V is For...
Gacked from alibi_factory. Anti-war song meme: I have no idea what spawned this baby, but I like it. Since my parents were hippies, we were raised listening to Phil Ochs and Joan Baez and Dylan. Hugely uncool if you grew up in the 1980s, believe me, but it worked in my favor in Americorps.
Gulf War Song by Moxy Fruvous
I Ain't Marchin' Anymore by Phil Ochs
Universal Soldier by Donovan
Cops of the World by Phil Ochs
Noct actually a song, but still: War and Stuff by Jon Stewart
War all the Time by Thursday
I Fought in a War by Belle & Sebastian
Road to Moscow by Al Stewart
The Captain by Leonard Cohen
Not strictly an antiwar song, but one that always makes me laugh: Love Me, I'm a Liberal by Phil Ochs
I've seen three movies in the last month (four if you count the twenty minutes of The Squid and the Whale I lasted, which I don't): V for Vendetta, Lord of War, and Howl's Moving Castle. This is not meant to be a reflection of my politics; it was actually a coincidence.
Of the three movies, this was the one I was most excited about seeing, and the one I like least. I read the book when I was ten or so, and loved it; I read it in college--and loved it even more. It's one of those rare children's books that appeals equally to adults: it's sharp, funny, and original, with memorable characters and a few truly scary moments. It isn't (oh, the irony) an antiwar book, any more than the Harry Potter books or the Chronicles of Narnia are. The movie emphasizes the war--Sophie's transformation is de-emphasized and Howl is reborn as a pacifist, not a coward. It's beautifully drawn (animated?), but it doesn't work.
I like Nicolas Cage, okay? Shut up. And this movie stars the good Nicolas Cage, not the Family Man one. It's a (very) dark comedy about an arms dealer building a career over the course of the 1980s. I'm not sure how much of it is factual, but if even 50% is--. No one comes off well in this movie, not the gun runners or the governments or the children who carry the guns to war. But it's compelling all the same, maybe because of the cheerful brutality and not despite it.
I think this is almost two movies. One is a hugely over-the-top, but entertaining, superhero story: V, with his Guy Fawkes mask and nursery rhymes, his underground liberated British Museum lair, his tendency toward alliteration, his roses and his secrets and his scars. And Natalie Portman, whom, shockingly, I didn't hate. It's the story I was expecting to see, based on the reviews I read beforehand, and it alone was worth my $7.50.
The other story is Stephen Rea's. It's as short on drama (and lavish detail) as the other is long, but it's far more original, and at the same time more accessible. It's about a decent man caught in an increasingly untenable position, between a government that's betrayed him and a man who represents everything he claims to despise. And maybe that's the point of the movie, I don't know. Maybe it's meant to be a movie about the things people do out of desperation, the choices they make because they have to do something and in the end the only difference between the hammer and the anvil is intention. Someone I'm fairly close to said a couple of years ago that he wasn't opposed to war in principle, only to unjust war. I thought at the time that that was a copout (unjust according to whom?) and I still do. But I can be a little more sympathetic now.
One of criticisms I read in a review, and I have no idea which one now, was that the movie doesn't identify itself with a political ideal. I think that's accurate. When I first saw it I thought it was a scathing critique of the Bush administration, but the more I think about it the less certain of that I am. It's designed, I think, so that you see what you want to see. Which, I guess, sells more tickets than the alternative.
Gulf War Song by Moxy Fruvous
I Ain't Marchin' Anymore by Phil Ochs
Universal Soldier by Donovan
Cops of the World by Phil Ochs
Noct actually a song, but still: War and Stuff by Jon Stewart
War all the Time by Thursday
I Fought in a War by Belle & Sebastian
Road to Moscow by Al Stewart
The Captain by Leonard Cohen
Not strictly an antiwar song, but one that always makes me laugh: Love Me, I'm a Liberal by Phil Ochs
I've seen three movies in the last month (four if you count the twenty minutes of The Squid and the Whale I lasted, which I don't): V for Vendetta, Lord of War, and Howl's Moving Castle. This is not meant to be a reflection of my politics; it was actually a coincidence.
Of the three movies, this was the one I was most excited about seeing, and the one I like least. I read the book when I was ten or so, and loved it; I read it in college--and loved it even more. It's one of those rare children's books that appeals equally to adults: it's sharp, funny, and original, with memorable characters and a few truly scary moments. It isn't (oh, the irony) an antiwar book, any more than the Harry Potter books or the Chronicles of Narnia are. The movie emphasizes the war--Sophie's transformation is de-emphasized and Howl is reborn as a pacifist, not a coward. It's beautifully drawn (animated?), but it doesn't work.
I like Nicolas Cage, okay? Shut up. And this movie stars the good Nicolas Cage, not the Family Man one. It's a (very) dark comedy about an arms dealer building a career over the course of the 1980s. I'm not sure how much of it is factual, but if even 50% is--. No one comes off well in this movie, not the gun runners or the governments or the children who carry the guns to war. But it's compelling all the same, maybe because of the cheerful brutality and not despite it.
I think this is almost two movies. One is a hugely over-the-top, but entertaining, superhero story: V, with his Guy Fawkes mask and nursery rhymes, his underground liberated British Museum lair, his tendency toward alliteration, his roses and his secrets and his scars. And Natalie Portman, whom, shockingly, I didn't hate. It's the story I was expecting to see, based on the reviews I read beforehand, and it alone was worth my $7.50.
The other story is Stephen Rea's. It's as short on drama (and lavish detail) as the other is long, but it's far more original, and at the same time more accessible. It's about a decent man caught in an increasingly untenable position, between a government that's betrayed him and a man who represents everything he claims to despise. And maybe that's the point of the movie, I don't know. Maybe it's meant to be a movie about the things people do out of desperation, the choices they make because they have to do something and in the end the only difference between the hammer and the anvil is intention. Someone I'm fairly close to said a couple of years ago that he wasn't opposed to war in principle, only to unjust war. I thought at the time that that was a copout (unjust according to whom?) and I still do. But I can be a little more sympathetic now.
One of criticisms I read in a review, and I have no idea which one now, was that the movie doesn't identify itself with a political ideal. I think that's accurate. When I first saw it I thought it was a scathing critique of the Bush administration, but the more I think about it the less certain of that I am. It's designed, I think, so that you see what you want to see. Which, I guess, sells more tickets than the alternative.