Has to go to Heloise over at BlogCritics
I'm pretty sure we DID NOT see the same movie. I watched this movie a total of three times; twice in the same day. Each time it made me cry. I saw it alone and then with a small group. Each of them wanted to pay to see it again. And, so, we did.
Heloise must have a HARD-ON for Redford. I'm kinda ambivalent. He's hot and I like his message in this case. I can't imagine what he and Meryl Streep had to commit to in order to get this movie out in the superb condition it was in with only Starbucks Bcoffee as an obvious ad revenue.
I don't really have time for this today but if I could find the movie playing somewhere else I'd be there ... for only on the large screen will I find more of the names of the books that Dr. Malley had in his office.
Heloise is a. not very observant b. has never been to a street rally which she purports to support as she tears down Redford c. probably DID leave the movie to go shopping.
You'll have to read the whole review but here's an excerpt:(or four)
However, I found Lions For Lambs lame, to put it simply, or, a rip-off, to put it rudely. Redford and Cruise have the perfect vehicle with which to air the dirty laundry of the politics of war. Instead Redford oversimplifies a red-hot-button issue into a uniform, neatly folded stack of clothes that the average audience will not unfold and wear.
Yeah, um I didn't GET THIS at all, Heloise which is why I'm PRETTY SURE you left early. The movie did start a bit slow but quickly built and captured your interest; the scenes were tight and well-chosen, actually SHOWCASING Robert Redford's ability as a director. There isn't a MOMENT of waste or wonder or even the tiniest mistake .. NO. Every scene is riveting IF you're watching. Conversation is conversation. Again -- not a word wasted, each syllable carefully chosen and enunciated.
I think the great métier for this movie would be to give back and to give credit and power where it is due, to activists, online, on the streets, and in makeshift camps outside ranches, where America is searching its political soul. Those people are not represented in this movie. And I predict they won’t care about Lions For Lambs' ultimately lame message.
Here, she's plainly full of shit. Redford pushes back his hair to show an ugly scar of 57 stitches he received demonstrating on the streets against the Vietnam War after his return from two combat tours of duty. His closest friends, three of whom died and one of whom is serving life in prison are depicted with him on the wall (wearing fatigues in Vietnam) and referenced. The camera also does a slow pan past framed pins from elections, candidacies and various movements that Redford has dedicated his life to. That they are framed shows their importance but the little things escape some, I know.
Maybe Heloise doesn't realize why these particular shots make it past the cuts. I can't for the life of me understand how blogcritics chooses it's critics. She clearly fails, thus. (a few seven dollar words does not confuse some of us enough, Heloise -- I got your metiere', babe) As well, the books on his shelves (Redford plays Stephen Malley, poli-sci prof.) clearly indicate a studied, learned approach to the futility of war and his own politics. Again, Heloise clearly misses these items.
Sons and Brothers.
Our Vietnam ...
others I'll try to fill in later. It's in my notes and I'm looking for the rest. There were hundreds of books.
So, Redford is clearly acknowledging and applauding AND PARTICIPATING in the activities that Heloise seems to think he is denying. Or she wants YOU to think it.
His message is to exhort THE REST OF YOU to STAND UP STAND UP. The film closes with graduation hats being tossed in the air and disappearing one by one. Students at desks disappearing one by one. Soldiers ... The last images flash VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE across the screen but I feel sure that Heloise was NOT THERE for that. I took pictures .... so I have PROOF. What YOU got Heloise?? In fact, if there was a weak part to the film that was it: The VOTE VOTE VOTE should have come sooner. People get up and walk out sooner when they are not as thoughtful as some. No offense intended, Heloise.
So much for predictions. I'm a street person at times and known to do a camp-in or two and the message was NOT lame, Heloise. I DUG IT.
I anticipate a place where the right and left wing could safely face off, stand up, sit down, chat up, and debate the issues with no holds barred. I look for revelation and instead get strong opinion about something Americans are steaming mad about: the War on Terror. Yes, we are mad, yes, we do care. So why couldn't these three gifted stars deliver a movie where we could feel this anger? They did try, but Lions for Lambs is not that movie. Though its tri-member high-power cast make it watchable, the sets are sterile, staged, unreal, uninviting, and the message watered down.
I'm pretty sure they faced off and that's why Tom Cruise redeemed himself with me. He did a PERFECT job portraying a greaser NeoCON, man in an air-conditioned office sending younger men off on a foolish journey ... He's the MOTHERFUCKER who said the landing place was safe for the new Afghanistan strategy .. (ya have to go see it you just HAVE TO, this is said in the movie)Have I ever steered you wrong?? There's nothing watered down, either.
Robert Redford directs and plays the composite caring professor (Stephen Malley), of what we are not sure - perhaps politics, perhaps philosophy.
THere are several spots in this review where Helen portrays herself as an unmatched ASS. The above is one. It's revealed quite early on that the student is a Poli-Sci Major ... which, hellooooooo his Poly-Sci Prof is talking to him about.
Seriously, Heloise, WHAT are you smokin?? SHARE, GIRL !!
Which leads to the next part:
The senator/journalist story, set in Washington, D.C., offers the best example of this movie’s sterility. It comes in the form of missing props. Would you believe that Janine Roth arrives to interview Senator Irving and walks into his office alone and empty-handed? There are no visible recording devices, no microphones, no handlers, no cameras, not even a computer. And most of all, no explanation as to why these tools of the trade are missing. She sits down and takes shorthand notes from a senator who really seems to be the commander-in-chief.
Heloise, are you playing with a full deck or are you a very smart seven year old?
Meryl Streep plays a 57 year old journalist who has been in the business almost FORTY YEARS. She takes notes in shorthand. Big surprise there. Later in the movie her greasy boss threatens her job when she refuses to write more propaganda for the right. And, by the way, Streep questions the handler thing, TOO. Cruise wants it that way. Heloise, that's a pretty desperate hatchet you're wielding. So far, your rating earns an F MINUS. Hope you have a day job. HOly shit on a shingle you're LAME.
If within their heated exchanges we find the philosophy of the movie, then where is its heart? It is found in the lives of two minority students who enlisted into the army "beast." And whose predictable endings are supposed to drive home the point: "Look who's dying in your stead!" But these deaths are shamelessly played like trump cards pulled from Redford's Utah Sundance Tarot deck.
Dear Reader, go see the movie. If I had anything to say about this to Heloise it would be FILTHY. The above statement has NO particle of truth in it. I think Heloise must be Ron Paul's mistress??
The teacher tries calmly, for one hour, to convince his failing student how he could have a better, or a worse, life. He uses two former students as metaphor. The audience should (in a 90-minute span) care about the war on terror, an apathetic white student, and two minority students — it is simply too much to expect. There is not enough time devoted to who these men (heroes?) are. Why did they enlist in the army in the first place? Why did they trade a cozy college niche for cold battle? Why are these two fired up about the war and the white students not?
I take that back. Heloise is just NUTS. She's ABSOLUTELY STARKERS. This is NOT what this is about, the student is NOT a slacker... the color plays have nothing to do AT ALL with the premise of the movie. It's very clear why they enlisted, which AT LEAST ten minutes is spent explaining. I'm sorry Heloise, maybe if you had gotten a crib sheet??
We see bits and pieces of how the soldiers get hardened for combat. The climax comes "Sundance style"
God, Heloise, if ya wanna DO Redford, this is not the way to his heart. It's pretty obvious your problem is with Redford so you mercilessly and dishonestly shredded an AWESOME movie as some type of childish 'blowback' or something. You remind me of someone ............. some genius blogger with a two-face mouth. Holding up one sign and selling a war on terror and her military supported lifestyle (deaths of INNOCENTS on your hands, babe)
But other than that, just what did Malley’s former students do during the war? Well, they talk a lot for one thing — talk in the chopper before battle, talk during a flashback class presentation (it stank). Then predictably they talk (even though half-dead from injury) before dying together on a cold, craggy outpost in Afghanistan. I really wanted to run out and go shopping just three minutes into the film, because I felt a bunch of talking, preachy nonsense coming on (how right I was).
I'm pretty sure she did. Run out and go shopping. Maybe for some Lasik or some cosmetic surgery. Veneers, anyone??? New boobies? Heloise can take ya there ... cause she is NOT watching the movies she is reviewing.
Yep, I guess if it were my last few moments on earth ... I'd talk to my best friend. Oh, and teh class presentation? Only one of THE BEST parts of the movie. Full of character and hope and charisma and LOVE for all. Heloise is full of something else.
Honestly, this is all well-intended emotional bait. But meaning what? Meaning that we will not win the war against terrorism and the Taliban because we [read America] are not honest, or because we are dishonest in our reporting or coverage of the war? I am not really sure what I am to believe, feel, or think about this 90-minute exercise in existential fatalism. I have to give the film a shaky B+ for acting, effort, organization, theme, and presentation. But for holding my interest, I have to give it a solid D for dull and dreary.
Heloise .... first of all --- there is NO SUCH THING as a war on terror but right there you revealed your agenda.
I think next time you review a movie you should NOT swallow your hard-core tablets first ... and also you know .... save your shopping list review for later so you can concentrate on the dialogue. (and scenery)
WHICH, AFTER ALL -- would be considered by some to be part of a movie R E V I E W.
Go see the movie and get back with me on who is the moron. Heloise or me?
I feel pretty confident.
About myself NOT being a moron.
And, I've obviously seen it more times than this errrrrrr 'reviewer'.
Heloise??? WhatEVER. I'm sorry bob redford hurt your feelings somehow. Get over it.
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