Slate's Movie Club Does Combat Over War Movies
The past nine Januarys, David Edelstein -- once of Slate, now of New York magazine, used to round up a posse of film critics to talk about the year in movies. Now that Edelstein's left the pack, Slate's Dana Stevens chairs the discussion, and she drops a bomb on day one:
She doesn't like war movies. She doesn't get war movies. She goes into a "dissociative state" during war movies. As she tells Wesley Morris (the Boston Globe), Keith Phipps (The Onion), Carina Chocano (the Los Angeles Times),
"God, war is strange. … Large groups of men in uniforms trying to kill other men in uniforms, in service of an abstract concept … How could anything so horrible have happened once in the history of humanity, much less be happening all over the world right now? … I wonder if the American death toll in Iraq has passed 3,000 yet … Oh shit, Giovanni Ribisi is gonna get it now. … Please don't show his guts."
If I ever meet Dana Stevens, or anyone else who quails at the thought of seeing a combat movie (and not all war movies are combat movies), I will say: you know that girly-girl movie PRIDE & PREJUDICE? The old one, with Laurence Olivier and Greer Garson.
Greer Garson was more famous for starring in another film, MRS. MINIVER, a war movie set on the home front. And please read THE WORLD WAR II COMBAT FILM by Jeanine Basinger. I know I'm not the only woman who loves war movies, and not merely because they're so ferociously gay.
The photo above is from FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS, a confusing, ambitious war movie about the aftermath of combat and the real men behind a famous propaganda photo.
To me, the movie has too many messages, too many stories, underlined too many times. FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS was overlong and advertised like it was going to be a chore to see. Adam Beach's performance as a man broken down by combat and bigotry stays in my mind.
Comments
I think you mean Wesley Morris.
Posted by: oliver | January 7, 2007 12:58 PM
I think you're right.
Posted by: Justine_FilmFatale | January 7, 2007 09:14 PM