Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

Innocent people don’t delay justice.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

If you’re pissed about Biden’s speech, he was talking about you.

Republicans choose power over democracy, every day.

“Squeaker” McCarthy

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

T R E 4 5 O N

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

It’s the corruption, stupid.

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

Take your GOP plan out of the witness protection program.

A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.

Today’s GOP: why go just far enough when too far is right there?

Republicans can’t even be trusted with their own money.

After roe, women are no longer free.

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

Come on, media. you have one job. start doing it.

“And when the Committee says to “report your income,” that could mean anything!

You are here: Home / Politics / An Unexamined Scandal / Getting The Band Back Together / This is what it sounds like when Wolverines cry: A TBogg title homage

This is what it sounds like when Wolverines cry: A TBogg title homage

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I only recently heard about the “Red Dawn” remake. Big Hollywood is excited, needless to say:

There are a couple of nice scenes. Early on, the escapees get to a cabin and decide to arm themselves with the firearms stored there. The script does not see this as odd or unusual – it rightly assumes that every American should always ensure his or her ready access to weapons in order to be able to do their duty and defend their society in time of emergency. However, the cabin’s owner had failed to stockpile a sufficient amount of ammunition, and the script properly points out this major lapse. All real Americans should always be ready with adequate supplies of arms and ammunition – after all, “Bang” is the sound an American makes while maintaining this country’s freedom.

[…..]

There is also a rudimentary explanation of the theory of insurgency – Ellsworth rightly does not seem to think his kids can win by literally forcing the stronger enemy to flee by inflicting damage, rather than by forcing their departure by setting conditions among the populace that make further occupation too painful to bear. Guerrillas who get in stand-up firefights with counter-insurgents tend to become dead guerrillas.

And there’s a refreshing take on the proper response to those foreigners who murder Americans – the script actually agrees that you fight back and kill them. I wish I could share the exact quote, but just seeing that sentiment on the page of a Hollywood script is a revelation. Did someone at a Rodeo Drive bistro secretly spike Ellsworth’s Pellegrino with Awesome Coolness Pills, because Hollywood needs more of that kind of clarity and old-fashioned can-do. I need a cigarette after reading something like that.

But Alinskyite moles may deprive the Real American public of this masterwork (via Atrios):

I hate to be the bearer of bad tidings, but I have grim news: “Red Dawn” isn’t coming Nov. 24, as the conservative blogs have all promised. In fact, no one knows when the movie will ever be released. Although it sounds like yet another liberal Hollywood conspiracy, the movie (which was filmed in Detroit last year) is suffering from a far bigger problem: It was made by MGM, and MGM has run out of money. The troubled studio managed to make several movies recently, one that was already released (“Hot Tub Time Machine”), one that is being released next year by Sony (“The Zookeeper”) and one, “Red Dawn,” that is in the can but may stay there for quite a while, at least until someone buys MGM or provides the kind of big investment needed to market and distribute new films.

Reader Interactions

90Comments

  1. 1.

    General Egali Tarian Stuck

    after all, “Bang” is the sound an American makes while maintaining this country’s freedom.

    And here I thought is was “ouch, stop torturing me”

    This ought to be a right wing blockbuster, right up there with Passion of the Christ

  3. 3.

    Xecky Gilchrist

    “BangWank” is the sound an American makes while maintaining this country’s freedom.

    Fized.

  4. 4.

    Kyle

    When was the last time a right wing civilian actually fired a gun to defend the general freedom of the American population to do anything except possess guns?

    Anyone recall gun owners rising up against Bush’s election theft, warrantless wiretapping, suspension of habeas corpus, torture or restrictions on abortion?

  5. 5.

    cleek

    forcing their departure by setting conditions among the populace that make further occupation too painful to bear.

    bravely soldiering-on while the fat pampered leaders of the invaders chortle about the “last gasps of the insurgency” and stubbornly tick-off the Friedman Units as their treasury runs dry ?

    good times

  6. 6.

    Apsaras

    “And there’s a refreshing take on the proper response to those foreigners who murder Americans – the script actually agrees that you fight back and kill them. I wish I could share the exact quote, but just seeing that sentiment on the page of a Hollywood script is a revelation.”

    I believe the quote is “Allahu Ackbar.”

    Oh wait, that’s what the foreigners say when they shoot the Americans who’ve invaded their country. (Because “They Live Here!!!!”) Personally, I wouldn’t mind seeing it remade if only so I can read the peans to the noble insurgents on Hot Air.

    Jesus, I just proved I have more on-the-spot knowledge about Red Dawn than a Big Hollywood blogger. One of us has some serious explaining to do.

  8. 8.

    Seanly

    Yes, I keep a stockpile of military grade arms in all of my backwoods cabins. And unlike the UnAmerican douchebag in the movie script, I keep 1000 rounds for each weapon with it.

    Most people that I know who have guns are safe with them and do not leave them laying around in old cabins.

    So, if the new Red Dawn is so sympathetic to the idea of insurgency, will right wingers now understand why the Iraqis and Afghanis keep planting IEDs? Or are the only proper insurgencies the ones in red, white & blue?

  11. 11.

    Mike G

    “And there’s a refreshing take on the proper response to those foreigners who murder Americans – the script actually agrees that you fight back and kill them

    Right, because Hollywood has never before made a violent film with a revenge storyline.

    What color is the sky in your world?

  12. 12.

    Boots Day

    And there’s a refreshing take on the proper response to those foreigners who murder Americans – the script actually agrees that you fight back and kill them.

    I don’t see very many of these types of movies, but even I have seen enough to know that isn’t exactly a “refreshing” idea. “Air Force One,” for one. “Iron Man.” Anything with ninjas in it.

  14. 14.

    gwangung

    “And there’s a refreshing take on the proper response to those foreigners who murder Americans – the script actually agrees that you fight back and kill them

    Ya mean how Afghans and Iraquis look at the invaders in THEIR countries?

    AH, yeah….MORONS!

  15. 15.

    Kyle

    @Seanly:

    So, if the new Red Dawn is so sympathetic to the idea of insurgency, will right wingers now understand why the Iraqis and Afghanis keep planting IEDs?

    Hypocrisy has never been a barrier to right-wing “thought”. In fact, it’s practically a requirement.

  16. 16.

    SLKRR

    @Seanly:

    So, if the new Red Dawn is so sympathetic to the idea of insurgency, will right wingers now understand why the Iraqis and Afghanis keep planting IEDs? Or are the only proper insurgencies the ones in red, white & blue?

    Do you really need to ask these questions…?

  17. 17.

    SpotWeld

    Great…have the Red Staters started calling for armed protests at the movie theaters yet?

  18. 18.

    Warren Terra

    So what did the writer of this piece think would happen when we “liberated” Iraq? Or are the rights and capabilities of insurgents that he celebrates reserved for Americans, not those furriners?

  20. 20.

    dmsilev

    Hang on a second. I thought that in the minds of the wingnuts, the Free Market Is Sacred. If the Almighty Market does not want Wolverines! to be released, shouldn’t that be the end of the matter?

    dms

  21. 21.

    Brian J

    If he really wanted this movie, which is bound to be a gigantic piece of shit, to be released, he’d call up Rupert Murdoch and beg him to buy MGM. He was already rumored to be interested in doing so. The company, which would then be part of NewsCorp, would have plenty of money to do whatever it wants.

  22. 22.

    Jenn

    @Morbo:

    Yeah, I clicked through to the original review. Not knowing what Big Hollywood was, based on the snippet shown, I was sure it was parody.

    Sadly, totally serious.

  24. 24.

    arguingwithsignposts

    Why is it when I read that first quote from Big Dumb Hollywood, this is all I see:

    Dear Penthouse letters,
    __
    This has never happened to me before, but I was reading the script for the remake of Red Dawn and, well, I felt myself curiously aroused …

  25. 25.

    Mark S.

    The fact that we kill bad people for killing us does not make us bad too. For the perpetual sophomores out there, the test of the morality of a conflict is the cause you fight for; the tools you use are largely irrelevant.

    That’s why My Lai was just dandy. Oh, and towards the end he slips in that he’s a lawyer.

  26. 26.

    Viva BrisVegas

    “Bang” is the sound an American makes while maintaining this country’s freedom.

    “Bang” is the sound a wingnut head makes when a black President is elected.

  27. 27.

    Halteclere

    The Hobbit also won’t be released any time soon, much less completed due to MGM’s financial woes. So anyone claiming that Hollywood liberals or politics halted Red Dawn’s release is either an ignoramus or selling snake oil to the ignoramuses.

    (My point being that The Hobbit is an almost guaranteed block buster, more so than any ’80’s remake, and if it can’t be released due to financial issues then it should not be surprising to anyone if Red Dawn follows the same fate.)

  29. 29.

    jl

    The remake of Red Dawn failed the market test even before it was released? That’s too bad.

    As for guns, I cannot believe fools are making fun of that option for defense after the communist Islamofascists in the government treacherously invite a foreign invasion. Why hell, I’ll just drive down to the farm and grab the shotgun a box of big shot we use for turkey vultures and jack rabbits.

    Turkey vultures and jack rabbits is varmints, communist islamofascists are varmints. Shotgun should work just fine.

    Grab the 0.22 for artillery duels.

  30. 30.

    Phoenician in a time of Romans

    Well, the moron writes:

    You know, the audience is watching an uplifting and inspirational tale of shooting communists and all of a sudden this nonsense pops up. Just stop. Let’s try another example. Nazis liked oxygen. Hey, Americans like oxygen too! Ergo, Hitler and Americans are the same, right? Nimrods. The fact that we kill bad people for killing us does not make us bad too. For the perpetual sophomores out there, the test of the morality of a conflict is the cause you fight for; the tools you use are largely irrelevant. American bayonet – good. Nazi bayonet – bad. I blame the public schools for this kind of nonsense and muddled reasoning – the “critical thinking” they purport to teach is actually anything but.

    Let’s clarify for those who remain unclear – the act of shooting, blowing up, bludgeoning or otherwise eliminating those who threaten and murder Americans is an unambiguously good thing. What al Qaeda terrorists, Taliban, Shiite militias, Republican Guards, Viet Cong, North Koreans, Nazis, Imperial Japanese soldiers and their ilk feel or felt deeply in their little hearts and warped minds about their various causes is irrelevant and unworthy of attention — except to the extent that understanding their thought processes facilitates defeating them. Their destruction was and is a moral necessity and unquestionably morally right; their fighting Americans was and is unquestionably morally wrong. Always. End of story.

    He doesn’t seem to have noticed what the military itself has been reporting for a while now – the people fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan are the people who live there, pissed off at the deaths of their families and friends.

    The fact that you go over to other people’s countries to kill those people when they did not threaten you does indeed make you bad. You’ll notice that he mixes up Al Qaeda with the Taliban (wankers internal to Afghanistan), Shi’ite militias (people with guns defending their turf, like the Bloods or the Crips with Qu’rans), the Republican Guards (soldiers defending their country from an overwhelming invasion), and the Viet Cong (a nationalist movement fighting European colonisers for their country’s independence).

    But, you know, it gets boiled down to “America good, everyone who objects bad”.

  31. 31.

    Bruce (formerly Steve S.)

    And there’s a refreshing take on the proper response to those foreigners who murder Americans – the script actually agrees that you fight back and kill them.

    Good point. When foreigners murder Americans the usual response is to kill tens of thousands of people who had nothing to do with it. Since these two individuals are ultimately responsible for the highest body counts of Americans in recent years I can only surmise that this new movie gives it to ’em good.

  32. 32.

    Sly

    Rules for Radicals clearly states that secretly undermining your political opponents’ cinematic post-production schedule is brutally effectively.

  33. 33.

    Sentient Puddle

    I think my favorite part of the Big Hollywood article was this:

    Jed trains up his guerrillas and they start killing the Chinese occupiers. That’s cool. Some might scoff at the notion that a bunch of armed rural folks could have any effect against a professional army.

    Was this moron even paying attention to Iraq post “Mission Accomplished”?

  34. 34.

    wonkie

    @Morbo:
    That was my reaction–it reads like a liberal’s attempt to imagine the thought processes of a really dumb stereotype Teabagger.

    They parody themselves.

  35. 35.

    jl

    @Sly: I think the next scandal is when the baggers find that very tactic explained in the Alinsky playbook.

  36. 36.

    scav

    Please note that these shoot-em-up rules do not apply if you’re A) sleeping at home and awoken by a flash-bang in the middle of the night during a police raid, possibly at the wrong address; or B) abseiled upon by Israelis in international waters. Remember, Somalis you can go after and, as they rhyme with the inerrant ones, its easy to get them confused, especially if yur not so good with that whole geographical blah blah with maps ‘n’ such.

  37. 37.

    scav

    @Sentient Puddle: Let alone Afghanistan v. Soviets where the outcome is fairly clear at this point. But that’s only getting into history, yet another missing function call in their mental toolkit.

  38. 38.

    tkogrumpy

    the snark on this post by dougj is at least a mile deep. I may never get to the bottom of it.

  42. 42.

    gwangung

    the snark on this post by dougj is at least a mile deep. I may never get to the bottom of it.

    Due to the source, it’s self regenerating.

  44. 44.

    Martin

    Wait, is the author suggesting that every American stock enough ammo to hold off a Soviet (or Chinese, or homosexuals, or whoever) invasion?

    Was this movie produced by the Small Arms Ammunition Manufacturers Association?

  45. 45.

    jl

    @tkogrumpy: Dayum, been so long since I was shooting varmints on the family farm I am not sure. Maybe no. 5 or 6 for closer than 50 yards or so. Bigger for farther away, maybe no. 3?

    I will ask my uncle who will remind me.

    Anyway, them invaders will skedaddle oncet they get some birdshot in their britches.

    I better study up or I will get blown up while I’m studying on my birdshot.

    Better be safe and just use a 0.22 on them.

    Any hunters here know if I remembered correctly?

    Edit: the whole gun closet militia stuff is idiotic. I wonder what proportion of the population owns any kind of weapon that would not make any organized force of any kind just laugh their heads off. I guess we would do the same thing Iraqis do: shoot each other with guns in fratricidal revenge between different fractions, and rig up pipe bombs and similar stuff to blow up things. But that last is very evil, so I am sure we would never do that.

  46. 46.

    soonergrunt

    @Jenn: Behold, Poe’s Law in action.

    Without a winking smiley or other blatant display of humor, it is impossible to create a parody of Fundamentalism that SOMEONE won’t mistake for the real thing.

  48. 48.

    jl

    I would like to see the updated brainwashing scene from the new wingnut remake of Manchurian Candidate, I am sure some one is writing as we type.

  49. 49.

    tkogrumpy

    @soonergrunt: This is why I dropped out of high school fifty two years ago. Where else but in the balloon juice comments could I learn about Poe’s law, which is soooooooooo true.

  50. 50.

    GregB

    Seems like the Wolverines are an American version of Hamas.

    Also most dick swinging American asswipes haven’t gotten over the sever hurt a bunch of rural Vietnamese delivered to a professional army.

  51. 51.

    aliasofwestgate

    MGM also owns the Bond franchise, so that’s been put on hold until someone buys it out or MGM gets its books in order. At the moment its simply on hold, as they hadn’t started writing the scripts for the next flick or the rest of pre-production. It just means we get a delay, unfortunately.

  52. 52.

    Martin

    @aliasofwestgate: Well, while we wait, someone needs to beat the shit out of Broccoli with the clue stick that the model for future Bond films should be Casino Royale, and not Die Another Day. I’m afraid that lesson is not sticking with her.

  54. 54.

    Chad N Freude

    Probably nobody is reading this thread anymore, but for the select few who are, I highly recommend the comments on Big Hollywood. The best one, possibly the best comment ever posted anywhere:

    There’s a truck stop in central Texas where I noticed a pile of Red Dawn DVDs at the counter. That’s what America’s heartland is all about. As long as there’s a trucker with one hand pressing “play” to start Red Dawn, and a Glock 9mm at his side, America is safe.

  58. 58.

    Kewalo

    Chad…it was worth reading the whole thread just to read that comment. It’s a double doozy.

  59. 59.

    Will

    Once again, the right-wing moron brigade shows absolutely zero self-awareness. They praise the insurgent tactics of the Wolverines in Red Dawn, yet also root on the invading of a sovereign nation like Iraq and killing every insurgent in sight.

  60. 60.

    feebog

    “Hot Tub Time Machine”

    MGM is in financial difficulites with this kind of blockbuster out in theaters? I’m shocked!

  61. 61.

    Jimmm

    Truly mind-blowing cluelessness.

    I just want to grab them and scream “Red Dawn was a cautionary tale, you wankers!”

    How do you say “wolverines!” in arabic? Or pashto?

  62. 62.

    lumpnprole

    Ellsworth rightly does not seem to think his kids can win by literally forcing the stronger enemy to flee by inflicting damage, rather than by forcing their departure by setting conditions among the populace that make further occupation too painful to bear. Guerrillas who get in stand-up firefights with counter-insurgents tend to become dead guerrillas.

    It’s not like they can’t get it, they just won’t.

  64. 64.

    slightly_peeved

    are the only proper insurgencies the ones in red, white & blue?

    One out of three ain’t bad…

  65. 65.

    HE Pennypacker, Wealthy Industrialist

    I for one can’t wait for the release of RD2. How will the film makers portray the Chinese Army invading North America? I predict a human land bridge by Chinese nationals, wading into the water and holding onto each other like so many South American army ants, fastening their insectoid mandibles onto their comrades’ pant legs and letting the tanks roll over them as they drive the entire distance to California.

    Hey — IT COULD HAPPEN.

    WOLVERINES MUTHA FUCKAS!

  66. 66.

    Jenn

    @soonergrunt:

    Heh. Are you trying to tell me that I’ve been hanging out a little too much with the wingnuts of my acquaintance?!

    As for Poe’s law, I thought that was “don’t let talking ravens hang out on Greek statues by your bedroom door.”

    Emoticons are of the devil, by the way. (Not that I don’t occasionally flirt with literary damnation, but really…of the devil.)

    And my house smells like baking sourdough. Mmm.

  70. 70.

    Shalimar

    And there’s a refreshing take on the proper response to those foreigners who murder Americans – the script actually agrees that you fight back and kill them.

    I guess we need to go after some Israeli commandos now. Oh wait, that kid wasn’t white so he isn’t really American.

    You know what would have been hilarious? If they had set the remake of Red Dawn in Selma, Alabama and used an all-black cast. I’m not sure what excuses Big Hollywood would have found to hate it, but I do have faith in their creativity.

  71. 71.

    Mark S.

    One of the commenters at Big Hollywood linked to this article about John Milius, who made the original, bitching about the remake:

    While the new baddies might tap into American fears about a rising China, to Milius it makes little political sense. “There’s only one example in 4,000 years of Chinese territorial adventurism, and that was in 1979, when they invaded Vietnam, and to put it mildly they got their [butts] handed to them,“ says Milius, noting that China built a wall to separate itself from invaders.

    China’s war with Vietnam was about several things, but it wasn’t about gaining territory, and they hardly got their butts kicked. Hey, I’ve got a much better example of Chinese imperialism: the thousand fucking years they ruled Vietnam.

    Milius also thinks it would have been a much better movie to have Mexico invade the US. I find it scary how much wingnuts would love that movie.

  75. 75.

    Michael

    @General Egali Tarian Stuck:

    “Bang” is the sound an American makes while maintaining this country’s freedom.

    I suspect he was typing one-handed when he wrote that.

    When he goes to the first public screening of the thin, somebody is going to have to tell him to put his shriveled root away.

  76. 76.

    Michael

    @Kyle:

    When was the last time a right wing civilian actually fired a gun to defend the general freedom of the American population to do anything except possess guns?

    FTW.

    And using them to pick off unarmed abortion docs doesn’t count.

  77. 77.

    TR

    @Bostondreams:

    geez. What is it with these people and ‘real’ Americans?

    It’s part of their redefinition of patriotism.

    It used to mean “love of your country” but they’ve made it to mean “love of all in your country who think exactly like you.”

    It’s how they can rationalize issuing a fatwa on the Dixie Chicks because they dared say that they weren’t proud that one president hailed from their home state, and then turn around and denounce the next president as an evil sleeper agent hellbent on destroying America.

  78. 78.

    TR

    @wonkie:

    That was my reaction—it reads like a liberal’s attempt to imagine the thought processes of a really dumb stereotype Teabagger.

    I’m almost convinced at this point that that whole site is an elaborate Andy Kaufman-esque spoof, designed only to make conservatives look even more ridiculous.

  79. 79.

    TR

    @Shalimar:

    And there’s a refreshing take on the proper response to those foreigners who murder Americans – the script actually agrees that you fight back and kill them.

    There have been a few slight exceptions to this overwhelming refusal of Hollywood movies to show Americans fighting back against foreigners.

    See, for instance, Last of the Mohicans, The Patriot, Sergeant York, Patton, A Bridge Too Far, Where Eagles Dare, The Dirty Dozen, Tora! Tora! Tora!, The Longest Day, Von Ryan’s Express, Hell is for Heroes, Bridge over the River Kwai, Hell in the Pacific, Guns of Navarone, Saving Private Ryan, The Thin Red Line, Band of Brothers, The Green Berets, Heartbreak Ridge, Courage Under Fire, Black Hawk Down, Inglorious Basterds, Air Force One, Patriot Games, Commando, True Lies, Missing in Action, Missing in Action II, Invasion USA, Delta Force, Die Hard, Rambo II, Rambo III, John Rambo, etc.

    I realize many of those films were obscure art-house projects that never received wide release, but in the interest of fairness, I felt I needed to point them out.

  80. 80.

    chopper

    @Phoenician in a time of Romans:

    this is the best part of those two grafs:

    …the test of the morality of a conflict is the cause you fight for; the tools you use are largely irrelevant. … … What al Qaeda terrorists, Taliban, Shiite militias, Republican Guards, Viet Cong, North Koreans, Nazis, Imperial Japanese soldiers and their ilk feel or felt deeply in their little hearts and warped minds about their various causes is irrelevant and unworthy of attention.

    he’s saying the test of the morality of a conflict is the cause america is fighting for. the cause the other guy is fighting for is irrelevant, solely because he is fighting america.

    so basically we can do no wrong.

  82. 82.

    R. Porrofatto

    Nazis liked oxygen. Hey, Americans like oxygen too! Ergo, Hitler and Americans are the same, right?

    Substitute “liberals” for “Americans” and Jonah Goldberg could sue you for plagiarism.

  83. 83.

    ckelly

    I’m so confused. Would that make the “wolverines” tarrahists or freedom fries fighters?

  84. 84.

    Cassidy

    I noticed the kid (former fat one) from Drake and Josh is in it. He did some good cameos in some tv drama’s as he got older, so I am lookinng forward to seeing him. He always seemed like a nice kid.

  86. 86.

    Ogami Itto

    @Cassidy: Chris Hemsworth played Kirk’s doomed dad in the recent Star Trek reboot, and will be playing Thor in the upcoming Thor and Avengers movies. Jeffrey Dean Morgan was in the recent box office bomb The Losers, and played the Comedian in the Watchmen movie from a couple years back. They’re actually both good actors.

    I have no idea who the rest of the actors are, which means I am either old and out of touch, or they’re D-Listers.

  87. 87.

    Frank L

    Zuzu’s Petals

    I’m shocked that you don’t remember the star of “Hung – A Dick and a Dream”

  88. 88.

    The Other Chuck

    I need a cigarette after reading something like that.

    You’re supposed to smoke after sex, not jerking it.

  89. 89.

    The Other Chuck

    Let’s clarify for those who remain unclear – the act of shooting, blowing up, bludgeoning or otherwise eliminating those who threaten and murder __________ is an unambiguously good thing. What ________, ________, ________, ________, ________ and their ilk feel or felt deeply in their little hearts and warped minds about their various causes is irrelevant and unworthy of attention — except to the extent that understanding their thought processes facilitates defeating them. Their destruction was and is a moral necessity and unquestionably morally right; their fighting __________ was and is unquestionably morally wrong. Always. End of story.

    Of course we’re the only true humans so only one word actually fits in the first and last blanks.

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