Don't Think of a Sea Cucumber
"Stealth" may be the bad movie Ty Burr of the Boston Globe says it is, but he doesn't convince me of that in his review of it. In fact, he tells me it's a "pretty fair" action-thriller, and he seems to like the action scenes.
He writes, "The issue isn't the quality of the action scenes, because these days that's mostly what Hollywood is good for."
So what is his problem with "Stealth?"
Hey, Hollywood. Stop trying to entertain the booboisie and get busy propagandizing them! Didn't you hear Michael Moore? "We" lost in 2004 because "we" didn't educate enough people.
It's not enough for Ty that the movie does, in fact, allude to the "human cost of war," something he also indicates in his plot summation. No, no, no. Monologue is not enough! The Hollywood gods must shove it down our throats while they scold us for being such lemmings as to have voted for That War-Monger in the White House! How dare we then go out and relax in an air-conditioned theater when, you know, BLOOD FOR OIL!
Ye gods. He wants all "Fahrenheit 9/11," all the time, at the multiplex. He even jumps on Chrissie Hynde for contributing a vocal track to the final credits. "Chrissie, honey, did you even read the script?"
Listen, Ty, all wars do that. It's the nature of war, no matter who starts it, no matter who opposes it. No matter who is the enemy. Some wiser heads than you have figured this out before. Hemingway wrote, "A defensive war, which must necessarily turn to aggressive at the earliest moment, is the necessary great counter-crime. But never think that war, no matter how necessary, nor how justified, is not a crime. Ask the infantry and the dead." War, like revolution, destroys and takes. There's a script called "history." Ty, read it.
Still, it never occurs to Ty that some of us are utterly nauseated by the brand of shrill hectoring he insists Hollywood force on its audiences. It also never occurs to him that summer movies are not required viewing, and audiences can go watch penguins slithering on the ice in theater 15 if they don't like the agitprop on the big screen in theater 14. Ty gets paid to watch movies; the rest of us don't.
He also misses the point that many of us might be able to approach the tragedies and human consequences of war on our own (perish the thought of someone thinking without being told what to think!). And we might be able to do that one night and enjoy a bit of Hollywood popcorn the next. And some people might even find an entree into meditation on the moral complexities of war exactly because they watched this action movie that touched on it without insulting its audience.
But Ty dismisses such people as "audiences lacking higher brain functions. Sea cucumbers, perhaps. Ones waving American flags."
Good work, Ty. Way to be persuasive. Next time, just review the f-ing movie, OK?
He writes, "The issue isn't the quality of the action scenes, because these days that's mostly what Hollywood is good for."
So what is his problem with "Stealth?"
The issue is that this is exactly the sort of movie we don't need right now: a delusional military fantasy in which collateral damage doesn't exist.
Hey, Hollywood. Stop trying to entertain the booboisie and get busy propagandizing them! Didn't you hear Michael Moore? "We" lost in 2004 because "we" didn't educate enough people.
That initial strike involves dropping an "implosion bomb" on an apartment building in downtown Rangoon that's miraculously occupied only by the terrorists; the cute kids next door remain unhurt. Later, when EDI's assault on the warlord causes radioactive dust to drift over a nearby village, Kara calls in the medics to relieve the terrified villagers - with what? Gatorade? - and that's the last we hear of that. Oh, a few North Korean soldiers get killed, but they're as one-dimensional as Purcell's willowy Thai girlfriend (Jaipetch Toonchalong), who nods and smiles uncomprehendingly as he mumbles about the human cost of war.
It's not enough for Ty that the movie does, in fact, allude to the "human cost of war," something he also indicates in his plot summation. No, no, no. Monologue is not enough! The Hollywood gods must shove it down our throats while they scold us for being such lemmings as to have voted for That War-Monger in the White House! How dare we then go out and relax in an air-conditioned theater when, you know, BLOOD FOR OIL!
Am I spoiling the party? Harshing the high-flying flyboy buzz? Tough. For a movie to pretend, in the face of the deaths of tens of thousands of Iraqi men, women, and children directly or indirectly caused by our presence there, that we can wage war without anyone really getting hurt isn't naive, or wishful thinking, or a jim-dandy way to spend a Saturday night at the movies. It's an obscenity.
Ye gods. He wants all "Fahrenheit 9/11," all the time, at the multiplex. He even jumps on Chrissie Hynde for contributing a vocal track to the final credits. "Chrissie, honey, did you even read the script?"
Listen, Ty, all wars do that. It's the nature of war, no matter who starts it, no matter who opposes it. No matter who is the enemy. Some wiser heads than you have figured this out before. Hemingway wrote, "A defensive war, which must necessarily turn to aggressive at the earliest moment, is the necessary great counter-crime. But never think that war, no matter how necessary, nor how justified, is not a crime. Ask the infantry and the dead." War, like revolution, destroys and takes. There's a script called "history." Ty, read it.
Still, it never occurs to Ty that some of us are utterly nauseated by the brand of shrill hectoring he insists Hollywood force on its audiences. It also never occurs to him that summer movies are not required viewing, and audiences can go watch penguins slithering on the ice in theater 15 if they don't like the agitprop on the big screen in theater 14. Ty gets paid to watch movies; the rest of us don't.
He also misses the point that many of us might be able to approach the tragedies and human consequences of war on our own (perish the thought of someone thinking without being told what to think!). And we might be able to do that one night and enjoy a bit of Hollywood popcorn the next. And some people might even find an entree into meditation on the moral complexities of war exactly because they watched this action movie that touched on it without insulting its audience.
But Ty dismisses such people as "audiences lacking higher brain functions. Sea cucumbers, perhaps. Ones waving American flags."
Good work, Ty. Way to be persuasive. Next time, just review the f-ing movie, OK?
