Eyes Wide Open
I'm still sort of speechless after seeing Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 last night. Although I enjoyed Roger & Me (1989) for the most part, I wasn't exactly a fan. In fact, the guy downright bugged me and my skin crawled everytime some bug-eyed, malnourished peacenik or well-fed, affluent liberal from the West Hills warbled on and on about how amazing he was as if he were Christ, blah blah blah. Nevertheless, I couldn't wait to see Fahrenheit 9/11 ever since I heard he was making it. Imagine the possibilities, I wondered. This could really help turn the tide against King George and perhaps America at large would finally realize that it had been asleep at the wheel for four years now. Even though I didn't exactly like Moore's style of snarky filmmaking and his unfortunate habit of stretching facts to fit his version of the truth, I was hopeful that he would use his power wisely and not fuck up this chance to "expose" the sordid underbelly of King George's realm.
I wasn't disappointed. In fact, I think the film was even better than I had hoped for. I'm still grappling for words to express how brilliant and powerful a lot of it was. Sure, Moore slips up a few times, but the film is an earnest and occasionally brutal rescue attempt to help wipe the sleep from Lady Liberty's punchdrunk eyes. If you haven't already gone to see it, go! Think about it, discuss it, and make up your own mind. And vote, damn it. Vote!
For more info, go to: http://www.michaelmoore.com/
Monday, June 28, 2004
The Good War
I was just thumbing through the introduction to Charles Willeford's novel, The High Priest of California, and I was taken with a quote by the late Mr. Willeford regarding his tenure in the military during WWII. For those of you who don't know who Willeford was, he was one of the best practioners of the hardboiled genre during its heyday. He's probably best known for his Hoke Moseley series, including Miami Blues, which was made into a film in 1990 starring Fred Ward as Moseley, and co-starring Alec Baldwin and Jennifer Jason Leigh. Pretty good stuff, although the book is far better. Anyway . . . here's the quote:
"A good half of the men you deal with in the Army are psychopaths. There's a pretty hefty overlap between the military population and the prison population, so I knew plenty of guys like Junior in Miami Blues and Troy in Sideswipe. Like, some of these other Tankers I knew used to swap bottles of liqor with infantrymen in exchange for prisoners, and then just shoot 'em for fun. I used to say, 'Goddamn it, will you stop shooting those prisoners!' And they would just shrug and say, 'Hell, they'd shoot us if they caught us!' Which was true, they used to shoot any Tankers they captured. So that of behavior became normal to them, and I used to wonder, 'What's gonna happen to these guys when they go back into civilian life? How are they gonna act?' You can't just turn it off and go to work in a 7-11. If you're good with weapons or something in the Army, you're naturally gonna do something with weapons when you get out, whether it's being a cop or a criminal. These guys learned to do all sorts of things in the Army that just weren't considered normal by civilian standards."
So here's to the Good War. May there be many more!
