The Wall Street Journal editorial board has been upset with U.S. senators Feinstein, Levin and McCain for criticizing the makers of “Zero Dark Thirty” for making it look like torture was essential to getting Osama bin Laden.
Now, the editors blame the senators for the movie’s poor showing at the Oscars:
As no one should forget, Senators Dianne Feinstein, Carl Levin and John McCain wrote letters to Sony Pictures and the CIA charging that “Zero Dark Thirty” was a “grossly inaccurate and misleading” portrayal of the interrogation of al Qaeda detainees. Ms. Feinstein’s intelligence committee opened an inquiry into what the CIA told the filmmakers, and the letters coincided with a media attack led by those great believers in artistic free expression at the New Yorker magazine.
Well, mission accomplished. The film was among the best reviewed of 2012 and has done well at the box office. But the attacks had their desired effect of intimidating Hollywood. Director Kathryn Bigelow was denied an Oscar nomination and the film won only a single (shared) award for sound editing. The Oscar ceremonies were Sunday night.
A day later, Reuters reported that the Senate is dropping its investigation of the film and CIA cooperation with the filmmakers…
The WSJ’s reasoning seems to go like this: Feinstein and Levin are liberals (McCain and his experienced-based objections to torture are conveniently forgotten). Hollywood is full of liberals. So Hollywood was cowed into stiffing ‘Zero Dark Thirty’ by fear of straying from liberal orthodoxy. Or something.
But the editors are ignoring something: “Zero Dark Thirty” didn’t deserve Best Picture honors, or Best Director. It was good, even important (important enough that I don’t blame senators at all for taking a political stand on it). But Kathryn Bigelow’s “The Hurt Locker,” which did win the Best Picture honor in 2009, was a more impressive, highly original film.
And the torture scenes? Speaking artistically and not politically, they went on too long. Long enough that it’s perfectly understandable that someone who doesn’t want our national defense to depend on the mistreatment of prisoners to think a political point was being made, and to object to that point. If this had been a work of fiction, devoid of political content, I think most critics would say the interrogations scenes were a drag on the storytelling.
I actually think the point being made by the filmmakers was neutral. I don’t think they were saying torture is good or necessary. I thought they were just saying (oversaying), it happened. And it sorta kinda maybe helped find bin Laden. It’s something to throw into the mix of how we feel about all that. War, including asymmetrical war, is filled with moral ambiguities.
I think they thought it would have been dishonest to leave out that part. Maybe they were right. In any case, they did not make this year’s best picture. Not this time.
Now, changing the subject slightly — what should have been Best Picture? Well, I can’t judge that, because I haven’t seen “Argo.” But I can say with all confidence that I wouldn’t have given it to “Zero Dark Thirty” in the same year that “Lincoln” came out. And if a director was slighted this year, it was Steven Spielberg.
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Most of the time movie critics are wrong. Their movie of the year sucks, and one they don’t even bother mentioning is 10x better than anything they recommend.
I thought that Argo was just OK. It was fine airplane watching, but I’m glad I didn’t bother to see it at the theatre or pay for it on the TV.
My worst-ever airplane movie watching experience: On a transatlantic flight with “Salt,” starring Angelina Jolie.
Maybe a good director could have persuaded me that that disturbingly skinny woman is a a deadly action heroine. But not this one. Those had to be the worst action scenes I’ve ever seen. They were amazingly unconvincing.
Also — it would be great if the airlines would come up with something for those of us who wear bifocals. The little screen on the back of the seat in front of me was always too high up for the close-up parts of my glasses, and too close for the distance part. Trying to watch “Despicable Me” on that same trip as the execrable “Salt,” I had to hold my glasses up to eyebrow level to see…
So if I understand correctly, you can’t see a video screen two feet in front of you but you can read a book all day long at that distance?
I tried to watch “Salt” on TV, but I just couldn’t do it. I think I watched about 5 minutes.
I take my own movies nowadays when I travel. Download some onto the iPad or the Kindle Fire HD and then you aren’t at the mercy of the Airline’s crummy choices. Lots of times the seatback players are decent, where you can choose your movies and watch them at your leisure. Occasionally you still get the old systems that just play one movie/show per channel and loop them. One time recently I had a transatlantic flight with nothing. No seatback system, not even a drop down screen anywhere. I thought those days were long gone.
The hardest thing about traveling with my own movies is knowing what I’ll be in the mood to watch in advance, and having enough storage capacity on the device.
That’s what you get for flying Bucket Airlines! I don’t know how you survived. I like to watch the flight path while I’m trying to catch sleep….
For the very best take on discontented moderns moaning about the miracle of human flight (“You’re sitting in a chair in the sky!”), I refer you to Louis C.K...
Are you bragging that you have both an iPad and a Kindle Fire HD? It’ll just be minutes before bud comes back in here and whines that when he flies he has to entertain himself with the back of an envelope, a pencil he found in the parking lot and a small piece of string.
I have one. Wife has the other. My old laptop finally got too decrepit for movie duty.
Silence and Brad, you guys sound like a couple of serial whinners. Complaining about the movie choices when you have the opporntunity to enjoy a nice airline trip. Most folks would kill for the opportunity to fly to Europe. While I’m travelling Saturday for my wonderful “vacation” to Batesburg to pick up some Shealy’s BBQ perhaps I’ll curse the radio reception.
Bud, just so you know, my only trips to Europe in the last two years have been to airports. Never stepped outside or cleared customs. That said, I have already logged over 50k miles this year flying to places a bit further than Europe. All in economy class. Hopefully I can find the time to travel for pleasure this year or next, but right now being home for a weekend and grabbing some BBQ sounds pretty good.
Bud, being in Europe is usually amazingly wonderful. Getting there, not so much. Even in business class (I got an upgrade once after agreeing to be bumped to the next flight.)
A European trip doesn’t have to be ruinously expensive if you fly off season and stay in basic places. In Northern Europe, there are very clean, safe, but basic hotels everywhere. Breakfast is included in your hotel. Street food is cheap, if not particularly healthful.
Hear hear, Kathryn. Being in interesting places is great, but getting there is much less than half the fun!
I’ve done much of Europe on shoestring/student budgets, and had an absolute blast. Just don’t stay in any hostels in Bratislava.
I’m old enough to remember when the only cheap way to get to Europe (unless you were on a GI ticket) was Icelandic Airlines. Old, crowded planes, but they had free booze and we got a stopover at Keflavik to stretch our legs.
“Silence and Brad, you guys sound like a couple of serial whinners”
Did bud really say that? Isn’t that like the pot calling the kettle black?
He finished it off well by whining that he can’t leave the county on his vacation. Damn rich folks…
Teavel is just another one of those things that people seem to only see from their own personal experience.
Some people think nothing of traveling the whole world and know what it is like to constantly be adjusting to different time zones, latitudes and altitudes (to say nothing of cultures). Others think of a trip to Europe as a once in a lifetime thing. Still others think a trip to the beach is a serious effort.
I’ve been in 11 states this month; half multiple times – by plane, train and automobile. But I haven’t needed a passport for years. I miss that.
11 states so far in March? That’s gotta be some sort of record.
Bud could do it on a G450, like a corporate titan.
Sorry, was on my way back on the train and forgot today was the first of a new month. I have though travelled through 11 states in a day (on the ground) more times than I care to count.
Charlotte makes day tripping to lots of eastern US cities easy. Everyone should get away for the weekend like that; unless their job involves travel.
Not counting airport only plane transfers I’ve been to 37 different states in my life. I’ve been to Mexico but not Canada. My bucket list includes visiting the other 13 states plus Canada plus western Europe.
Where’d you go in Old Mexico, bud? I went to TJ and Juarez back before the narco-cartels took over. Good times.
I’ve only been to 24, by that rule. If you let me add airport layovers, that’s three more. I don’t have any particular ambition to visit the ones I haven’t been to.
Do I get any extra points for having actually LIVED in 9 of them, plus one foreign country?
I think I’ve been to 34 states.
I’ve been to all states but North Dakota and Hawaii and have spent more than a month in many of them due to work.
Have visited (not counting airport transfers) 44, lived in nine plus one foreign country. My wife and I hope to make it to a couple more states this summer.
I’ve spent at least in a month in: MA, NH, NY, NC,, SC, GA, FL, IL, UT, CA, CO, TX, OH, AL, TN, PA, IN, NV
Silence, I’ve been to TJ on 2 different occassions but just briefly. The first time was on a trip I took the very day I graduated from college in 1978. In 3 weeks time and with just $350 we passed through the following states and saw a whole lot of stuff along the way. I’d love to do that again but perhaps in a bit more luxury. Camping out in a tent would be tough today:
SC, GA, AL, MS, LA, TX, NM, AZ, CA, Mexico, OR, WA, ID, MT, WY, CO, KS, MO, IL, KY, TN and NC. That trip was the ONLY time for TX, NM, WA, ID, MT, WY, KS and MO.
By the way, I very much enjoyed my trip to Batesburg Saturday. Sometimes you just have to appreciate the small things in life.
I guess Doug gets the “most states” prize.
42 States (plus DC but none of the US Territories); no AK, NM, OK, KS, MO, MS, AL or ND. 18 countries on six continents, if counting liberally – or literally.
In looking at this I realized that Puerto Rico has over 3.7 million people. That would make the territory the equivalent of being the 29th largest state by population. Maybe we should put the Dakotas back together again – total combined population would be less than the Midlands of SC – and admit PR? Or merge MA and RI and then split CA, too?
Anyway; it has been over fifty years since HI and AK came into the union; maybe it’s time we rearranged the states? It might also take people’s mind’s off other silly stuff – like party politics…