Does melodrama quite well... it's galvanizing if you let it suck you in. 

I recall Kinn not liking Portman's 50's
style English accent. I say that just made me want to bend her over the table
even more! Her American accent can sound prep school at times too so maybe she should do a few Wes Anderson films. 

it IS generic in a way, it's the baddies who are destroying the country, just that they are already in power and have already done it. :) 

Ok, V for Vendetta, was crap. I don't know if I disliked it as much as 300, maybe they're about equal, but I disliked V for Vendetta for different reasons. It sucks in different ways.

If they would have just stuck with action sequences, and made it a "The Crow" type revenge flick set in a stylized city, that would be OK. As it is, they throw in all kinds of stuff that makes it nice and retarded.

First, the love story. This isn't a huuge gripe, but it's cheesily done, predictable, lame, and cliched. The angry guy on a mission and the woman trying to be let in and explore his pain. Please.

That's nothing compared to the politics though. My god. The movie is an example of the kind of mindset that makes people think that liberals are idiots. Don't get me wrong, I'm more to the left than to the right, but this was absolutely ridiculous. Anyone who has actually read 1984, will recognize this film as a cheap attempt to imitate Orwell's political nightmare. It only takes the superficial elements from Orwell's system, and clearly has no idea what 1984 was actually about. Furthermore, they paste apparent Bush-administration issues on to this shallow veneer. The Bush Administration may be a lot of bad things, but fascists they are not. It is so utterly ideologically blind and irresponsible to portray this world "just around the corner" where gay people sitting in their own houses have their doors kicked down and are arrested for being gay. Please! Even if the Democrats were out of power for the next 30 years such a thing would never happen. And the guy who is arrested for HAVING A COPY OF THE KORAN. Wtf, come on. Furthermore how could he even make fun of the government on the air, if it really is a fascist system?

And the way this was all portrayed was so wishy-washy and melodramatic, that even if I did believe in this exact liberal bullshit, that the Bush administration is a bigger threat to western values than Islam, and that the family values crowd really wants to send the FBI door to door looking for gays, I still wouldn't have been able to buy into it in the movie.

I thought the Wachowskis were overrated after Matrix 1, which was a decent movie, with a marketing campaign that pissed me off. The sequels convinced me that their talent was shaky. This film has now convinced me that they're assholes. Not quite M Night Shamylan caliber, but still.

Don't get me wrong, I think terrorism is a cool subject, and a film with a protagonist terrorist is something I _WOULD_ find fascinating if it wasn't dog shit. 

This movie I was dragged along to and did not personally pick. Like Transformers and 300, which I also hated. 

The Crow. Made no sense.
I also hated Izo. (A japanese revenge sword perforation flick)
And Kill Bill made no sense either.

Maybe it's a different tone in TV, the action sequences and the sounds aren't so overwhelming and it's more about the plot...
(Btw I did search the thread for earlier reviews and saw you hated VforV passionately. :) ) 

my main problem with it was that it was basically what should have been a straightforward action film parading around as pseudo-intellectual fluff (like the 2 matrix sequels).

He's a freedom fighter and not a terrorist because he only blows up empty buildings and doesnt actually kill innocent people. Right...

Oh, and Portman was the best thing about the movie. 

never tries to be anything more than it is (till kill bill 2 comes along but that's another story). 

have you ever heard what it was like in Stalin's Russia. People did just disappear, and you could be arrested for having some book, and shot, or sometimes even for no reason just to fill up some quota.

You have chosen to take a view and think that it's Bush etc etc... (and maybe the film makers thought so too), so then it makes the more fascinating points about totalitarian control by accident.

These things have happened in human history. And there are things happening elsewhere than just USA and Britain and Australia and general western world at the moment... I wonder what it's like in North Korea. I've read one book by a former North Korean agent, an extremely fascinating read.
Just a short while ago there was a wave of revolutions in eastern Europe ffs. I remember watching in TV the body of Ceausescu (or was it his wife?), the former tyrant of Romania, shot on the street. 

I've taken Russian history. I realize what Stalinism was like, and I realize that that's what 1984 is about. "V" did not represent that kind of society effectively. I understand Stalinism: the filmmakers do not.

There could be no free media in a Stalinist system. There would be no game shows live, on the air. In 1984 everything is retrospectively edited, and freedom of speech doesn't exist. The world of "V" shows the superficial aspects of the 1984 system (columns of soldiers in the streets, omnipresent screens, angry authority figures) without grasping the actual structure behind it. In such a system, Western-style life, as it is portrayed in the film, would be completely impossible. People going about their jobs would be completely different. It wouldn't be a few thugs trying to rape people after curfew, oh no.

I don't like Bush, but the filmmakers were clearly targeting his government, the radio guy that's killed is Rush Limbaugh (no fan of that fat asshole am I), and so forth. If someone made a mainstream film that was as far biased to the right, as that is to the left, it would be called propaganda. And that's what "V" is.

And yes, the cast was pretty good. So was the visual style.

Bambuz: Revenge flicks, well what about Payback? Or Braveheart, or the Patriot, or Apocalypto, or anything else Mel Gibson's ever made? Lol. 

that from a standpoint of pure operatic melodrama, V for Vendetta works. As for the politics, I'm use to ignoring Hollywood's politics and just turning the old brain off for the show. It's show business.

There are a few movies that are political and don't really insult the intelligence all that much, Beaty's Reds, with its interviews with disillusioned ex revolutionaries (funny how the Social Democrats in these revolutions, from Russia to Cuba and so on always find themselves at the wrong end of the barrel of their Communist brethren), but I don't expect much from Hollywood.

Even their own story gets distorted and get the Clooney pat on back treatment. Here I'm talking about the history behind the Hollywood Red scare. What they wont tell you is the fact these purges were self inflicted and intercine. In the late 1930's there were two camps controling the actor and screenwriter guilds, Stalinist and Trotskyites.

When the US aligned with Uncle Joe, the Stalinist purged Trotskyites from important positions.
At the end of the war and the start of the Cold War(Truman didn't take to Stalin like the fawning idiot FDR), Trotskyites got their revenge and purged the Stalinist. The ComIntern types are quite brilliant though. They got a few doofus Conservatives in Congress like Tail Gunner Joe to do their dirty work for them.

It's interesting stuff but don't expect Hollywood to ever tell that story. BTW, I learned about this through independent research. I found
an old pamphleteer type booklet in a political book shop in Georgetown written by Trotsky's prot�g� James Burnham who learned early on that to accomplish what you are after get the enemy to do your work for you.

Still a great lesson I see in practice to this day. 

Interesting post HT. Hindsight's 20/20 but it's amazing still that westerners could think Stalin (or even Lenin) was in any way good. I understand that you're never going to get much out of Hollywood, in terms of, well, anything.

I guess the basic point here (in case it wasn't already obvious) is that, in this matter at least, I'm still an idealist. I know that television and hollywood is 99% bullshit, in more ways than it's possible to describe, but I just find that hard to accept. We have an open society, with free speech and individual freedom, and an economy that is so far above subsistence that it can support stories that cost hundreds of millions to produce. Is this really the best we can do?

I'm aware of plenty of decent counterarguments, such as: 1) Idiots enjoy idiot entertainment just as much as smart people enjoy smart people entertainment: what's the difference. 2) Smart people are only smart genetically, or possibly through their educational opportunities, and have no superiority over idiots. 3) Smart people may tell themselves that stupidity is enforced or produced by the media, because they are emotionally invested in thinking that everyone would agree with them and be like them if it wasn't for X enemy, onto which they project all of their anti-idiot frustration.

Basically, the point is, illegitimate and unrealistic as my point of view may be, I won't give it up, because I can't. As Dostoyevsky said (horrible midnight paraphrase) "Just because I'm faced with a wall that is indestructable, does not mean I will not bang my head against it." 

but I completely disagree with his use of the liberal/conservative dichotomy. We all know how imprecise and thus, mostly useless, that is. I suspect you guys know what I think about that, so I'll let it rest :)

The movie didn't directly promote the idea of anarchism (a type of societal organization based on maximal citizen participation) like the comics did, but the film did promote the idea of personal empowerment. This is far more useful than most movies, that focus on symptoms of whatever problems dominate our lives, yet ignore the causes of those problems.*

The film worked for me because it did justice to how ordinary people turn into activists: an angry person is one thing, but educating that person how to use their passion to fight against that which makes he or she angry is something else altogether. It is very, very rewarding to see that change happen, both in oneself and in others.

* By symptoms vs. problems, I am referring to the difference between cause and effect. Examples:
1) huge gaps in wealth between communities (and countries) vs. private ownership of capital (a probable cause);
2) weird and bad love/romance type stuff vs. patriarchy and gender roles;
3) war vs. incentives for politicians to stay in power;
3) mafia violence and drugs vs. widespread dissatisfaction with politics' response to community needs;
4) et cetera. 

Basically, the point is, illegitimate and unrealistic as my point of view may be

I enjoyed reading your post and I didn't find it illegitimate at all. Orwell is a tremendous influence on me as well. I've recently reread Homage to Catalonia and he was one of those disillusioned Social Democrats who find his presumed allies to be even more criminal than the enemy he was fighting.

I'd recommend reading F. A. Hayek's The Road to Serfdom as it was on Orwell's mind when he wrote 1984. When I finally got around to reading it, it occurred to me, 'hey, there is Blair and his Nanny-Cam state!'. It is about the subtle relinquishment of liberties usually brought about to make government processes more efficient.

Hayek's influence on Libertarians is well known but his influence on civil liberty oriented liberals was very strong as well. 

then that's what they should have done.

But they didnt. And if you're going to go down the path, do it right.

And for what it's it worth, I thought Good night and Good Luck was awesome, it may not be the perfect history lesson, but that knows what it wants to be and never goes for anything else. 

Very valid points, supported by good examples. I too like the idea that if something is wrong, even if it is controlled by vested interests on the highest levels, it could be destroyed by people who have been affected by the policy/problem on the most obvious level. My first experience of this idea was when I was a kid and read Tom Clancy's Without Remorse, where a widower has his girlfriend murdered by drug dealers and decides that that is enough, and goes on a paramilitary vigilante justice spree against the mafia. I don't believe that any more, I think soft drugs should be legalized, but I enjoy the message of it, which also reminds me of all those Mel Gibson and revenge movies.

I love revenge against people who deserve it. It's a great way to exorcise feelings of anger (as I do myself have). However, I never use emotion when evaluating politics, I use reason. And I consider politics that uses emotion rather than reason, like "V," to be dishonest propaganda. I know that almost all TV politics is like this - but it's all still evil to me, left, right or centre. 

Do you think emotion can ("should"?) be used to enhance the motivation to use reason to achieve desired results? 

Emotion can fuel politics in most excellent directions. "X (discrimination, sexism, fascism, secret police) is wrong," is a conviction that has basically built our modern world for us today.

But I say fuck emotion the fraction of a second that it creates ideological blind spots. Emotion can never override reason in a useful political conversation. If each side just throws emotionally charged cliches at each other, what kind of productivity is that?

Each side must be able to converse with the other using a common dialogue of reason. Biases of various sorts (X economic, social, ethnic, religious group are good/bad/dishonest/honest) corrupt reasonable discussions. Anyone with an ideological preconcieved notion, is going to force the facts to fit that belief. And that is going to destroy honesty on some level. 

I agree! But, mustn't each of us make at least one assumption in order to enter into a debate? Is that necessarily ideological? 

That is a very good and difficult point.

At this point, I have almost nothing to say, and have to admit that my argument is ultimately intuitive and subjective.

But never the less I say this:

There is a different between ideologies of reason (to praise free speech, equal rights) and ideologies of emotion (to call nazism wrong intuitively - which it is.)

Fuck, it's late, and I'm caught in a tough spot here. But I hope to explain, that emotion cannot provide any kind real reason or policy. I know this because I can recognize a very simple, very real, difference between my political philosophies, and my... fantasies. 

Do we get to see Kevin James naked, possibly faking gay sex?

That is all I want, really 

The way I deal with that quandary is to ask, "what assumption(s) lead to the results I intuitively want?"

There's nothing wrong with acknowledging the fact that most thinking activity is unconscious, nor with the notion that axioms are necessary in order to start using logic! (How would we use logical operations, if they aren't defined?) 

 

I think the French revolution was awesome. To me there is a huge gut appeal of just taking rich people, and chopping off their heads. It would be so awesome to legally constrain people and infiltrate their lives, and then murder them.

But luckily I've established a strong dividing line between emotions and reason in politics. I know that we have to have capitalism, and that it's completely unreasonable to have class warfare. Furthermore, I recognize that the TYPE of people that I hate, have just as much right to free speech as I do. Emotionally, all the crazy shit that Rousseau wrote really appeals to me. But with reason I can see that it's insane and could never work. 

"I Now Pronounce You Chuck And Larry" fun movie this one :)