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Reminds me of something written by Robin Wood about the John Wayne movie with a scene of two other cowboys cruising each other and mutual masturbation ending in ejactulation. The movie is Red River and it's a scene of Montgomery Clift and another guy checking out each other's guns and shooting them off.

ummm... o...kay...?

Why on earth would Sam Mendes want to make a war movie that's actually a subtextual film about homosexual initiation?

Dave, have you seen Red River? Because it's almost impossible to watch that scene without noticing just how gay it really is. Even this straight girl can see it.

Yes, I wouldn't bring it up just to dismiss it. People forget how much sexual subtext there is in lots of war movies. Sounds like Jarhead may be following in the tradition of Full Metal Jacket more than Three Kings.

It makes sense...the anti-war message in "Brokeback Mountain" is just as strong.

And next someone will say "Star Wars" is postmodernism incarnate. Oh, wait . . .

The details on Star Wars' incarnation...

http://www.mcnblogs.com/mcindie/archives/2005/11/star_wars_great.html

compared to classics like full metal jacket i don't think jarhead will hold up.

According to this reader, Jarhead is a gay fantasy world?

Now every movie Jake Gyllenhall does with have a gay subtext? Come on. I can't buy that one. I guess I'll have to see it to really know but that seems like its taking a big jump.

Now I fully expect a love scene between Jamie and Jake. With Chris Cooper yelling at them during it.

Good to finally know what "welcome to the suck" means.

Crow inspired me to change the header...

This post from Dave made me want to take a shower.

This perspective on the film and the film itself sound a lot like Calire Denis' "Beau Travail."

Obviously noone has seen the movie, but do the people who disagree have any basis or does their argument just consist of "no way. that's stupid"?

and maybe 3 people in the world know what beau travail happens to be.

I have a deep fondness for movies that depict military life. I get to compare it to what I know first hand. I have read Swoffords book. A decent read. Nothing really new. I don't expect the movie to be groundbreaking either.

So maybe the others should go see it.

Here's a review that hits the relevant points:

http://online.tvguide.com/movies/database/showmovie.asp?MI=42308

Homoeroticsm, the boring daily routine, etc.

Maybe you should see it. You seem to have many opinions on something you have yet to see, dave l.

Hate war movies.
Love Jake G.
Worlds colliding.

This writer may have messed up a bit. Jake's gay movie is Brokeback Mountain. Not Jarhead.

The hot rumor is Hollywood is that Jake is really playing for that team and not just on camera.

This the same argument that they say about every Joel Schumacher work.

i've only liked one movie from gyllenhall. that was donnie darko. what else has he been in thats been good? day after tomorrow was garbage. moonlight mile the same.

I don't think I said a single thing about Jarhead that wasn't speculation based on this blog posting. Obviously you haven't seen the movie either, right Angelus?
Lester, the Schumacher Batman movies are the gayest things ever. Nipples on the batsuits.

dave l is a homophobe. Cover your eyes, boys and girls.

Gyllenhall ha of course been in some crap, but "October Sky" was pretty solid, "The Good Girl" was good, and "Proof" was all right. "Brobeck Mountain" has been getting pretty good buzz, and I'm betting that Fincher's "Zodiac" will be interesting. I never saw "Lovely & Amazing," but I heard that it was okay.

Josh, I'm in fact gay. LOL.

Any Fincher movie is on the short list for most interesting film. Especially with such material like the Zodiac killer.

lets just say i don't think the people behind jarhead want this post getting out touting its big gay thing.

True on Fincher. And the book on which the film is based is very creepy/disturbing. I wonder after "Fight Club" how much freedom they're giving Fincher, but I know, for instance, that he pulled out of "Lords of Dogtown" when they didn't give him everything he wanted, so I would guess that he has pretty much free reign over the project.

No Oscar buzz. Middling reviews. This movie will be lucky to crach 25 mill.

This post will be a lot more interesting tomorrow, when people besides Dave Poland have actually seen the movie.

If this movie stinks, dave l, has to apologize.

Every major critic has seen this already and its already off the board at every Oscar pic site. That doesn't look good for its prospects.

Sam Mendes misses wide right?

Why do I have to apologize? I didn't like Road to Perdition.

It's going to bomb. You can say I was right on saturday morning.

Thanks.

I just happened to be reading a piece in Harper's this month about war movies by Lawrence Weschler, and he quotes "Jarhead" usefully:

""There is talk," Swofford wrote, "that many Vietnam films are antiwar, that the message is that war is inhumane...But actually, Vietnam films are all pro-war, no matter what the supposed message, what Kubrick or Coppola or Stone intended." Swofford went on to allow as how Mr. and Mrs. Johnson in Omaha or San Francisco or Manhattan might well watch such films "and weep and decide once and for all that ware is inhumane and terrible, adn they will tell their friends at church and their family this," but Corporal Johnson at Camp Pendleton and Sergeatn Johnson at Travis Air Force Base...and Lance Corporal Swofford at Twentynine Palms Marine Corps Base watch the same films and are excited by them, becuase the magic brutality of the films celebrates the terrible and despicable beauty of their fighting skills. Fight, rape, war, pillage, burn. Filmic images of death and carnage are pornography for the military man; with film you are stroke his cock, tickling his balls with the pink feather of history, getting him ready for his real First Fuck.""

Maybe it's about the sexualization of war, more than homosexuality--that's my guess.

I think you nailed it on the head, Kit.

I think Jarhead could get up to $40mil, but yeah, it doesn't seem like it's heading to any blockbuster numbers. What did Three Kings get?

I really love it when people complain that certain actors haven't done anything good, despite the fact that they've only been around for a few years! Although, raising the issue of quality with Jake's movies is at least a better argument than raising the issue that some people always bring up when discussing him - his "bankability".

Interesting theory, but any movie made with mostly men can draw scenes and metaphors to homoeroticism.

I'm going out on a limb and saying this movie is going to top 70 million, based on the draw of the cast and director and the marketing blitz that has the teasers placed anywhere from NFL games to cooking shows. Many people thought American Beauty was a pile of crap that didn't go anywhere, and I loved it, so I'm planning on juding this one for myself.

Oh, and according to IMDB Three Kings grossed 60 mil.

True about all-male movies, but some are more homoerotic - or at least more aware of it - than others. This may be a valid theme of the movie or only an exagerrated theory, we'll have to see the movie to judge.

all male movies are homoerotic? ur looking into it way too much.

Jarhead. 35$ million total BO.

My best guess.

Let's remember Three kings had 3 pretty big stars in it. Clooney, Marky Mark, Ice Cube.

This has Jake who has never brought a crowd. Jamie Foxx who everyone knows has a bit part and no one else.

The modern interpretation of war films and prison films as homoerotic subtext is basic text 101 in most film schools.

The thing is, because it is so common and now cliche to comment on the homoerotic subtext of these films as such it is now entirely possible that the theory has become reality and directors are now making these films with this subtext in mind.

Ironically, even though the films that the subtext theory was based on actually did not contain the subtext itself.

I have not seen Jarhead. Nevertheless, it would not surprise me if there was an intentional subtext although perhaps not to the extreme that the reader prefers.

The reading of homoerotic subtext of buddy cop films is also someting that is as old as the hills (okay, as old as the sixties) and Kiss Kiss Bang Bang plays with that formula.

Probably just the studio trying to get the gays to the theatres. Marketing. Always marketing.

More likely the film student crowd.

The film student crowd. A whole 30 people. HUGE market.

JoeFitz- you were wrong. Thanks.

I kind of get the gay subtext and am reminded of the claims that AMERICAN BEAUTY was anti-family and pro-gay (which was a crazy essay, but interesting nonetheless) but I don't think JARHEAD was going for what the reader pointed out....totally. Maybe partially.

Also- if the reader/writer thinks the film is "comparing war to busting your gay cherry" then the end scene he spoke of actually works. The vietnam vet would have had the same homoerotic experiences and would thus want to rejoin this group of young men to enjoy yet another camo-clad gay orgy. Then again, who wouldn't.

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