[From another newsgroup. I haven't been to a movie in more than three
years or more so I don't have any views of my own on anything
Hollywood. Looks like I didn't miss anything.]
Iraq War Movies Suck
But, be prepared for a series of films in about ten years that will be
the "Deer Hunter". "Platoon" and "Coming Home" of this war. One in
production is "The Hurt Locker" about bomb-disposal.
The Iraq War, in Hollywood's Theater
Despite the Drama, Films About the Conflict Fizzled at the Box Office
By Paul Farhi
Wa****ngton Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, March 25, 2008; C01
After five years of conflict in Iraq, Hollywood seems to have learned
a sobering lesson: The only things less popular than the war itself
are dramatic films and television shows about the conflict.
A spate of Iraq-themed movies and TV shows haven't just failed at the
box office. They've usually failed spectacularly, despite big stars,
big budgets and serious intentions.
The underwhelming reception from the public raises a question: Are
audiences turned off by the war, or are they simply voting against the
way filmmakers have depicted it?
The latest Iraq war film, the gritty "Stop-Loss," which opens Friday,
focuses on a young American soldier (Ryan Phillippe) who returns home
from combat only to be ordered back into service under the Army's
involuntary "stop-loss" recruitment measure. The movie raises some
pointed questions about the policy and about the war's impact on the
minds and bodies of the people fighting it.
Which means, if recent history is any guide, that "Stop-Loss" could
have a tough time finding an audience.
The Iraq war-themed "In the Valley of Elah," starring Tommy Lee Jones
and Susan Sarandon, received mixed critical notices and did little
business upon its release last September (total domestic gross: $6.8
million). "Redacted," a Brian De Palma-directed film about a renegade
Army unit, was barely seen when it came out in limited release in
November (it grossed just $65,388).
An even more paltry reception greeted "Grace Is Gone" (2007), in which
star John Cusack deals with the aftermath of his wife's death in Iraq;
"Home of the Brave" (2006), about a group of soldiers (including
Samuel L. Jackson and Jessica Biel) adjusting to life after the war;
and "The Situation" (2006), about a love triangle set amid the
conflict.
The picture isn't much brighter when the frame is widened to include
recent films dealing with the war on terrorism.
Meryl Streep appeared in two such flops last year, "Lions for
Lambs" (with Tom Cruise and Robert Redford) and "Rendition" (with
Reese Witherspoon and Jake Gyllenhaal). "The Kingdom," an anti-
terrorism thriller set in Saudi Arabia, with Jamie Foxx and Jennifer
Garner as FBI agents, fared somewhat better. It took in $47.5 million
in its domestic release -- although that looks modest in light of
"Kingdom's" $70 million production budget. (For the sake of
comparison, "The Bourne Ultimatum," a big hit last summer, generated
$227.5 million in domestic ticket sales.)
Comedy -- if there's anything to laugh about -- hasn't worked much
better. Last summer's egregious "Delta Farce," about Iraq-bound
soldiers who fail to realize they've actually landed in Mexico, ginned
up only $8 million. (The San Francisco Chronicle summed up the film
this way: "The characters are ignorant and borderline racists, but at
least they're self-loathing borderline racists.") Next month's "Harold
& Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay" promises a strange blend of
stoner humor and mistaken-identity-terrorist antics.
Do***entaries chronicling the war have been among the best-reviewed
films of the past few years, but they, too, have struggled
commercially. One example: "Taxi to the Dark Side," which in February
won the Oscar for Best Do***entary for its exploration of torture in
Iraq and Afghanistan, has earned about $180,000 since its release, or
roughly what "Spider-Man 3" took in at a couple of multiplexes during
its opening weekend. Another acclaimed doc of 2007, "No End in Sight,"
earned a modest $1.4 million. (The gigantic exception in this category
is, of course, Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11," which is the
highest-
grossing do***entary ever; it has generated $222.4 million in ticket
sales worldwide since its release in mid-2004.)
On television, the first and only series about Americans in Iraq,
"Over There," lasted just 13 episodes in the summer of 2005 before
being dropped by cable's FX channel.
Steven Bochco, the celebrated TV writer-producer who created "Over
There," says it's difficult to create a drama about a war when viewers
are witnessing the real thing in real time. "In hindsight," Bochco
says, "my general feeling is that people were seeing horrific images
[from the war] on TV every day on the news, and it was depressing, and
it was very realistic." With that as backdrop, he says, a series about
the war "was more than people wanted to take in."
Bochco suggests that Americans feel "a certain sense of powerlessness"
about the war's direction that may fuel their indifference to dramatic
****trayals of it.
With an eye toward America's war-weariness, Paramount Pictures has
downplayed Iraq in its marketing of "Stop-Loss." The trailer for the
film, which was directed by Kimberly Peirce ("Boys Don't Cry"),
contains a few scenes of combat, but emphasizes the attractive young
cast and the small-town Texas setting. The theatrical poster shows the
film's leads lounging on the hood of a car. It looks more like a scene
from TV's "Friday Night Lights" than a military drama.
That's a smart approach, says Brandon Gray, president and publisher of
Box Office Mojo, a movie-tracking online publication. Gray thinks
"Stop-Loss," which has been heavily marketed to teens and 20-
somethings through MTV Films, could be the first film to escape the
fate of other Iraq movies. "It's a more intimate human drama than a
preachy political film," Gray says. "It seems to be a more relatable
picture than what we've seen so far about Iraq."
Peirce says the subject of Iraq isn't as problematic as the way it has
been sold by movie marketers. "It's my job to entertain the audience,"
the director says. "That to me seemed to be the thing they didn't seem
to find -- the thing that touches your heart or makes you say, 'I want
to go see this because I want to get involved in that emotional
experience.' "
She adds, "If you go back to the great war movies [she cites 'The Best
Years of Our Lives' and 'Patton,' among others], I don't think it's an
inherently difficult topic. I just think you have to find the humanity
in it. There's a huge amount of humanity in conflict, in the families
who are sending people over, what the culture here goes through and
what goes on over there. You just have to find a way in."
Even with such an erratic track record, more films about the war are
on their way. "The Hurt Locker," about an elite American bomb-disposal
squad, recently completed production. "The Return," with Rachel
McAdams as an Iraq war veteran, is scheduled for release early next
year. In July, HBO will air a seven-part miniseries, "Generation
Kill," based on journalist Evan Wright's account of the first few
weeks of the American invasion. And Paul Greengrass ("The Bourne
Ultimatum," "United 93") is currently filming a movie version of the
book "Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq's Green Zone," by
Wa****ngton Post staffer Rajiv Chandrasekaran. It stars Matt Damon.
Film historian Jonathan Kuntz of UCLA points out that most memorable
war films appear many years after a conflict ends, when the nation has
had time to reflect on the experience and a historical consensus
emerges about the war's successes and failures.
The classic films about Vietnam -- starting with "The Deer Hunter,"
"Coming Home" and "Apocalypse Now" in 1978 and 1979 and ending with
"Born on the Fourth of July" in 1989 -- came out years after the last
U.S. serviceman had left the battlefield. "M*A*S*H," which was
essentially an anti-Vietnam film but set in the Korean War, was
released nearly 20 years after the Korean armistice.
But the outcome in Iraq remains an open question, with America's
military commitment to the country under constant debate.
For now, Kuntz agrees with Bochco: "We're bombarded by information
about [Iraq] 24 hours a day," he says. "We already know plenty about
it. We don't need to learn more about it from the movies. Right now,
it's something people want to forget and escape from. I speak for the
American public when I say, 'What a bummer.' "
http://www.wa****ngtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2008/03/24/ST2008032403372.html?sid=ST2008032403372
HI,
Actually, there is film due in April called something like "Back door
draft" or "Stop Gap Measure." The theme of the film is that a solider
is honorably discharged, and is glad of their service. They are
prepared to start their life at home with their family, and then in a
short period of time, they are called back. The crisis of the film is
that his family needs him to stay with them... I believe it is due
April 29th, so the films are coming.
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