Ghostly Apparition on 17/10/2008 at 20:14

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The Bible makes no such distinction. "Thou shalt not kill" not, thou shalt not murder. But you're talking semantics here. I in no way implied that all war may not be necessary, But the Iraq war was more about oil and war profiteering than about getting the terrorists that caused 911. The war was illlegimate on its face. So yeah, they went into a war for other reasons than defence of our nation. They didn't care about the cost in dollars or life. The only reason I can see the right even cares about pro-life is it helps them win elections. They are hypocrites.

Liberals don't support Abortion. We support a woman's right to choose.
Pro-choice.
In most cases I wouldn't support abortions. But unlike McCain and Palin, I think in cases of the health of the mother or rape or incest a woman shouldn't have to carry that child to term. Its barbaric.


P.S. sorry double post.

Ghostly Apparition on 17/10/2008 at 21:41

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Ok, its been a while since I read ALL of the Bible. I 'll take your word for it.
If you try telling me the bible says its ok to kill people in a war started primarily for war profiteering and oil. You're really gonna have to tell me where in the bible it says that. I'm gonna call you on it. ;)

demagogue on 17/10/2008 at 23:39

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Bullet movie review: W was no JFK. It's more than a parody, but less than an epic ... but not bad considering the material OS had to work with.

It made the point it wanted to; got ham-handed at times, in a melodrama way, but never so over the top that it derailed. There were Bushisms but it never turned into outright parody; I never really laughed out loud, but I could smile at how some scenes were played; some parts were played more straight-faced (the religious angle, W's political instincts, relationship to Poppy when it wasn't too melodramatic) that let both the positive and negative spin come out, which I thought was good (it never held back the troubling dark sides, but it was still believable on a human level; you could see where it was coming from). It did leave out a core part of the story IMO, the actual 2000 election and 9/11, where the classic "slacker makes good" Forest Gump/3-feathers conceit would have borne the most fruit, and what really shaped the character of W's administration more than anything.

That contributed to the movie never really settling on what it was actually about, what really connected Bush the person to how his legacy turned out to be (actually becoming a 2-term Pres where GHWB couldn't, and the awful debacle with Iraq) ... Things like trying to get out of his father's shadow but also having those eyes on him; his religious epiphany and tapping into that whole zeitgeist when it hit, connecting with people in a way his father couldn't; being a tool, for Cheney or Rove or God depending on how you read it. It sort of all gets mashed together, and maybe it's too close in time to have the detachment to look at the whole picture and have a clear lesson, or maybe that is the lesson.

There were things I liked about how the story was told and things I didn't like, more concretely. I might come back for that later in more detail. But basically, I thought the places where the movie worked best were the sort of scenes/points where caricature and nutshelling an event works more as a dramatic asset than a liability.

So like W's epiphany and role of "born again" non-denom Christianity as the new zeitgeist; I thought it played well how that way of thinking works, where it comes from, how it shaped W's character and how important it was politically, and the tension between it vs. GHWB's generation's denominational Christianity, in both the personal and political aspects. Also the ever-present tension with Poppy and Jeb vs W in fighting after the Bush birthright, W's quest to "find himself", Rove being the fairy on his shoulder and W, even in his Bushyest moments, managing to having good political instincts (though awful policy instincts).

But it doesn't work so well IMO for all the policy-discussions by the entourage, where it leads OS to play Powell as the softfoot and Cheney just setting up punchlines for East-coasters to bitterly laugh at, without it even trying to look like an actual policy discussion but just a piece of caricature theatre, and things like the documentary footage played too predictably as "making a point". I don't think any of it was out-of-bounds or unjustified, it's what a lot of people expect and probably paid to see, but like said those parts weren't best served by caricature IMO and played a little ham-handed. Also the idea that the end-all-be-all of W was the decision to invade Iraq, while that fits into making the obvious political point -- almost inevitably -- it sort of waters the movie down after all this set-up about W overcoming Poppy's low expectations, or the epiphany that turns his life around, or whatever else we were being led to think this story is about ... suddenly all that washes-out right at the heart of the movie (Iraq, the fallout of which, i.e., the paydirt, being played out almost too quickly, almost like a separate mini-episode, like a 2nd movie going on along side), and then all the developed themes are thrown back in near the end to bring it home a little clumsily. Not that reality presented a better angle; W really will be most infamously known for the Iraq debacle, and it really is a bit out of left field to what W might have thought he was supposed to be all about. But then again, in a meta-sort of way you could say the clumsiness of the whole package actually fits.

I guess I'll finish off back to my bullet point review, it did its job, but was made maybe a little too close in time to really capture the whole thing as a whole story about who W is. But, again, not bad considering the source material there was to work with, and maybe the awkwardness of the whole thing is the better impression worth leaving anyway.

demagogue on 18/10/2008 at 01:05

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Well I wasn't surprised by it; I was just pointing it out.

One footnote, though. It wasn't exactly non-committal like JFK with its riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma, where fragmentation worked.

It was more schizophrenic between two commitments that mutually watered each other down, between wanting to make two movies (whereas JFK could only ever be one movie). One was about how ludicrous the build up to Iraq and its fallout was, the other about where W comes from and what made him who he was -- Poppy, Rove, and God -- and the two didn't fit together so well, one a political manifesto, the other a classic 3-feathers moral tale, though with a sour punchline.

I think my point was more like W might have had a bigger punch if he picked one strand and stuck to it, as opposed to JFK where the fragmentation was an asset to the story, where the "not all fitting together" part was perfect for it. Stone's storytelling technique just worked better for JFK's story, where the whole point was confusion, than for W's where he wanted to influence an election and tell a moral tale both at the same time.

Edit: That may be putting too much emphasis on it. For what it is, the movie works. I was just giving one impression I had.

Thief13x on 18/10/2008 at 01:55

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The problem is you're spouting off once again (as Fett just proved) without the slightest clue as to what you're talking about.

The irony is that on the rare occasion that you arn't blubbering shit, I actully agree with you...



OH BUT WAIT...GHOSTLY'S BACK!