Ender's Game

written and directed by Gavin Hood (2013)

I read the Orson Scott Card book this movie is based on when I was a teenager, but the only thing I remembered clearly was the arc of the boy becoming a Nietzschean superman soldier, and how he ended up shrugging off that training in the face of his encounters with the supposed enemy bug race.

The movie pays short shrift to that transformative end, and is basically a bunch of Harry Potter kid soldiers in kamikaze training school, who spend most of the flick playing zero g quidditch laser tag.  It's a bombastic pro-military recruitment flick, and its fascist, or would that be speciest?? mentality was way to ugh for me.  I found it specious for sure, and even though the effects are great, it's actually pretty boring.  I liked the portrayals of bullying and social engineering, but the best part for me was seeing all the tough little guys in the movie.  Ben Kingsley has a small role as a Maori with honorific facial tattooing and he looks awesome.



On the way home from the movie, I passed by a launch party for the latest release of Call Of Duty Ghosts.  And it struck me that this is exactly the crowd the movie was made for -  it's bound to appeal to the kids and other folk with childish black and white morality toolsets, who are into playing war games.  It's a natural fit, since I think they buy into the horrible idea of killing being honourable, especially when that murder has been justified through the idea of othering the enemy to be inhuman. Also, through the emphasis on "national defence", which too often is doublespeak for aggressive offense, of course.  Unfortunately, it's a sad truth that a majority of people have been indoctrinated in these terrible beliefs worldwide, and this movie does more to reinforce that mentality than plant the seeds of peace and redress briefly referenced in the coda.

In any case, Orson Scott Card is a raging homophobe so I'm glad he's not getting ANY money from the proceeds of the movie.

The Iron Lady

directed by Phyllida Lloyd (2011)


I think this movie is propaganda of a sort.


It completely obfuscates the geo-political realities the Thatcher government operated within.  She was in service of the corporate agendas, and that fact is ignored in favour of a cult of personality exploration that emphasises her ascending to a position of power.  It humanises her while it demonises the reactions to the slashing of government programs.  The privatisation of the mining industry is presented like the labour unions were being UNFAIR, as if they were cheating somehow when they went on strike.  FU movie.  I don't agree with your framing techniques, nor your politics.

The whole Fawklands war fiasco is shown as a petty lark with few consequeces, except the ones the film chooses to highlight - that she got respect as The Iron Lady.  I'm sorry, but I don't think that was the general opinion at the time.  I'm pretty sure it was seen as audacious aggression.  Whatever though, because this is such a Tory love fest.

Walking out the theatre, I heard someone saying she's gonna win the Oscar and I think odds will favour her.  Her only real opposition will come from The Help.  Meryl should win though, she's just amazing in this.  A true tour de force performance.  She completely embodied the role.

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Yeah, I called it. :)  Her Oscar acceptance speech was pretty sweet too.  She really is an amazing actress.

 

It's a good flick, just its politics is suspect.

Redtails

directed by  Anthony Hemingway (2012)

George Lucas does Star Wars X-Wing dogfights in the original old school style going to the origin story of it all with the WWII Flying Aces or whatever the pilot dudes were called BITD.  It's about a company of black pilots, the Tuskagee Airmen, at least that's the angle for the making of this particular flick, so there's racism and patriotism and all that other WWII propaganda hoohaa brouhaha going on in this.

I caught the last half of it, got to see the dogfights and that was fine with me.  I missed most of the bonding and training, all the establishing of the stereotyped characters, the hero and the reckless rebel, the stoic Sargent, and all the baby faced boys toughening into REAL MEN TM.  I also missed most of the overcoming the honky ofay opposition to an all black pilot battalion.  I bet it was tedious, because the part I did see had enough corny dialogue to carry me through a few shitty movies.  It does have Terrence Howard going for it though. I saw him once in real life and he's so pretty I wouldn't have minded his character development scenes much at all.  There's a whole bunch of pretty men in this actually, but I only recognised a couple.  Cuba Gooding Jr.'s character with his jaunty cocked cap, reminded me of Hogan, from Hogan's Heroes.  Andre Royo, Bubbles from the Wire plays a mechanic and there were some white people I recognised too, like Byran Cranston from Breaking Bad.

It's a pretty crappy flick, about par for a propaganda war glamourising production in its plot, but it's got really shitty dialogue and the pacing is off. About the best thing going for it, is it's set in the only good war, with NAZI Germany enemy combatants to ruthlessly blow up and destroy.  That, and the pretty mens and planes.  Plus it's a black story so the racism issues are important, it's just a shame it's not done very well.  There was another movie made in 1995 based on the same story, called The Tuskagee Airmen, but I haven't seen it.  It's on youtube though.  Lawrence Fishburne?  John Lithgow?  Even has Cuba Gooding Jr. again.  Looks better than this one Holmes.

There's one thing I don't get about war movies.  How can you make such a terrible thing into something noble?  I mean really, war means killing ACTUAL people, destroying fathers and brothers and mothers and daughters and babies! and that's not even considering all the material destruction, like homes and roads and shops and offices and bridges and schools, museums libraries factories etc etc.  All that doesn't even count, because the enemy is less than and smashing them is the job.   What they want? What their grievances are? None of that even matters, because they are the dehumanised other.  It's ridiculous.

Max (2002)

written/directed by Menno Meyjes (2002)

Max Rothman, (John Cusack), is a one armed art dealer who takes young Hitler under his wing and encourages him to open himself up to new ideas and branch out into abstract art.  It's based on a play and was produced by John Cusack. Whatever, I think this is a rude flick.  Hitler was a terrible man and this is an unnecessary story that does nothing to illuminate the human condition.  It's a cheap way to give a story gravitas by making it about Hitler.  It humanises Hitler some, but is that admirable?  It's all made up too, and I hate the idea of people thinking Hitler came "THIS CLOSE" to not being the 20th Century's greatest villain.  It's not like Hitler really had an art dealer taking an interest in him and amping up his Jew hatred due to the condescending manner Cusack displays towards him.  Hitler wanted to be an architect, and applied for a scholarship before he became a soldier, his artistic aspirations were behind him after The Great War.

Speilberg passed on the project because he didn't want to dishonour Holocaust survivors, but encouraged Menno Meyjes to follow through on his screenplay.  John Cusack was an associate producer and he gave up his salary to help the project along.

I enjoyed the depictions of the art scene, and Hitler's distase for the decadence within that arena was well displayed, with his bitterness and all, shining bright due to Noah Taylor's ranting spit flying oratory skills.  Seeing Hitler getting trained in the art of propaganda was a nice touch too, and a good way to show that Hitler was a man of his time.  His racist beliefs weren't of his own creation, hatred of Jews and Gypsies and "lower" classes, were commonplace and everywhere, and still are. The Nazis were simply very effective at harnessing and channelling that powerfully destructive and ugly reality.  Sexism, racism, ethnic cleansing, war, othering....it's not like we've come a long way, baby! really very much at all when we consider the big picture.

There's a great scene where Max puts on a performance piece about war - very avante garde dadaesque speechifying about propaganda against a backdrop of a giant meat grinder.  Max lost his arm in WWI, and his fake arm puppet floats into the grinder and the piece ends with him seemingly slowly sinking into the grinder, while red clay oozes out the front through the grinder holes.  Meat for the war machine.  Hitler is incensed.  Disgusting!! he shrieks and stomps out.

Best line? c'mon Hitler! I'll buy you a lemonade!

The movie pushed buttons for me.  On the one hand it's an interesting what if story, but it's about HITLER and it's all fictional bullshit!  On a metaphorical level there is some truth but I kept bumping up against the fact that really it's lies, lies, lies.   And it's so melodramatic too, with an OMG so stupid tragic ending.  Puhleez.  I did like the political machinations shown.  Even though I believe that it's inevitable that current knowledge of political realities inform interpretations of the past, what is shown is still very interesting. The movie highlights the development of propaganda in support of wedge politics, where hatred of one group is used to consolidate and leverage political power.  It's still a very valid strategy, but one that has become more nuanced and less overt.  Code words are used now and it's more based on class divisions than racial ones.  Though ethnic and cultural divisions are strong still too.  Just goes to show you , that we've still got a long way to go, baby!