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 Stunt Man

directed by Richard Rush (1980)

It starts off with a buzzard hanging around on a pole watching a yellow dog licks his privates.  I'm guessing the buzzard is the audience and the dog is Hollywood, something like that.

The movie is not very good in terms of being a believable story; it's more an arty pastiche of moviemaking.  As long as you're ok with over the top performances and general craziness, it's entertaining as hell, and a pretty great look at behind the scenes action too.  You get to see crane set ups, action sequences outta control and gone wrong, while a helicopters totes a camera are all over the place.  Peter O'Toole in his camera crane is like a mad scientist in his robot creation, overseeing his minions, the dues ex machina hand of god, manipulating everyone in order to get his movie in the can.

Truthfully, the story is really silly, it involves a escaped prisoner or guy with a warrant, (Steve Railsback), I forget why this guy was on the run from the law, but he is, and O'Toole takes him in hiding him among his crew,  as a replacement for a stunt man who's gone missing.  Dude needs a place to duck out from the man,  and the director needs to finish his movie....by any means necessary!  O'Toole is making an antiwar film but it looks trite, lots of battle scenes, and tragic love storiness, but mostly explosions and scenes needing mucho stunt work. It's a fun watching the stunt work, and there's some good dialogue too.  This bit from O'Toole sums up the message of the flick pretty well.


"We're shaking a finger at them Sam, and we shouldn't.  If you've anything to say, it's best to slip it in while they're all laughing and crying and jerking off at all the sex and violence.  You should do something outrageous!"

It was nominated for 3 Academy Awards: best director, best adapted screenplay, and best actor for Peter O'Toole.  It won a Golden Globe for best score.

I liked the movie, and the director says it's about perception, so watch it with an open mind and see what you make of it.

Official site

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.