The movies' (and Charlie Wilson's) war.

So there's the cover of the current Independent Weekly. David Fellerath's got the long list of miserable box office numbers and then suggests a few possible answers: war fatigue; our soldiers are too laden with gear to distinguish between them (no, really); Vietnam was "a more interesting visual setting" than Iraq or Afghanistan, though his heart isn't really in any of these - which is a good thing, because, for one thing, Afghanistan can be startlingly beautiful on the screen. "More importantly, I think, the American culture of the 1960s infiltrated Vietnam in ways that were conducive to movie drama." Then, even more ideas are floated before finally getting to the heart of the matter, the filmmaking: "What's missing from the GWOT films that are being made is a sense of poetry, a sense of genuine drama and, above all, a sense of the surreal and the absurd."

"Because it is so angry, Redacted is the first important fictional film on the subject of America's current and senseless occupation of Iraq," argues Charles Mudede in the Stranger. "Because it is so angry, the film crosses the line into hysteria. Yes, Redacted is out of control, out of its mind. But what other emotional register could adequately express the desperate state of things in Iraq - the hourly crimes, the daily murders of civilians, the rising weekly toll of American deaths, the monstrous monthly expense of this endless hell (over $8 billion)?"

"In a year when big-name Hollywood talent has plunged headlong into films about war, terrorism and politics, Charlie Wilson's War is both refreshing and disappointing," writes Mike Goodridge for Screen International. "Refreshing, because it tells its story with such brisk narrative skill and wit. Disappointing, because it assiduously avoids taking its subject matter into the more ambiguous territory which might risk alienating a wide moviegoing audience."

For Variety's Todd McCarthy, the film's "a smart, sophisticated entertainment for grownups. Based on the late George Crile's sensational bestseller about how an unlikely trio of influential and colorful characters conspired to generate covert financial and weapons support for the Afghan Mujahideen to defeat the Russians in the 1980s - and armed America's future enemies in the process - Mike Nichols's film is snappy, amusing and ruefully ironic."

A somewhat related online listening tip. On the Leonard Lopate Show, Craig Unger talks about his new book, The Fall of the House of Bush: The Untold Story of How a Band of True Believers Seized the Executive Branch, Started the Iraq War, and Still Imperils America's Future. Unger's not exactly a smooth talker, but that doesn't make what he has to say any less interesting - or for that matter, exasperating.

Posted by dwhudson at November 30, 2007 1:21 AM