Recently, Hollywood described itself as another “casualty of war as movie-goers shun Iraq films.”  The AP article bemoaned that almost without exception, “…the crop of [recent “war”] movies have struggled to turn a profit at the box-office and in many cases have received a mauling from unimpressed critics as well.”
    I wonder why?
    The movie, “Rendition,” stars Reese Witherspoon and Jake Gyllenhaal.  The plot focuses on the CIA's and military policy of outsourcing interrogation of terror suspects –you only need one guess as to who the “real” bad guys are.

    “In the Valley of Elah,” a father, a career officer and his wife, work with a police detective to uncover the truth behind their son's disappearance following his return from a tour of duty in Iraq.  According to Hollywood, any solider that isn’t a rapist and a murderer is a victim.  In this movie, the concept is taken to Hollywood’s view of its logical conclusion. 

    I wonder if Susan Sarandon, Tommy Lee-Jones and Charlize Theron were paid actors, or simply did this film as a sort of “in-kind donation” to the hate-America-first and anti-war movements?

    “The Kingdom,” stars Jamie Foxx and Jennifer Garner:  A team of FBI counter-terrorism agents want to investigate an attack on Americas in Saudi Arabia, but the U.S. government says no.  With a bit of pressure, they end up going anyway—where they battle Saudis and American government roadblocks [generated by implicit US politicians acting on behalf of oil-rich business interests].

    Although I haven’t/won’t go see the movie, I can’t help but wonder how often the names Blackwater, Hallaberton and Dick Cheney are invoked or implied in the dialogue.

    Robert Redford directs and stars in the yet to be released movie “Lions for Lambs.”   Following a press-conference during the promotional tour, Steve Winn of the San Francisco Chronicle describes the movie as a “. . . film [that] invites viewers to weigh the choices elected officials, journalists, students, professors and soldiers make in the morally swampy era of Bush administration foreign policy and ethos.”  He later quotes Redford during interviews as he [Redford] “traces a through line from McCarthyism to Watergate to the Iran-Contra scandal to the Iraq war.” He loathes the "stupid war" in Iraq and laments a [US] press that has "rubber-stamped" many of the president's policies.”

    Obviously this Redford movie approaches the Iraq war with about the same level of objectivity one would expect from say…Joseph Gobbles?

    Brian De Palma's "Redacted," is about the real-life rape and killing of a 14-year-old Iraqi girl by U.S. soldiers with shocking images that will leave some viewers in tears.  Movie promoters advertise Redacted as being “Inspired by one of the most serious crimes committed by American soldiers in Iraq since the 2003 invasion, it spares the audience no brutality to get its message across.” 

    So…what is the message and what are the generalities Mr. De Palma is attempting imply & assert about the US military?

    Lew Harris, the editor of the website Movies.com, is quoted as saying:

    “These films [anti-military/anti-war on terrorism movies] have struggled to be successful because the subject matters of Iraq and 9/11 remain too close to home. And in many cases, the films have not been entertaining enough. These movies have to be entertaining. You can't just take a movie and make it anti-war or anti-torture and expect to draw people in.  That's what happened with 'Rendition' and it has been a disaster," he said.  People want war movies to have a slam-bang adventure feel to them ... But Iraq is a difficult war to portray in a kind of rah-rah-rah, exciting way.”

    There is a seeming imperative of "entertainment industry" to shove their undisguised political statements down the collective throat of the American public--and charge us outrageously for the privilege of sitting through 2-3 hours of their indoctrination. 

    The recent spate of Hollywood products about the US government and the war on Islamo-fascism can be summed up as elitist depictions of our military as a collection of degenerates and reprobates; conservative politicians are either clueless, insane, or of an inherently despicable nature; Americans that support the military and government are ignorant at best, or alternatively, nationalistic war-mongering imperialists.

    Everyone that doesn’t fit the Hollywood ultra-liberal world-view of the war is worthy only of disdain.

    News-flash -- Most Americans, not living in Malibu, Aspen, Beverley Hills, San Francisco, and the high-rent district of New York, don’t buy the message that our military is a collection of either moral degenerates, rapists, and murders, or unintelligent, naïve, and duped victims awaiting for Hollywood to provide them with moral clarity and a catharsis.  Ehren Watada maybe the glitterati’s, the academinistas’, and their sycophant media’s idea of a hero, but this just doesn’t square with the majority of Americans.  The rest of us view the men and women of our armed-services as intelligent and highly skilled warriors, putting themselves into harms-way out of patriotism and love of country--values that Hollywood is too removed and privileged to even comprehend any more.

    Movie writers and producers seem surprised that “Fly-over country” isn’t buying their latest crop of cinematic depictions; that those who don’t view America as the cornerstone of all evil in the world are somehow simpletons or are enabling degenerates and reprobates.