Retail Resistance

Nothing Else to Say

This piece on our military's most recent public atrocity, entitled "History Repeats Itself: "Winter Soldier" Hits DVD", is from Anthony Kaufman’s blog on Indiewire. I thought I might expand on it, but there really isn’t anything I can say. That’s why I’ll just reprint Kaufman’s post in its entirety, fullstop.

In an all-too-apt coincidence of timing, the harrowing Vietnam-war documentary "Winter Soldier" comes out on DVD Tuesday, just days after the mainstream news finally picked up the story of how U.S. soldiers indiscriminately murdered 24 innocent civilians in Iraq last November. (How come it took so long?) Chillingly recounted in this New York Times story that ran on Memorial Day, the massacre in Haditha is an awful reminder of how little we have learned since the 1971 Winter Soldier Investigation brought to light the barbarism and inhumanity of war (and the U.S. military's penchant for covering up such injustices).

When "Winter Soldier" was first revived in theaters last August, I blogged about the film and the distributor's hopes for educating the public. Now, after increasing stories of U.S. military misconduct and human rights abuses, Millenium Films co-presidents Dennis Doros and Amy Heller's remarks sound eerily prescient.

"Ideally, what I would really like is that people will think about the film and consider what's happening in the present, especially in terms of the tremendous civilian casualties and the treatment of POWs, which is really appalling in Guantanamo, Afghanistan, and Iraq," Heller told me for a story in the Village Voice. "The Geneva Convention standard is not too high for the American military to follow. My experience talking with vets is that they see this movie and some thick twice about going to be a soldier."

"I hope people can take away from this that sometimes owning up to the truth will make us stronger and healthier," Heller said. "One of the messages we get from the current administration is that secrecy is more important than transparency, but I don't think it's doing our country any favors, or helping our soldiers much either."

United Lack of Memory

I’ve seen three movies this weekend: Lucky Number Slevin (disappointing), The Propostion (amazing), and X-Men 3 (good enough). Impressed with myself, last night I decided I would go for number four today. Because I had blogged about it earlier as being promoted by right wing cranks, it also being on the cover of this month’s Film Comment, and the fact it’s directed by Paul Greengrass - who did Bloody Sunday, I resolved to see United 93.

This morning while undertaking my ritual sun salutation at my neighborhood coffeehouse I was reminded of today being Memorial Day. The person doing the reminding went on to comment on the holiday’s loss of meaning, that it didn’t seem like a real holiday, not having a noticeable parade or television special or something. By way of a parade, someone else said yesterday at a picnic they were having on one of the lakes in a part of town mostly populated by more liberal types there were two trucks circling the lake “with American flags sticking out of every orifice” shouting jingoistic slogans from a loudspeaker. Other than that, no one could perceive anything of the holiday’s presence, other than by its somewhat conspicuous absence. That, and it being Monday, the three-day weekend we were all enjoying; again, enjoyment not being Memorial Day’s purpose.

Now, reading a Cannes wrap-up I come across this in The Guardian, “One of the most moving moments in the festival came during the press conference for Paul Greengrass's United 93, which opens in the UK on Friday. The Cambridge-educated Khalid Abdalla, who plays the lead terrorist, came close to tears as he described his anger at the hijackers' claims to represent the Muslim world.”

All of a sudden it seems somehow appropriate to see the United 93 movie. Not because I’m looking for a method of observance, but instead because I feel I should follow the strange confluence of coincidences I’m observing like an existential detective following clues. However, writing this I’ve already missed the showing I circled. Maybe not seeing United 93 on Memorial Day will end up actually being a more representative observation of the zeitgeist.

Films on Guantánamo and Iraq face war of cuts

Last week we mentioned the censorship on the part of the MPAA regarding Michael Winterbottom's Guantanamo movie. Now the Department of Defense, which incidentally staffs a movie department to help with and oversee productions of movies it feels are positive PR for the military, i.e. Michael Bay's Pearl Harbor, has decided this new documentary documents Iraq in a way that isn't to its liking.

Suzanne Goldenberg in Washington Thursday May 18, 2006 The Guardian

Two new films which expose unpleasant truths about Guantanamo and the battle for Iraq are coming under pressure from censors in the United States.

The Motion Pictures Association of America has censored a poster advertising a film about the Tipton three, called The Road to Guantanamo, that showed a hooded and blindfolded man hanging by his shackled wrists. Also, the makers of Baghdad ER, a documentary about a US military combat hospital, told the Guardian yesterday that Francis Harvey, the secretary of the army, had demanded last-minute changes to the film.

The makers of Baghdad ER say the senior leadership of the Pentagon has turned against their film, despite cooperation during its making in Baghdad and a positive reception at screenings at military bases. "Somebody wearing a tie and not a uniform seems to have a political agenda and is trying to influence this film," said the director, Jon Alpert.

Liberal Hollywood?

This is odd, because I thought the MPAA was okay with violent imagery, and it was sexuality that they were most concerned about protecting us from.

Poster for Movie About Guantánamo Prison Banned

Although the image pales in comparison with those published in the press and shown on TV of Americans torturing prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, a poster for a semi-documentary film about the Guantánamo prison in Cuba has been rejected by the Motion Picture Assn. of America. The poster, for the award-winning The Road to Guantánamo, showed a man hanging by his wrists with a burlap sack over his head. In an interview with today's (Wednesday) Washington Post, Howard Cohen, co-president of distributor Roadside Attractions, said he was told that a poster depicting torture was not appropriate for children to see. Gayle Osterberg, a spokesperson for the MPAA, further explained: "If it's a poster that's hanging in a theater, anyone who walks into that theater, regardless of what movie they've come to see, will be exposed to it." However, Cohen observed that some posters for horror movies were far more disturbing. "This is a film with a serious purpose, and this is the subject of the film itself, and the marketing materials were appropriate to the subject," he told the Post. The film is now due to open on June 23 with a poster showing only shackled hands and arms.

It's Up to you NYCelebrities

I'm really not into celebrity gossip. Unless of course it's in a fancy magazine and written by an urbane and witty writer. For instance, if Nick Hornby were a gossip columnist, this little piece by David Edelstein about serving on the documentary jury with Rosie Perez and Moby at the Tribeca Film Festival would have been in The Polysyllabic Spree. So it's really not very much like celebrity gossip at all; it's just good writing, that just so happens to mention the odd celebrity, or four.

Cosmology

One of my greatest memories was visiting my grandparents in New York at 8 or 9 years old, and after Dim Sum in Chinatown, going to the Meadowlands to see the Cosmos play. The fact is, I don't remember much of the game. I can't recall the score, who they played, or anything specific that happened on the field. But it remains one of my greatest memories to date, because if nothing else, that vague memory is my proof of the larger truth that I was there; I saw the Cosmos play. I saw History.

The Cosmos were then. Now there is the upcoming documentary Once In a Lifetime, a document reflecting two of the three elements of my present day holy trinity: politics, soccer, and film. That being the case, and after reading this great article in the Guardian contextualizing the Cosmos vis a vis contemporary soccer, I couldn't pass up the opportunity to openly reflect on how that cultural then is itself a reflection of my personal now.

Go to Hellary

I guess old arch-conservative Rupert Murdoch is becoming more liberal with age; either that, or, Hilary Clinton is about as liberal as Rupert Murdoch. I'd rather Hillary became strange bedfellows with a horse. But since she would rather hop in the sack with Rupert, Fox, and anyone else with a fat pocket book between their legs, I'm left with no choice but to vote for the candidate from the Socialist Workers Party.

Murdoch Hosting Fund-Raiser for Hillary Clinton

Raising the eyebrows of friend and foe alike, conservative media mogul Rupert Murdoch has agreed to host a political fund-raiser for Hillary Clinton's senatorial reelection campaign. Senator Clinton is also regarded as the current front-runner among possible candidates to head the Democratic Party's presidential ticket in 2008. When she originally sought to become the junior senator from New York, Murdoch's newspaper, the New York Post, ran a strident campaign against her in which she was listed as the sixth "most evil" person of the millennium. An unnamed media lobbyist told today's (Tuesday) London Financial Times: "Murdoch will be for the Republicans but he is also smart enough to know that the Republicans might not win. At some level, whether nationally or in New York, Hillary is the future and what savvy businessman would not want to put a line of interest in someone who will be the future?"

Tilda Has Spoken

We like Tilda at Box Office, I like Tilda, androgony and all. Before now I can't say I knew much about her. I only felt drawn to her by appearance, choice of roles, and all around projection. After reading this, her speech at the San Francisco Film Festival, I feel a validation of intuition, and like her more now then I ever have.

Listen to this explanation of her heretofore unexplainable diffection from independent movies:

But I love the idea of goose-stepping old Walt D. making over $700 million dollars with the help of a Red Witch. He is more than welcome. At least we made her whiter than white, the ultimate white supremacist, and we managed to railroad the kneejerk attempt to make her look like an Arab. And maybe, just maybe, on top of all that, Disney might have ended up underwriting the most expensive advertisement teaser for Derek Jarman's and Lynn Hershman's back catalogue that any of us could ever have imagined.

How can you not love this woman? Although it must be said that knowing more about her doesn't necessarily translate into understanding her. Which does nothing to detract from what initially made her appealing. Quite the opposite really.

Two For the Road

Double Features People Returned Today:

Bunny Lake is Missing & Laura (Otto Preminger)
Animal Crackers & Duck Soup (Marx Bros.)
Three Fugitives & Inner Space (that would be a Martin Short double bill…thank god for we kept our VHS)

Double Feature I’m Waiting to See Returned:
Fly Away Home & Squid and the Whale (In the first, Jeff Daniels is Anna Paquin’s dad. By the second film, Daniels is sleeping with Paquin. They grow up so fast. The women that is; the men stay young forever and never experience erectile dysfunction.)

Double Features You Want to Recommend:
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Look at the Church, Look at the Steeple, Look at the Tricky Christian People

Turns out this United 93 movie is meant to be the docudrama version of Left Behind, the bestselling, paranoid Christian end-of-time book series. Now that I know, I plan on getting all hopped up on pain-killers like our junkie friend Rush, and waiting to see it in the two dollar theatre.

“I wish this movie had been out two or three years ago.”
- Rush Limbaugh

“I believe it is just about every American's duty to see this film.”
- Dennis Prager
(Don’t know who this character is? Check this out, “one quick way to identify totalitarian threats to liberty is to identify those who falsify the historical record on behalf of their cause. In America today, two groups are most actively engaged in falsifying history: the ACLU and the anti-smoking movement.” You get the idea.)

"And visit Motive Entertainment’s www.U93.org (the people who brought you Gibson’s Passion and Narnia), where you can see the MOVIE TRAILER and download free teaching and preaching resources to engage in key issues like, “Why do Islamic terrorists hate America? How should we respond as Americans? As Christians? As Jews? As Muslims?

PLEASE FORWARD THIS EMAIL TO ANYONE WHO CARES ABOUT THE SAFETY OF AMERICA, AND THE WAR AGAINST TERROR!"

Preaching resources for the safety of America and the war against terror. How about some materials for people who care about protecting us from preachers and crazy right-wing syndicated columnists?