V For Vendetta Opens Today

[samclemens]

WCsox, i can see where you are coming from. you are not the only person who is disgusted with hollywood liberals. and everyone, he can call it like he sees it, whether you agree with it or not.

 

personally, CA liberal b.s. stopped bothering me a long time ago. its facts of life. when i go and see a movie, i sit back and enjoy the damn thing and do my best to forget about politico s***e. i saw syriana and i thought it was OK, since the americans won (at least it was realistic). clooney loves to b****, but i havent heard him ever come up with a single constructive suggestion or solution- ever. i cant sit through movies that shamelessly play off anti-bush sentimate to sell tickets (the upcoming film "thank you for smoking" would be the next, i imagine). just another reason i hate michael moore. syriana honestly came a little close. i mean, for gods sake, someone could read anti-(fill in blank here) motives into "march of the penguins" if they tried hard enough.

 

i mean, we live in a free society. if some people want to b**** and whine about how the US runs s*** on this earth, they have that right. just keep in mind, complainers with no solutions, that our nation is built on nation-building. we came, we conquered, we enslaved (in one form or another). native americans, fillipinos, germans, italians, japanese, you name it. its why we are the best today, and its why everyone hates us. if it werent for that conquering, exploitation, and whatever else have you, we would have the privilige of being citizens of such an great country.

 

off topic, i know, but it was a fun diatribe.

[WCSox]

In 1964 Fail-Safe was released. An anti-nuke political statement.

In 1964 Dr. Strangelove was released. An anti-nuke political statement.

 

Point taken, although opposition in this country was minimal at most then. The movie was written and filmed years earlier.

 

In 1930 "All Quiet on the Western Front" was released. An anti-war statement.

 

We weren't at war in 1930...

 

In 1946 "A Walk In The Sun" was released.

 

... or 1946.

 

An anti-war statement.

Frank Sinatra starred in the 1962 Anti-War statement, "The Manchurian Candidate."

 

Still very early on in the Vietnam War, before opposition became strong.

 

1970's M*A*S*H was about as anti-war as it gets.

 

Which, ironically, was right smack in the middle of Vietnam but about the Korean War. I wouldn't say that it's "as anti-war as it gets" but, yes, the fact that they were medics makes it definitely anti-war.

 

Stanley Kubrick released the anti-war Paths of Glory in 1957.

 

Vietnam still in its infancy...

 

1978 saw the anti-war "The Deer Hunter" and the anti-war "The Boys in Company C" as well as "Coming Home," which is definitely not a Pro-War movie.

Then there was 1979's Apocalypse Now. I'd say anti-war.

 

And we were out of Vietnam by then.

[Balta1701]

Tell me again how "Wag the Dog" (released in 1997) was written about Clinton's bombing of Baghdad during his impeachment hearings (1999)

Actually, the book that film was based on was basically done on the idea that GWBush 1 had "Wagged the Dog" with the Persian Gulf war, basically done the whole thing for approval ratings. Fiction to be sure, but entertaining fiction.

 

For the movie version, they took the plot line from the book, flipped it to the Balkans, and made it because the President was embroiled in a sex scandal. Given how long the accusations against Clinton had been going on, and the fact that the Balkans had been destabilized since the early 90's (The Dayton Accords on Bosnia were signed in 1996) it sure looks like it was adapted from the book to be more applicable to the environment into which it was being released.

[WCSox]

Not to nitpick, but when the main focus of your argument is about your opponent's grammar and Dan Rather, especially when its about bias in film, you seem to be losing track of your point.

 

My main point was about anti-Bush bias in the media, which Hollywood is a part of...

 

Media (the plural of medium) is a truncation of the term media of communication, referring to those organized means of dissemination of fact, opinion, entertainment, and other information, such as newspapers, magazines, cinema films, radio, television, the World Wide Web, billboards, books, CDs, DVDs, videocassettes, computer games and other forms of publishing

 

I haven't lost track of anything.

[WCSox]

For the movie version, they took the plot line from the book, flipped it to the Balkans, and made it because the President was embroiled in a sex scandal.  Given how long the accusations against Clinton had been going on, and the fact that the Balkans had been destabilized since the early 90's (The Dayton Accords on Bosnia were signed in 1996) it sure looks like it was adapted from the book to be more applicable to the environment into which it was being released.

 

Wag the Dog came out a full year before the Lewinsky scandal. Our involvement in the Balkans wasn't widely-viewed as a diversionary tactic. However, Clinton's bombing of Baghdad during his impeachment hearings in 1999 certainly was.

[Rex Kickass]

Point taken, although opposition in this country was minimal at most then.  The movie was written and filmed years earlier.

We weren't at war in 1930...

... or 1946.

Still very early on in the Vietnam War, before opposition became strong.

Which, ironically, was right smack in the middle of Vietnam but about the Korean War.  I wouldn't say that it's "as anti-war as it gets" but, yes, the fact that they were medics makes it definitely anti-war.

Vietnam still in its infancy...

And we were out of Vietnam by then.

 

You asked about anti-war movies during the Carter administration. The Kennedy administration. The Truman administration. FDR's administration.

 

So I showed you some samples of it happening.

[BigSqwert]

No, I just watched 60 Minutes and saw Dan Rather lie to millions of Americans with my own eyes.

I've seen the current administration lie to millions all the time but you have no problem with that apparently.

[mr_genius]

Sounds like a good movie to me.

 

 

i don't see what the big deal is.

Edited March 21, 2006 by mr_genius

[CrimsonWeltall]

I have seen the terrorist, and he is me. And you. And all of us. So says Evey (Natalie Portman), an acolyte of V (Hugh Weaving), the swashbuckling savior of future England who disguises himself as Guy Fawkes.

 

He's not a savior. It's the people's responsibility to save themselves. V is just a catalyst.

 

But don’t worry, because being a terrorist is now a good thing. As we've been told by the media, one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter…or masked superhero as the case may be.

 

That's weird, because he presents himself as a villain. The movie doesn't make you think V is a good guy.

 

So even though V threatens to detonate a load of explosives strapped to his chest, killing dozens of innocent people at the BBC (oh, excuse me, BFC) if they don't give him air-time, just think of him as Batman — a little overly-dramatic and conflicted perhaps, but also sexy and an undeniable force for good.

 

The BFC was run by the government in the movie. It's not equivilent to the (ZOMG LIBERAL MEDIA) BBC.

 

And again, he's not an 'undeniable force for good'.

 

But most of all, in true V style, I think that documents, like buildings, are only symbols, and that burning them can change the world. Therefore, I propose that we storm the National Archives and torch the Constitution—the document responsible for unleashing the Great Evil that is America.

 

Nice proposal. Can you present anything in the movie which implies the Constitution or anything it represents is negative?

 

After all, that's what the Wachowskis want, isn't it? When [spoiler alert] the English masses gather and cheer as Parliament, that British symbol of representative government burns, aren't we too supposed to cheer?

 

That British symbol of representative government? It's a symbol of tyranny in the movie. Another misrepresentation.

 

Aren't we supposed to want to run out of theater ready to don our Osama Bin Laden masks, ready to confront the world's biggest terrorist mastermind on the White House lawn?

 

Why would Americans wear Osama bin Laden masks? bin Laden is a foreign terrorist who wants to kill Americans.

 

V is a domestic terrorist who wants to destroy a government.

 

Aren't conservatives the ones who say that the 2nd amendment is the most important amendment because it allows The People to remove a corrupt, evil government by force?

 

Doesn't "People shouldn't be afraid of their government. Governments should be afraid of their people." sound like a small-government, conservative quote?

 

Oh, but wait, the movie is "dystopian" and therefore has nothing to do with current events. The "yellow-alerts" the vile dictator employs are a coincidence.

 

I don't remember any yellow alerts, especially not in a way similar to the DHS's color chart.

 

The campy television show in which vaudevillian Al Qaeda operatives torture busty blondes, suggesting that the threat of terror is as fictional as it is ridiculous, means nothing.

 

I don't remember this either. Al Qaeda operatives torture busty blondes? WTF? It had V tying the chancellor's shoelaces together.

 

The balding talk show host with a pill-popping problem isn't intended to smear a real person.

 

Again, don't remember this. The talk show host was involved with a pharmacutical company that he got rich from. Besides, he was closer to Bill OReilly than Rush.

 

Anyone else who saw V, if you can point out any of these three things, that would be great.

 

And the fact that the script takes glee in constantly referring to the "former United States of America" and "their war" that left them "the world’s leper colony?" Umm, okay, that's a little hard to explain…let's just call that comic justice.

 

It takes glee? Were there smiley faces in the margins of the script?

 

The 'Bill OReilly' guy was the one who was happy about the US' demise, not Evey or V or any of the supposed 'good guys' of the movie.

 

The fact the film's release had to be postponed when V’s final heroic act of loading explosives onto a subway car in the London underground proved too realistic illustrates how in-sync the Wachowski’s are with actual terrorists.

 

How can this woman write this s*** with a straight face? Guy Fawkes transported explosives through a tunnel underneath Parliament. V transported explosives through a tunnel (an abandoned subway) underneath Parliament. Not even remotely comparable to terrorists attacking civilians in a busy public transportation hub.

 

To be fair, some admirers claim that it's only entertainment: "If you find a way to apply it to George Bush or Tony Blair, it’s only because the film's themes are so universal." (Cinema Blend) But most argue that the ideas it brings up are "important": "That it so cannily reflects specific concerns of this moment in history makes it an almost important movie." (Los Angeles Daily News)

 

The hangdogs can't have it both ways. Either the movie has nothing to do with the War on Terror and it's awful, or it has everything to do with the War on Terror and it's appalling.

 

Yeah, and 1+1 either equals 1 and it's too low or it equals 3 and it's too high.

 

Thankfully, cartoonish acting and a juvenilely self-reverential plot means no one except teenage boys (the ones in the row in front of me kept muttering, "Yeah, anarchy!" as London blazed) and crazed George Clooney disciples will take this movie's "important ideas" seriously.

 

I'd put down 20 bucks that the "Yeah, anarchy!" teenagers are totally made up.

[bmags]

Point taken, although opposition in this country was minimal at most then.  The movie was written and filmed years earlier.

We weren't at war in 1930...

... or 1946.

Still very early on in the Vietnam War, before opposition became strong.

Which, ironically, was right smack in the middle of Vietnam but about the Korean War.  I wouldn't say that it's "as anti-war as it gets" but, yes, the fact that they were medics makes it definitely anti-war.

Vietnam still in its infancy...

And we were out of Vietnam by then.

 

 

 

wow, do you even realize that this post proves our point for us? A movie, written for a previous time period (OR A TV SHOW cough cough MASH) showing during a later time, that happens to have stuff going on COUGH COUGH VIETNAM...Once again, this isn't the first time topics from previous time periods get rehashed later and made a little more currently. Bush sr. had no sex scandals...clinton had many, including jennifer flowers and the long nosed lil girl, both before 1998, when most people saw that movie they thought Clinton...not Bush. But oh no the sky is falling everyone in hollywood is out to warp our minds against a flailing president.

 

and a lot of those you say we weren't at war...we were in the cold war from "essentially" the end of WWII until the end of the 80's...

 

There was also movies like Salvador that criticised our involvements in the central americas...Reagan.

 

So you're argument that V for VEndetta, a comic book written about the Thatcher administration, an anti hero fighting a tyrannus government, is sympathetic to Bin laden and undermining President Bush just doesn't hold much water...

 

(furthermore, it wasn't ironic that MASH was about the Korean war at all. That means that Jarhead would've been ironic it was about the first golf war...and it wasn't ironic. Irony : the state of affairs that seems deliberately contrary to what one expects and is often humorous. If it was ironic M.A.S.H. was on during Vietnam...a 10 year plus war, then it was ironic that Hogans heroes was set during WWII...and that wasn't ironic.)

[Soxy]

Saw the movie last night. I don't think it's shocking that it was released now, but really, it would be poignant no matter if it was released now, during the Rwanda genocide, shortly after Oscar Romero or Dietrich Bonhoeffer's murders. When I was watching the movie my first thoughts weren't to the Bush administration, but more along the lines of Dafur, Iran, North Korea, aparthied South Africa, etc. To me the movie reeked mostly of Holocaust allusions, all they needed were a few shots of a church draped in the messed up cross of St. George and, bam, it'd be a decent parallel. I don't think this movie should be seen as a direct critique of the Bush administration, but rather of any government that seeks to control its people through fear, religious fanatacism, and force.

 

Granted, I've been reading some biographies and writings of Romero and Bonhoeffer and I think that greatly colored my viewing of the movie. But I think it's naive and lacks historical scope to say, oh it's just a stupid liberal movie. In perspective it raises questions that are not dissimilar than those raised by the afore mentioned saints/martyrs/terrorists.

[YASNY]

I think we just set a Filibuster record. 22 hours and 47 minutes between posts as the last one was at 10:25 a.m. yesterday. The time change calculates into this.

[TaylorStSox]

I don't think there was anything radical or thought provoking about the film. It was just a rehash of several films that have dealt with an oppressive govt. ie. 1984. The main difference between the films is that "V" was dumbed down with violence. For this reason, I was shocked when I first heard John Hurt was cast. I'm still not sure if there was intended relationship, especially when considering the poster of 1984.

 

Edited April 3, 2006 by TaylorStSox

[TaylorStSox]

MTV: But couldn't there ever be an exception? And since you haven't seen it, couldn't "V for Vendetta" be that exception?

 

Moore: I've read the screenplay, so I know exactly what they're doing with it, and I'm not going to be going to see it. When I wrote "V," politics were taking a serious turn for the worse over here. We'd had [Conservative Party Prime Minister] Margaret Thatcher in for two or three years, we'd had anti-Thatcher riots, we'd got the National Front and the right wing making serious advances. "V for Vendetta" was specifically about things like fascism and anarchy.

 

Those words, "fascism" and "anarchy," occur nowhere in the film. It's been turned into a Bush-era parable by people too timid to set a political satire in their own country. In my original story there had been a limited nuclear war, which had isolated Britain, caused a lot of chaos and a collapse of government, and a fascist totalitarian dictatorship had sprung up. Now, in the film, you've got a sinister group of right-wing figures — not fascists, but you know that they're bad guys — and what they have done is manufactured a bio-terror weapon in secret, so that they can fake a massive terrorist incident to get everybody on their side, so that they can pursue their right-wing agenda. It's a thwarted and frustrated and perhaps largely impotent American liberal fantasy of someone with American liberal values [standing up] against a state run by neo-conservatives — which is not what "V for Vendetta" was about. It was about fascism, it was about anarchy, it was about [England]. The intent of the film is nothing like the intent of the book as I wrote it. And if the Wachowski brothers had felt moved to protest the way things were going in America, then wouldn't it have been more direct to do what I'd done and set a risky political narrative sometime in the near future that was obviously talking about the things going on today?

 

George Clooney's being attacked for making ["Good Night, and Good Luck"], but he still had the nerve to make it. Presumably it's not illegal — not yet anyway — to express dissenting opinions in the land of free? So perhaps it would have been better for everybody if the Wachowski brothers had done something set in America, and instead of a hero who dresses up as Guy Fawkes, they could have had him dressed as Paul Revere. It could have worked.

[CWSGuy406]

I have a silly reason for bumping this thread, but here it is anyway.

 

Does anyone remember the meal that V serves the girl while she's at his hideaway? IIRC, it looked like a slice of french toast with an egg, sunny-side up (or sligthly over easy) on top of the french toast. Anyways, I was talking with someone a couple days after the movie, and they said that they had something like that before, and that it was really good.

 

Does this 'food item' have a specific name? I tried googling it, and didn't get what I was looking for.

[southsider2k5]

I have a silly reason for bumping this thread, but here it is anyway.

 

Does anyone remember the meal that V serves the girl while she's at his hideaway?  IIRC, it looked like a slice of french toast with an egg, sunny-side up (or sligthly over easy) on top of the french toast.  Anyways, I was talking with someone a couple days after the movie, and they said that they had something like that before, and that it was really good.

 

Does this 'food item' have a specific name?  I tried googling it, and didn't get what I was looking for.

 

I have no idea what it is called, but I do it all of the time myself. I just order the items separately and put it together at the table.

[Soxy]

I have a silly reason for bumping this thread, but here it is anyway.

 

Does anyone remember the meal that V serves the girl while she's at his hideaway?  IIRC, it looked like a slice of french toast with an egg, sunny-side up (or sligthly over easy) on top of the french toast.  Anyways, I was talking with someone a couple days after the movie, and they said that they had something like that before, and that it was really good.

 

Does this 'food item' have a specific name?  I tried googling it, and didn't get what I was looking for.

In the movie they called it "eggs in a basket" which is also what my mom calls it.