Hollywood’s Phony (Anti)War - The Sequel
Are they truly antiwar - or the addled product of unacknowledged moral confusion? Pajamas CEO and striking screenwriter Roger L. Simon continues his analysis of why Hollywood's recent spate of antiwar movies have been such box office disasters.
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Now that Brian De Palma’s Redacted is such a bomb you almost feel sorry for the director (the film opened nationally to a total audience of three thousand souls - you could do better with your grandmother’s home movies… or maybe even a blank screen), I would like to go further with my analysis of why the Hollywood antiwar movies are failing.
In his interview with Pajamas Media, actor/politician Fred Thompson said they flopped because they were probably “bad movies.” Undoubtedly so, but there is a reason for why this particular “badness” occurred and it is not simply their seemingly anti-American viewpoint. The movies are essentially inauthentic. The filmmakers think they are supposed to be antiwar, but they don’t feel it in their guts.
How do I know that? Part of this is admittedly a gut feeling on my part. This feels to me like a cinema of “received wisdom,” not based on personal experience or “emotional knowledge” of any kind. No matter how you stand or stood on the Vietnam War, compare these recent ventures (Lions for Lambs, Rendition, Redacted, The Valley of Elah) with, to pick one example, Oliver Stone’s Platoon. The director’s passion is literally splattered all over the screen. Ditto for his Born on the Fourth of July. And, not surprisingly, the audience went.
No passion, no conviction of this sort, is evident in the current movies. And that is lethal. Art without genuine conviction is boring and worthless. What else does the artist (filmmaker) have to give to the audience but his or her passion? It’s no surprise the audience is disinterested without it.
But - to go a bit further - why this curious distance, almost alienation, between author and subject in these cases? As we all know, conventional wisdom in Hollywood has been anti-Iraq War virtually from the start and when these films were being initiated, well over a year ago now, the war was in its deepest quagmire, at least seemingly so. Serious filmmakers - or filmmakers who think they are serious - are often looking around for their “Oscar picture” at that juncture. What could be a better premise then than criticism of a government (ours) that their peers almost universally despised? It was like being a rebel with a safety net. Even if the film failed to win a prize, general approbation would accrue in the entertainment community.
Normally this would instill passion, or at least passionate ambition, but there is a subtler and more treacherous roadblock to authenticity in all this that is not frequently acknowledged. While the Vietnam and Iraq Wars are often equated by the liberal-left, the differences between the two are greater than the similarities, especially in the critical area of who is the adversary. For Vietnam: The evils of communism could be and were rationalized by the left as a plea for social equality in an economically unjust world. For Iraq: The evils of Islamofascism and just plain fascism are considerably harder, indeed almost impossible, to rationalize.
This problem is particularly true for Hollywood because the evils of Islamofascism - notably extreme misogyny and homophobia - are justifiably big no-nos to people in the Industry. In fact, they are close to the biggest no-nos of all for them in their daily lives. Who is worse than a sexist pig? Only a violent, murderous sexist pig who wants to take over the world. It then becomes a complex balancing act indeed to make a movie that ignores or downplays this in order to criticize the US as the larger villain. No one has been able to come close to pulling off this balancing act in a film. In fact, it may well be impossible because it is fundamentally dishonest.
So the filmmaker is reduced to the idea that our problem is that we are fighting these obvious (and largely unspoken) evils in the wrong way. But there is no easy way to fight anything. Or even to not fight it. Otherwise we would be living in a perfect world. So the idea itself is not even possible, yielding yet another level of fakery. No wonder these films seem inauthentic.
But all is not lost, cinema fans. It may be that if the Surge continues to be successful, in the not-so-distant future a wholly different kind of Iraq War movie will emerge. And they will be made by the veterans themselves. If we are particularly lucky, they will seem more like Casablanca than Redacted.
Roger L. Simon is an Academy Award-nominated screenwriter, novelist and blogger, and the CEO of Pajamas Media.
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57 Comments
Crimson Ghost:The American public is just tired of the same old arguments coming from the anti war/America crowd.
It is hard to imagine that some one who is not totally against the war and the US would make such a retched film as redacted. I believe de Palma when he says that he is unhappy about so many things; look at him, he looks like an unhappy-old man.
Also, have you watch Platoon lately? I watched it again recently and wondered where all the magic went. Platoon is now one tired cliche after another.
These movies are all recycled old lines. There is nothing NEW about them. People get board of re-runs. Thats all.
Oh, and they all sucked.
Nov 28, 2007 - 2:01 am syn:I’ve moveon.orged from whatever today’s Hollywood has to offer, found other entertainment venues with better value and purpose. After I unglued my fatigued eyeballs from the cheesy screen I’ve discovered a brave new world outside the tired old world where fake images no longer hold meaning. Like the commenters pointed out Hollywood is ‘one tired cliche after another. THese movies are all recycled old lines. THere is nothing NEW about them.”
Hollywood had around eighty years of cultural dominance now is the time to fade into blackness.
Nov 28, 2007 - 6:16 am David Thomson:I made a point of watching again “Dr. Strangelove.” It was highly enjoyable. The film was not per se anti-American, but merely concerned the possibility we might blunder into a nuclear catastrophe. “Seven Days in May” was somewhat critical of conservatives. Still, it was not hostile towards the United States. The movies depicting our country as a villain would not come out until a few years later. Hollywood is now totally contemptuous of the nation. We are always the bad guys who threaten the peace and welfare of the entire planet. These film makers are truly self hating Americans. They are also strongly dedicated to the Democratic Party. What is it that they see in the Democrats?
Nov 28, 2007 - 6:37 am Roger L. Simon:I agree, Crimson Ghost, that Platoon does not look as good now as it once did. Few movies on any subject last more that a few years past their time. My point is that at least Platoon had some feeling behind it. These films are entirely paint by the numbers. Different thing…. sadder and worse.
Nov 28, 2007 - 7:40 am southdakotaboy:The only films I go to see any more are just straight up horror flicks. There is no political agenda in SAW or The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, just good old fashion blood and dumb people walking into places that normal people run away from.
Nov 28, 2007 - 7:44 am Bugs:Roger knows these people better than I do, but I wonder if their problem might be too much passion rather than not enough. If you feel passionate about something, you can stand up on a stage and indulge yourself with artless screaming and cursing. Or you can sublimate that emotion and let it come through in passionate but artful writing. Maybe these writers and directors are having trouble sublimating - trying to produce art when they’re actually in the screaming stage. They should pick a mood and stick to it.
Nov 28, 2007 - 8:33 am Chris:Roger,
Nov 28, 2007 - 8:37 am Roger l. Simon:Rebel with a net. Love it and hope you don’t mind if I find occasion to borrow it. If that doesn’t perfectly encapsulate the Hollywood left, then I don’t know what does.
Well, Bugs, there is passion and passion. The passion to stand on stage and wave your arms has little to do with the passion to make art - to work on something at full intensity for a year or more. In fact, it may almost be the opposite.
Nov 28, 2007 - 8:39 am Jack Okie:I highly recommend We Own the Night and 3:10 to Yuma. I haven’t seen No Country for Old Men yet, but it looks like the Coen brothers still have their touch.
What seems to have been missing for a long time are stars with true star quality; for example, Lauren Bacall. After all these years, and many viewings, her performance in To Have and Have Not still strikes sparks.
Nov 28, 2007 - 8:47 am patagonianplato:I recently saw the Bourne Ultimatum. It was a horrifically horrible movie with cinematography that made me noxious. It was so bad, that after 20 minutes I kept hoping to see Bourne get knocked off. When the director has you wanting to see his protagonist killed off, there is something fundamentally flawed with the film. I consider the film to be an insult to Ludlum’s legacy.
However, the thing that really bothered me about the film was that the bad guys are all American CIA agents. They are presumably all neo-cons and probably friends of President Bush. With all the evil villains in the world today, it was just one more attempt to make America the scapegoat for the ills of the world.
Hollywood, please return to the entertainment business.
Nov 28, 2007 - 9:45 am Mark:The problem with saying a film bombed because of lack of passion, or bad acting or bad plot or anthing IN the film is that everyone who didn’t see the film has no idea about those thiungs except for what they read.
When people decide to go to a film, they go based on what kind of story they are in the mood for and what’s playing near them. Maybe they read a review or a paragraph description. So these bombs would be the result of people not being in the mood for an (anti) war film. Not any serious analysis of the film itself.
Nov 28, 2007 - 10:43 am G. Kell:Jack Okie,
This morning I was reading a book about Raymond Chandler. H. Bogart & L. Bacall were the stars in the first version of The Long Goodbye. Chandler purportedly said, after seeing it, that Bacall should have remained a carhop.
Some actors only become icons after the fact (M Monroe comes to mind).
Nov 28, 2007 - 10:47 am Al Fin:Movies are not supposed to be ideological sledgehammers. When idiots like Redford et al try to make their works instruments of indoctrination, they lose all semblance to art and entertainment.
They’d make more money for whatever cause they think they’re promoting by charging $1,000 a kick to their bare bottoms!
Nov 28, 2007 - 10:57 am Keith:Best movies I’ve seen this year is Call of Duty 4: Modern Combat. Yes I know it’s a PC/console game but is plays like a good movie. The bad guys are from the Middle East and the good guys are a Marine and a SAS operative. Hollywood needs to take a look at the video game industry because they know what the public wants.
I’m willing to fork out $50 for a 10 hour video game instead of $12 for a 2 hour movie where the good guys are the bad guys.
Nov 28, 2007 - 11:03 am Jim:Someone wiser than me (maybe it was Roger Simon a few months ago!) pointed out that the public can now get analysis and information from dozens of sources unheard of 20 years ago, many of which are far more insightful and reliable than what Hollywood can produce.
So today, Hollywood isn’t an arbiter of taste, information, or insight anymore. It/They are just like little kids at the dinner party, bothering the grownups, trying to be a part of the conversation… but in fact are just redundant and annoying.
Nov 28, 2007 - 11:27 am Tom W.:Roger:
You say few movies on any subject last more that a few years past their time.
I just watched “The Best Years of Our Lives” again, and it blew me away all over again.
That film has all of Hollywood’s antiwar staples: an embittered wounded vet, greedy and callous capitalists who don’t care about the soldiers, a disillusioned vet with no future,
Nov 28, 2007 - 11:27 am Tom W.:(Dammit. My comment got mysteriously submitted before I was done writing it.)
“Best Years” even has someone telling the wounded vet he lost his hands for nothing because we were lied into a war by a dishonest administration.
Yet, despite all its criticism of our nation, the film doesn’t come off as anti-American.
Back then, the ethos was “My country, right or wrong.”
This doesn’t mean blind support for your country; it means even when your country does “wrong,” it’s still your country. Change it if you don’t like it, but don’t try to destroy it.
That’s a quaint idea lost on today’s miserably unhappy entertainment elite. Look at the high-school level moronism just spouted by Stephen King, the world’s oldest teenager.
A billionaire and still an idiot whose opinions have all been spoon fed into him by the great philospher John Camp Mellon Cougar.
Nov 28, 2007 - 11:35 am TallDave:Meanwhile, the unabashedly pro-war “300″ did HUGE business.
Nov 28, 2007 - 11:40 am Robert Hurley:I can’t comment on the movie never having seen it, but the idea we will see a Casablanca type movie in teh future because of the success of the surge is wishful thinking based on what is still a glimmer of hope
Nov 28, 2007 - 12:18 pm Bill Peschel:I think there’s one element missing from your argument, and I haven’t seen it elsewhere.
Ask someone doing anti-war material, and they’ll say something along these lines:
“I want to show the horrors of war.”
Bucky, I got news for you, we got the message a long time ago. Remember Vietnam? I do, and I was nine years old at the time.
War sucks. Noted.
Now, at one time, this would have been a valid argument. “All Quiet on the Western Front.” “Red Badge of Courage.” Those Life magazine shots of the dead Marines on Tarawa, face down on the sandy beach, the ocean claiming their bodies with sand and surf.
At those times, Americans were not directly confronted with the violence and chaos of war. These were truly shocking depictions to a people unexposed to the reality of combat.
Not anymore. We’ve seen the movies. We’ve seen the pictures. We bought the video game and read the books.
Works that tell us “the horrors of war” don’t tell us anything we don’t already know. And Hollywood doesn’t have anything else to tell us, and that’s why these war movies are bombing.
Nov 28, 2007 - 12:22 pm davod:Just maybe these people do not care about the US market. They might be aiming at the rest of the world. Just greedy capitalists?
Nov 28, 2007 - 12:31 pm Richard Fagin:Some of us think apologists for communism were just as dishonest as those trying to promote the United States being a bigger villain than the Islamofascists.
Nov 28, 2007 - 12:32 pm BMoon:Perhaps the cause for the pseudo-political banality of these movies is the same for the banality of modern American journalism - the attempt to be politically correct in everything, and then to subtly mute your real voice, to nuance everything, to not seem obviously biased, while you hopelessly are. It is utterly disingenuous and the American public, if it can pick up on anything, can pick up on that. The only ones they can really attack with venom are Christians, Republicans, and white, male executives of corporations, and even then it is in such snide, sneering, smearing, indirect, cowardly ways that make you never want to see another Hollywood film again..
Nov 28, 2007 - 1:17 pm Chris:Roger I think you’ve hit the nail on the head with your summation that a lack of passion exists among those chiefly responsible for the cheap and debased rhetoric (or in this case “cinema”) emanating from Hollywood. I think ultimately enough of the Hollywood elite know that, at its heart, the current anti-war sentiment is fashionable and thus will fade. Libels such as these are easy to spew in cocktail parties or use as a sort of social acceptance test, but say it out loud and you run the risk of being called on your transgressions later (Jane Fonda). I find it amusing that many in Hollywood circles confuse this fear of being left in the “radical” camp as an indictment of America’s “fascism” instead of the true disdane that the public (their real employers) feel for them after their rhetoric has been broadcast.
Nov 28, 2007 - 1:17 pm Looking Glass:As far as people not showing up, I’m more inclined to believe that too few theaters and too few true believers to attend the showings are the main culprits for their demise. From my experience with the “true believers” they’re either too well off (unable to fathom sitting in close proximity to the same great unwashed that they supposedly care so much about) or too bad off (life’s losers: druggies, drunks, people that live in their parent’s basements…the usual among the left’s maleable base that whore their freedoms for more handouts) to bother getting to their local theater to actually watch this tripe.
David Thomson wrote, “Hollywood is now totally contemptuous of the nation.”
The problem in a nutshell. They’re currently in full “blame the audience” mode.
Jack Okie wrote, “I haven’t seen No Country for Old Men yet, but it looks like the Coen brothers still have their touch.
“No Country for Old Men” has a Sopranos ending. One viewer thought a reel was missing from the end.
Keith wrote, “Best movies I’ve seen this year is Call of Duty 4: Modern Combat. Yes I know it’s a PC/console game but is plays like a good movie. The bad guys are from the Middle East and the good guys are a Marine and a SAS operative. Hollywood needs to take a look at the video game industry because they know what the public wants.
That’s been discussed on Ace of Spades HQ and at Dirty Harry’s Place, and Oraculations
You’ll be pleased to know we’re in complete agreement with you. Oraculations has links to the discussions at Ace of Spades and Dirty Harry’s place.
Nov 28, 2007 - 1:47 pm Curly Smith:Good article.
I think the problems lies with equating “emotion” and “passion”. There’s little doubt that Hollywood can emote on demand but they don’t truly care about much besides themselves. In that, they’re no different from most people. They know they’re supposed to be against this, that, and the other thing so they summon their inner fury and it fizzles like a wet sparkler on the 4th of July because they just really don’t care. Creative works require passion because emotion, as we can see from the recent slate of pictures, just can’t be sustained over the time needed to complete the work.
Nov 28, 2007 - 1:52 pm Pantera:“One Lone Survivor” by Marcus Luttrell would make an awesome pro-war movie. It’s a story of courage and betrayal and it has some pretty deep thinking in it. And it’s a true story.
Can’t wait untill this book gets made into a movie
Nov 28, 2007 - 1:56 pm Partisan:“Can’t wait untill this book gets made into a movie”
Why wait?
Mr Simon, let me know where to send a check and I’ll be glad to donate in order to get “Lone Survivor” made.
Marcus Luttrell gets final cut ..
Nov 28, 2007 - 2:20 pm ArtD0dger:I saw Platoon only the once way back when. I knew it was highly reviewed, I was quite sympathetic to its views, and I fully expected to like it a lot.
I thought it absolutely sucked. I found it pretentious, cliched, and manipulative. It almost seems like a watershed in my political evolution now.
You say these new movies are even worse?
Nov 28, 2007 - 2:35 pm Looking Glass:Curly Smith wrote, “I think the problems lies with equating “emotion” and “passion”. There’s little doubt that Hollywood can emote on demand but they don’t truly care about much besides themselves. … Creative works require passion because emotion, as we can see from the recent slate of pictures, just can’t be sustained over the time needed to complete the work.”
Hollywood’s shallow. No depth, whatever the passion. John Wayne spoke of playing “broadly.” Mary Wickes spoke in 1995 of “heart.”
BMoon wrote, “The only ones they can really attack with venom are Christians, Republicans, and white, male executives of corporations, and even then it is in such snide, sneering, smearing, indirect, cowardly ways that make you never want to see another Hollywood film again.”
People have a conditioned reflex against Hollywood movies.
From Libertas
Mr Stay Puft wrote, “It was
refreshing to find a film I could take my family to without being
bombarded with pop culture references, scatalogical humor, unexpected adult themes, Bush-bashing, liberal brainwashing,
humanity is the enemy to all animals, or Angelina Jolie.”
Not to mention product placement so ubiquitous it’s even in movie trailers.
On Yahoo! movies, two recent offerings have further poisoned the well. The bastardization of the story of Beowulf was decried multiple times. (And the ‘PG-13′ rating of Beowulf that apparently should have been a hard ‘R’, if not ‘X’.)
Back to the non-ending of “No Country for Old Men.” One person specifically lamented trusting the reviewers.
Watching a modern Hollywood movie is like eating a meal while expecting to find a live cockroach in it.
Nov 28, 2007 - 2:45 pm Bill:Quite simply, hollywood hates America, while the American people does not.
Nothing else makes sense. Always go with the simple answer.
Nov 28, 2007 - 2:59 pm Looking Glass:Partisan wrote, “Mr Simon, let me know where to send a check and I’ll be glad to donate in order to get “Lone Survivor” made.”
It won’t matter even if it does get made. It won’t be distributed. That’s where Hollywood has the real iron hand of control.
Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of Christ” was saved from disaster at the last minute by Newmarket Film’s decision to distribute it. Without that, it would never have gone into wide release.
Newmarket Film spent only $15 million on advertising. The movie cost $35 million to make.
It made $612 million in world-wide box office.
Newmarket Film’s reward? From Libertas
“Guess what? Newmarket Films doesn’t exist anymore, having been absorbed by HBO and New Line - both of which are owned by Time-Warner.”
Nov 28, 2007 - 3:19 pm Ric Locke:Mark comes closest.
It’s not that the producers and directors of these movies are anti-war. It’s that they don’t know anybody who isn’t anti-war, or who doesn’t assume that the United States is the bad guy.
If you aren’t doing cardboard on purpose (James Bond, Die Hard, etc.) then you need to know your villains, you need to have some emotional connection with them, you need to know how they think. These guys all went straight from privileged or semi-privileged Blue America to Cinematography School and on to the Industry. None of them has ever met a soldier to speak to in detail; I’d bet none of them even knows anyone who later became a soldier. They don’t know what they’re talking about, so they can’t even depict (what is from their point of view) evil except as tired cliche and bigoted assumption. Their antiwar message has no passion because they don’t have anything to be passionate toward, no enemy to fight except nebulous assumptions and stereotypes.
Furthermore, they share in the deficiencies of Hollywood today in that they don’t know anything about anything except other movies. That’s why it’s all remakes and “new looks” — they know nothing about war except what other moviemakers said about it; they know nothing about anything except what other movies have said about it. Previous generations of movie people had some contact with the subjects of their movies. The only thing the present bunch can make movies about is other movies.
There’s nobody there but Andy Rooney, whose solution to every problem was “Boys and girls, let’s put on a show!”
Regards,
Ric
Nov 28, 2007 - 4:07 pm DWSimon:Well, I have no interest in seeing Redacted. But to conclude that it “bombed” because it only pulled in $25K would make more sense if it were playing at more than 17 theaters. Normally, movies open on thousands of screens nationwide. But this movie opens on 17 screens. So is it really any surprise that it only pulled in $25K? A gross of $1700 per theater on opening weekend is no blockbuster number, but it’s not a
Nov 28, 2007 - 4:16 pm Jenny8675309:“bomb” either. So I don’t see how this is evidence for your hypothesis.
AMC has shown The Dirty Dozen of late. That and flicks like The Great Escape, Bridge on the River Kwai, Tora Tora Tora and Stalag 17 are likely way superior to those made by Robert Redford and Brian DePalma. I don’t know as I am boycotting movies made by the hate america first Hollywood traitorous filth.
Last thing I did watch was Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. Not much action, but absolutely brilliant acting for the six episodes. Why can’t the Left Coast turn out something of such quality even for the tube?
Nov 28, 2007 - 4:36 pm Jill:The problem, I think, is not so much lack of passion, but a lack of authenticity. Stone was in Vietnam, as such the characters in Platoon looked. spoke, and acted like the men he served with. (If a Hollywoodized version.) The new crop of Iraq anit-war movies have simply taken all the Vietnam cliches, put them in a sandbox, and called it an Iraq War movie. As Peggy Noonan said of the Scott Beauchamp affair, “it doesn’t smell right,” to anyone with any experience or real knowledge of the actual war. The only Iraq movie I have been tempted to see is Grace is Gone, the John Cusack movie. In it Mom goes off to war and dies, Dad is left at home to care for their two little girls. This is an original concept that deals with a situation unique to this war; Moms going off to fight, Dads (or grandparents) are left to pick up the pieces. (This is also a topic that no one, left or right, seems to want to touch.) I haven’t seen it - my husband is an Army officer - it hits too close to home now, but I thought it sounded like a genuine effort to tell a new story.
Nov 28, 2007 - 4:42 pm Looking Glass:davod wrote, “Just maybe these people do not care about the US market. They might be aiming at the rest of the world. Just greedy capitalists?
Box Office Mojo gives Redacted’s worldwide gross, as of Nov 25, as $167,995.
Repeat. World wide:$168,000.
This is not greedy capitalism as I understand the term.
Nov 28, 2007 - 4:59 pm Looking Glass:Ric Locke wrote, “There’s nobody there but Andy Rooney, whose solution to every problem was ‘Boys and girls, let’s put on a show!’”
Andy Hardy, played by Mickey Rooney.
Nov 28, 2007 - 5:05 pm Richard Cook:One of the best movies made was “The Warriors” back in 1999 about the British Army detachment in Bosnia. Its British and they underplay it perfectly. You want tension and moral estrangment this is it. It has mucho passion and heft but no arm waving and spittle flying. If you can find a DVD of it get it post haste. It is one of the best.
Nov 28, 2007 - 5:10 pm Neo:Most folks like myself go to the movies to be entertained, not preached to (that is what church is for).
Even then, sometimes a movie is just “too much”. Exactly what is “too much” varies. Somtimes it violence, or talking (DiVinci), or …
I remember vividly the one night that I decided I just couldn’t stomach watching “BlackHawk Down”, a fine movie, because I wasn’t in the mood for a lot of violence, so instead I went to see “We Were Soldiers” .. wow, also good, but I think it had it all over “BlackHawk Down” on the level of violence.
Nov 28, 2007 - 5:12 pm Ric Locke:Looking Glass,
Thanks for the correction.
Regards,
Ric
Nov 28, 2007 - 6:27 pm william:Some thoughts about Hollywood: In movies like Dr Stranglelove, Failsafe, Seven Days in May there was an implicit message that the American military were just too nuts to have possession of the bomb. Their view was supportive of unilateral disarment. Where are the movies that show the Caliphascists being too nutso to have possession of the bomb. Also in several more popular mainstream movies I have seen oblique slams against the American military. In the recent Fantastic Four movie, when the US Army wishes to extract informacion from the Silver Surfer they waterboard him. Give me a break. Finally, because no successful antiwar movie has been made does not mean one will not be made. Gone With the Wind is a great movie but it is kind of pro-slavery. DePalma and Redford are not without talent. Given world enough and time perhaps they will succeed. They will still be, like most artists of the 20th century, political failures.
Nov 28, 2007 - 6:32 pm Joshua:To DWSimon: While one can’t expect “Redacted” to attain blockbuster status playing at only 17 theaters, its per-screen average was extremely unimpressive. One would normally expect a film playing in only a few theaters to have a very strong per-screen average.
For example, when “No Country for Old Men” opened at 28 theaters, its per-screen average was $43,797 — more than 25 times as much as “Redacted”’s per-screen average opening weekend.
Assuming that “Redacted” was showing 4 times a day, and ticket prices were $10 (not unusual in New York or Los Angeles), the average showing of “Redacted” opening weekend drew about 14 customers.
In other words, I don’t think anyone going to “Redacted” should worry about finding a seat in the theater. Nobody is going to be blocking your view in front of you.
Nov 28, 2007 - 7:41 pm John:If you think of these movies less as attempts at art and more as early political campaign commercials for the 2008 election — generic as far as any specific candidate, but clearly in favor of one particular political party — then it’s quite a lot easier to understand the lack of passion.
They’re not for anything other than making sure there is a change of control in the White House next year, and believe their best contribution is by trying to change the hearts and minds of enough American voters with their films. But the only vision presented is “we suck”, with ‘we’ in this case being the Bush administration and its minions, which inevitably has to include the U.S. military. Most of the anti-war filmmakers at the very least know the lessons of attacking the troops in the wake of Vietnam was to leave Republicans in control of the presidency for 20 out of 24 years, and are trying to tiptoe around that dilemma, thereby producing movies which decry the politics of the war and portray the troops as dupes. But they present no alternative to the administration’s War on Terror, other than believing that if Democrats were in power, the Middle East would be all rainbows and unicorns and the threat of Islamic terrorism would magically go away.
DePalma, on the other hand, does at least have passion. It’s just that his passion makes him willing to go all the way where Redford and others won’t, by indicting American soldiers as being as much a force for evil in the world as George W. Bush is. there’s no hedging any bets here, except by producer/sugar daddy Mark Cuban in editing the dead body montage the film’s conclusion.
It was DePalma’s willingness to go all the way that caused “Redacted” to be lionized at Cannes, where many of the foreign elite want to believe that view of America, and that’s also the reason why of all the anti-Iraq war bombs that have come out this year, his made the biggest noise of all with the smallest boxoffice take among U.S. audiences.
Nov 28, 2007 - 8:24 pm Ed Minchau:Looking Glass wrote:
“It won’t matter even if it does get made. It won’t be distributed. That’s where Hollywood has the real iron hand of control.”
Well, screw hollywood’s iron band of control: Revver, YouTube, Metacafe, and dozens of other video-sharing sites are out there. Monetize it by selling ad space.
Nov 28, 2007 - 10:36 pm Peter:Why would anyone bother paying ten bucks to have their Country spat upon? I can read the Democrat Underground for free.
Nov 28, 2007 - 11:07 pm Looking Glass:Ric Locke wrote, “Looking Glass, Thanks for the correction.”
Glad to help. I should have noted how much I agree with the rest of your comment, but fighting the submission form and waiting out the approval cycle takes its toll.
“They don’t know anything about anything except other movies.”
That’s fit to be Hollywood’s epitaph.
John wrote, “They’re not for anything other than making sure there is a change of control in the White House next year.”
Bingo. Expect things to get ugly.
Ed Minchau wrote, “Well, screw Hollywood’s iron hand of control: Revver, YouTube, Metacafe, and dozens of other video-sharing sites are out there.”
Preach it.
Almost everyone commenting here is making great points. Thanks.
Nov 29, 2007 - 1:48 am Looking Glass:Jill wrote, “The only Iraq movie I have been tempted to see is Grace is Gone, the John Cusack movie. In it Mom goes off to war and dies, Dad is left at home to care for their two little girls. This is an original concept that deals with a situation unique to this war; Moms going off to fight, Dads (or grandparents) are left to pick up the pieces. (This is also a topic that no one, left or right, seems to want to touch.) I haven’t seen it - my husband is an Army officer - it hits too close to home now, but I thought it sounded like a genuine effort to tell a new story.”
I’ve read about the notification process, in military fiction. (Ed Ruggero, Harold Coyle). It rips my heart out.
Done well as a movie it should be Academy Award time and raise empathy and support for military families.
I just no longer believe Hollywood has the skill or desire to tell it properly.
Rotten Tomatoes gives “Grace is Gone” 64%. Redacted got 46%.
Politics seems to come into it for four of the nine positive reviews:
“clearly coming from an antiwar perspective”
“topical storyline”
“benefits from its timely subject (impact of Iraq War on home front)”
“hammers home the cost of the Iraq war”
Hollywood Reporter describes it as
Nov 29, 2007 - 2:17 am bandit:“disappointing and manipulative,” but read the reviews for yourself.
Because theyire not really anti-war - just on the other side
Nov 29, 2007 - 5:27 am Teplost:“Well, screw hollywood’s iron band of control” I’m with you, Ed Manchau.
Nov 29, 2007 - 8:14 am Broadsword:Actually, they are screwing themselves, just like the music industry. If you insult your customers, you drive them away. If no one goes to movies, the theaters will go out of business and Hollywood studios will go bankrupt, end of story. Then people will find a new venue to see what they want. It’s already happening in the music industry, and it will happen with the movies. I can’t wait.
If Hollywood and the left were to admit that genuine evil exists in the world, they would be forced to abandon their political viewpoint and accept a moral viewpoint. They are unconscious of this distinction. Furthermore, having come to such a moral conclusion, this new morality would demand of them some action against evil. They would have to fight or, perhaps even more difficult, they would have to pray. It’s far easier to posture and pretend, so inconvenient to be inconvenienced.
Nov 29, 2007 - 10:47 am Naftali:I think that focusing on the anti-war aspect in these movies is missing the bigger picture (no pun intended). Generally, the writing of ALL movies is now, what’s the right word, horrible.
The Best Years was a brilliant script, in comedies, is there a Billy Wilder out there, can anyone come close to a Leo McCarey film, or Lubitsch? I could go to IMDB and actually list the writers of many such fine films–make your own list of the 100 best screenplays–how many are written in the 90s or this decade? Two, five in the last 20 years at most.
What we’re getting is 100 million dollar B movies. Was there such a thing as a C movie? There should be now.
Nov 29, 2007 - 10:50 am FireFireFire:Hollywood is dead to me.
Nov 29, 2007 - 12:02 pm Original Pechanga:Most Americans don’t want to get their war movies from people like Redford and other leftists. There are no moral equivalents to cutting heads off of people who disagree to flushing a Koran story… It simply is not the same.
Nov 29, 2007 - 12:03 pm David S:Give us a rousing success story and it will SELL.
Roger,
Thanks again for the good work.
I respectfully disagree with your conclusion - you say that DePalma and his likeminded directors choose to criticize only the US’s chosen method of fighting Islamofascism, as defending Islamofascism itself is supposedly antithetical to liberalism (it isn’t, the multiculturalist ethos is all too happy to defend Islamic culture — note the enduring popularity of Said’s “Orientalism”, and it’s premise that no outsider could possibly understand the Muslim world. But that’s another topic). While criticism of an “illegal war” and “preemption” is indeed a prevalent talking point, you do not include any discussion of moral relativism, a much more potent and insidious belief held by those who may undertake the making of one of these dreadful films.
I don’t think preemption and “Bush lied” is enough to drive the makers of these films. Those able to garner up raging hatred for the US tend to only be able to do so if they fully accept the moral relativity of the “We drove them to do it” conclusion. Hollywood, which by design consists of personalities more likely to be members of a “vocal minority”, is rife with those who despise the US not because of the administration of this war, but because they believe the assertion that decades of supposedly belligerent foreign policy has “understandably” driven the otherwise peaceful Muslim world bonkers. It’s an assertion easily debunked by pointing to any of the multitude of legitimately oppressed peoples who have responded peacefully (Tibet, Burmese monks, MLK, etc.), but it is the primary belief driving the DePalmas.
The antiwar filmmakers have plenty of passion. It is the ability to dismiss their arguments outright that make the films awful. And the box office numbers are meager because those in the general American public who truly believe the “We drove them to do it” lunacy are few and far between, while in Hollywood, by its nature, they are plentiful.
Nov 29, 2007 - 2:54 pm Steve S.:I don’t perceive Hollywood’s anti-US works as symptomatic of loathing of the US as much as a direct result of operand conditioning, rising from film festivals and the desire to achieve acclamation from their peers.
With each additional year of Cannes, Sundance, and the like, each writer or director feels that he or she must stretch the boundaries, shock the audience a little more, challenge the status quo. It worked for the award winner before them, so it’ll work for them.
After all, each artist only shines when they rise above the pack. Unfortunately for the world in general, it’s far easier to stand out when one makes the greatest deviation from the norm than it is to portray the norm in a truly inspiring performance. Follow this up with enough repetitions and awards, and it’s no wonder Hollywood’s denizens begin to believe it themselves.
Because of this, films that win critical acclaim from Hollywood peers tend to be more and more unrealistic and divorced from reality as Hollywood seeks to outdo itself at pushing the envelope, at the ultimate expense of any realistic portrayal of the military or America.
Nov 30, 2007 - 8:21 pm David Nicholas:Roger,
You no doubt have a better understanding of the Hollywood community and their mindset than I, but I do have trouble believing that no one in Hollywood is really opposed to the war, instead doing stuff like this because they think it’s expected. It seems more likely that they made the movies (none of which I’ve seen) and tried to twist reality to the point that it made sense to them in their anti-war world, and the result was so inauthentic that it’s just not watchable.
As an aside, I still don’t understand why there haven’t been any positive movies about the war effort. I know that much of Hollywood is against the war, but there has to be *someone* somewhere mercenary enough to put aside their fear of not being invited to the right parties and just make a movie. One candidate would be Gary Schroen’s book First In. Shroen was a career CIA officer who was less than three months away from retirement on 9/11. He’d spent most of his career working either in South Asia or manning desks in Washington that paid attention to that area. His retirement was put on hold, and 3 weeks after the World Trade Center attacks, he and six other guys stepped off of a helicopter in Northern Afghanistan. They were armed with AK-47s, laptops, satellite phones, laser targeting devices, and a large sum of cash in cardboard boxes. The Taliban managed to stay in power for two and a half more months. It’s a very good story, complete with suitably annoying government types, personality conflicts, and even a cavalry charge. You’d think it would have been a good idea for a movie.
Dec 1, 2007 - 10:02 pm