"That showed me how serious he was about this movie." pic.twitter.com/tS1VmrSGR8
— Jason Bailey (@jasondashbailey) January 13, 2016
Christopher Hooks, “a journalist based in Austin”, reports for Gawker:
“Why didn’t we bomb the shit out of them?” a man asked me. “Why aren’t we bombing the shit out of ‘em? Give me a B-52 and I’ll go over there right now.” It was a chilly night in Texas, but his mind was more than 6,000 miles away, in Libya. He and I and some 30,000 other people had come to AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas—home of the Dallas Cowboys—for the outsized world premiere of 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi.
The 2012 attack on the American consulate in Benghazi means many things to many people. It is, at its most basic level, an actual human tragedy, one of an uncountable number this country has been party to in the last fifteen years. Lives were lost, and they might have been saved, and it’s hard to say why, or what good it did. It is also a meme, a punchline, and a political cudgel. For the people who care most about it, Benghazi is less shorthand for a historical episode than a concept, an abstract descriptor of a feeling shared by an uncountable number of people in this country that the nation’s leaders are traitors, by way of incompetence or malice or both.
But on Tuesday, people lined up by the thousands to see Benghazi begin a new life as something else entirely: an entertainment product. Michael Bay, the auteur who brought you Pearl Harbor and Pain & Gain, had brought the premiere to the stadium’s 180-foot-long high definition video board, with an enormous on-field stage and red carpet below. The audience filled most of the north half of the stadium. There was complimentary popcorn, one bag per ticket…
Finally, when everyone had been to the bar a few times and loaded up on snacks, the movie began. What’s it like? On a purely visual level—which is the only level a significant number of people at the premiere saw Bayghazi, given that the event’s organizers neglected to set up speakers for those in the nosebleeds—it’s a pretty good action movie…
Why did 13 Hours premiere in Arlington? On the red carpet, Bay said he had come because the city was “the heartland of America.” Tuesday’s premiere was, indeed, a very American event…
But Arlington is more than just the home of a bad football team: It’s the spiritual center of the Dallas-Ft. Worth Metroplex, a great galactic plane of young suburbs home to some of the most reactionary politics in the country. What happens here steers America, but it’s often less visible in the wider culture than what happens elsewhere. It’s also a place that’s responsible in large part for the rise of the new civic religion built around the worship of the most lethal among us…
Visions of hyper-competent gunmen able to navigate a bloody and confusing world are deeply soothing to many people. 13 Hours is a movie in which strong men hold all the answers, and most everyone else is full of shit. As the Obama era ends, that captures the mood among many Americans quite nicely. Krasinski, who must be delighted to distance himself from his T.V. fame, puts it in simpler terms. “It’s a superhero movie without superheroes,” he told Fox News…
.
NEW: Trump rents Cobblestone Theatre, will give Iowans free tickets to "13 Hours," the Benghazi movie Clinton critics are eagerly watching.
— Jennifer Jacobs (@JenniferJJacobs) January 15, 2016
TaMara (BHF)
13 Hours, directed by Michael Bay really says all you need to know about this movie.
Amir Khalid
I already know not to take this movie seriously as a historical account. Is it still worth seeing as an action movie?
Waldo
If you’ve seen one Michael Bay movie you’ve seen ’em all. And that’s way too many.
Cacti
Next year, outraged wingers will be wondering why this didn’t get a nomination for Best Documentary Film.
BGinCHI
Good to see Krasinski wasn’t just playing a stupid guy in The Office.
Davis X. Machina
Because the Zeppelinfeld was unavailable.
Thoughtful Today
Count me as one who is offended at Bay’s political machinations.
Unabogie
And Michael Bay adds to his stellar resume.
Oatler.
AMC is having one of its frequent Reagan Nostalgia Weekends. Red Dawn and Top Gun today, Tomorrow it’s the whole snail trail of Rambo.
Thoughtful Today
“WOLVERINES!”
WereBear
@TaMara (BHF): How can you say that after Transformers 1& 2 & 3 or did I miss one– had so much to say about robotics and foreign policy?!?!
But actually? Relieved by choice of director. Only Wingnuts take it seriously.
BGinCHI
@Oatler.: I’m waiting for a Rambo/Dumbo double feature.
Michael Bersin
At least the Thermians in Galaxy Quest eventually came to understand that the “Historical Documents” were television entertainment, though they apparently were more disturbed that Gilligan’s Island wasn’t real either. Not so certain about the republican base.
FlipYrWhig
@BGinCHI: Wait — Jim isn’t stupid in The Office…
Bobbo
Michael Bay thinks Arlington is the heartland of America, but he’d rather live in Bel Air
http://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/michael-bay-los-angeles-home-article
Dennis
Lost a lot of respect for Krasinski for being in this hack job. But, his movie career isn’t exactly taking off, so….choices.
Just Some Fuckhead
When conservatives lie, people die.
Botsplainer
I predict that the vast majority of 13 Hours ticket purchasers and viewers are already disinclined to vote for Hillary, thus this movie is a nothingburger in terms of this election, and will change too few minds to matter.
sigaba
@Waldo: That’s a bit harsh, you can definitely see a development from “Bad Boys 2” and “The Rock” to “Transformers: Dark of the Moon.”
BGinCHI
@Michael Bersin: I re-watched that last week and my first thought, about halfway through, was that the Thermians are exactly like GOP voters.
GMTA.
Germy
Krasinski looked at Chris Pratt from “Parks and Rec” going into full blockbuster buff mode, and said “Fuck, I can do that…”
Also, if we’re going to release propaganda films during an election year, I wish someone had made a movie about a town poisoned by its own tap water because of republican politicians trying austerity and ignoring all warnings about lead and its affect on children. Release it in 2016, right around the time all the GOP candidates are bitching about the EPA and government regulations…
BGinCHI
@FlipYrWhig: Everyone is stupid in The Office. It’s just that some are stupider than others. Much stupider.
Thoughtful Today
Erm, Michael Bersin, the Thermians never figured it out.
There’s a hint that their leader might have figured it out, but it was never explicit.
scav
Well, the NRA’s rewriting fairy tales to better promote that armed violence is the immediate and proper response for situations of conflict, uncertainty or fear (”Don’t use your words, dear, use your Glock,”) and the big screen is often just fairy tales for the advanced in height.
amk
so, which movies exactly have decided presidential elections before?
Mike J
@Cacti:
Next year they’ll be complaining that it was a commercial for Hillary and shouldn’t have been allowed, since they’ll be looking for explanations for her win.
sigaba
@Botsplainer: I worked on “Zero Dark Thirty” and remember how it was supposed to be Obama’s big October Surprise, and it was a big nothingburger too. So which government agency is using Bay’s film to propagandize for its position? I remember it was basically taken for granted that the CIA made “Zero Dark”. Meanwhile nobody seems to notice that every Michael Bay film would be completely unfilmable without the participation and support of the Pentagon.
I assume that’s what’s motivating this film, Bay wants to show people he can do a serious war film about the Big Issues; if not at the level of Kathyn Bigelow, at least maybe as good as bad Ridley Scott, dans le mode de “Black Hawk Down.” And by the by various Pentagon worthies can put out the story that in Beghazi, Our Boys (and by extension, their generals) did not fail, they were failed.
Johnny Coelacanth
January and February are Hollywood’s dumping grounds, where they dispense with the chaff before they gear up on the summer release cycle. That tells you what the studio thinks of this stinker.
Germy
@Johnny Coelacanth:
Wingnuts will be streaming it on election night. And pumping their fists for Trump (Cruz/Rubio/or whoever slithers to the top)
It’s the “C’mon people, let’s defeat Clinton!” film.
Ken
@sigaba: The same sort of progression as from Jaws to Jaws 2 to Jaws 3-D.
boatboy_srq
@Germy:
Time for a new Erin Brockovich, no?
Germy
@boatboy_srq: Overdue, definitely.
Where are all the Hollywood liberals the wingnuts keep complaining about?
Villago Delenda Est
@amk: The Right Stuff was supposed to give us President John Glenn.
Didn’t seem to work out that way.
boatboy_srq
Parent studio is Paramount. Viacom company. National Amusements (a Sumner Redstone property) has a controlling interest. There’s a glimmer here that somebody is using film to grift the rubes, so the donation to Dems in ’16 will be a bit bigger….
boatboy_srq
@Germy: They would count Leni Riefenstahl among those “Hollywood liberals”. Mustn’t forget that.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Germy:
That one is scheduled to be made right after the story of the President and Vice-President who dismantled an anti-terrorist department, ignored warnings of imminent attacks on American soil by plane-flying terrorists and then invaded the wrong country in response to the worst attack ever on American soil.
Germy
@Just Some Fuckhead: In other words…. Never.
sigaba
@boatboy_srq: If it’s anything like Bay’s other deals he’s probably getting 10% of the gross ex-distribution fees (those go to Sumner, and on a film like this those are like 30% of the gross minus the costs, which on this film, prints and ads must have been at least $40 mil).
I’m pretty sure if we wanted to grift the rubes there are less complicated ways of doing it.
boatboy_srq
@Germy:
Actually that sounds a lot like the original Total Recall.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Germy: The right deals in illusions. That’s why they have to make movies confirming their favored storylines.
boatboy_srq
@sigaba: I wasn’t talking about what Bay would do.
Besides, complicated schemes are what get the rubes’ grift. Look at Madoff, Huckabee and Carson. And look at what NRA/GoA/FoF/FRC/ALEC/AEI do for their wingnut donations: none of those are particularly simple constructs. This way a bunch of “Hollywood liberals” get paid to make bad Reichwing propaganda, and part of the proceeds land in Dem coffers. I’d call that a twofer.
redshirt
@boatboy_srq: GIVE DEM AIR!
maya
Bey’s Benghazi movie might have been better received by the Patriots if he had let the Center For Medical Progress edit it.
boatboy_srq
@sigaba: @boatboy_srq: Afterthought: take a gander at Casper Van Diehn’s filmography after Starship Troopers, and also at Atlas
BarfedShrugged and the rest of the Reichwing waste of celluloid. The Far Right doesn’t often do big films well. Closest they’ve come in recent years was the Chronicles of Narnia three-installment cringefest, and Dawn Treader (part 3) seems to have been a direct-to-video loser.? Martin
@sigaba: Black Hawk Down wasn’t made until the politics surrounding the event were negated. It was released after Clinton left office.
Making a serious movie about Benghazi might have been a great idea after Clinton and Obama were either done running for President or being President, but not while.
redshirt
There’s no better example of how unbalanced media coverage is than Benghazi. Which would have been a complete non-story during W’s Presidency, is like THE WORST THING EVER during Obama’s.
sigaba
@? Martin: Even more complicating, “Black Hawk Down” was supposed to be released in 2002 but had its schedule accelerated to play as soon after 9/11 as possible. Best so all the photography of American helicopters machine-gunning rioting black people not go to waste.
Best quote of the article:
“The Dallas Cowboys, after all, bill themselves America’s Team, signifying perhaps that they are a deep well of mediocrity in thrall to a rich, old, spiritually corrupt creep, which is to say that the Cowboys are a PAC or two away from earning top-tier presidential contender status.”
? Martin
@boatboy_srq: Hint: Starship Troopers the film is a satire of Starship Troopers the book. Not many people got that. Robocop was also satire.
I think that the director was Dutch means that they weren’t quite over-the-top enough in the guns and bullshit heroism department for Americans to pick up as satire since we marinade in that shit 24/7.
redshirt
I watched the original RoboCop recently.
Doesn’t really hold up.
boatboy_srq
@? Martin: Um, yeah, I got that. But Van Dien seems to have fallen in with the wrong crowd since then…
? Martin
@redshirt: Remember when American citizens were killed in an unprecedented anthrax attack that targeted Democratic members of Congress and the media, utilized federal infrastructure, killed more people than the Benghazi attacks and then went unsolved?
Adam L Silverman
@sigaba: I don’t think so. There were and continue to be accusations that the military leadership also issued stand down orders. This, of course, isn’t true. The reality is that there was no way that military assets, including the Special Forces personnel in Europe, could have gotten there in time. If I’m remembering correctly the closest teams were in Rota, Spain and unless they had been geared up and in the birds on the tarmac for a different mission when the consulate was attacked, there was no way they would have been able to scramble in time. And even had they been geared up and in the birds on the tarmac there was still no way with flying time that they could have gotten there in time to make a difference.
The CIA has already produced their station chief to WaPo to debunk most of what’s in Bay’s movie and the book its based on. No one, of course, is going to believe him. So…
Thoughtful Today
Republicans turn to investigative documentarian Michael Bay for answers:
“House GOP rents out theater to watch Benghazi movie.”
What’s the text emoji equivalent to eye rolling?
craigie
I thought Hollywood was liberals all the way down? I can’t believe that conservatarians are wrong about something. They are usually so on-the-button with their facts.
Germy
@Adam L Silverman:
Do you have a link?
Adam L Silverman
@Germy: I most certainly do: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/former-cia-chief-in-benghazi-challenges-film-version-of-2012-attack/2016/01/15/9cf2defc-baf7-11e5-b682-4bb4dd403c7d_story.html
FlipYrWhig
@redshirt: Maybe there should be a lavish Hollywood production about the US spy plane that was forced down by the Chinese. As the clock ticks, is all hope lost, or will they finally get their Bibles and exercise?
Germy
@Adam L Silverman: thank you.
Baud
@Just Some Fuckhead:
My Pet Goat by J.J. Abrams, coming Summer 2016.
Redshift
@redshirt:
It in no way justifies the coverage, but ironically, it is actually one of the worst episodes during Obama’s presidency, and would correctly have been seem as a blip during Bush’s because there were so many things that were so much worse.
(But clearly, one of the worst episodes in the Obama Administration is such a low bar that is not at all the same thing as THE WORST THING EVER.)
dmsilev
@Thoughtful Today:
?
“Face with rolling eyes”. Truly, we live in the future.
Adam L Silverman
@Redshift: Actually there were about a dozen attacks on US embassies and diplomatic personnel during the Bush 43 Administration. About 43 killed and a large number of injured – though no ambassadors. Do you remember any significant reporting about this?
That doesn’t make what happened at Benghazi okay, but it puts things into context a bit. Diplomatic work, like military service, is dangerous. And the folks in the foreign service, both on the diplomatic side and the development/USAID side, go out and do it every day. Usually without body armor and almost always without guns.
redshirt
@Redshift: True. And I suppose the media is only complicit, not to blame completely. It is of course the Republicans who scream outrage and then the media covers their tantrums.
Imagine the Democrats demanding years long hearings of the China plane crash in 2001. They would have been labelled TRAITORS on day one.
sigaba
@Adam L Silverman: None of this means anything to the viewers, the SEALs can do anything, they could have saved Chris Stevens, all the President has to do is pick up a phone and the SEALs can kill anyone or save anyone. SEALs can cross any distance in any time, have unparalleled military prowess and only SEALs are trusted with Green Lantern rings.
I’m not sure the military brass cares specifically about their specific exculpation, as much as they want to protect the more, ah, “spiritual” attitude that American soldiers (even mercenaries) are peerless an unstoppable, kill ten guys for our one, and their failure can always be attributable to panty-waists or backstabbers who are afraid to kill the bad guys. Martial values and institutions are themselves NEVER to blame and must always be celebrated.
So no, when the pentagon is involved, all our tech is amazing and our guys can accomplish the impossible, with the help of their incredible leadership. That’s the propaganda, it’s bigger than Benghazi.
Schroedingers Dog
Starship Troopers the movie is a shit stain of celluloid. It is better described as Space:90210. A much better depiction of the world of Starship Troopers was done in the series Space:Above and Beyond.
Baud
@redshirt:
Democrats are labelled as traitors simply for running against Republicans.
Redshift
@sigaba:
That doesn’t fit with the storyline of the film as I’ve read about it. The film is about heroic security contractors (!) And the villains are their government bosses who *treat them like the help ” instead of, I guess, letting them decide for themselves how to do their job.
The bosses are CIA, not Pentagon, but I really don’t see how it could be a rah-rah for the military. (It doesn’t sound like it’s the BENGHAZEE! story the wingnuts want either.)
jake the antisoshul soshulist
As much as I respect Isaac Asimov, he was wrong when he said violence is the last resort of the incompetent.
Violence is the last resort of the competent. Violence is the first resort of the incompetent.
ThresherK (GPad)
@boatboy_srq: Has everyone forgotten An American Carol, where Michael Moore (a stand in, actually) learns the true meaning of America from the ghost of GW and others?
Like the remake of Total Recall, it is eminently forgettable.
Four things the right seems to perpetually fail at in their entertainment propaganda: Topical, funny, fact-based and incisive.
Michael Bersin
@Thoughtful Today: I took it when Sarris had Jason Nesmith “Explain as you would a child” that they finally got it.
Adam L Silverman
@sigaba: In regards popular American attitudes towards US SOF, and specifically the SeALs, most Americans can’t actually explain what they do, let alone which group is which. So mythology never surprises me.
As for the military brass: I can’t say who you know in the brass, but while general officers/flag officers are political creatures as much as military commanders, I don’t know a single one that doesn’t recognize the limits of military power and effectiveness. And not that there aren’t some knuckleheads that have gotten promoted beyond where they should have had to retire, the best ones care a tremendous amount about their people and those they are partnered with and completing the mission as safely and effectively as possible.
redshirt
I “knew” one of the victims at Benghazi and that he’s now portrayed as a hero by the Wingnuts is funny/sad, because he hated Wingnuts and he was really over there doing IT and playing video games.
Anoniminous
@Adam L Silverman:
It’s about hate and the ginning-up of hate to win a political battle. It’s the Zimmerman Telegraph, the Tonkin Gulf, the Reichstag fire, etc., ploy to get the rubes worked up over an nothing-burger.
Redshift
@Adam L Silverman: Sorry if my point was muddled. I completely agree that the attention this gets from mainstream media is due entirely to false-balance-driven “if Republicans are howling, there must be something there” coverage.
I just find it ironic that an episode that is pretty bad by the standards of the Obama Administration wouldn’t stand out in the parade of incompetence and horrors that was the Bush Adminstration.
Baud
@Redshift:
It’s the Gish Gallop model of governing.
Gene108
@Germy:
The movie about Flint should be released before Snyder or if he is term-limited, his successor runs in 2018.
I would say Michael Moore could make it, as Roger and Me focused heavily on Flint, but the people you want to reach with this would be film are conditioned to assume anything Moore does is biased and therefore not accurate and will tune it out because his name’s on it.
The sort of people, who got fed up with Bush, Jr. and the Republicans by 2006 or 2008, but started voting Republican again by 2010 or 2012. And such people do exist.
Thoughtful Today
dmsilev @ 61
I have scripts and other Future Magics off so what you posted I see as a square block with the numbers/letter:
_____
|01F|
|644|
—–
Truly, you are in the future ;)
Villago Delenda Est
@Schroedingers Dog: Starship Troopers was brilliant satire. Much of it totally over the heads of an action movie audience, to be sure. But when I first saw it I knew it for what it was. I mean, Doogie Houser of the SS? How insanely brilliant is that?
The Republic, Blah Blah Blah...
From the Gawker article…
Almost???
Adam L Silverman
@Redshift: Gotcha. Now I’m tracking.
Another Holocene Human
So back in 2009 Michael Moore posted long whiny open letters to President Obama about how he was presidentin’ rong and today he twitter twatters to ask Obama to come to Flint. Am I the only OBot who just feels like telling Mike to shut the hell up?
Thoughtful Today
Michael Bersin @ 70
At that moment, he did. Later, the Thermian leader laughs off Nesmith’s previous explanation as a “clever deception”:
[Thermian leader laughing]: “The ship is a model… As big as this! [indicating a tiny size]… A very clever deception indeed!”
It’s possible the Thermian leader knew better and was just playing the “clever deception” up to protect his innocent people. But there’s nothing explicit.
Baud
@Another Holocene Human:
Don’t know. It depends on the tone of the tweet.
john fremont
@sigaba: High tech and martial prowess are simply unstoppable as a literary theme, Tom Clancy take a bow.
Germy
“House GOP rents out theater to watch Benghazi movie.”
So our representatives watch something the CIA has called fiction and base their policy decisions on it? Maybe they can watch the PP video next.
Mike in NC
One of the worst pieces of Hollywood tripe in recent years was “Olympus Has Fallen”, about terrorists invading the White House. Well, the same gang has put together “London Has Fallen” and the trailer we just saw makes Olympus look like “Citizen Kane”.
Germy
@Mike in NC: They should do one called “Hollywood Has Fallen” and be done with it.
Villago Delenda Est
@Germy: They already have watched the PP video, and they’re basing their policy decisions on lies. This is just more of the same.
It’s what these foul people do.
Baud
@Mike in NC:
I recently saw both Olympus Has Fallen and White House Down. I’m still debating which was the most outlandish.
sigaba
@Adam L Silverman: “As for the military brass: I can’t say who you know in the brass, but while general officers/flag officers are political creatures as much as military commanders, I don’t know a single one that doesn’t recognize the limits of military power and effectiveness”
I appreciate your experience, but the sobriety and realism you describe does not seem to filter down to film liason officers.
Joel
@ThresherK (GPad): That pretty much marked the end of the long, sad, decline of the Zucker brothers.
c u n d gulag
I must have missed the movies about all of the dead Marines in Lebanon, under Reagan, and all of the dead people in the Diplomatic Corp, under W.
But we DID get a movie by Clint Eastwood about Grenada, so at least THAT wasn’t a total loss – even if it did suck snake dick!
SRW1
So the US did a prisoner swap with Iran and El Trumpo condemns it for the imbalance in the numbers. Shoulda paid ’em in boatloads of weapons instead, ah Donald.
Iowa Old Lady
@redshirt: Vile Rat. It’s a sign of the internet world that hundreds of people left tributes for him though they knew him only virtually.
benw
@Johnny Coelacanth: actually someone over at the AVClub pointed out that “American Sniper” was wide-released in January 2015, and was a smash, especially in wingnut circles. Hollywood execs are nothing if not good at repeating a big moneymaker. So my guess is that this is a direct attempt to repeat the success of “American Sniper”, and not a shitty post-awards dump. They’re certainly spending the money to hype this one on the TV.
Baud
@Iowa Old Lady:
After your comment the other day, I told my people to take you off the robocall list. I hope you haven’t been receiving any.
The Lodger
@Germy: It’s Clue. The crime occurred in the kitchen with the lead pipe.
redshirt
@Iowa Old Lady: How do you know Vile Rat? SA?
Gene108
@redshirt:
To be fair to the media, there were SO MANY embassy and consulate attacks, with dozens of foreign service personnel killed, during Bush, Jr.’s reign of error, it just became too much for the news agencies to keep track of.
Germy
A review in the Chicago Tribune:
Adam L Silverman
@sigaba: that doesn’t surprise me.
Amir Khalid
@Germy:
There is precedent, of course. Remember how the TV show 24 was such an influence on how Republicans (and not just them, to be honest) thought about handling crisis situations?
Germy
@Amir Khalid: Yes, they wanted to make torture okay with us. And the producer of that show was a well-known wingnut.
Baud
@Gene108:
To the GOP mind, massive failures caused by being overly aggressive are more acceptable than limited failures caused by being not aggressive enough. It’s more of a value judgment than pure hypocrisy.
(Not that they wouldn’t be hypocritical if Obama had experienced massive failure by being overly aggressive.)
Germy
They really know how to frame the debate: “I saw it in a movie! Please explain!”
Baud
@efgoldman:
They were free and there must have been a gap in interesting Balloon Juice posts. I blame Anne Laurie.
Iowa Old Lady
@Baud: There was a Clinton volunteer at my door last night who wanted me to fill out a postcard and would not take no for an answer. I shut the door in her face.
@redshirt: I didn’t know him, but I know people who did, mostly through seeing them around on line. I’m not a gamer, so it’s all third hand for me, and I still felt semi connected. He went from being one of “two other Americans” to being a person.
Ruckus
@Adam L Silverman:
You reminded me of a captain we had on the DDG I was stationed on for 2 yrs. We had one weapon system on board that was capable of using nuclear or regular ole high explosives. And a captain that really was in over his head. Chain smoked, had cartons, not packs of cigs on the bridge and everywhere else he went. Have seen him smoke two at a time, one in each hand. And once light a third with one of the two. OK I made up that last part, but I’d bet he rarely used more than a couple of matches a day, always lighting with the last one. I figured he was going to explode from lung cancer right in front of our eyes. All of this is to say he was way, way too nervous to actually be a captain. The rest of the captains I served under ranged from good thoughtful leaders to Capt Bligh, with most about in the middle. I did notice that most of the XOs assumed the role of official asshole, while a few actually tried to be decent. But I’m probably a bit prejudiced in my opinions, considering when I served, why I was there and my role in the game.
Baud
@Iowa Old Lady:
Ha. I appreciate people who volunteer, but I don’t understand why people think that is effective. Bloggers used to talk about the science of electioneering, but I haven’t seen any recent articles on this topic.
Mai.naem.mobile
Donald Fvcking Trump can go fvck off and DIAF. Just once, one fvcking time, I want the GOP say Obama did good without any contingencies. Fvckers even managed to criticize Obama for taking credit for OBL because the SEALs actually killed OBL.
sigaba
@Adam L Silverman: I’m on a proper keyboard now.
So, just about all Michael Bay films, and most American films that feature US military equipment and personnel, have their scripts approved by the Pentagon. They have a film liaison office and if you’re a producer that needs this many F-18s to fly over on such-and-such a day, or you need a platoon of guys to run around and shoot a Javelin at a story pole that’s standing in for a Martian walker, you call them up, you send the script, and if the film has anything disparaging about the US military, they won’t participate. And that’s fine, but the military has no rule against participating in projects that vastly overstate their effectiveness, against alien invasions, killer robots, alien killer robots, or hordes of angry Somalis (those Africans, always so angry.)
And if you’re a producer and the Pentagon agrees to help you, it’s usually the decisive factor on wether or not you can do the movie, and most war movies are un-fundable without Pentagon aid. So American war films have a natural tendency to slide into hagiography, but not just hagiography of the main characters, but the films also tacitly accept a pro-military establishment party line usually partial to a particular service and oblivious to the possibility that the military has problems. At this point a PFC saying “I hate the new lieutenant” is too risqué for most American war movies. There still have to be pointy-headed antagonists, though, so these all become suits: politicians, CIA station chiefs, diplomats. So a SEAL CPO can’t say he hates his lieutenant, but he can call a fictional state department official pretty much whatever he wants.
Critical films do get made, but they’re low-budget joints made in Jordan or Slovenia and are eventually distributed as art films or direct to DVD. Hurt Locker was shot in Jordan with re-badged and repainted Jordanian military equipment, and were marketed as “issue” movies only suitable for two-week runs, maybe with 500 screens in the US.
redshirt
@Iowa Old Lady: I forget the name of the game he always played, but I do recall he was playing it when the attacks started. His last post on SA is something to the effect of “shit’s going down outside, got to log off”.
It’s weird.
? Martin
@Baud: I saw both under similar circumstances. They were on TV/Netflix/whatever and I was in bed with pneumonia. Many bad films were witnessed.
Baud
@Mai.naem.mobile: Won’t happen. Zero incentive.
? Martin
@sigaba: Are you trying to suggest that ‘Battleship’ was somehow unrealistic of our military capacity?
Baud
@? Martin: Another pneumonia movie?
boatboy_srq
@Another Holocene Human: This is the problem with libprog infotainment: the makers of such seem always convinced that [insert governing figure here] isn’t doing enough, isn’t liberal/progressive enough, and s/he must be somehow shamed into doing what they want. Their material is aimed, not at wingnuts, but at the insufficiently orthodox libprogs among the not-entirely-insane population, and it falls as flat as a James O’Keefe “exposé”. There’s no apparent interest (at least once they’ve “made it” as Moore has done) in talking about the horrible job the Reichwing is doing as custodians of the public space, only in pushing the leaders among the Dems to be more (dare I say it?) politically correct. Searching for perfection, when the opposition is in a mad scramble to the bottom, isn’t especially attractive. I loved Roger and Me, and I thought both Bowling for Columbine and Fahrenheit 9/11 were brilliantly insighful – but FFS Mr. Moore please stop flinging poo on people who aren’t quite in lockstep with your ideals.
Spike
@BGinCHI:
He did marry Emily Blunt, so he’s not entirely stupid.
ThresherK (GPad)
@Joel: Surely, you can’t be serious.
Now.that you mention it,I do remember one of their names on it.
boatboy_srq
@Germy: Considering how many on the various committees sat out the briefings on the event (especially if there was a convenient photo-op where they could complain about how theyw weren’t getting briefed), this may be as close to the actual detail on the event as they have yet been.
DesertFriar
@Germy:
There must be a repertory theater that could do Ibsen’s An Enemy Of The People.
James E Powell
I’m only now recovering from the holidays with my RW relatives. They are certain that this movie will not only destroy Hillary Clinton’s campaign, but that finally, at long and dear last, Obama will be exposed as the treasonous anti-American Muslim Socialist they’ve been telling us about since 2008.
boatboy_srq
@efgoldman: Well, he did endorse Shrub in ’04, but he still contributes to Dem campaigns. One could say the same of most Teahadi financiers. Sentience in terms of political donations is far less important than morality.
Redshift
@SRW1: Apparently all of the wingnuts are engaged in a furious round of goalpost shifting to avoid praising the administration for doing the thing they’ve been loudly criticizing then for not doing. Trump’s surely is even stupider than most; apparently a common theme is complaining that we released felons! (No, I don’t understand why that’s so terrible either.)
boatboy_srq
The one problem I have with the article is that the reviewer doesn’t make the connection between the anti-Arab/anti-Muslim/anti-civilian bent to the modern US Armed Forces action film and the various horror genre turns of late. Films like this may have become popular recently, but films and TV about aliens and (especially) zombies have been big for quite a while. “Alien” and “zombie” make very good standins for Those Other People Over There (or perhaps Already Here). 13 Hours simply gets a little closer to the
b#tsh!t-crazytruth.MomSense
@amk:
Bedtime for Bonzo?
redshirt
Here in New Gondolin I see the most dramatic weather.
It was snowing all morning, perfect snowy day (so quiet – there’s nothing as quiet as a snow day), and then within 15 minutes the snow stopped and somehow the sun came out. It’s so beautiful.
I’m taking this as an omen the Pats win today.
GO PATS!
Adam L Silverman
@Ruckus: If I understand the role of the XO on board a ship, then there’s supposed to be the official hard ass. And I’ve seen Army commanders similar to your ship’s captain. Not chain smoking like that or way to nervous, but just not the right person for the job they were assigned to do at that time. This was not at the GO level, but that colonel did, eventually, make general officer.
Part of the real issue over the past fifteen years, at least on the Army side, is that it has taken a while to transition through field grade officers that came of age, rank wise, before 9-11. There’s a major difference in understanding what operational units should be doing, and even to an extent what type of Army the generating Army should be producing, from lieutenant colonels and colonels that achieved those ranks and held commands in Afghanistan and Iraq between 2002 and now. Similarly for the 3 and 4 stars that were colonels, brigadier generals, and major generals during that same time period.
The other issue, of course, is who controls the promotion boards. Everyone would always say that GEN Petraeus was going to remake the Army officer cohort in his image because his type of Soldier would make lieutenant colonel and colonel and then general officer. I always thought, and frequently said, that that was naive as he was never in a position to control the promotion boards. His highest billet in the generating Army was as the Combined Arms Center commander as a 3 Star.
MomSense
@boatboy_srq:
There’s always Fire Down Below for those into remakes of bad movies.
Adam L Silverman
@sigaba: I was on my phone at the dog park when I replied last, so I understand completely. And I’ve got a basic/general understanding of the film liaison office stuff and the effect it has on the movies and TV shows that are produced.
As someone who’s been on the inside looking out, I can say that the limits of when and where military power is effective is well known. So, perhaps, the good news is that the reality is better than the fiction.
Anya
I wonder how the actors feel about how their work will be used as a propoganda by rightwing nut jobs?
sharl
@Bobbo: I’ve only gone through the slideshow, but yowza! I had to play Pearl Harbor Sucked in my head while viewing that, just to keep myself properly grounded.
MomSense
@James E Powell:
I really don’t understand the theory part of the conspiracy. Why did Obama want this to happen again?
redshirt
@MomSense: I think it’s because Obama hates America and thus let these brave American patriots die. So he could laugh.
Seriously, that’s the conspiracy theory.
Ruckus
@boatboy_srq:
That may be because most US military action films forever have been about being against whatever the current anti-whomever group is. A military action film by it’s very nature has to be against some group. One is either trying to make a historical (reality or fiction) film or a current propaganda film. There is no other plot.
Another Holocene Human
@Baud: I read him as completely sincere, not passive aggressive.
But I guess that’s what’s so jarring … MM had a pretty good case of ODS and now with no hint of irony, just like Snyder, he’s begging for Obama’s help.
I don’t know if MM did a reversal on his views because I quit reading him around 2010 or thereabouts.
redshirt
@Another Holocene Human: Moore just called out Obama on twitter. It’s pathetic.
Thoughtful Today
Hmm…
Critics criticizing critics for criticizing…
Fascinating.
Just Some Fuckhead
@MomSense: Ratings!
Another Holocene Human
@efgoldman:
Like Samuel L. Jackson. I can respect his reasons for taking shit roles. And I respect him because he really acted. He didn’t turn in a shit job in a shit role (even in a shit movie). But I do respect those who refuse certain roles, especially ones that are ethnically insulting.
MomSense
@redshirt:
Pretty lame. Even if you believed that he hated America, why would he want something bad to happen right before an election when it could thwart his re-election? Wingnuts are a dumb bunch.
Dmbeaster
@redshirt: The media cover the non-stop winger freak out about Benghazi, just like they cover Trump’s noise making. The noise makes the news – content is basically irrelevant. Oh, and IOKIYAR
Mnemosyne
@sigaba:
I’m pretty sure that the military folks who become movie liaisons are not the ones who demonstrated a great grasp of military tactics and strategy, if you know what I mean.
Slightly more seriously, I wonder if during the Iraq and Afghanistan years if they had some conscious or subconscious guilt about having such a cushy berth and overcompensated.
Another Holocene Human
@Baud: I saw the one that was on Netflix, which is the worse one by Rotten Tomatoes (I guess not the one with a big name actor in it?), and I thought it would be a popcorn popping good time but it was an unbelievably dreary movie (okay, not Red Zone Cuba dreary), totally preposterous, and drifting into RW male insecure in his masculinity WATB-whine-wanking. See, the President is not a real manly man and shouldn’t even be president. It takes a real man to defend the country, and those effete specialists and experts and bureaucrats and leaders who pissed their pants when the baddies arrived don’t even have the good manners to be grateful.
Lame.
redshirt
@MomSense: They believe their own lies.
Mnemosyne
@MomSense:
I think the conspiracy theory is that Obama refuses to admit that all Muslims are evil and violent and plotting to kill us all, so he covered up the events at Benghazi to protect Muslims from being rightly punished for their actions. Kind of like the racists here who insist that the police cover up the massive crime wave that black criminals are committing against white people to avoid admitting that Those People are inherently inferior.
Just Some Fuckhead
@MomSense: Why did Obama fake his birth in Hawaii, even going so far as to put a birth notice in the local newspaper? Why did Obama never go to college despite receiving two degrees? Why did Obama go to a so-called Christian church with a racist pastor despite being a Muslim? Why did he confiscate all of America’s guns and invade Texas? Why does he do any of the crazy shit he does? That is not for us to speculate about. His ways are not our ways, he has his reasons.
Ruckus
@Adam L Silverman:
True.
The XO as asshole seems to me to be a very outdated concept even in my time over 40 yrs ago, of not discipline and command authority but of petty hardass done poorly. And yes the military can exacerbate the problem by lateral transfers. The Capt Bligh doofus was captain on my last ship, he had been the flotilla commander for the Destroyer Squadron for that DDG but he was such a fuck up that they “demoted” him to ships captain of an LPH. It required the same rank in both cases but it was career wise, a serious ending move. I think they hopped he’d just resign to avoid them having to fire him. Of course being a total asshole he took it out on the people that had nothing to do with the entire fuckup that was his career. Hey, that sounds political!
Just Some Fuckhead
@Mnemosyne: You are a fucking moron. Ambassador Chris Stevens is gay and was about to reveal his relationship with Obama so he had to be killed.
Mnemosyne
@Just Some Fuckhead:
No, idiot, Chris Stevens was secretly a woman and was about to reveal her secret lesbian affair with Hillary. Jaysus, get it right.
Ruckus
@Mnemosyne:
I heard he was a transgender gay man who was having affairs with both of them at the same time.
But it might have been a rumor.
Anya
@Mnemosyne: I think you’re both wrong. Ambassador Chris Stevens had access to Obama’s REAL birth certificate & proof of his true paternity. I don’t have to tell you why this information was dangerious before November 2012.
Frankensteinbeck
@MomSense:
First, they have no reason to ask that question. I’m sure it doesn’t occur to 90% of them. But even for the ones who did, it’s not inconsistent. You have to understand traditional stereotypes of blacks. They think Obama is a man-sized spoiled child, not very bright, prone to selfish and criminal action. He got the job because the system is rigged to give blacks handouts, and if that got him all the way to president, it must be really rigged. Note the fascination with his college transcripts. They want to prove he’s an ‘affirmative action president.’ He’s tyrannous in the sense that he has no respect for the law, and weak in the sense that he doesn’t have the courage to stand up and do manly things like declare wars. Think of both in the sense of a two year old’s selfish whining, because that’s what they see. Most importantly, he’s not American. Even if they think he’s a citizen, he’s not part of Real America, has no loyalty to America, and does not want what’s best for Americans. At best he’s spiteful and negligent, and would not lift a finger to save Americans overseas. At worst he is actively trying to hurt America and Americans in any way he can.
@Mnemosyne:
And this is the specific detail for why they pitch a fuss about whether he says ‘terorism’ in the right way. They think it’s the proof that Obama agrees with Muslims who kill Americans, and is trying to protect and encourage those Muslims.
The whole thing is beyond fucked up and deranged, but they know it’s true. They look at him, listen to him, and it’s obvious. It doesn’t need proving, because you can’t miss it. Thus is racism, and how it works.
Doug R
@Botsplainer: It’s coming out in January, which means the studio is DUMPING it. That being said, I thought Pain & Gain was a moderately entertaining film about a bunch of muttonheads.
Adam L Silverman
@redshirt: @MomSense: The actual, original, honest to goodness accusation that there was a scandal actually had to do with Ambassador Rice going on one of the Sunday talk shows and stating that the attack on the consulate in Benghazi was part of the backlash that also occurred in Cairo against that anti-Prophet Muhammed video that had just been released. This was the film where everyone involved as an actor indicated that they didn’t know that’s what it was for and the producer/director overdubbed their lines. Ambassador Rice’s statements had been set through the Interagency process. In simple terms every Federal agency or department that needed to weigh in and, if necessary adjust, the official statement got a chance to do so. In fact the CIA came out and indicated that they approved the statement she made.
Several days later, as more information began to become available and was vetted, the understanding of what happened began to change. Instead of the attack being caused by anger within some elements of the local community in response to the video, as was the case in Cairo a day or so before the consulate was attacked in Benghazi, the estimates changed. They changed to that this was a planned and concerted effort by to local militant/militia leaders (one of whom we now have in custody and the other we have identified – he’s still in Libya), who likely used the video to stir up some local anger for cover for their actions.
That’s what got this all started: an American ambassador, representing the Administration on a Sunday talk show, answering a question with the official position of the US government of what had happened as it was best understood at that time. An official position that had been fully vetted through the Interagency, including the appropriate Intelligence Agencies within the Interagency.
Villago Delenda Est
@Ruckus: Makes me wonder, very hard, just what the fuck John McCain did when he held a command (post-Hanoi) that caused his career to crash. He never got to flag rank for some reason…somehow the legacy gravy train that overlooked crashing planes got derailed.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Villago Delenda Est: I’ve always wondered the same thing.
Mnemosyne
Also, too, a couple of people up above brought up The Hurt Locker and Zero Dark Thirty, both of which were directed by Kathryn Bigelow. Given Bay’s pretty well-known misogyny, I would not be at all surprised if this is his attempt to prove that chicks shouldn’t direct war movies and he’s going to be the manly man to put Bigelow in her place and show her how it’s done.
JGabriel
@? Martin:
Yes, I was thinking along the same lines. It’s a tragedy that deserves a serious treatment, which it’s not going to get from Michael Bay. They should have had someone like Kathryn Bigelow, Paul Greengrass, or Alfonso Cuarón directing it; i.e., someone who knows how to film a coherent narrative amidst seeming chaos.
Omnes Omnibus
@Villago Delenda Est: McCain never held a major sea command as an O-5 or O-6. He commanded a training unit. That kind of thing gets you branch qualified for promotion, but it doesn’t mark you as a high flier. The Navy was willing to carry him through 0-6 because of his family and his POW experience, but that was it.
The battalion commander of the student battalion a Benning when I was at OCS had has chestful of serious medals plus all the infantry hardware (CIB, Master Parachutist, Ranger tab), but he was bug fuck crazy. The Army put him someplace where he couldn’t hurt anyone and let him ride it out to his max pension. I thought it was actually good thing. They broke him, so they needed to take care of him. In this case, unlike many others, they did it.
Mnemosyne
@JGabriel:
It might be interesting to see what someone like Michael Winterbottom (“24 Hour Party People,” “Tristram Shandy”) could do with the Benghazi story. He’s good at weaving conflicting narratives into a reasonably coherent story while still allowing the seams to show.
Doug R
@Amir Khalid: Ya need to save the world? Send in the Canadian, grandson of the founder of socialist Medicare Tommy Douglas.
Adam L Silverman
@Omnes Omnibus: A lot of that has happened over the past decade. Guys and gals that have come back physically ill or with emotional trauma basically placed into staff and action officer billets where they can ride out their careers. Now a lot of these folks are getting SERBed now because of the drawdown, but a lot of folks have been treated properly.
Adam L Silverman
@efgoldman: I know you’re being facetious, but I actually wrote a short research note in answer to a request for information three or four days after it happened and I included the inspired/incited by the anti-Islam/anti-Prophet Muhammed video. This was all using open source stuff and it was unclassified and based on what was in the news reports and on social media and other open sources that made sense. Until new information came to light and it stopped making sense.
Ruckus
@Villago Delenda Est:
@Omnes Omnibus:
The military may do things their own way but they do tend to reward absolute stupidity or overreaching assholyness with career ending lateral moves, with the hopeful result being that the officer resigns his/her commission. It serves them by not having to put real leaders in places that their talent would be wasted or hopefully that their stupidity would be much less hurtful to the overall direction. I’ve seen this in the corporate world as well. It usually makes life miserable enough that many quit their jobs (he says holding up his hand as one of the victims) Of course in the military an enlisted person can’t just quit, you have to stay and take all the shit these losers shovel until the end of your enlistment. So it can create a huge amount of resentment and problems down the road, lack of retention, poor job performance, which can get a huge upper management circle jerk going and going and going….
Omnes Omnibus
@Adam L Silverman: At our pre-graduation cocktail party, he told my mom a story from Vietnam about some 2LT engineer who got blown up while being heroic and then said that I was that sort of a guy. He meant it well, but my mom was a little freaked out.
Omnes Omnibus
@Ruckus: Yeah, there is a difference between making an O-5 deputy commander of a minor base in Germany (IOW saying “your upward path is over”) and letting a guy who is obviously unfit to function in civilian life because of what the military did to him ride out the rest of his time someplace where he can do some paperwork that needs to be done and appear in his dress blues once in a while. FWIW I watched a number of E-8s and senior E-7s coast to retirement in the same fashion.
sigaba
@srv: Reagan Democrats were in their 40s in the 1980, I’m not sure how many of them are alive now and of those that are, how many of them still identify as Democrats.
Cross-party voting is definitely a thing but I’m not sure why all D to R voters are called “Reagan Democrats.” Well, I know why, but I’m not sure what justifies the appellation analytically, obviously it has an important historicist/propaganda meaning.
Doug R
@Another Holocene Human:https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LABGimhsEys
Ruckus
@Omnes Omnibus:
Agreed. The enlisted ranks really are no different.
In many cases of the E7-8s that I saw, or worked with were just marking time. It did seem that a lot of them got around 25 yrs in and then the navy fucked with them hard, sending them to weird places so that they wouldn’t re-up for that last tour. That of course is not to say all of them, I met some guys who were good at their jobs, worked hard and contributed well to the overall structure/mission. But they were mostly in positions that reflected that.
And that included Marines that I met while on temp SP duty.
The military is a big organization and the people in it reflect the civilian population in my opinion. Some are slackers, most just do their jobs and some are leaders. And that’s not just officers.
boatboy_srq
@Ruckus: Not entirely true. There were WW2 films almost nonstop through the 50s and into the 60s, and both Germany and Japan were well and truly defeated. “Recent” I’ll buy: “current”, not necessarily.
What’s interesting this time around is that the dogwhistled threat (the alien/zombie) has been replaced with a recognizable one very quickly: the material on the human/Ahmurrrcan side stays pretty much the same, but the antagonist is less
dishonestfanciful. What we’re seeing is Independence Day-styled films with Those People in place of the aliens.Ruckus
@boatboy_srq:
A lot of those 50-60 films were propaganda, plain and simple. There were some good movies about Vietnam as well, and several that were pure propaganda. It is ever thus. Propaganda isn’t always about the future, it can also be about polishing the past up as well.
I do agree with you on the Independence Day type films that are racist delivery systems (bullshit IOW) but then Hollywood has never really been a trend setting place by being truthful, they are after all about making money, not movies.
debbie
@Germy:
Well, there was Gasland. A number of towns poisoned by its own flammable tap water. Not a politician out to prove the benefits of austerity, but oil companies proving their ruthless pursuit of a buck, human life be damned.
Close enough?
sukabi
@Villago Delenda Est: I think it’s probably worse than that…the whole PP thing may have been sanctioned by the very same R’s that are pushing regressive policy , trying to defund…they just needed something for the “outrage” factor to renew their push.
They were sitting on those videos for months prior to their “release”.
Just speculation, but it’d be irresponsible to not.
MomSense
@Mnemosyne: @Just Some Fuckhead: @Ruckus:
I like your conspiracy theories better. At least they have some there there.
MomSense
@Anya:
Throw in Bill Ayres and you’ve got a winner!
MomSense
@Frankensteinbeck:
I think you are absolutely correct in your analysis of hiw they view President Obama. You cannot separate their opinions of his policies or actions from the racist stereotypes that are the context by which they judge him. Unfortunately there is no shortage of politicians who are willing to exploit this situation. I don’t think Mitt Romney actually believed Obama wasn’t born in America or any of the ridiculous Benghazi nonsense but he was willing to exploit this and vague speak the conspiracies because he believed it would help his campaign. I was trying to explain the things the Repubkicans were saying in the last debate to my 12 year old and he came to the conclusion that they cant admit they are wrong about the issues so they just say angry, racist things and hope that their voters will fall for it. He’s not wrong.
@Adam L Silverman:
I think the Rice statements are just the “evidence” the wing nuts use to support their belief that Obama betrayed his own diplomats and security detail in Libya because reasons.
If I put my own tinfoil hat on, I will tell you that I trust Petreaus as far as I can throw a piano and the CIA was the weakest link in what happened.
Adam L Silverman
@Omnes Omnibus: I’m sure it went well.
Omnes Omnibus
@Adam L Silverman: Well, I ended up neither a hero nor blown up.
mainmata
The idea that Arlington, TX is America’s heartland and the major influence on America is completely bizarre and, of course, bullsh*t. My very liberal brother who works for the Dallas Morning News lives in Arlington. America’s gun-death cult is a sign of a socio-political culture in steep decadence.Worship of gunmen as heroes will eventually destroy the country or lead to a major revolution.
ranchandsyrup
CD Hooks has some good stuff at the Texas observer as well.
Adam L Silverman
@MomSense: they jumped on that the official estimate changed as more information came in. They claimed that the Administration was covering up something. What were they covering up? Several equally dubious ideas were thrown against the wall and they ultimately decided that the one that stuck was that someone issued a stand down order and left the consulate staff to die. At least four different Congressional committees have now reported that this is not true. But that’s not really the point right now is it.
mainmata
@debbie: “Silkwood” qualifies and it was an award winning movie too.
MomSense
@Adam L Silverman:
The only point is to stoke fear for political gain.
BillinGlendaleCA
@MomSense:
*fear for political gain™ is a registered trademark by the Republican National Committee.
Zinsky
It never ceases to amaze me – the lengths conservatives will go to just to slander Bill and Hillary Clinton. It really is pathological. It is like a degenerate fetish with these vermin.
karen marie
@Oatler.: They’ve been playing Rambo/Stallone movies on a loop. I no longer bother checking it when I’m channel surfing.
Ruckus
@Zinsky:
degenerate fetish
You have just encapsulated the entire conservative zeitgeist in two words.
Internet won.
rikyrah
@Baud:
I love both of them.
mclaren
Hillary Clinton will not win the Democratic nomination.
sigaba
@Mnemosyne: Bay is an ass but not a misogynist, not like, on a thoughtful, philosophical level. He might bed Victoria’s Secret models and forget their name in the morning, but he’s not the kind of person that will resent a female filmmaker simply because she’s a woman.
My experience with Bay has only been glancing but he knows what he is and he knows what K-Bigs is and he holds few illusions. He might think Bigelow’s films are no good but it isn’t because she’s a woman, it’s because they didn’t make $500 million domestic and she didn’t get 5% of the toy rights.
He’s no Brett Ratner. Now THAT guy…
JGabriel
@Mnemosyne: Winterbottom would also be a good choice. I like his work a lot, and I’m surprised I didn’t think of him.