| Author | Message | ||
     Mbfg (Mbfg) Username: Mbfg Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 212.219.63.204 |
Tired, worn and in need of mindless spectacle last night, I watched "Battle LA" (I think that's the title) and please, someone tell me that this film is pure irony, please, please tell me that the people who made this crap are not serious, that this is a satire, a black comedy and not US Marine recruiting film masquerading as cinema. I am right aren't I, well aren't I... Cheers Terry | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
The trailer was enough for me, Terry. | ||
| Paul_finch (Paul_finch) Username: Paul_finch Registered: 11-2009 Posted From: 92.5.63.48 |
I've often wondered why there would be any battle in LA, despite the numerous apocalyptic sci-fi films that feature such engagements. It's of no strategic value at all. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.4.19.77 |
And if hostile aliens, able to travel across the galaxy, decided to invade, surely it would be more of a turkey-shoot massacre anyway. That's what pissed me off about 'Independence Day' too. I know I'm taking these films too seriously but such lapses of basic logic do grate on my nerves. H.G. Wells & John Wyndham would be turning in their graves at such drivel. | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 109.79.87.229 |
I imagine they'd send a little rover first, much like we did to Mars. (Remember space exploration? And reading?) I'd like to see that film - an alien Earth rover that potters about and just looks at things, taking samples. It resists all attempts to interfere with it and eventually people just get used to it. If anyone wants to continue the story below, please do... | ||
| Jamie Rosen (Jamie) Username: Jamie Registered: 11-2008 Posted From: 99.241.220.139 |
What stood out to me when I saw the trailer was "Hang on, didn't this movie just come out as Skyline?" They may have been utterly different, but their promotional material was identical to me. Enough so that I didn't bother with either. | ||
| Mbfg (Mbfg) Username: Mbfg Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 82.6.90.22 |
I beg to differ Paul. Don't forget that Hollywood is in LA, probably the most self-important strategic target in the solar system. How many wars have been won from there? How many apocolyptic alien invasions repulsed? Even the U boat carrying the German Enigma device was captured by Hollywood (and not by a bunch of very young and very brave British sailors as we've all been led to believe). God help us if that place were to fall... | ||
| Frank (Frank) Username: Frank Registered: 09-2008 Posted From: 85.222.86.21 |
Ah, but Mbfg sir, Engima the movie was accused itself of downplaying, if not also falsifying the British decoding of the Enigma machine, when in fact it was the Polish. It's not only Hollywood who rewrites history (: | ||
| Stephen Theaker (Stephen_theaker) Username: Stephen_theaker Registered: 12-2009 Posted From: 92.232.184.206 |
"What stood out to me when I saw the trailer was 'Hang on, didn't this movie just come out as Skyline?'" I think the guys who directed Skyline were actually accused of recycling some of the special effects work that they had done for Battle: LA. | ||
| Mbfg (Mbfg) Username: Mbfg Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 82.6.90.22 |
Yes Frank, but we're British don't you know, and that makes all the differnece old chap. Point taken. Cinema is a very unreliable history book. | ||
| Mbfg (Mbfg) Username: Mbfg Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 82.6.90.22 |
What really got to me about "Battle LA" was that the flag waving was so utterly blatant, it defied belief. What happened to US cinema's cynical view of he American army? What happened to the country that gave us "Catch 22", "MASH" and one of the best American war satires ever made, Burt Lancaster in "Go Tell the Spartans"? Even "Platoon" conained a rawness and brutality that seems to have been completley wiped from the American cinema's view of that most senseless of past times. | ||
| Frank (Frank) Username: Frank Registered: 09-2008 Posted From: 85.222.86.21 |
Yes Frank, but we're British don't you know, and that makes all the differnece old chap. That's the spirit, old boy, now let's give them a bloody good How's Your Father...we're British you know...leather on willow... | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Terry, 9/11 is what happened... | ||
| Mbfg (Mbfg) Username: Mbfg Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 212.219.63.204 |
Stevie, I think you are right to a certain extent, however, this loss of healthy cinematic US cynicism about war and its protagonists started before 9/11. There have always been jingoistic movies, of course, but I really find the present batch (not that I've watched that many) cloying and so overt as to be utterly ludicrous. There doesn’t seem to have been any significant attempt at questioning or mocking the military for decades. Yes, they are at war getting killed, but they were at war when a lot of those other movies were made. Vietnam was probably the most mocked war of all. I think the current trend started with the ridiculous "Top Gun" and went downhill from there. I mean the nadir must have been the very nasty "Airforce One" in which the President himself beats up the bad guys! | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.55 |
There's a mix going on. there are the jingoistic things but there's also for example, a season of 24 where the president himself was the bad guy. The jingo stuff does seem to be trailed far more significantly though. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Perhaps it was the defeat of Communism then that swelled American filmmakers' patriotic zeal? I do think that the flag-waving jingoism has gone into hyperdrive since 9/11, though, which is understandable but no less irritating for that. | ||
| Frank (Frank) Username: Frank Registered: 09-2008 Posted From: 85.222.86.21 |
For ultimate flag waving see: Braddock: Missing In Action III. Airforce One - directed by a German, funny, eh! |