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Jarhead.....Anyone else excited about this movie?


Jaron

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We'll see if it is standard Hollywood fare, or something else. Jake Gyllenhaal is Eric Foner's nephew.

Eric Foner is a semi famous historian up here at Columbia, but is perhaps more well known for his unabashedly far left views. Its a family thing, the family is/was full of Communists and labor organizers (this is not hyperbole). It definitely rubbed off on his sister Maggie. I have no clue whether or not this bent will make its way into the film.

Personally, I think Maggie and Jake are both pretty good actors (horrible scripts like Day After Tomorrow aside). I just figured I should warn some of the right leaning people on the board, since the board seems to attract both extremes of the political spectrum.

BTW, I believe the film is set during the 1991 Gulf War, although I could be wrong.

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Zen-like, as far as I recall, it's not even the actors that would be unpalatable, in THIS case.

It's the author of the book Jarhead. I've heard good and bad, but a lot of bad. I might be wrong, but I believe he was hanging around Sheehan of late with his US Marine Corps shirt on. And from what I recall he entered the military with that perspective.

Of course, of all the potential stories out there, Jarhead(same setting, just an earlier hostility) gets made and released right NOW. Not a coincidence.

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Zen-like, as far as I recall, it's not even the actors that would be unpalatable, in THIS case.

It's the author of the book Jarhead. I've heard good and bad, but a lot of bad. I might be wrong, but I believe he was hanging around Sheehan of late with his US Marine Corps shirt on. And from what I recall he entered the military with that perspective.

Of course, of all the potential stories out there, Jarhead(same setting, just an earlier hostility) gets made and released right NOW. Not a coincidence.

I haven't read the book personally, but we talked briefly about the movie in my HIST 356X class (America in Vietnam). There's a group of ROTC guys (and girls, to be fair) in my class, some Army and some Navy I believe. Naturally they lean to varying degrees to the right. They said the book was pretty good.

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After finding out that it is based off of the novel of the same name, I hit amazon. Some people enjoyed it, some people didn't, mostly because they thought it was too fanciful. You can read the reviews of the book here:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/customer-reviews/0743244915/ref=cm_cr_dp_2_1/103-7395948-3555811?%5Fencoding=UTF8&customer-reviews.sort%5Fby=-SubmissionDate&n=283155

The 2nd review from the bottom on that page is by a guy who lists perceived inaccuracies page by page. Eesh.

Seems to me that it might be entertaining, but that the auther is prone to exaggeration in the name of a good story.

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Thanks for the heads up Zen-like and Ghost. I guess I'll wait until I see the reviews of fellow right-leaning ES'ers before I go see it. Looks good though, I hope there isn't an overwhelming left "message" to it.

But if there was an "overwhelming right" message to it it would be OK?

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I prefer the "We Were Soldiers" kind of movie. I am not military but have known many military folks and live in a military area. "We Were Soldiers" is closer to the truth of how our military people really are than most movies portray. Too many Hollywood directors don't have a clue about the dedication and sacrifice that our armed service people make.

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I went to check it out, andI really liked the movie a lot. Much better than I expected, and it was pretty comical as well. Sam Mendes is the man, his best film so far in my opinion. If you try and look to deep into it politicallly, you might not like it, witch I'm sure many people will do. It's just a movie people.

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I posted this on another message board that's more film-oriented. I didn't want to rewrite it for a new audience, so here's the info that I expected readers to know before they read it.

Sam Mendes=Director: Other Director Credits: American Beauty, Road to Perdition

Roger Deakins=Cinematographer; Other Cinematographer Credits: The Village, The Ladykillers, A Beautiful Mind, O Brother Where Art Thou, The Big Lewbowski, Fargo, The Shawshank Redemption.

Also, the cinematography on Mendes first two movies, was done by legendary cinematographer, Conrad L. Hall(Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Cool Hand Luke), but he died after Road to Perdition. Many were wondering how Mendes would be able to react from having to work with another cinematographer.

"I hate Sam Mendes. I hate him because he's so great, but his movies never get past merely good, and I know he's capable of doing much better. Some would say that part of the reason that he has produced such good things has little to do with him, and more to do with the fact that he works with "A" level talent. While it is true that he works with great people, I disagree with this, because it the talent he works with puts out their absolute best work, when working with Sam Mendes. Conrad L. Hall shot the best looking film I've seen in years in Road To Perdition, and Kevin Spacey turned out the best performance he's likely to have in his career in American Beauty.

Jarhead is no different. Roger Deakins cinematography is great, probably the best he's done. Actually, I think I like Mendes better with Deakins than I do with Hall. With Conrad L. Hall there was a tendency for the shots to just get self-consciously poetic, and not really further the story. I didn't notice that so much in this movie. I'm really amazed that anyone could make such a good looking movie, where there's so much white space. All the actors turned in a great performance. The story structure was good, and it had it's share of interestingly constructed scene. Technically: mission accomplished. It's a well done movie

The problem with this movie is the same probelm with all his movies. It's intellectually vapid, and it doesn't really stop to think about what it's really saying. First of all, there's a ton of voice over that tells you what you're supposed to be thinking. I don't know about you, but when I hear this, I run the other direction. It's like I try to think the opposite just because I can.

Also, I'm not sure what it's trying to say, but what I got was, "if you're going to train someone to kill, you should let them put that training to good use." I have to completely disagree with this. If you're forced to train someone to kill, and then it becomes possible for you keep them from killing, to allow them to utilize their training would be an awful thing to do. The obligation is to only force someone to kill if it's absolutely necessessary, no matter how they've been trained.

I guess the movie also dealt with the dehumanization of the military and warfare. However, it did so in exactly the same way as full metal jacket and apocalypse. Compare the very first shot to the begining of Full Metal Jacket. Compare the guy who wants to take home a "crispy critter" to the guys playing cards on a corpse in apocalypse now. This is all the same. And the movie almost has to get us to love this dehumanization, because in the end the movie wants us to route for Jake Gyllenhall to kill someone, and it wants us to be sad when he doesn't.

3 stars out of 5.

I still like it alot. I just tend to get harsh when I know someone isn't living up to potential. Especially when they start becoming consistent disapointments. Maybe one of these days Sam Mendes will break through, and quit just being good, and start being totally awesome. I won't give up hope."

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