matter, but they can still say it's a bad movie. It's not them taking for granted their freedom of speech or saying that what you did doesn't matter. It's just them giving their opinion, and while you may not like it, it carries as much weight as your own.
I actually dare say that no one makes movies that are aimed specifically at Veterans. That is not the sole way people who are veterans identify themselves. Not all of them are from the same branch of the military or have even had similar jobs in the military or have even seen active duty. I know people from all branches and one thing they don't do is see eye to eye. Oh, and none of them are so self important as you.jacobbanks said:
As I said, a bad movie is a bad movie. You can love the guy, you can love the movie, you can love the book, you can love the service. No one is saying that you can't or even that you shouldn't. But to say that this movie was made for veterans actually does a disservice to veterans. You should expect better, not make excuses for the bad bits. When someone says it's not a good movie, they are not indicting the US military, not saying your service isn't respected, not saying that you don't matter, but they can still say it's a bad movie. It's not them taking for granted their freedom of speech or saying that what you did doesn't matter. It's just them giving their opinion, and while you may not like it, it carries as much weight as your own.
I'm honestly surprised that Fury basically got ignored, especially when compared to the post-release buzz of American Sniper. I mean, ignore it having one of the most stupid deaths I've seen in a war film (second to last death, the turret one for the record) and it was pretty damn good.Truglington said:
On a barely related note: Fury actually humanises Nazis. American Sniper couldn't even do that to the terrorists (besides giving the secondary villain a wife we see for three frames). It gave me the thought that the director wanted to show that the world's greatest villains are, after all is said in done, just like us civil folk but in a different uniform. It's not original by any means, but it's something I honestly wished American Sniper would try to do rather than having the terrorists just be cartoonishly evil so the audience knows to hate them. They're terrorists, we don't need to see a child's skull get drilled off-screen.
Then Clint Eastwood's "opinion" on war and the effects of it, presented in this movie don't matter either. Seeing as he never served in the military. So by your very stupid logic, stating that the opinion of anyone who didn't serve doesn't matter, this movie doesn't matter either. Congratulations, you've rendered the movie irrelevant in your patriotic mumbo jumbo.jacobbanks said:
The idea of patronizing a movie, or buying a game, or buying a book or whatever simply as a show of support seems to be a fairly recent one, and it seems to have stemmed from the pro-piracy culture that emerged in the early 2000s. People who had gotten used to cheating their way to free entertainment started feeling bad that certain people they liked and wanted to be successful were being potentially deprived of their livelihoods, and started advocating paying for some of their entertainment as a way of "voting with your wallets". It came to be applied to entertainment that was willfully provided for free, as well, from PayPal "tip jars" on creators' home pages to the recent emergence of crowdfunding sites and Patreon.
And there are problematic aspects to that mentality. For one thing, so far it only really applies to one type of product. You can't pirate food, or electronics. If you want to protest the way Altria or Apple do business by not buying their products, you don't have the option of doing that without also depriving yourself of those products. There's a certain degree of sacrifice involved. But on the other hand we're definitely starting to see more and more people at least consider the implications of buying from certain companies beyond whether or not they want what they're selling. And ultimately, that's a positive.
Where it can potentially go wrong is people using it as a way to support people whose opinions they already agree with and punish those they don't. I'm very much against this idea. People need to be more indiscriminate in what media they consume, in order to become more well-rounded people. The webcomic Unshelved has a slogan that I think fits well here: "Read irresponsibly." I'm not saying everyone has a responsibility to go out and buy a copy of Hatred just to show support for free speech, or something. But if you're not actually going to get anything out of watching a movie, or playing a game, besides a warm fuzzy feeling from having your own opinions "validated" by a single person who happens to know how to make a movie or a game, have they really earned your money? The mark of a good creator is the ability to make people think, to challenge people's ideas about the world. I never felt compelled to buy Spec Ops: The Line, for example, because by all accounts it sounded like it would be really unfun to play, even if I agreed with the ideas behind it and thought Yager were mighty brave for making it. Never bothered to get Gone Home either, since I gleaned everything I could have gotten out of playing it from reading about it.
Creators aren't charity cases. (Except when they are, in which case you're welcome to make a donation without actually buying their product, if they're not too proud to give you a way to do that.) Billion-dollar movie companies and the multi-millionaires who work for them are definitely not charity cases. Buy things because you want to have them. See movies because you want to see them. Not just as an excuse to throw your money at people you like. That's something that both sides of a certain current issue in the gaming community can stand to learn.
And there are problematic aspects to that mentality. For one thing, so far it only really applies to one type of product. You can't pirate food, or electronics. If you want to protest the way Altria or Apple do business by not buying their products, you don't have the option of doing that without also depriving yourself of those products. There's a certain degree of sacrifice involved. But on the other hand we're definitely starting to see more and more people at least consider the implications of buying from certain companies beyond whether or not they want what they're selling. And ultimately, that's a positive.
Where it can potentially go wrong is people using it as a way to support people whose opinions they already agree with and punish those they don't. I'm very much against this idea. People need to be more indiscriminate in what media they consume, in order to become more well-rounded people. The webcomic Unshelved has a slogan that I think fits well here: "Read irresponsibly." I'm not saying everyone has a responsibility to go out and buy a copy of Hatred just to show support for free speech, or something. But if you're not actually going to get anything out of watching a movie, or playing a game, besides a warm fuzzy feeling from having your own opinions "validated" by a single person who happens to know how to make a movie or a game, have they really earned your money? The mark of a good creator is the ability to make people think, to challenge people's ideas about the world. I never felt compelled to buy Spec Ops: The Line, for example, because by all accounts it sounded like it would be really unfun to play, even if I agreed with the ideas behind it and thought Yager were mighty brave for making it. Never bothered to get Gone Home either, since I gleaned everything I could have gotten out of playing it from reading about it.
Creators aren't charity cases. (Except when they are, in which case you're welcome to make a donation without actually buying their product, if they're not too proud to give you a way to do that.) Billion-dollar movie companies and the multi-millionaires who work for them are definitely not charity cases. Buy things because you want to have them. See movies because you want to see them. Not just as an excuse to throw your money at people you like. That's something that both sides of a certain current issue in the gaming community can stand to learn.
?An MLK movie is in theaters for MLK weeknd, but U.S. audiences are turning out in droves for a (lousy) movie about headshotting brown people?
-Bob Chipman, on Twitter.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/bloggers/3248210/posts
Got it Bob, so going to see a movie as a "show of support" and giving money to the people who helped make it is wrong and terrible...unless it's a movie you like and starring black people, in which case you should go see it and give them money and show your support.
-Bob Chipman, on Twitter.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/bloggers/3248210/posts
Got it Bob, so going to see a movie as a "show of support" and giving money to the people who helped make it is wrong and terrible...unless it's a movie you like and starring black people, in which case you should go see it and give them money and show your support.
I didn't see the movie. When I first heard about it I thought it sounded fun. I like snipers--as you can tell by my screen name. But when I heard that it was based on a real person, and one I was even aware of, I quickly lost interest. When I saw trailers for it, I lost even more. It just wasn't what I was expecting. I don't know...maybe it looked too serious? But then again, I bought Fury and I own Band of Brothers, so that kind of throws that reason out the window.
The movie just didn't look appealing to me once I realized what it was about. I'm not sure why.
The movie just didn't look appealing to me once I realized what it was about. I'm not sure why.
Kind of unrelated but kind of related; I find that quote funny because Chris Kyle specifically tells a Marine in the film that the "legendary Syrian sniper" (although I don't think we knew he was Syrian then since it was just into the first tour in the movie but I'm not 100% sure) wouldn't be doing head shots because a true sniper aims for the center mass.Ihateregistering1 said:
OT: I'm finding myself disagreeing with Bob more and more lately when he put this and "Interstellar" on his "worst movies of the year" list. American Sniper isn't good enough to win Best Picture (personally I think the only award that it is up for that it should have a chance at is Best Actor for Cooper) but it's not a bad movie. Movie Bob is entitled to his opinion obviously but I stopped watching his movie reviews after that "Worst Movie" episode with how off-the-mark I find him.
Dude Saddam was an angel compared to what the ISIS is right now. Also I would leave him in power cause he was a counter-balance to Iran. A majority of Iraqis want him back cause guess what: there was order, there was an economy, there was food. Funny how that works. Was he bad? Yea. But there will always be someone worse.jacobbanks said:
Also guess what: There were no WMDs in Iraq, with the exception of what the US sold him in the 80s. So guess what: The Iraq War was nothing more than a farce. And we are left with the crumbling remains of the place, the fact that we are going to deal with that fallout for a long time.
Also you seem to misunderstand how national security works. It is the NSA that does the protecting nowadays, with the FBI, Homeland Security and police departments that deal with home grown terrorists. Not the army. The army has only one use: Protect from external threats and put down insurrections (if such a thing rears its ugly head in the countries). They are not there to protect your rights. THey are not there to protect and serve. They are not there to spy on people. The army is a tool of the government, to be used by the government. Rarely is the army used against its own citizens.
So I've been reading the various posts back and forth and two thoughts occurred to me. The first was that left-wingers keep pitching hissy fits that result in me becoming interested in movies, books, and games that I would normally ignore. Thankfully I usually repress the urge to go get whatever they hate. I'm not made of money so impulse buying is a poor idea. The second is that multiple people have mentioned the movie Fury and I kept misreading it. I was wondering for several minutes why people were talking about a movie called Furry in a war movie discussion. Third thought I should go to bed now.
Without getting into too much into your general opinion, the insight of a third, non-related, party is often necessary to brake paradigms and bring positive change:jacobbanks said:
If science did not contested religion, we would still think the world is flat. If religion did not influenced politics, some social safeguards would never be implemented in some countries, if civilians dis not contested the military, a lot of countries would be living in a dictatorial regimen and so on.
You don't have to agree with the opinion of everyone, but simply dismissing them will only leave you with tunnel vision.
Bob is criticizing the movie, but he made clear he respects many ideas and ideals attached to it. He says that the movie is an empty template in which people are projecting their ideals. With each of your posts you are just proving him right.