{"id":4960,"date":"2009-11-12T13:06:00","date_gmt":"2009-11-12T13:06:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/?p=4960"},"modified":"2010-01-04T07:16:48","modified_gmt":"2010-01-04T13:16:48","slug":"wherein-brian-says-fu-back-to-hollywood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/2009\/11\/12\/wherein-brian-says-fu-back-to-hollywood\/","title":{"rendered":"Wherein Brian Says FU Back To Hollywood"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I was treated to this trailer on Veteran&#8217;s Day when I treated my wife to what turned out to be an anti-Iraq War film <i>Men Who Stare At Goats<\/i>:<\/p>\n<p><center><br \/>\n<object width=\"580\" height=\"360\"><param name=\"movie\" value=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/pd7ABK8P7C4&#038;hl=en_US&#038;fs=1&#038;rel=0&#038;border=1\"><\/param><param name=\"allowFullScreen\" value=\"true\"><\/param><param name=\"allowscriptaccess\" value=\"always\"><\/param><embed src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/pd7ABK8P7C4&#038;hl=en_US&#038;fs=1&#038;rel=0&#038;border=1\" type=\"application\/x-shockwave-flash\" allowscriptaccess=\"always\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" width=\"580\" height=\"360\"><\/embed><\/object><\/center><\/p>\n<p>You know, it could have been a good drama.  Soldier dies in combat, and his ne&#8217;er-do-well brother straightens out and grows up as he sort of steps into the role of father-figure for his nieces and eventually the lover for the widow.  Then, the MIA soldier returns.  I could see it being chock full of drama as they deal with the emotional situations.<\/p>\n<p>But.<\/p>\n<p>In the trailer, the eventual seduction takes place over a joint and the movie-normal &#8220;I&#8217;m not too straight to toke&#8221; trope.  And the soldier returns home apparently an angry, psychotic fellow who cannot relate to his family and wants to hurt them or commit suicide by cop.<\/p>\n<p>Frankly, through the trailer and my own predilections, the Iraq soldier is the most sympathetic character.  But he&#8217;s just an archetype to endanger the pot-smoking, non soldier lovers in the film.<\/p>\n<p>I booed the trailer in the theater.<\/p>\n<p>Instead of a dramatic film with real emotion, I think Lionsgate has gone for the sure Oscar award-winning, Cannes Palm D&#8217;or, and Nobel Prize for Cinema route.  Which probably won&#8217;t make any money, but they&#8217;re making <i>art<\/i>.  All-too-predictable, comfortable-to-the-artists and offensive-to-the-plebes art.  Hey, Hollywood: &lt;expletive deleted&gt;.<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"red\"><b>UPDATE:<\/b><\/font> I originally identified the soldier as serving in Iraq, but I guess it&#8217;s supposed to be Afghanistan.  MfBJN regrets this error and retracts everything.  Well, everything except the words including the letters I-R-A-Q.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I was treated to this trailer on Veteran&#8217;s Day when I treated my wife to what turned out to be an anti-Iraq War film Men Who Stare At Goats: You know, it could have been a good drama. Soldier dies in combat, and his ne&#8217;er-do-well brother straightens out and grows up as he sort of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3334,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4960","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-movies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4960","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3334"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4960"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4960\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5091,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4960\/revisions\/5091"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4960"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4960"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4960"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}