More from the Anti-American Film Festival

And the fun from the Venice Film Festival continues….

Here’s Paul Haggis on his film, "In the Valley of Elah" (based upon a Playboy article, "Death and Dishonor", by Mark Boal, regarding the stabbing death of a soldier by his fellow soldiers):

Haggis said he had tried not to allow his personal opinion about the war in Iraq to influence "Elah" too heavily.

"We set about to make a political film certainly, but not a partisan film," he told a news conference in Venice, where the film has its world premiere on Saturday.

Um…yeah….kind of like how Bill Moyers, Dan Rather, and Helen Thomas don’t let their personal feelings color their journalistic reporting.

"When we started on this project, our president had an 80 percent approval rating, everyone was driving around with flags on their cars and our president was telling us that it was unpatriotic to even question what was happening in Iraq.

Can someone please, please, tell me where has President Bush ever told his critics that it is unpatriotic to question "what was happening in Iraq"? This is another one of those strawman talking points that BDS sufferers like to make. As Scott Malensek recently remarked,

When the President reaffirmed time and again that there was no intelligence connecting Saddam to the 911 attacks, his opponents still claimed he was misleading and connecting the two unjustly. When the President repeatedly said that the expected vast stockpiles of WMD were not found, his opponents chose to continue their “Bush Lied” rantings rather than reply with similar “grace and humility.”

This movie has Charlize Theron and Susan Surandon.  Of course, the star is Tommy Lee Jones (who, incidentally, if you were wondering whether or not he was as politically cuckoo to the left as his co-stars, maybe not; but having contributed 10,000 to the Kerry campaign in 2004, I’d say it’s a safe bet he’s politically in alignment with the film’s message).

Theron said U.S. troops in Iraq were doing a "serious and important" job, but added: "I’d like to see them come home, to be looked after, be nurtured, and nothing would give me more joy than to see them here back in America."

Oh? It wouldn’t have anything to do with her feelings that the troops in Iraq are part of an "unjust war", would it? Naaaaah….perish the thought. And don’t even think she is anti-American for expressing anti-American opinions. Funny how she said "there’s a lack of freedom in America" and affirmed a parallel between the lack of freedom in Cuba with the U.S., when she’s making multi-million dollar salaries on anti-American films (and yes, I do consider this another anti-American film- not just a protest film, critical of the war).

The Reuters piece concludes: 

In the case of Iraq and Afghanistan, at least six films on the topic are due out soon as the operations continue.

Haggis, whose 2005 film "Crash" was an Oscar for best picture, said this was partly because journalists were failing.

"During the Vietnam war, we had terrific journalists doing their job, reporting on things that we didn’t want to hear … Now we don’t have that. I think that when that doesn’t happen, then it’s the responsibility of the artist to ask those difficult questions."

Good grief!