FILMS

I've recently added films I like to my profile, so I thought I would say why I like those particular films.

Gettysburg – depicts the battle in the US Civil War that turned the tide in favour of the Union. It shows to some degree what people were prepared to go through to set other men free. It contains one of the funniest lines in cinema in which a Confederate prisoner when asked by a Union officer why he was fighting, answered “I’m fighting for my rights”, but due to the Southern accent “rights” sounds like “rats”, to which the Union officer replies “fighting for your what?” with a very quizzical look. It drives one to ask what the Confederates were really fighting for. Brilliant! Anyway, the slaveholding Confederates get a good whoopin’.

Gladiator – a General in the Roman Army is entrusted by the Emperor to return Rome the Republic to the people, but the Emperor’s son has other ideas, kills his father and orders the General and the General’s family to be executed. The General survives, seeks revenge, becomes a famous Gladiator and eventually ends up in the Coliseum fighting the Emperor’s son, who he kills, but dies in the process. The republic is then returned to the people. There’s a moral in there somewhere…

Monsters Inc – in a world of monsters where energy only comes from terrorising children in their bedrooms, a rather shifty lizard-like monster hatches an evil plot to kidnap children and attach them to a device that catches the children’s terror directly, making the energy capture much more efficient. But the plan goes wrong, and a child sneaks into monster world and is on the loose, causing havoc, because the monsters have been warned by their leaders that children are evil and dangerous. The child hooks up with two soft monsters, and gradually the monsters realise that much more energy can be harnessed from the children when the children are made to laugh rather than when they are terrorised. The child is returned to her world after a fantastic chase through a series of doors, and the monsters change their tactics from terrorising children to making them laugh, getting loads more energy and having a much better time!

JFK – this is the film that got me into conspiracy theory, even though it is not quite telling the whole truth. It shows how Oswald could not have shot JFK, and proposes a very credible alternative, using actual eye witnesses to the event.

The Sum of all Fears – a group of Nazi terrorists purchase a nuclear bomb and set Russia and the USA on a collision course, hoping to provoke nuclear war between the two. The nuclear bomb came from an Israeli jet that crashed during the Yom Kippur war, and the plutonium for that bomb came from America. The man who smuggles the bomb into the USA is called Brother Mason. Hmm, not that I’m suggesting Brother masons are trying to encourage a nuclear war between America and Russia due to an Israeli nuke…

Munich – Spielberg’s version of the hunt for the planners of the massacre of Israeli athletes at Munich in 1972 ends with a long shot of the World Trade Centre. In retaliation for Munich Israel bombed several refugee camps killing hundreds. As the hunt dragged on, doubts set in about the morality and effect of the hunt for the Munich planners. Between then and 2001 thousands of Palestinians were murdered by Israel. Then on 9/11 the World Trade Centre was attacked resulting in the deaths of nearly 3000 people. That attack is attributed to al Qaeda terrorists who cite Israel as their number one grievance. The moral is violence begets violence. Israel provoked Munich. Munich provoked Israel to retaliate killing thousands of Palestinians, which resulted in 9/11. STOP THE KILLING!

Pearl Harbor – released at the same time as PNAC’s Rebuilding America’s Defenses and just in time for 9/11, to remind Americans what happened at Pearl Harbor on 7th December 1941 and what America did in retaliation. Two loveable all-American rogues, both flying aces, fall in love with the same gal, the very pretty Kate Beckinsale. One volunteers to fight in the Battle of Britain, where he is shot down and presumed dead (but he survived and escaped from behind enemy lines). He was seeing Kate. The other two are stationed at Pearl Harbor when news of the others presumed death is received, and they eventually start an affair. But the day before the Japanese attack Pearl the other dead pilot returns from the grave to discover the affair between the other two. After a drunken brawl they are awakened by the Japs flying over the car they were sleeping in and watch as Pearl is bombed. They race to a remote airfield, jump into some fighter planes and chase the Japs away. They then volunteer for the Doolittle Raid, bomb Japan, and escape to the Chinese coast where one of them dies after they encounter a Japanese patrol. The other resumes his affair with Kate and they bring up the child Kate had with one of them.

The film starts with a shot of a plane gliding into a shallow descent, just like the planes crashing into WTC on 9/11, and ends with a long shot of an obelisk. I have already pointed out clues in this film that suggest someone knew 9/11 was coming, hence the timing of its release.

What do I think is special about Pearl Harbor? The attack on Pearl Harbor is shown in graphic and at times terrifying detail. Some of the original music is good, and the soundtrack evokes the period. Some of the cinematography captures the beauty of Pearl Harbour and Oahu. But it is the portrayal of Franklin D Roosevelt that makes this film special, because the initial scapegoats for the attack, Admirals Kimmel and Stark, had been exonerated from their guilt for the Pearl Harbor attack during the making of the film, and the blame shifted to Franklin D Roosevelt. Yet the film did not reflect this revision. And one has to ask why, particularly when the last scene in the film contains a medium-sized obelisk, prompting the question, how many American backyards contain medium-sized obelisks?