Just watched "Jarhead". Any vets or anyone else care to weigh in?

[babylonsister]

It was a good movie in that it showed how senseless war is. When that oil was flowing, I was so damned angry and sad!
And the wall of shame, the soldiers who got 'Dear John' letters? How cruel that was/is. I can't even imagine Viet Nam, and now after multiple tours in Iraq, what people are going through. I'm trying not to give too much away in case you haven't seen it.:(

[hippiechick]

1. Honestly, I'd avoided it ...

... thinking it was going to be a 2-hour long Army/Marines commerical ... but heard a tiny snip of George Clooney on Charlie Rose talking about it, and now your review ... I may have to reconsider.


Thanks! :hi:

[babylonsister]

5. I rented the movie because I read a good review, though I'm

impressed Mr. Clooney liked it also.
It's a movie about Marines obviously, but speaks to many ills that happen in war. It took place during poppy's reign, which was fairly benign compared to his son's. I can't even imagine the damaged souls who will come back from this one. :-(
It reinforced my opinion about war in general, and how severe the consequences of what's going on now will be.

[IowaGuy]

6. It's more about the the incredible dehumanizing head trip

people go through with getting their head around war and killing, and also about the incredible ability of humans to grasp and hold onto the most basic of human qualities....it's an intense movie. Not the best I've seen of this kind - it's editing seemed a little choppy to my taste and some of the character development was a little sketchy, but overall a very good film worth seeing...

[pretzel4gore]

9. it's anti war.....about the senseless waste

when the soldiers encounter the horse in the oil rain from the burning wells :( ....and this was oldbush's bs war!
btw it's based on a true story.....

[me b zola]

2. How did you know that I just got it in the mail (netflix) today??

I'm going to watch later when the house gets quiet, I'll weigh in then :)

[MadisonProgressive]

3. I've never heard of it

what's it about?

[babylonsister]

7. Poppy Sr's war in Iraq because they threatened Kuwait, circa

1991.
It's another 'war is hell' movie, hoo-rah for Marines, but there was a lot of truth in it.
Jake Gillenhayhl (sp?), Jamie Foxx, and Dennis Hasbert are in it. My DH and I liked it, though I got pretty damned angry comparing it to what's going on now.

[MadisonProgressive]

10. Your DH? Designated hitter?

[babylonsister]

13. Sorta.

:-) Dear Husband, Significant Other, occasionally Mr. PITA (PainInTheAss). :evilgrin:

[MadisonProgressive]

16. Haha - good one!

[YouthInAsia]

4. single worst "War" movie (or any movie, actually) I've ever seen

[babylonsister]

8. Opinions are like assholes; we all have one! nt

[pretzel4gore]

11. bush has lotsa assholes!

that poofball's lucky even there!
klol...

[Katherine Brengle]

18. I thought it was one of the better ones... jmho. :-)

[Goblinmonger]

21. Oh, come on

It can't possibly be the worst movie you've ever seen unless you have only watched a very small select group of movies. Have you seen the Larry the Cable Guy movie yet? I bet that one is worse. How about Ishtar?

I think part of the injustice was that they somewhat marketed it as a "war" movie and that is not what it was. It was set in the war but it was more of a "coming of age" movie. A quest, if you will.

[YouthInAsia]

26. No, I really thought it was a horrid movie. I agree that it was

an injustice calling it a war movie. It reminded me more of something you'd see on MTV. This is, of course, my opinion. You may have liked it, I just found it to be too predictable and poorly acted. And no, Ive never seen Larry the Cable Guy or Ishtar. THose movies SOUND stupid, so I probably avoided them for that exact reason.

[ChristianLibrul]

27. Not by a long shot

I hated it, but the remake of "Four Feathers," "Windtalkers," "The Great Raid" and "Hart's War" are worse.

[YouthInAsia]

28. never seen any of those either. But they must be bad

[YouthInAsia]

12. If you're looking for a realistic war movie, watch Saving Private Ryan

or Brotherhood of War. These are both well acted and show the hooror that is war.

[babylonsister]

14. I've seen them, but this is newer, and resonates because

it's happening in Iraq, even though it's dimson's dad's war. To me, that makes it more poignant because it's so much worse now.

[YouthInAsia]

15. worse? I don't understand. I'm not trying to be rude, I just don't

understand what you mean by worse.:D

[babylonsister]

19. Worse than 1991 when poppy went to war. He was smart enough

to stop before it got out of hand though I realize there were many casualties. His son has/had no such compunction; the blood on his hands testify to that. And WWII cannot be compared to what's going on now. Different war for different reasons.
Blair and the blivet started this because of PNAC and wanting to rule the world, and the oil reserves. They didn't believe the advice they got or chose to disregard it. They thought it would be a piece of cake to 'take' Iraq. What were they thinking? That's enough for me to think they are war criminals.
Bottom line, they started this war.

[YouthInAsia]

23. Youre correct, but they could have made a better movie

about the war in the middle east than jarhead. I just thought it was a poor movie with poor acting. Im hoping Speilberg will do one on Fallujah or something along those lines. Jarhead was just too contrived. I'm sure one is in the works. :-)

[Katherine Brengle]

17. My hubby said it was very realistic --

and where he is, they literally had a "Wall of Shame" like that for pictures of spouses and girlfriends who cheated and the like.

I enjoyed the movie (but I am a little biased bc I have a major celeb crush on Jake Gyllenhaal, lol).

[ChristianLibrul]

25. Realistic isn't the same thing as good

A film crew could stand around in an ER for a couple hours a week. Would that be a hit show for 12 years?

[Katherine Brengle]

34. Probably, lol --

we are a very voyeuristic culture.

I thought it was good, you thought is was crap--that's cool.

Last week, I rented The Ice Harvest. I forced myself to watch the entire thing even though I honestly would have rather been scrubbing a gas station toilet with my own toothbrush than watching such a horrible film.

A couple of days later, my good friend decided to watch it before bringing it back to the video rental place for me.

He loved it.

I told him he was a fuckstick, he said I was stupid and didn't understand the tender nuance of the film, we laughed, and that was that.

:)

[ChristianLibrul]

20. No new ideas in it

It's a poor screenplay. Somehow the cast gave good performances with what they had to work with. At least it's a good, old-fashioned anti-war movie instead of action comic book crap like "Blackhawk Down" and "We Were Soldiers."

But it's a largely boring retreading of things like "Full Metal Jacket," "Boys In Company C" and even a little "Three Kings" and "Rough Riders" thrown in for good measure--"Rough Riders" ended with it being made clear the SpanAm war was about sugar and tobacco "interests" in Cuba, whereas Goof War I was about oil.

The "war" lasted 100 hours. And those knotheads still think they saw the elephant and defended their country. I've had dates that lasted longer than that "war." And picking up a discarded McDonald's bag in a parking lot serves my country more than that war did.

[Katherine Brengle]

22. Don't take away from the work of our service members just bc...

you didn't like the movie.

It may have been a short war, and a modern war, but it was still a war, people still died and people were still taken away from their homes and families and people still saw things no one should ever have to see.

To claim otherwise is self-righteous and downright rude.

[ChristianLibrul]

24. Granted

But Goof War I veterans didn't serve America. They served the oil giants. And the yellow ribbon industry.

[Katherine Brengle]

33. The soldiers sign up to serve their country --

what their country asks of them is not negotiable for them.

And every war in our history can be traced to greed, no noble causes for war exist.

The only war I can even consider exemting from that is the Revolution because I think everyone has a right to independence--killing isn't a proper means to an end, however. Gandhi did it without firing a shot.

Just my two cents...

[Jose Diablo]

38. I think those yellow ribbons are made in China n/t

[peacebaby3]

30. A lot of people in the military know exactly what that war was about. The

movie actually does a pretty good job of showing exactly what it was about as well.

Unfortunately, people in the military don't get to decide where they go and what they do.

Exactly who are you calling knotheads?

[ChristianLibrul]

32. Knotheads

People who think they served America in Goof War I. They didn't. They served the oil giants. Our country wasn't attacked.

[peacebaby3]

29. Actually, according to my hubby who was in Desert Shield/Storm, this movie

is pretty accurate as far as what went on, etc. Now all the personal crap...like the video the whole group watches, that is somewhat over the top.

The part where they come up on the people trying to escape...absolutely true. Some of the crazy MFs took pictures and they have circulated around. I think they used the one character to portray all the stupid assholes you run across in the military.

Lots and lots of sitting around, waiting, and incredible frustration. You have to remember there were 6 months or so of buildup and then the entire "war" lasted 41 days. Ironically, they had more than double the amount of boots on the ground for Desert Storm than they ever did for OIF (Operation Iraq F*ck-up) and there were no plans to actually go into Iraq back then.

The hubby said some of the stuff that happened in basic was good. One time when he got into trouble, he had to stand on this post, sort of in a "karate kid" position (on one leg) and yell "I am a shit bird" for several hours. If you fell off, it added more time. When he first got there, he said this guy jumped on the back of the truck with them who had a neck the size of his leg and he started screaming at them...."Which on of you is Billy?" He kept asking the same thing and everyone kept looking around praying that Billy would speak up. Finally, the drill Sgt. said , "Come on there is always at least one Billy Bad Ass...which one of you is him?" My husband said one guy cracked a smile and that Sgt. came over everyone and snatched him up and said, "So you are Billy, huh?" He said that poor guy had it bad the entire rest of the time.

[babylonsister]

31. Thanks, peacebaby3. This wasn't about a diss on the Marines,

but a question only.

[Longhorn]

35. My Marine son wanted me to see it with him when he was home

over the holidays. I didn't like it at all and if I'd seen it before he went into the Marines, I would have laid down in front of the van that took him off to bootcamp! If Marines really behaved the way they are depicted in that movie, I can't believe there would be an ounce of morale or brotherhood in an entire platoon. And I thought it was very demeaning to women.

The waiting and boredom and scenes of war and its damage may have been realistic but the rest of it was over the top, in my view.

[Monkey see Monkey Do]

36. Swofford's autobiography, which it's based on, is excellent

and I'm looking forward to the DVD. It's a little weird how it got marketed as a pro-war marine recruitment commercial, but then hopefully some people went to see it who wouldn't have otherwise.

(On the subject, I must recommend a book that came out a few years ago - Bloody Hell - which is a staggering and often disturbing work of accounts by vets and essays on the grim and harsh realities of war. There was a website, but it's now ceased to be although the archive machine has access to part of it.

Site - http://web.archive.org/web/20010419072825/www.warishell.com/warishell/index.htm
Review - http://www.eco-action.org/dod/no10/books_hell.htm
Buy - http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0874869692/

[babylonsister]

37. Swofford's autobiography-thanks for the info. I didn't know

this movie was based on an autobiography. Now I'm interested in reading it.
I thought the movie was good and thought-provoking.