Letters to the Editor
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A Review Of This Review
If any film is, as Zacharek suggests, "static," "didactic," and "extremely boring" in places, and yet the viewer finds that she is still thinking about the film "hours, even days later," here's a news flash:
It's not "static," "didactic," or "extremely boring." It's what's called an excellent film.
They used to make them just like this all the time, you know, back before filmmakers thought the only way to make a good movie is to build something really big and then blow it up, preferably with lots of C-4 explosives (Die Hard) or by alien death rays (Independence Day).
There is no thinking involved in viewing such films, which is probably why so many people (including me) like them. But back when they made "static" films (with lots of words and talking) frequently, (like "Double Indemnity," "Strangers on a Train," or "Twelve Angry Men"), directors and producers didn't treat their audiences as if they were idiots.
It's nice to see that there's at least one such filmmaker still alive today. Now if only we could find the same qualities in a reviewer....
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Why is this woman reviewing movies?
I don't get it. She admittedly doesn't want to be bothered with anything that will make her think. When did a complete lack of thoughtfulness become a prereqisite for a job as a critic? Why is she getting paid to turn her ridiculous "I'm not an elitist" elitist nose up at thought provoking works that only nasty liberals would see and reflect on.
Of course she is snarky about this movie. Anyone surprised by that should reread what passed for her critique of Michael Moore's "Sicko".
She doesn't like liberals, we get it. The problem is that she, like so many Americans, is completely resentful of anyone pointing out to her that there may be things she should be paying attention to. But since thinking about anything that would make her deal with the real world is anathema to her, she simply finds juvenile and shallow reasons to diss the movies that make her uncomfortable.
I'm not saying that a liberal needs to be the movie critic for Salon - I'm suggesting that Salon find a real movie critic; one who knows the history of movies and understands the historical and cultural contexts that provide the basis for the works they critic, as opposed to a hack that uses the job as a platform to justify their own moral relativism and ethical laziness.
Would some editor at Salon please read one of her articles and see it for what it is: Ms. Z's self-justification for intellectual sloth, clothed in every trick a second year writing student can muster.
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I enjoyed this review
While I don't always agree with Ms. Zacharek, I enjoy her reviews. They usually are thoughtful and insightful.
Redford is good at getting away with moralizing in his movies, whether her just acts in them or when he directs. From his early years, he's chosen movies with a liberal message. (Watch All the President's Men, Three Days of the Condor, or even Sneakers again.) So, its no surprise to me that he gets away with it here. You can be critical of him for this if you want, but he's a man with principles and he's not afraid to speak up. To me, this puts him a notch above most of Hollywood.
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Has Redford ever been anything but irritating?
Now, Paul Newman... there's a true actor, a believable human, a male icon, a gentleman with a sense of humor, possessed of an true social conscience that goes out and gets things done.
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Placid surface?
"While these other movies do nothing more than stroke our good liberal beliefs, "Lions for Lambs" attempts to claw at that placid surface."
What on Earth does that mean, Stephanie? I suppose it sounds deep, but c'mon. If you mean to say that the film asks liberals to question their own deeply held beliefs, then say so. Keep it simple...Stephanie.
Anyway, who the hell says that liberal beliefs are placid? Lately, liberal beliefs are founded upon a rage at the murder and greed and insanity of what calls itself today's conservative movement. If you look back through history, liberal beliefs have engaged oppression and injustic in any way but placid.
Sorry Stephanie, but it seems like you're trying way too hard to be fair and balanced.
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Uncool, earnest, but great movie
Of course political art doesn’t ”have to be didactic and uninvolving”. But it can be. Why not? A wake-up call to get off the pot and actually engage in the world maybe sometimes needs to come in the form of a bludgeon.
I was deeply moved by this movie. It was didactic, yes. Uninvolving, definitely not. I didn’t care for Redford’s performance at all. He had too much of a twinkle in those bright blue eyes, and he seemed too self-aware – almost as if he too was embarrassed by his earnest preaching movie. But good for him that he made it anyway. The university scenes between Redford’s professor and his privileged and promising but coasting-on-his-laurels student were kinda hokey, but rendered very powerful in contrast to the scenes of his previous students – hard-working, minority kids who chose to forego any graduate school in the country – to put their lives on the line in Afghanistan.
Thomas Malkin said it – in this age of irony and relativism it’s considered, by privileged liberals especially, uncool and embarrassing to talk straight about truth and belief, to consider the really big questions of how one is going to use one’s gifts in the world, to “ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country.” Very uncool indeed.
Feel free to pan the movie. But actually go and see it before you open your mouth, and try to watch it with an honest openness to the penetrating questions it asks. And then pan away.
Didactic lines that no actor should be made to utter, visually static, extremely boring in places – maybe so. But Zacharek still finds herself thinking about it for days afterward, and so will I.
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Rousing? You've got to be kidding ....
I'm sorry, but this was perhaps the worst movie I've seen in a decade. It was like watching a dramatic version of the talking points of Hannity and Colmes. Films should inspire with all the magic at the fingertips of film makers and screenwriters. This high-school debate film puts cameras and actors in one locale producing static camera shots and trite dialogue ad nauseum. Why didn't Redford just look into the camera and say, "What are you going to do about it?" and get it over with? I proudly walked my liberal ass out of this ridiculous excuse for a film.