Hollywood Set to Launch Anti-War Movies In Time For The Election

Quite funny how this avalanche of anti-war movies are coming out just in time for the 2008 election….mighty curious:

Encouraged by widespread opposition to the conflict in Iraq, Hollywood film-makers are preparing to unleash an unprecedented wave of war movies on cinema-goers. In a notable break with the past — where anti-war films were released several years after the conflict in question — a whole new genre has been created even while US troops remain on the front lines of the "War on Terror."

The release in the United States next month of "In the Valley of Elah", a gritty drama from Oscar-winning director Paul Haggis about the murder of an Iraq war veteran, signals the start of the onslaught.

The film is one of several that is going to test the willingness of movie-goers to embrace dramas about sensitive subjects such as post 9/11 security and the ongoing conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Several upcoming films follow the plight of Iraq war veterans.

~~~

The spate of films will continue through 2008, with Kimberly Peirce’s "Stop Loss," about a veteran who refuses to return to Iraq due out in March, as well as "The Hurt Locker," which recently began filming in Jordan and Iraq.

Darrell West, an expert in politics and the mass media at Brown University, told AFP that the spate of films was a reflection of widespread unpopularity with the war in Iraq.

"Anti-war movies are coming out now because public opinion has crystallised against the war," professor West said.

"It’s safe for Hollywood to make these kind of movies without risking much of a backlash. There’s always a risk when you make an anti-war movie in the middle of the war that people are going to be ticked off.

"But now, with two-thirds of Americans thinking that the war in Iraq was a mistake, it’s the perfect time to release these kinds of movies.

~~~

Lew Harris, the editor of Movies.com, attributed the fact that films about Iraq were being released while the war was raging to a more politicised Hollywood.

"Hollywood’s much more political now and less afraid to speak out," Harris told AFP. "The film-makers and actors themselves are far more politicised than they were in the 1960s."

"There is a much greater frustration now about the war because so many people are against it and yet it just keeps going on."

Well, I think you can count The Bourne Ultimatum as the first anti-Bush, anti-CIA, anti-well, everything movie to come out this season. 

I bolded that one line because of how absurd it is.  Hollywood has decided to put their two cents into world events quite often, without knowing what the hell they’re talking about most of the time.  These people have lived an insulated life, reading the NYT’s, LAT’s, and TIME and then believing they know what’s best for the world.  If it isn’t Leonardo Dicrapalo telling us to stop breathing lest we destroy the earth then it’s nimrods like Matt Damon or John Cusack telling us that we MUST believe the Iraq war is wrong because, because, well….it’s just bad man.  Peace and love man.

Geez.

Oh, and public opinion is not the reason why you are doing this.  If it was then the Democrats would be hearing it from their constituents and there would be a flood of their representatives ensuring that a "bring them home" bill was passed. 

Hollywood does believe the skewed polls it seems tho, where 10% more Democrats are questioned.  But the real fact of the matter is that people want the war to end, but to end in victory.  They DO NOT want us to run like cowards, as these yahoo’s in Hollywood apparently do. 

From the days of Jane Fonda sitting atop a North Vietnamese AA battery to todays movies, we still have traitors amongst us.

These movies will quickly find themselves in the $2.99 Walmart bin.  Meanwhile movies like 300 which tells a heroic tale of those giving all for freedom makes a killing.

But who said Hollywood was smart?

Curt

See author page