Too often I find myself parked in front of my parents' computer monitor scouring mediabistro, ed2010, and journalism jobs for journalism-related job postings. Well, enough of that for now. I got a sickness from my brother - probably just a cold but feels more like a sinus infection-type of thing - and I can't find my glasses so the boards are just giving me a headache.
As promised yesterday, I'm going to write up a real film review. Of late, I've taken up recommendations of tv-on-the-net viewing and gone to sidereel.com and hulu.com for some entertainment catch-up. But I'm home now and that means my mother produces a new DVD nearly everyday from the ever-expanding media collection at the North Suburban District Library (or the Loves Park library). Sunday night after returning from a pleasant (for my family) trip to Milwaukee, we put Lions for Lambs in the DVD player. When this movie came out in theaters, there was a great hype surrounding it. I honestly thought the advertisements looked misleading, but various reviewers hailed the performances of stars Tom Cruise, Meryl Streep, and Robert Redford. Plus, the film was directed (and I believe co-written) by Oscar-winner Redford. This was a big star vehicle. I had no compulsion to go to the theater and I'm glad I didn't because this film is a waste of money.
If I was the sort of review who rated films of a scale, I'd generously give this one 1 Star. When talking about Lions for Lambs, I think you've got to use the term 'film' loosely. I'm about as liberal as they come but even I could see that this was just a piece of propaganda. And I think a different style of film making, most notably a documentary starring real people, would have gotten the point across a lot better.
Here are the messages I gathered from the film (and I'm gussying them up so they sound more eloquent than they actually came across): 1. The "War on Terrorism" is a government construction. 2. The (Republican) administration sucks. 3. The left-wing media is not so liberal. They're just government pawns. 4. The military system sucks because usually minority lower-to-middle-class men sign up and those of higher status can duck out. 5. A draft would be a more democratic system.
As promised yesterday, I'm going to write up a real film review. Of late, I've taken up recommendations of tv-on-the-net viewing and gone to sidereel.com and hulu.com for some entertainment catch-up. But I'm home now and that means my mother produces a new DVD nearly everyday from the ever-expanding media collection at the North Suburban District Library (or the Loves Park library). Sunday night after returning from a pleasant (for my family) trip to Milwaukee, we put Lions for Lambs in the DVD player. When this movie came out in theaters, there was a great hype surrounding it. I honestly thought the advertisements looked misleading, but various reviewers hailed the performances of stars Tom Cruise, Meryl Streep, and Robert Redford. Plus, the film was directed (and I believe co-written) by Oscar-winner Redford. This was a big star vehicle. I had no compulsion to go to the theater and I'm glad I didn't because this film is a waste of money.
If I was the sort of review who rated films of a scale, I'd generously give this one 1 Star. When talking about Lions for Lambs, I think you've got to use the term 'film' loosely. I'm about as liberal as they come but even I could see that this was just a piece of propaganda. And I think a different style of film making, most notably a documentary starring real people, would have gotten the point across a lot better.
Here are the messages I gathered from the film (and I'm gussying them up so they sound more eloquent than they actually came across): 1. The "War on Terrorism" is a government construction. 2. The (Republican) administration sucks. 3. The left-wing media is not so liberal. They're just government pawns. 4. The military system sucks because usually minority lower-to-middle-class men sign up and those of higher status can duck out. 5. A draft would be a more democratic system.
So like I said, I'm all about ranting to other people (especially conservatives if they'll let me) but this movie oversteps the boundaries. There is absolutely no plot to this film. The scenes between Streep's reporter character and Cruise's Republic senator are straight-up propaganda. Streep talks at Cruise and at the audience about the faults of the war. Cruise goes on and on about how the media has lost its reputation of being watchdogs for the people. The one aspect that actually pertained to my life Streep's conflict: should she compromise her values for her corporation's benefit? That's something that could actually affect me in real life, but I didn't buy that her character was a real-life reporter. We don't get to talk to senators like she talks to Cruise.
There's another part that deals with Redford trying to convince one of his promising students to "make a difference" by joining the war effort. Put his theories to work, so to speak. Their conversations are just as monologue-ish as Streep's and Cruise's. It feels like the director is just pontificating and none of the actors are reacting to each other. Plus this "plotline," if you could call it that, has nothing to do with the others. There's a third piece that seems thoroughly out of place in this movie: two men at war in Afghanistan. With the lack of action in the other scenes, their scenes stand out in contrast but the characters are left highly undeveloped. In short, the writers and director put little thought into viewer identification. If the point of this film was to anger viewers into taking action, one part of the objective has been accomplished: it made me angry. Though it was only an hour and a half at most, I felt like I wasted my night. There are so many other ways (mainly through identification) the audience could have been engaged enough to care, to take a stand.
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