Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 

Obviously. But it didn't have to be the point of the movie.

Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 

This is indicative of why there is such a fuss over American Sniper. Think about FMJ and Apocalypse Now -- every soldier was evil, creepy, insane, didn't want to be there but turned into a killer, etc. (I haven't seen Das Boot, but presumably either they hated being there, or they were Nazis, or both.)

Put differently -- are you really saying that it isn't possible to make a good movie that honors a soldier's patriotism, courage, and dedication, even while it shows that the result is that the soldier ends up severely fucked up by the experience and has to do some very difficult things? American Sniper didn't really get there, but you can honor the person who volunteered to serve, without being a rah-rah whoo-hoo we luvs 'mericuh type of movie.

Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 

I don't think that's exactly right about Apocalypse Now -- think of all of those soldiers as the scenery for Willard's personal journey into hell. (And think of Lance.) But agree that the movie is longer on showing the effects on combatants than on honoring patriotism, courage and dedication. (I was trying to think of earlier movies that showed the effects on one's own combatants, and particularly of the first half of Full Metal Jacket, which is about breaking people down in boot camp to turn them into killers.)

I certainly don't think portraying both isn't possible. The book I just read on the Bulge (Snow & Steel) hits all of the notes you list here, while also describing incompetence and bad acts on both sides. Recommended. (By contrast, I also read the official military histories of Bastogne and the Ardennes campaign, and they are pretty much limited to noting acts of extreme heroism, as one might expect.) As you and Sebby have pointed out, there are much bigger commercial pressures in making a movie than in writing a book.

Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 

Did anyone see Taking Chance? I thought it was a beautiful film, though I think it was only on HBO. It was the story of a desk duty stateside Marine who volunteered to escort the body of a Marine who'd died in combat (or IED, I can't really remember) from Dover to the Marine's home in Wyoming. Kevin Bacon did a beautiful job with the role and I thought it was quite moving.

Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 

all of you should be hassling co-workers and friends to vote for me instead of drafting these long posts.

Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 

Are you looking maybe for Deer Hunter? Or, if you want a bad movie doing the same thing, there is Born in the USA.

But, really, I just want to keep watching reruns of Casablanca.

Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 

Forrest Gump portrayed soldiers in a positive way.

Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 

So looks like Bibi wants another war before the election.

Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 

And Ty wants to watch reruns of Apocalypse now, ideally with a desert setting superimposed.

The Nightly Show on Monday had a good discussion about American Sniper. (Overall, probably more interesting than the movie itself.) Matt Taibbi's criticism (at least, the reduced form of it he gave there), however, was stupid -- his complaint about the movie is that it doesn't say that we invaded the wrong country. I agree that we did, but the movie wasn't about the political issues. To me, that's like criticizing Saving Private Ryan because it doesn't talk about how the Allies contributed to the war by imposing the brutal conditions of the Treaty of Versailles on Germany.

Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 

???

(Though a war might be a good war for him to paper over his ridiculous conduct this past week --- "Yeah, Mr. President, I know yours is the only country that supports us, and yeah, I was a complete douchebag to you, but we really need your help now so let's set that aside, 'k?")

Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 

His bombing raid in Syria last week ago got responded to in Golan and there is now some shooting back and forth going on - Israel shelled southern Lebanon, Hezbollah hit Israel with some anti-tank fire and hit Golan with some shelling. One UN Peacekeeper in Lebanon and two IDF soldiers in Israel are dead so far, a bunch more wounded, and the Israeli right is calling for the usual "disproportionate" response to each response to their response to the initial response to their bombing raid.

It's all the perfectly predictable outcome to the bombing raid, which I, being the cynic I am, view as a Bibi campaign stop, motivated in just the way your parenthetical suggests. If you're less cynical, you might view it as his way of undermining the "ISIS first" strategy that the anti-ISIS forces have been following in Syria.

Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 

It's annoying when critics attack a work (movie, book, etc.) for not having been about something else (and I still haven't seen the movie). That said, the review I linked earlier suggested that the movie is not only "not about" the nature of the conflict, but also that it repeatedly changes facts -- a/k/a fictionalizes -- to whitewash what happened. Would it have been hard for Eastwood to suggest somewhere in the film that Kyle was the victim of choices made by Americans?

Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 

Surely you jest. I love his body of work, consider him one of the icons of cool when I think about my personal style, and cinematically, he's a good director. But Eastwood has never made a secret of the fact he is a strong Republican. He'd rather admit he loved his dead, gay son.

Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 

Personally I think Eastwood did suggest that -- though in a way that left it open for people to decide if that suggestion was correct. First is just the trauma of the war over all, on Kyle as well as other soldiers. Second, and more to this point, at the funeral of another Seal the widow reads a poem or story from the soldier about how hateful the situation is. Kyle rejects that notion, but it's clear that other soldiers do not. (It's not particularly powerful and a bit cheesy, but that's because it's not a great movie.)

Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 

I know that, and you know that, and Sidd knows that. But as a Thomas Pynchon fan, I believe it's important to judge a work on its own terms, and not on the basis of the author's life.