Letters to the Editor
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Only one worse line...
Sheesh! "The problem is us, all of us..." is the second worst commonly uttered line of dialog -- and poor Redford has to direct himself to say it! The cascade of things that when wrong to have that happen boggle the mind.
The worst line of dialog? Two characters sit looking at each other:
"Thank you," says one.
"No, thank you," says the other.
Scorsese dropped that clanger into "The Departed"... along with one very superfluous rat...
Which goes to show, I guess, that even the best make beginner mistakes every now and then!
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Remarkable rousing?
I guess it would take a liberal reviewer to give this film a positive review, whe 75% of the reviewers coralled by Rotten Tomatoes say it stinks. Like Redford's other cheesy political statement movies (particularly that one where he plays a general in an Army prison - Stink-O!), this is one I will probably never see, unless it comes on some obscure satellite channel.
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Bad title
I don't know much about the movie, but the title stinks. Say it out loud. It sounds like "Silence of the Lambs." Everytime I see the commercial on TV that's what I hear.
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A Movie for The Sheeple?
Hmmm. Sounds like a EUROPEAN movie. Maybe the obviousness that strikes these commentators is a necessary evil to get through the fogged minds of your average movie-theater goer. Oh, but then they'd be asleep by the time that dialogue came around.....
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A problem with the upper class liberals...
Liberals of a certain social and educational level are embarrassed with outright statements of belief or truth. Didactic? Words an actor should not be asked to say? Rome IS burning.
The author seems to understand that her crowd suffers from an overdeveloped sense of taste. I can't seem to get my head around the idea that some truths are just too boring, too crass, too cliche to state outright. While at the same time, movies titled "Mike Moore Hates America" is at my local video rental place. The rightists have no problem with loudly stating their beliefs.
Here: reporters and writers used to be poorly paid working schmucks, for the major part. I think that liberal writers today come mostly from the ranks of the privileged; the universities they needed to attend to break into the writing game at this level are dominated by the children of the upper class, the salaries they earn firmly smack them into the upper middle class, the people they've associated with since high school are almost without exception part of the privileged class. The word to describe their collective outlook might be "effete". There's nary a Studs Terkel in the bunch. If you live in SF or NYC, kids, you're upper class. It costs too much to live in the styling places to work if you make ten bucks an hour.
There are damned few voices of the not-rich in any of our media. Even bloggers tend to be wealthier than most; working people don't have time to blog after a ten-twelve hour work+commute.
The not-wealthy rightly feel that they are not represented by the esthetes who are embarrassed by a man screaming that "Rome is burning!" even as it most obviously is... we need more movies like this. We need to stop being embarrassed at the sight of someone stating what we believe at the top of their lungs. A little more Joe Six-Pack screaming for the team, hm? Life isn't a chess match.
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So it's a nihilistic movie about
Nihilism. ok then.
But on a purely moviegoer level: Tom is not a good actor albeit entertaining. Streep is a boring great actor and Redford collapsed into his own wrinkled mumbling visage a long time ago. It's hard to pick out what's fun to watch amidst all the torrid bloggerific earnestness of Liberal Schadenfreude. At least Al Gore made fun of himself on 30 Rock last night.
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Thomas Malkin
You're absolutely right about making the message simple and strong. Many if not most people think it makes a difference which teevee news they get their "information" from. They believe that if they hear the yammerings of some Trusted Source that they'll know about the things they need to. Like Brit. Salon readers already know that American journalism is failing them. They take it as such a given that they forget about the great unwashed and their ignorance of it.
And remember it's film. Broad messages are nothing new. We need simple, direct language to better communicate that Rome is etc. Didn't Mrs. Miniver win the Oscar? Deep Throat never said "Follow the money," but it worked well in a big studio movie. (Bartcop has been offering for years to script such simple messages for the Democrats.) Mike Moore's movie are so vigorously attacked by the right because they are simple, direct, and effective.
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RE: A problem with the upper class liberals...
What's more important to you: politics or art?
If you want to get the issues across, fine. There are plenty of books out there, essays, interview clips on YouTube, whatever. The issues are important; I'm on the same side as you, politically. But even though I hate George Bush with a large portion of my soul, I love art with all of it. So if there's a shrill, shallow movie that will probably reach more people than any book or YouTube clip ever will, making the kinds of points I feel ought to reach a wide audience, I'm still going to pan the movie. The rightists who generate their own media would never see that movie anyway, so it's not going to sway them. (Just as their self-generated propaganda isn't going to sway anyone not already on their team, I'd wager.)
Political art doesn't have to be didactic and uninvolving. If it's a good piece of narrative art, the focus will be on the characters, not the issues. And what better way to get people to genuinely care about the issues you genuinely care about than to ground some abstract idea in a person, a life, a name, a face? A movie that's just trying to preach at you doesn't have characters; it has mouthpieces. So you'll make your points, but will you make people care? I don't know. But that's how real change happens.