And on June 6, remembering my favorite "Saving Private Ryan" review...

Which came from Total Film, and included this gem of inanity:

Take the no-show of any Allies. While this is forgivable for Omaha Beach (a uniquely American cock-up), it's harder to explain as Captain Miller's eight-man unit move inland. Where are the British, the French, the Polish or the Canadians?

Not including Canadians, Brits, or Poles at Omaha Beach--who were not there--is forgivable? How about historically accurate?

Which is also the case for the travels of Tom Hanks' little patrol inland, which took place several days before the Americans hooked up with the British who had landed near Caen. So to answer the question, Where are the British, the French, the Polish, or the Canadians?, the correct answer would be: someplace else, you morons.

This sort of inanity should come as no surprise, considering that some reviewers also lambasted Apollo 13 for actually focusing on the lunar mission and not the greater social context of America in the 1960-early 1970s:

Furthermore, the extensive focus on the mission seems to preclude any in-depth characterization, except for Hanks' role. Like "Forrest Gump," "Apollo 13" opts for simplicity and clarity, putting down, for example, the hippies and counter-cultural movement. There is no reference to Vietnam, the anti-War movement, feminism and sexual politics, and other racial problems that besieged the country in 1970.

Comments

Waldo Lydecker's Journal said…

As Alfred Hitchcock said to Kim Novak during the filming of Vertigo, "It's just a moooovie."

June 7, 2009 at 12:34 AM

A Libertarian Martin Luther King Jr. Day post

In which we travel into interesting waters . . . (for a fairly long trip, so be prepared) Dr. King's 1968 book, Where do we go from here: chaos or community? , is profound in that it criticizes anti-poverty programs for their piecemeal approach, as John Schlosberg of the Center for a Stateless Society [C4SS] observes: King noted that the antipoverty programs of the time “proceeded from a premise that poverty is a consequence of multiple evils,” with separate programs each dedicated to individual issues such as education and housing. Though in his view “none of these remedies in itself is unsound,” they “all have a fatal disadvantage” of being “piecemeal,” with their implementation having “fluctuated at the whims of legislative bodies” or been “entangled in bureaucratic stalling.” The result is that “fragmentary and spasmodic reforms have failed to reach down to the profoundest needs of the poor.” Such single-issue approaches also have “another common failing — ...

More of This, Please

Or perhaps I should say, "Less of this one, please." Or how about just, "None of them. Ever again. Please....For the Love of God." Sunshine State Poll: Grayson In Trouble The latest Sunshine State/VSS poll shows controversial Democratic incumbent Alan Grayson trailing former state Senator Dan Webster by seven points, 43 percent to 36 percent. A majority of respondents -- 51 percent -- disapprove of the job that Grayson is doing. Independents have an unfavorable view of him as well, by a 36/47 margin. Grayson has ignored the conventional wisdom that a freshman should be a quiet member who carefully tends to the home fires. The latest controversy involves his " Taliban Dan " advertisement, where he explicitly compares his opponent to the Taliban, and shows a clip of Webster paraphrasing Ephesians 5:22 -- "wives, submit to your husbands." An unedited version of the clip shows that Webster was actually suggesting that husba...

A reply to Salon's R. J. Eskrow, and his 11 stupid questions about Libertarians

Posts here have been in short supply as I have been living life and trying to get a campaign off the ground. But "11 questions to see if Libertarians are hypocrites" by R. J. Eskrow, picked up at Salon , was just so freaking lame that I spent half an hour answering them. In the end (but I'll leave it to your judgment), it is not that Libertarians or Libertarian theory looks hypocritical, but that the best that can be said for Mr. Eskrow is that he doesn't have the faintest clue what he's talking about. That's ok, because even ill-informed attacks by people like this make an important point: Libertarian ideas (as opposed to Conservative ideas, which are completely different) are making a comeback as the dynamic counterpoint to "politics as usual," and so every hack you can imagine must be dragged out to refute them. Ergo: Mr. Eskrow's 11 questions, with answers: 1. Are unions, political parties, elections, and ...

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