“The man behind the De Palma smear”
Pat Dollard spotlights the man behind “Redacted.” Debbie Schlussel has more.
Jack Murtha gives the troops-as-monsters movie two thumbs up.
De Palma, 66, whose “Casualties of War” in 1989 told a similar tale of abuse by American soldiers in Vietnam, makes no secret of the goal he is hoping to achieve with the film’s images, all based on real material he found on the Internet.
“The movie is an attempt to bring the reality of what is happening in Iraq to the American people,” he told reporters after a press screening.
You want reality? Don’t go to Hollyweird.
Watch this instead: a rough cut of former Marine/blogger/documentarian/embed J.D. Johannes’ newest documentary giving you “a taste of what it is like when Al Qaida attempts to over run a small outpost.”
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Categories: John Murtha, They don't support the troops
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Why does it seem that the only reality in war for the Left is the negative?
They absolutely refuse to acknowledge any positive progress or incidents – or do so with negative qualifiers ( Well, sure, that is happening, but look at this..” )
I read about this movie yesterday, and it seems to me to be an updated remake of his “Casualties of War” movie, which I didn’t think was that good in the first place.
War is not glorious – war is not pretty. We on the right know and acknowledge that. But the left seems to be shocked when actions in war are brutal, ugly and sometimes criminal…
I get my reality from the young people I work with at Mountain Home AFB. They just returned from the area and another small group is about to go out into “harms way” outside of our Wing’s normal AEF schedule. A couple of the kids have survived IEDs and joke about being indestructible. They realize their up-armored vehicles saved their lives, but like all GIs we do have a gallows humor. I was the same about the three different burning aircraft I ran away from back in the day.
I remember a time when treason and sedition were punishable under our laws. When the hell will the DOJ do their job and prosecute these people.
This is as bad as the MSM… and most of the sheep will never even know that it’s not real.
It makes me sick.
What was the last movie DePalma made? I can’t remember. Somebody trying to restart a stalled career on the bodys of American Military Service People? DePalma would not be the first. DePalma wants to be relevant? The reason I can’t remember the last movie he made is because he doesn’t make really good movies. I think the movie that got him the most attention was “Carrie” ??? a horror movie. Did he direct Carrie??? This is how big a has been he is.
Most of Hollyweird has been off the deep edge since the end of WWII. They were seduced by the dark side and have cherished their anti-Americanism ever since… John Wayne is no more.
Great footage at your link to outside the wire. Thanks.
Actually, DePalma has directed some good flicks –
Mission to Mars (2000)
Snake Eyes (1998)
Mission: Impossible (1996)
Carlito’s Way (1993)
The Untouchables (1987)
Scarface (1983)
The Fury (1978)
Carrie (1976)
Referring to this topic, I understand ‘artistic freedom’ and ‘freedom of speech’ and all that. I have no problem with him making a movie about whatever he wants….
The issue is ‘why always go negative’? Can’t Hollywood make a movie which tells a positive story?
You’re against the war? Fine – but these liberals make it seem like these occurances are the rule, not the exception.
If John Wayne was alive today, he would be in Hollywood kicking some serious butt now.
Sad to say – if John Wayne were alive today, he wouldn’t be making the movies he did… Nobody would be writing them for him to star in – and nobody would be producing them.
“Patriotism” in 2007 is not pride in your country, as it was in 1947.
“Patriotism” today means exposing the government’s and conservatism’s negative traits, and call it ‘eye-opening’.
I miss John Wayne.
Think about how the truly GOOD movies about war. Take, “Saving Private Ryan”.
That movie depicted many negatives about war – it didn’t glorify it. From the pain of losing multiple family members, to killing surrendering enemy soldiers, to losing friends in battle, there were many negative portayals in that film.
But it also had an underlying theme of duty, honor, patriotism and a sense of good.
It is movies like that which I, and I belive most others, really want to see.
Show us the bad – we deserve to see it – but don’t do so at the expense of the underlying truth behind our troops and their purpose, which is honor.
MM,
thanks for covering this.
/s/
jose
There is no glory in war. There is however, honor, integrity, duty, and incredible acts of courage and bravery.
John Wayne knew the difference and he knew how to convey that message. These guys wouldn’t know these traits if they reached out and bit them.
So sad. In these days, good is bad, right is wrong, and crapweasels will go to any extreme to portray us as villians.
There are pressures in war that do not exist in DePalmas air conditioned caviar infested little world. In spite of that there are a lot of good things beng done by our troops and they deserve to be respected by Hollywood, Dallas and everywhere else.
One thing I know for sure, we won every battle I fought in Vietnam, but we still lost that war. What does that tell you?
It comes down to the movie goer, I don’t especially see a great movie among that list. Out of them all, I own on VHS Mission Impossible, that is the only one!
Offensive actions have consequences. Just ask Larry Craig. Up until now, Mark Cuban has managed to keep his views on Iraq pretty much to himself without coming under the scrutiny of most media. For example, when “60 Minutes” interviewed him, it was all about basketball. Now that the word is getting out, he had better be prepared to take the heat, including his business bottom line.
Watch this instead:
Wow, this gets you’re blood moving. Get em guys! Hero’s all of you.
Dollard’s comments linked above are damning.
I hadn’t paid any attention to this particular film, figuring it to be a documentary/mockumentary based on cherry-picked clips, snips and interviews a la Michael Moore; but to find out that it’s really just a made-up propaganda gift for the enemy, replete with fake soldiers, was edifying.
Still, Cuban’s hit piece will find a ready and willing audience among America’s committed left and their foreign America-hating allies in places like Europe, because it will reinforce what they want to – no, must believe.
For the post-modern left, after all, “truth” is what you construct for yourself to fit your comfort zone, it has nothing to do with objectivity, logic, reason or a wholistic approach to evidentiary analysis.
That’s why they’ll love this film. It will add another layer between themselves and any need to honestly examine their hate-filled belief system. For it they are forced to question any one aspect of their alternative reality, the inherent threat is that they’ll then have to question another part of it, and another, and another…until their whole fabricated existence unravels.
So in other words Regulus, Jane Fonda will love it?
They didn’t produce them then, either. If you check, you’ll see that most of his later movies were produced by BATJAC – his own production company.
Roger Simon had a pretty good post about this too; he thinks DePalma, who got his accolades during the post-Vietnam era, is trying to draw from the same well, just calling it a different name.
As one poster put it, the real problem with these movies isn’t so much that they’ll influence people at home. The consumer has been doing a pretty good job at choosing not to see this type of propaganda. The problem is that they’ll be shown ad nauseum in madrassas and on Arab t.v., generating more soldiers for Allah and splodeydopes out to get the Great Satan. Who needs Al Qaeda’s or the Muslim Brotherhood’s crappy production values when you’ve got Tinseltown’s money and expertise working for you?
I certainly hope Bill and Sean get ahold of this and really let them have it. The hate I get for slamming this piece of propagandist garbage is unreal. Cuban is Jewish and the majority of the commenters on this issue are anti semetic ….go figure.
jrlingreenbay
I will agree that some of the movies such as “Saving Private Ryan” are well made and depict both good and bad aspects of war but the current youth of this country have been so brainwashed by our education system that they only remember the bad and forget the good …
They do not understand patriotism and sacrifice and honor in the same way that we older Americans do …
Hard to recognize something in a movie you can’t truly relate to in life …
As a result many of the movie makers go for the bucks by showing both sides but the impression our youth leave the theater with is not the one you or I take away from seeing the same movie …
dl, good points, but who you callin old?
I for one havn’t left it up to our school systems to educate my daughter on the sacrifices great Americans have made protecting our freedoms. All to often the case nowadays is just the opposite and its troubling to say the least.
ajmontana
LOL … morning … Old is measured by how you feel and act … not by your physical years in this world …
I too have not left that part of my kids education up to others either … but I fear that a large majority of our population has done exactly that …
and you’re fears are valid ones.
It comes down to this the Left Coast wasn’t attacked on 9-11 but the East Coast was. There are alot of people in Hollywood who can’t relate, it is business as usual. Making movies for each other and not the larger American Population..then again someone said, this will get played in the Middle East. Americans not making movies for Americans, while we are at War but making movies for our Enemies?
If De Palma wants to “bring reality” to people then why isn’t he making movies about the very real atrocities commited by UN personnel as well?
Laree, I live on the left coast and very much can relate comparing all of us left coasters to the brain donors in hollywierd is just wrong.
I imagine there’s alot of people who think like this still on the east coast and even in NYC. I don’t know what would be these peoples’ reactions if 9/11 hit the west coast. I’d imagine as long as it didn’t affect their million-dollar-mansions and cocaine trade and clubs they would say that all the proles deserved it.
Cuban is not an exception. America is overflowing with billionaires who are also left wing loons. At what point will the right drop its (politically unpopular) support of people who are their mortal enemies?
I’m going to leave this one alone. sheesh.
I wont be watching it. Yes Trinitytim we did win all are battles in Vietnam;but we didn’t lose the war, the left did that, just the way their trying to lose this one.
This from a Reuters story:
Inspired by one of the most serious crimes committed by American soldiers in Iraq since the 2003 invasion, it is a harrowing indictment of the conflict and spares the audience no brutality to get its message across.
“The pictures are what will stop the war. One only hopes that these images will get the public incensed enough to motivate their Congressmen to vote against this war,” De Palma said.
De Palma’s agenda is clear. His motivation to make this movie has nothing to do with reality, only to further the left’s agenda of defeat, surrender and retreat in the Middle East.
We as Americans and consumers can choose not to put money into their pockets by refusing to see it. But De Palma and Cuban are not in it for the money. They are in it to further their message. Democratic politicians will champion it as the ongoing reality that the “Bush controlled media” refuses to report on and heap praise on the bravery of Hollywood for going against the system. Meanwhile the Republicans in office will spinelessly sit in silence and allow the rest of the military to be defamed, when what they should do is frame this movie and anybody associated with it as anti-american and against the troops.
You can’t question the patriotim of people like De Palma and Cuban when they clearly don’t exhibit any. We can certainly call them traitors to their country and boycott their products.
With all the anti-American movies coming out I wonder how long it will be before people start protesting outside of movie theaters that show this garbage.
Movies with these kind of anti-American themes have generally flopped here, except among snotnosed critics. De Palma will get the same treatment Jane Fonda got by the general public and will become effectively a prisoner in his Hollywood enclave. However, Cuban is involved in more than making movies and I predict his diverse businesses will suffer as a result.
Society has changed tremendously since The Duke and not for the better.
I’m wondering if this sort of thing is going to backfire on the left this time. Could be that the American people won’t sit still for this kind of blatant troop bashing and boycott the film in droves.
Of course, he’ll make millions in Europe and elsewhere. Nothing like a good old fashioned anti-American movie to hearten the moonbats on the Continent.
I disagree. There is absolutely nothing we can do set these people off any more than they already are. When I lived in Europe a number of years back I would have said that this sort of thing has a negative effect there, but now it won’t make any difference there either. The reason is that they and the Muslim world already believe the worst of the U.S., so these types of film are nothing more than documentaries to them that reinforce their stereotypes. There’s a reason that the Muslim world and Europe think so highly of a vile deceitful propagandist like Michael Moore. Facts are irrelevant, only how they feel counts.
I didn’t watch Spielberg’s Munich. I have not watched one of Michael Moores movies. I won’t be watching this movie.
I challenge Hollywood to make a good movie period.
Preferably something without Will Ferrell in it.
aj, I’m hoping for a picture of Jane on an IED…
(OK, all you libs who might stumble on this, get a sense of humor, I don’t want actual violence to happen to her…)
The reason is that they and the Muslim world already believe the worst of the U.S., so these types of film are nothing more than documentaries to them that reinforce their stereotypes.
C’mon folks… DePalma based the movie “on real material he found on the Internet.” If he found it on the internet then you KNOW it’s all true.
Now, I’d like to announce my next movie about giant, horned rabbits terrifying a small Southern Arizona town. It’s based on a story I found on the internet. I’m going to call it “Gigantus Jackalopus”.
DePalma & Cuban can rot in hell but there are idiots out there who will think this is a great film and will probably have some Oscar buzz (not that I’ve watched that fiasco in about 10 years) as well.
Now historybot, I’ll be first in line to see your movie because you know if it’s on the internet it’s true!