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I want to screen this back to back with Unforgiven and see whether people's heads explode from the moral whiplash. Also don't forget the real Kyle boasted about sniping 30 Fangz fucked around with this message at 15:55 on Jan 21, 2015 |
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Jan 21, 2015 15:52
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Killing hundreds of people at a great distance under rules of engagement he understood as making everyone male between 16 and 65 a legitimate target makes him almost certainly a war criminal. Lots of people do tell tall tales, but the choice of the tale matters. Choosing to brag about mass murder of black civilians during a natural disaster makes him either merely deeply hosed up, or if we actually believe him like we believe his escapades in Iraq, one of the worst spree shooters in recent history. Fortunately for Kyle we apply a very selective standard to him, and invent crap out of whole cloth to make him look good. Taking PTSD people to the shooting range is moronic and he is fortunate that this resulted in only his own death. Then add on the publicity around him generating the aura of hero worship. Yeah, seriously, gently caress this guy. Fangz fucked around with this message at 21:21 on Jan 25, 2015 |
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Jan 25, 2015 21:19
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Basebf555 posted:That's an amusing comparison because Enemy at the Gates was criticized at the time for taking plenty of liberties with what was the story of a real-life man in a very real battle that killed tens of thousands(maybe more). The main character is Russian, the enemies are Nazi's, the conflict took place more than 50 years before the film was made, and it was still criticized. American Sniper is trying to get away with the same poo poo but without the benefit of literal Nazi's and the passage of time the movie is infinitely more offensive. Enemy at the Gates, for all its faults, works a lot harder to humanize its Nazis (in particular the Ed Harris character), sets up tension by showing Zaitsev to be clearly inferior in terms of raw sniping talent to his nemesis (note that Major Konig is the one who makes the 'impossible' shots in that film. Zaitsev wins only because he had people willing to die for him, not because he outshoots the bad guy), muddies the water by showing the propaganda side of war and allows the Soviets to do lots of bad, wrong things. It is a better film than this.
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Jan 27, 2015 19:27
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Basebf555 posted:Making a movie about the invasion of Iraq without dealing with why it was done and how those decisions were made is an extremely boring creative choice. Even if Eastwood is being honest and he really intended the film as an anti-war statement he made the most obvious, trite statement there is to make. War is very rough on the soldiers and they often have a hard time adjusting to normal life after its over, wow what a revelation. If Eastwood wanted to make a film about war being rough on the soldiers, who have a hard time adjusting to normal life, then he should have made a film about the guy who shot Chris Kyle.
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Jan 28, 2015 15:45
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computer parts posted:So not All Quiet on the Western Front? Well, even personally surviving the horrors of WWI didn't exactly dissuade a certain Austrian corporal from launching a bigger, more grotesque conflict. There's a certain element of truth here, I think, though we need to be careful to separate the idea of a 'good movie that is ostensibly critical of an existing conflict', and 'an effectively anti-war movie, that persuasively enlightens the audience'. All Quiet on the Western Front is great literature, but effectively irrelevant outside its narrow window in time. Indeed, the general category of 'oh it sucks for our boys' movies is fast becoming irrelevant in the face of drone warfare, and other techniques allowing killing at a distance. Aspects of American Sniper, such as the insinuation that it is militarily necessary to kill women and children without much need for remorse or search for alternatives, are definitely pro-war in the modern context. It reinforces the attitude of those who hear of kids getting blown up in the news, and think "pfft they probably deserved it". In the modern political context, the only political power of these films is to push for a more pleasant and safer killing environment for our troops. Woo. Fangz fucked around with this message at 00:56 on Feb 7, 2015 |
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Feb 7, 2015 00:52
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You seem quite angry about this.
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Feb 17, 2015 13:22
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Smoothrich posted:Maybe a little. The fixation I've seen in some people on despising Chris Kyle for being proud of his service and saying racist poo poo about his enemy and the concern trolling about ISIS fighters is worse than a Breitbart comment chain about Obamacare. 1. Maybe you should address individual people and/or statements instead of a semi-imagined eigen-person that is an amalgam of every claim you ever read that annoyed you, exaggerated to the maximal degree. Discussion on that basis is insulting and annoying. If you are angry with your facebook friends, then go talk to your facebook friends. If you are annoyed with Seth Rogan, then tweet at him. 2. People's complaints about Chris Kyle extends to far far more than "being proud of his service and saying racist poo poo about his enemy". It pertains to his racist (hopefully lying) boasts about murdering dozens of fellow americans, his self-aggrandisement and use of his kill count to defend past and future wars, his abuse of charity money, his harmful and unsound treatments of PTSD sufferers leading to his own death, his statement that he believed rules of engagement allowed him to kill "all Iraqi males between 16 and 65", his direct lies that led to him being in a court case... and in the case of this movie, the whitewashing of all of that to create a manufactured hero so that Texas can have a Chris Kyle day and so that movie studios can make a lot of money. I do not know if you are ignorant of the arguments here or you are willfully misrepresenting people. Many critics of Chris Kyle do respect veterans, and I would suggest that *not sending them into senseless atrocious wars is the highest respect you can have*. Chris Kyle certainly did not respect fellow veterans that had the temerity to disagree with him about the War on Iraq, see e.g. Jesse Ventura. 3. Chris Kyle never fought ISIS. ISIS did not exist when Kyle left the military in 2009. 4. I haven't seen the Pacific, but as far as I know it is not one of the most successful movies ever and is not nominated for the Oscars. Copious amounts *have* been written on WWII, in any case, with a lot of criticism of the racism prevalent in that period. Indeed even noted liberal Clint Eastwood directed a film, "Letters from Iwo Jima", portraying the Japanese side of the conflict shown in the Pacific. You may have heard of him? Of course, that war was in general rather distinct from, say, the conflict in Iraq. If you see no difference between fighting the genocidal IJA, and shooting all males between 16 and 65 in a country you launched an unprovoked attack on and was militarily occupying, then I suppose that's your choice to make. EDIT: Actually a lot of veterans are anti-war. They don't tend to commit suicide. So no, I don't think believing that killing hundreds of people was fun and the best time of your life is necessary for civilian existence. A generation of people went to Vietnam and afterwards thought it was a horrible mistake, and get shat on by Chris Kyle's fanclub. But hey, Support The Troops. Fangz fucked around with this message at 14:55 on Feb 17, 2015 |
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Feb 17, 2015 14:40
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Smoothrich posted:All these twitter day slacktivists circle jerking over a dead douchey redneck who ran his mouth off all the time like they're any better should probably go to a Veterans Hospital and soapbox there about WMD to the crippled crazy racists who dared to kill in war and tell me how good you feel about bestowing true liberal American virtues to those ignorant simple folk? You are becoming incoherent. You're saying that critics of Chris Kyle and American Sniper should be abusive to injured veterans in hospital? Why? I mean, heck, there was a guy in the thread earlier who was a veteran, should he be mean to himself? Is this some kind of schoolground argument where I'm supposed to respond, "if you like Chris Kyle so much, go to Iraq and tell the widows and orphans he created how he was the best dude?" You have your aforementioned facebook and twitter friends for that sort of non-sequitir bluster, if you aren't scared of pissing them off.
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Feb 17, 2015 15:45
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Smoothrich posted:The hypocrisy is pathetic Hmm
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Feb 17, 2015 16:41
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Step back for a moment and look at your posts. Do you see what a moron you are looking like? Now go back to trolling those 'SJW's on tumblr, oh great internet warrior.
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Feb 17, 2015 19:04
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An Oscars Voter posted:American Sniper? Bradley Cooper did just a ridiculously phenomenal job, the way that the movie was made brought me back to the way movies used to be made and I completely got who this guy was and his struggle. I don't condone killing in any way, shape or form, but what resonated with me was his motivation for making a change in his life: 9-1-1 [a reference to Sept. 11, 2001]. He wasn't arbitrarily killing people; he was protecting his men and that was his job. People can call him whatever they want; I took the movie just the way it was intended by Clint Eastwood. I mean, I love that movie.
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Feb 22, 2015 14:21
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Yes but you put that line there and you use the name of the book and the name of the guy for a reason. And that reason is to wrap your film in a perceived sincerity.
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Feb 22, 2015 17:14
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Cole posted:No it isn't. Stop being so gullible when you watch movies. Now that you are aware of what "inspired by" means, you are better equipped to not think everything you see on the screen is fact. Are you seriously arguing that creators do not put things in marketing materials and in films to have effects on the likely audience? Why did Fargo have 'based on a true story' at the start?
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Feb 22, 2015 17:21
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Cole posted:Blair Witch did too. I guess the filmmakers had a responsibility to be factual with that one too. So you accept that creators use the concept sometimes to be deceitful to serve some kind of artistic purpose? Thus switching the question to 'what purpose did the deceit in American Sniper serve'? You are treating this idea of 'responsibility to be factual' as a black and white thing, where American Sniper's deviations from fact is no different to say, misspelling his name or giving him the wrong haircut. That is not what everyone is saying at all. What everyone is saying is that AS's status, which is intentionally cultivated as being a factual document, needs to be considered as part of what it aims to achieve. In the same way that Blair Witch's context, as a fake true story, is necessary to its understanding and a factor in its success. You can't just ignore that aspect by saying 'don't be gullible'.
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Feb 22, 2015 17:46
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Cole posted:That's fine and dandy. A movie can be about politics. But if you watch it and you're so influenced by it that you can't discern the difference between Hollywood and real life, the problem is not with the movie. People seem to be defending ignorance. Watching a movie, any movie, that doesn't fall under a documentary title (and even then), even those that are "based on" real events and getting your political ideologies from it is lazy ignorance. Can it influence you do to more research about it? Yeah, but don't ask me to accept people being lazy about it. Posting fake news stories to deceive people is morally wrong even if it's possible to see through them if you do the research. Knowingly doing so makes you a scumbag. The likes of Fox News are scum. This isn't about defending ignorance at all.
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Feb 23, 2015 02:49
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(Re-)encountered this Zizek quote which seems appropriate.quote:In contrast to the simplistic opposition of good guys and bad guys, spy thrillers with artistic pretensions display all the "realistic psychological complexity" of the characters from "our" side. Far from signaling a balanced view, however, this "honest" acknowledgment of our own "dark side" stands for its very opposite, for the hidden assertion of our supremacy: we are "psychologically complex," full of doubts, while the opponents are one-dimensional fanatical killing machines. Therein resides the lie of Spielberg's Munich: it wants to be "objective," presenting moral complexity and ambiguity, psychological doubts, the problematic nature of revenge, of the Israeli perspective, but what its "realism" does is redeem the Mossad agents still further: "look, they are not just cold killers, but human beings with their doubts- they have doubts, whereas the Palestinian terrorists..." One cannot but sympathize with the hostility with which the surviving Mossad agents who really carried out the revenge killings reacted to the film ("there were no psychological doubts, we just did what we had to do") for there is much more honesty in their stance. (p11)"
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Feb 23, 2015 15:28
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The US loving loves the military. http://www.gallup.com/poll/171710/public-faith-congress-falls-again-hits-historic-low.aspx
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Feb 24, 2015 09:23
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Cole posted:Yeah the US loves to vote on things too. How does that follow from my linked survey?
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Feb 24, 2015 12:25
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Cole posted:Here's the thing about opinion polls: people are more likely to say what is "right" rather than what is true. Do a poll on racism. I promise the number of racists is DRASTICALLY higher than what your poll will show. So you think the US public feel that it is 'right' to trust the military more than small business, religion, their criminal justice system and the democratic process? You think that it's reasonable that admitting to a lack of faith in the military is analogous to admitting you are a racist? Edit: note that 34% of Americans self-report as racist. Fangz fucked around with this message at 14:18 on Feb 24, 2015 |
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Feb 24, 2015 12:49
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I think Fox News counts as mainstream, sadly.
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Feb 24, 2015 19:49
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