Saturday, November 22, 2014

Clint Clips

The Hollywood Reporter has a piece by Stephen Galloway on Clint Eastwood's chances of picking up an Oscar for his latest, American Sniper.  Galloway speculates a film celebrating a Navy SEAL may not play that well with the liberal Academy voters.

I haven't seen the film so it's hard to comment, but I doubt the wisdom of his claim.  I think the voters will respond to a piece if they believe it's sufficiently dramatic and important, and Clint regularly fools them on both counts.

I'll need to see the film for myself.  I saw a trailer and it sure didn't look like there was any glorification. Look at how Galloway describes Clint's situation:

...Sniper's point of view fits less comfortably with the liberal-leaning Academy than Eastwood's two previous best picture winners — one a paean against violence (Unforgiven), the other an elegy about boxing (Million Dollar [Baby]). This movie celebrates real-life Iraq War hero Chris Kyle (Cooper), who had more killings than any other soldier.

So Galloway gets it wrong. Million Dollar Baby was no elegy about boxing.  It was a full-throated appeal in favor of euthanasia, something liberals tend to support.  If Galloway can't see that, I'm not sure I can trust his opinion on American Sniper.

PS  While we're at it, here's an article in the Reporter about the politics of the latest entry in the Hunger Games series.

Apparently both right and left claim the story shows their vision of the world.  Unfortunately, you've got Hunger Games star and noted liberal Donald Sutherland misinterpreting things:

Last year actor Donald Sutherland, who plays the evil President Snow in the Hunger Games movies, was also surprised to learn of a conservative interpretation. “Could someone from the Tea Party sit down and look at this and think of President Snow as, say, President Obama?” a writer for ScreenRant asked. “No chance,” Sutherland said. But then he thought about the question for a while before dismissing millions of conservatives as racists. “Oh, I see what you’re saying," Sutherland said. "Well, the Tea Party doesn’t look at Barack Obama as a dictator; they look at Barack Obama as a black man in the White House … That’s what generates their hatred."

I understand the left doesn't like the right, but the way so many liberals casually call people who disagree with them racist is despicable.  The irony is it's the left a lot more than the right that insists we should be paying attention to skin color.

Then you've got critic Andrew O'Hehir:

"There are many reasons to describe The Hunger Games as a work of calculated genius, but one reason is that its parable of Empire and Resistance feels relevant without being specific, and appeals equally to anarchists and Tea Partyers,” O’Hehir writes.

Good point, except why does he oppose anarchism and the Tea Party?  Tea Party people generally want smaller government.  It's Occupy Wall Street, even if many members are avowed anarchists, that seems to be demanding bigger government.

5 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Sorry the racism inherent in many attacks on the President is far more despicable than any over inclusive claims of racism.

While I'm sure many academy voters vote on the basis of the content of the film itself- many will vote in direct relation to how the film is perceived, marketed and promoted (and I don't mean necessarily by the film's makers). Zero Dark Thirty was talked about as a rightish film (maybe because it showed the CIA as something other than evil?) though I though I thought it was hardly that.

4:49 AM, November 22, 2014  
Blogger LAGuy said...

Anon, you'd have to give me examples. All I see is a President being attacked just like Bush and Clinton were before him, only a lot less. And yet, somehow, his supporters always manage to see these attacks as racist. It looks like his defenders are projecting, seeing Barack Obama a black man in the White House before they see him as a President. In any case, calling a whole class of people racist without thinking about it is a lot more despicable than an occasional free-lance racist saying something untoward.

Zero Dark Thirty was controversial with many voters because the leads were involved in torture but the film's morality wasn't so simple that they were condemned for it and that was that. Then there was 12 Years A Slave, which got a boost, since the Academy voters think it's important to remind us that slavery is bad (because the same people who see every attack on Obama as racist (please see Donald Sutherland's cluelessness above) also think that there's a big faction out there saying slavery wasn't that bad (see the cluelessness of the attacks on Sarah Palin re this subject)).

9:12 AM, November 22, 2014  
Blogger ColumbusGuy said...

The racism is inherent in anoymous's mind. You make valiant effort, LAGuy, but it's wasted. The philosophy is one of hate, which is to say, projection. Just wait for him to opine on any black conservative. It may as well be Donald Sutherland writing.

12:22 PM, November 22, 2014  
Anonymous Denver Guy said...

Said Donald Sutherland: "Listen, I'm not joking. This is my job!"

7:02 AM, November 23, 2014  
Blogger LAGuy said...

It's funny, as far back as 1978 Sutherland was being hired to give respectability to a film, and it's still happening.

7:19 PM, November 23, 2014  

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