War As Carnivale

Sometime in 2008 as the Bush Presidency wound down, John Cusack and his troupe came out with War Inc. In many ways it was a pointed picture that satirised the American wars fought in Iraq and Afghanistan with much ‘privatisation’ of the war effort handed out to Halliburton. It’s a worthy subject matter and John Cusack has been known to mount snappy, witty critiques in his films such as ‘Grosse Pointe Blank’, ‘High Fidelity’ and ‘Max’. The film is directed by Joshua Seftel, but it’s safe to say, this is a star vehicle with the star’s authorial stamp emblazoned on the screen.

Unfortunately the film had the shortest of runs in the cinemas in Australia, and the story was essentially eclipsed by the stunning victory of Barack Obama. Thus I finally got to watch the film on DVD months after its immediate relevance had seemingly passed. That’s the caveat.

What’s Good About It

I have trouble saying this is a good film. Is it a bad film? I don’t want it to be, but it just might be. Maybe I’m expecting too much, but the breezy wisecracks about American values and the irony of a privatised war machine are all very poignant, but the film never actually comes close to addressing the cause.

The film dos make clear that privatising aspects of war to private companies that operate on profit is essentially condones state-sponsored mercenaries to play havoc on other people’s lives, and that this is going to to have tragicomic consequences. But this is no great discovery. Instead of showing why or how this is a real problem, the film chooses to describe the effects in fragments. Sometimes it looks like ‘Full Metal Jacket’. Other times it looks like a very bad trade show. The film nver finds the right tone to its comedy. It contrasts greatly with a film such as Nicolas Cage’s ‘Lord of War’ which is unstinting in its Machiavellian tone.

Marisa Tomei is good (but she’s not asked to do much), Joan Cusack is not so good. Hilary Duff’s made up accent is bizarre, even accounting for the made-up country -  whatever she’s supposed to sound like, she sounds bizarre. John Cusack by his own standards is pretty ordinary in this film. It does have some funny moments but the viewing experience on the whole is disappointing.

What’s Bad About It

As gallows humor satire goes, the film is nowhere near as even as ‘Gross Point Blank’ before it. Nor is it as insightful as ‘Max’. You get the feeling that the heavily ironic subjective reflection of those films got reworked to fit a greater story about geopolitics, but it’s actually so insufficient to addressing the issues at hand, it comes across as juvenile.

Also, the setting of a made up country called ‘Turaqistan’ was probably an attempt at trying to generalise the point rather than get caught in the specifics of the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere, but if the last decade has taught us anything, it’s not the general principles of war that suck, it’s the details that characterise each and every military action. Iraq has entirely unique reasons of its own why war there is fucked up, as is the case with Afghanistan, and this is before the perversity of Halliburtons and their private contracts to supply the US military.

In the end, the imagining of Turaqistan seems more racist and stereotyping of Central Asia than offering any kind of insight into war. Just as it lambasts American cultural imperialism, it enacts its own, and there’s no claims of irony that can forgive that miscue.

What’s Interesting About It

The film is in its essence, a kind of self-flagellation by Gen-X, over the war. The film in its structure is a re-run of ‘Grosse Pointe Blank’. Cusack is a reluctant hitman on a job. He seeks some solace from the brutality of his job. Meets a girl. decides that it gives him the impetus to quit. Turns out his target is not who he really wants to kill – he wants to kill his handler instead.

Dan Aykoryd makes an appearance, this time not as the rival hitman but his client. Instead, Ben Kingsley steps in to play the handler who he has to kill twice in the course of the film. Joan Cusack reprises herself role as the emotionally stunted assistant and Marisa Tomei steps in as the love interest.  In the process we see all the things that worked well for ‘Grosse Pointe Blank’ fail miserably.

What made ‘Grosse Pointe Blank’ so good was how the sense of irony spilled out from a decidedly subjective sense of history. The hitman was a Gen-X guy. His roots were in suburbia that oozed complacency and yet the spirit was so restless. All of that was against the backdrop of a very sunny Clintonian 90s.

In ‘War Inc.’ we find the same restless spirit slap bang up against the GWB Naughties, where the sense of fun has devolved into a gallows laugh, where ironic detachment is no longer quite enough to stand apart. In a sense, the film is trying to take a side against war itself but its protagonist is a hitman. It can’t relinquish violence as readily as it relinquishes ideology. And that’s interesting because we’re all living the very real nightmare wars right now. We’re just lucky enough not to be there in Iraq or Afghanistan. The ironic distance we can generate is simply the same distance that lies between where we sit and those countries.

In that sense, there’s a real desperation to this production that is palpable. It is as if Cusack and his troupe are desperately trying to find some answers as they go for the things that worked in the past, and failing. Are ‘getting the girl’ or ‘re-uniting the family’ structures enough of a story to critique a heavily post-modern war? Is the film media strong enough to take on the tidal wave of other news media operating as spin? If anything this film shows just how quaint film is in the scheme of media.

Ten years on from ‘Grosse Pointe Blank’, Gen-X is being asked to step up and somehow we’re all oddly failing. The self-reflexive, heavily subjective sense of self can’t shake the posturing to come at a straight anti-war or Pro-War position. This isn’t the Vietnam generation at all. There’s too much awareness of interests – both national and self – to do that. Instead, it grumbles and goes to work, even if it is dirty work. I doubt Baby boomers would take kindly to this film where principles are sacrificed readily, but the conscience is not. Let’s face it, Oliver Stone wouldn’t make this film. However it is possible this conscience of Gen-X made the difference in voting in Barack Obama.

Maybe in 5-10years we would understand this film and by extension 2008, even more. Right now, it looks like its flailing about in the dark, probing for a light switch.

Tony Benn is a semi-retired politician from England, and his politics are so far to the left that they make me seem like a mixture of Rush Limbaugh and Milton Friedman.  But regardless of his stance, the countries in the Middle East are going to get a far amount of mileage from his latest statements regarding our involvement in that region.

From the Tehran Times:

By Gul Jammas Hussain 

Following is the text of the interview with Tony Benn:

Q: Mr. Benn, under the patronage of the U.S.-led coalition forces, Afghanistan is holding its second presidential election. Do you think the Western powers will succeed in their efforts to implant Western democracy in Afghanistan?

A: I do not believe that the objective of Western forces in Afghanistan is to establish a real democracy in that country.

It is to consolidate Western power in a way that would make Afghanistan a colony, serving their interests.

Q: Malalai Joya said that on her very first day in the Afghan parliament in 2005, she looked out across the new parliament and thought: “In every corner is a killer, a puppet, a criminal, a drug lord, a fascist. This is not democracy.” What are your thoughts on that?

A: There is widespread corruption and the winners of the election will have enjoyed some part of that corruption to keep them in power.

Q: Mr. Benn, during the demonstration in Whitehall in London on Monday, you called the U.S.-led military campaign in Afghanistan an unwinnable war and called for the withdrawal of British troops from the country. Could you elaborate on these remarks?

A: We must look at the history to understand the present.

In 1839 Britain invaded Afghanistan and captured Kabul.

Next year Britain was defeated and 15,000 British soldiers were killed in the retreat.

Britain invaded again in 1879 and was also defeated.

In 1919 Britain governed Afghanistan briefly after the end of the First World War.

The Russians invaded Afghanistan in the 1980s and the first President Bush supported Osama bin Laden when he was sent in to get the Russians out.

After 9/11, America and Britain invaded and have been there ever since.

Eight years later U.S. and NATO forces, numbering 64,000 troops, have failed to defeat the Taliban.

No military victory is possible.

_________________________________________________________

OK, exactly why would either England or the U.S. WANT Afghanistan as a colony?  A country with little to offer except rocks and a hostile population, whose strategic value is in this case overstated to a great degree, I mean I understand the history lesson, and find it odd that any country went to so much trouble to try and take this land, but does this fool actually think we want this?  True, we should have at least SOME idea of just when we are getting out of there, and the idea that the Taliban is some sort of fixed enemy that can actually be defeated  is ridiculous, I’ll give him that much.

But a colony?  Why it is almost as if Benn has chosen the most inflammatory rhetoric in the hopes that other Muslim countries will pressure the West to start negotiating with the Taliban as soon as possible, and since Benn leads a group called Stop The War Coalition, this would seem like a safe bet.

Obviously I agree with some of what Tony Benn is saying, but the manner in which he has reportedly expressed his thoughts seems quite reckless, especially to someone who seems keen to give a history lesson.

Nachdem auch ich endlich zum Kauf des Films “War, Inc.”, mit einem meiner Lieblings- (ich verwende so etwas nicht gerne, aber es macht die Sache deutlicher) Schauspieler, kam, kann ich ihn nach dem Ansehen nur empfehlen… auch wenn diese “Duff” mitspielt… aber die halbe Familie Cusack macht es wieder wett, ich schwöre! Ich liebe FILM.

Den amerikanischen Trailer gibt es hier (das Original gewinnt wie so oft):

Achso und alle die bisher noch nicht vom PENG überzeugt sind, hier ein atemberaubender Versuch:

Go on... Try to figure out my movie.

Not a ton to talk about today, since I want to avoid posting just for the sake of posting… that being said, I have some thoughts.

The movie 1408 with John Cusack made me mad. Normal protocol here at PTABB is a link to the movie’s IMDB page, or maybe even the trailer on YouTube. Not this time. What a heinous film.

In the spring of ‘08 George Stroumboulopoulos invited me down to a taping of The Hour. I had mentioned to George when he was taping a guest spot on Rent A Goalie that my Grandfather was a big fan of his. So Strombo hooked us up. Good dude. In the chair that day was none other than John Cusack, who was doing the rounds for his flick, War Inc. — In spite of the films genre (it’s a dark comedy), the subject matter (war) meant that the audience got serious Cusack; philanthropist Cusack; I’m not going to crack a smile for 11 solid minutes Cusack. Whatever. That’s your priority, Johnny. But, I’d just like to say…

That song and dance rings a little hollow when you star in a flaming piece of dog shit like 1408.

This cannot be overstated: The movie has no point. It is pointless. It is – as a matter of fact – bereft of point. You were there to cash a cheque, which is fine, just spare me the mumbling meandering, feigned annoyance when Strombo asks you a question about anything other than the US Occupation of Iraq. Seriously. (You’re lucky that I didn’t hold a boom-box over my head with a pre-recorded list of creative obscenities.)

My Cusack impression. (Nailed it!)

When 1408 ended I turned to my wife and said: “Well, I guess Hollywood just ran out of ideas for horror movies with a beginning middle and end”. She nodded, I continued. “I honestly don’t know what happened… and he burns to death at the end without finding any sort of meaningful resolution that I could see.” (I am now officially talking to myself.) “I think they created 8 to 12 instances where they tried to frighten the audience only they forgot to develop any other aspect of the movie.” (Wife goes to bed.) “Are we sure that he’s dead? And why is he haunting Samuel L. Jackson? And what the fuck is Samuel L. Jackson doing here? Does he have a gambling problem in real life? Did the producers kidnap his children? I’m so very, very confused and upset.”

Less than a day later, I’ve figured out the lesson: I work in a silly business, where silly movies get made. John Cusack’s a nice enough guy, I’m sure. There’s an outside chance that he thinks his sweat has the same consistency as holy water, but that isn’t his fault. When you achieve any amount of celebrity the world becomes a surreal place where your words appear wiser, your sense of self-worth becomes distorted and it becomes impossible to actually pay for anything. (I’m astounded that this last factoid hasn’t spawned a reality show called Celebrity Perks.)

Today on Celebrity Perks, Taylor Lautner attempts to purchase a pair of sneakers in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

My poooiiint is… In an industry where weird things happen (like 1408 making $130,000,000 worldwide) there is no linear path to the top. There’s only hard work.

So, thank you, John Cusack. You taught me a valuable lesson, which I, in turn, shared with the world. I’ll never get those 106 minutes of my life back… But still, thank you.

Worum geht’s?

In Turaqistan herrscht Krieg. Das Land wird von Amerikanern besetzt, die von einem privaten Unternehmen unter der Leitung des ehemaligen US-Vizepräsidenten geführt werden. Um das Land für sich zu monopolisieren und die Möglichkeiten des Landes vollkommen auszuschöpfen, engagiert der CEO den Hitman Brand Hauser, der einen Ölminister töten soll. Um dies zu tun, soll er sich als Trade Show Producer des Unernehmens ausgeben und die glamouröse Hochzeit des turaqistanischen Popstars Yonica Babyyeah vorbereiten. Jedoch kommen einige Probleme auf Brand zu, unter anderem die kleine Liebschaft zur Left Wing-Reporterin Natalie.

Wer spielt mit?

John Cusack (Brand Hauser)
Marisa Tomei (Natalie Hegalhuzen)
Hilary Duff (Yonica Babyyeah)
Joan Cusack (Marsha Dillon)
Ben Kingsley (Walken)
Sergej Trifunovic (Ooq-Mi-Fay Taqnufmini)
Ned Bellamy (Ooq-Yu-Fay Taqnufmini)
Dan Aykroyd (Mr. Vice President)

Regie: Joshua Seftel
Drehbuch: Mark Leyner & Jeremy Pikser

Gesamteindruck

Was für ein langweiliger Film. Eine magere Story, die in ihrem Verlauf völlig kippt; Charaktere, die zum Vergessen sind; eine gute Idee, die überhaupt nicht umgesetzt wurde; eine Kulisse, die völlig deplatziert wirkt und Darsteller, die irgendwie nicht in ihrer Rolle sind. Ich war die 100 Minuten gelangweilt und spielte jederzeit mit den Gedanken, auszuschalten. War, Inc. spielt so lustlos seine Geschichte runter, wie ich es selten von einem Projekt gesehen habe, dessen Hauptdarsteller sogar am Drehbuch mitwirkte und andere namhaften Darsteller den Film zu einem Big Budget Projekt wirken lassen. Das ist im Prinzip wie Geld zum Fenster rausgeworfen für eine Geschichte, die nach dem ersten Drehbuchentwurf verfilmt wurde.
Die Idee, dass (irgendein) Krieg durch Werbung finanziert wird und somit Panzer mit Golden Poker Plakaten zu sehen sind, ist zwar gut und könnte für einige komische Momente sorgen, aber auf diesen Aspekt wurde im Film überhaupt nicht eingegangen. Stattdessen erleben wir die Abenteuer eines Auftragskillers (?), der in einem Krisengebiet eine neue Mission ausführen soll und allerhand Probleme bekommt. Und irgendwie scheint im Drehbuch die eigentliche Story schon auf Seite zehn verloren gegangen zu sein, denn von Hauser’s eigentlichem Auftrag bekommt man spätestens in Minute 20 nichts mehr mit; stattdessen gibt es andere Geschichten zu erzählen, die eine Kopie von Britney Spears, eine Love Story und ein paar Flashbacks beinhalten. Alles gut und schön, wenn man auf die eigentliche Story verzichtet hätte, jedoch wird man erschlagen von Geschichten, die anscheinend nichts miteinander zu tun haben und sinnlos erscheinen.
Die Charaktere sind total mies aufgebaut. Ist Hauser ein Killer? Wenn nicht, was ist er? Als er im fiktiven Krisengebiet ankommt, macht er etwas völlig anderes. Nur warum? Und was macht er eigentlich überhaupt? Mit Natalie hat er eine gute Dame an der Seite, doch wie kommt der Montakt zwischen den Beiden eigentlich zu Stande, wenn Hauser doch etwas ganz Anderes machen soll? Yonica ist Britney Spears auf turaqistanisch und Hilary Duff darf zwischen sexy und chaotisch hin und herwechseln, ohne jedoch irgendwie einen festen Stand zu haben. Ist sie nun ein Star, der den Ruhm genießt oder hat sie die Schnauze voll von allem?
Irgendwie tauchen nach dem Film tausend unbeantwortete Fragen auf, die man locker verhindert hätte können, wenn man das Drehbuch ein paar Mal öfter gelesen und umbearbeitet hätte.

Absolut nichts ist glaubwürdig. Die Charaktere sind einem egal, die Story ist uninteressant und einschläfernd, die Twists (so es denn welche gab) kommen total lustlos rüber und verursachen eher ein Achselzucken als eine Überraschung. Die Ausstattung ist durch ihre fantasievolle Gestaltung zwar schick anzusehen, hat aber im Film keine Bedeutung. Warum den Krieg in einem fiktiven Staat mit McDonald’s Kopie, Kneipen und einer Kirche, die einem Kongress-Center ähnelt, stattfinden lassen, wenn er genausogut in einem bekannten Staat mit McDonald’s Kopie, Kneipen und einer Kirche, die einem Kongress-Center ähnelt, hätte stattfinden können? Zudem hat es den Anschein, als wollte man durch den werbefinanzierten Krieg ein wenig Satire in den Film bringen, doch scheitert das völlig.
Und da ist auch schon das nächste Problem: Welches Genre hat der Film? Für eine Satire gibt es nicht viel her; für eine Komödie ist es absolut nicht lustig (es gibt vielleicht ein, zwei Stellen, bei denen es erlaubt ist zu schmunzeln); spannend ist es überhaupt nicht; für einen Actionfilm versucht er, zu viel Satire und Komödie einzubauen, obwohl die Knallbumm- und Kampfszenen recht nett anzuschauen sind. Da fehlt es an einem festen Stil, an den man sich auch über die komplette Laufzeit hält; feste Substanz fehlt in der Story und bei den Charakteren mangelt es sowieso an allem.
Um es kurz zu machen: Ich werde keine Probleme haben, den Film wieder zu vergessen. Obwohl er einige interessante Momente zu bieten hat, war der Film eine totale Zeitverschwendung. Da gibt es auch bessere und billiger zu produzierende nichtssagende Filme.

Da click en la imagen para ver la nota completa

Hilda Marmolejo S.

War inc, una película nos muestra un mundo irreal en el que un país crea una guerra por beneficios, pero vamos, eso no puede pasar en la vida real ¿cierto?

The April VideoVista is now online. My review of War Inc. is in it, as are stacks of other reviews. Watchmen, anybody?

I’ve just delivered a review of War Inc.

So, recently, I saw the movie War Inc. with John Cusack. For a while after first hearing about the movie, which didn’t really have any box office success I guess, I thought it was a sequel to Grosse Pointe Blank. Having loved that movie and generally being a John (and Joan) Cusack fan, I was psyched to see War Inc.

But you see, it’s not a sequel, despite having John Cusack starring as a burned-out hitman and supporting roles by Dan Aykroyd and Cusack’s sister, Joan. And in a strange way, it is a sequel, at least in a thematic and maybe even spiritual sense. Looking at the movies is kind of like looking at two lifelong friends side-by-side who are so very similar in so many ways you’d swear they might be twin siblings, but are in fact two largely unrelated people.

First, for the unitiated:

Grosse Point Blank is an utterly fantastic 1997 film in which John Cusack plays a dry-witted killer for hire who seems to be at a point when he’s not sure he wants to be doing assassinations anymore. He is hired to do a job in his old home town of Grosse Pointe, Mich., around the same time his high school reunion is being held. He goes to do the job, reunites with an old flame and tries to dodge a rival hitman (played by Aykroyd) who wants to kill Cusack’s character, Martin Blank—not so much because of their rivalry but because Aykroyd’s character wants to form a labor union for hitmen and Martin’s stubborn loner/independent streak makes him chafe at the idea and refuse to join. By the end of the movie, Martin’s personal life intersects intimately with his work and he has a choice to make about whether he really should do this final job or hang up his guns.

It is a perfect showcase for Cusack’s signature character: A likable guy who is dry, witty, erudite, by equal turns taciturn much of the time and then frenetically verbose, and in some ways emotionally stilted while wanting to tap deeper emotional reserves. Cusack is brilliant at doing that character, and it informs some of his best work. Aykroyd is fantastic as his adversary and Joan Cusack makes a very amusing turn as the office assistant for Martin Blank’s hitman work.

It’s both a fish-out-of-water comedy and a romantic comedy, and with enough action thrown in with the fast-paced and funny dialogue  to make things even more engaging and exciting.

War Inc., from 2008, on the surface sounds a lot like Grosse Point Blank, which is why I initially thought it might be a movie that picks up on Martin Blank’s life a decade later, when he’s somehow been pulled back into the hitman line of work. It isn’t. Here, Cusack is Brand Hauser, a former black ops (maybe CIA, maybe not) assassin turned independent hitman who forces down his emotions but is having a sort of midlife crisis around the whole assassination thing, especially after taking a romantic shine to a liberal political reporter he runs into on his current assignment. And that assignment is to kill a foreign corporate big wig named Omar Sharif, who is a rival to the CEO of a company called Tamerlane, played by Aykroyd. The Tamerlane CEO is the former vice president of the United States, clearly a Dick Cheney type, and is embroiled both in waging war in and rebuilding a nation called Turaqistan, which is clearly a stand-in for Iraq. It is never quite clear who is waging war in this country, the United States or Tamerlane, and the overall point is that war is becoming a corporate thing, with armies really supporting corporate interests and ultimately answering to the monetary powers that be, and not so much the U.S. government. Tanks and Humvees drive around with advertisments on them for consumer products and such, and the cover for Hauser’s assignment is that he is running an industry seminar in the war-torn nation. Brand Hauser is paired with a Tamerlane employee played by Joan Cusack, a terribly shrill and unpleasant character who chafes at having to play Hauser’s assistant.

War Inc. is a political satire, so that already puts it in a whole different category than Grosse Pointe Blank. And although there is a romantic element—and a strange paternal/romantic dynamic between Hauser and another female character, an oversexed, brash, shallow Turaqi pop singer played marvelously by Hillary Duff of all people—this is no romantic comedy. And the action in here seems out of place at times, more an intrusion than the delicious seasoning provided in Grosse Pointe Blank.

The problem, I think, with War Inc. is that John Cusack tried too hard. Inspired in part by the Naomi Klein article “Baghdad Year Zero: Pillaging Iraq in pursuit of a neocon utopia”, which was published in the September 2004 issue of The Harper’s Magazine, Cusack is trying for social commentary here. It’s sort of his personal Dr. Strangelove while also being an informal follow-on to Gross Pointe Blank. He was, I think, trying to step up what he did with the story and character of Martin Blank and make it relevant to our changing and ever-more-unsettled world. In both movies, Cusack’s character has a former government/military background, and then turns it into paying work in the private sector by killing important people that other important people see as impediments. It’s not hard to see how Cusack might see the character template playing well to both stories.

The problem is that Hauser, while he shares many of Blank’s traits, seems more tired, worn out and ultimately impotent, despite his skills in killing, than Blank ever did. Blank was trying to find a new purpose in life. Hauser seems simply lost. Blank was, as befits his name, trying to write a new future for himself and be a fresh canvas; that made him someone to relate to. Hauser’s first name, Brand, seems to speak to the fact that he’s not a person, but a commodity, and that ultimately dehumanizes him too much for me to care what happens to him.

Also, the comedic pace of War Inc. is terribly uneven. It’s not played earnest enough and straight enough to be a dark comedy on the order of Dr. Strangelove, it’s not absurd enough to be like a modern-day Brazil, and it’s not warm enough to be another Grosse Pointe Blank. Instead, it’s a little of all three, plus some other stuff tossed into the mix, and it just doesn’t bake together well.

In the end, I don’t think War Inc. is an awful film by any means. I did appreciate many aspects of it. But I think I only did so because I had seen and loved Grosse Point Blank. Having seen that first film and knowing what it was about and what Cusack is trying to do this time, I could enjoy War Inc. even as I was woefully diappointed in how far it fell short of the mark it could have hit.

My recommendation? See Grosse Pointe Blank first, if you haven’t already, then view War Inc. I think it will be much more enjoyable that way.

Though it will also help to be a John Cusack fan. If you’re not, you might want to skip War Inc. entirely.

TECHNOLOGY

Vudu says it will begin offering owners of its Internet Movie Player the chance to download on-demand movies to own — not just rent — and watch them in the device’s HDX format at 1080p resolution. Most of the titles will be independents, including the critically acclaimed “Man on Wire” and John Cusack’s “War, Inc.” Dealerscope (2/25) , CED Magazine (2/2009)

Broadcom announced the integration of Chumby content into TV sets, Blu-ray players and set-tops powered by Broadcom’s latest “system-on-a-chip” solution. When completed more than 1,000 widgets on the cuddly little $200 Wi-Fi powered device will be accessible on broadband-connected televisions including apps from Pandora, the New York Times and Scripps Networks. (Cynopsis 2/25)

Panasonic has introduced six new versions of its popular Viera LCD TVs. The updated models feature 800 lines of moving-picture resolution for minimal blurring, 50,000:1 dynamic contrast and an IPS Alpha panel for clearer pictures. Pocket-lint.co.uk (2/24)

Anthony Gallo Acoustics, as part of its Reference Series, has debuted two spherical speakers: the Strada and the Strada Center. The units can be mounted in a variety of ways and feature Anthony Gallo’s S2 Technology for low-frequency extension and a new CDT 3 tweeter. ElectronicHouse.com (2/24)

Will Joan and John Cusack be able to recapture the comic chemistry they brought to the cult hit Gross Point Blank back in the day?  That was the question I asked myself when I was browsing through my local [LINK=http://www.redbox.com]Red Box [/LINK] the other day and stumbled across War Inc.  The descriptive text attached to the movie portrayed Cusack as a brooding, morally corrupt, but ultimately loveable (because isn’t he always?) Hitman sent to some vaguely familiar central Asian country to assassinate Omar Sharif—no, not the actor. 

I actually believed his character in Grosse Point Blank and there’s just something strange that happens when he and his sister share the screen together.  It’s akin to what Charlie sheen and Emilio Estevez had back in the day before Emilio got all chubby and Charlie went all sleazy/cool.  It’s almost as if the two can read each other’s minds and feed off the quirky energy each of them is giving off.  If real life were an episode of Star Trek, I would say that perhaps the two Cusacks were actually halves of the same being but, alas, it is not.

After a few seconds of hesitation, I decided it didn’t really matter.  I’d watch pretty much anything Mr. Cusack was in, he’s been one of my fav’s for a long time and though his career seems to be starting down that slippery slope into anonymity, I will watch him until the bitter end.

That said, the movie itself is actually quite funny.  It’s obviously low budget.  The special effects are cheesy, and there are a few instances where it tries to take itself seriously and just doesn’t quite work but overall it was worth the rental.  Granted Red Box rentals are only a dollar and some change but I had the movie for four days.

The description really didn’t match the movie at all.  Cusack does play a hitman (morally challenged and constantly drowning his dilemmas in hot sauce shooters) and there are a couple of cool scenes in between he credits where he kicks some serious behind but overall it’s more about the commercialization of modern warfare, the privatization of armies, and the seemingly bottomless quagmire of an impossible-to-win war.  Now that you mention it, Turakistan (the fictional country that plays host to Cusack and his power-mad overlord—Ben Kingsley) does look a lot like Iraq and Afghanistan—funny I didn’t notice it before!

The cast is a motley crew to be sure; the two Cusack’s, Mr. Kingsley, Dan Akroyd, Montell Williams, and Hillary Duff.  Yes, Hillary Duff.  She’s plays Cusack’s long lost daughter who’s been pimped out and turned into the mid-Asian pop princess equivalent of Hannah Montana complete with skanky little outfits and a frightful singing voice!  I guess she didn’t have to stretch too hard to fit into the role.  The only thing mentioning about her character is that her crappy fake accent nearly made my ears bleed.

The movie’s plot plays out like giant pile of potentially funny skits mashed together with ham-handed delicacy that deadens whatever redeeming value the whole product may have had.  There’s a few laughs, a few cool action sequences, a bunch of bad singing and worse acting, and a pile of cast members that will hopefully never get another acting job—at least not until they learn the craft a little more. 

But, like I said, it’s got the Cusacks so I watched it and I liked it.  I have a feeling I may be the only one.

Official Site. IMDb. Wikipedia.

This 2008 satirical parody (satirody, patire) is 2 parts over the top satire combined and 1 part dark humor with a twist of action and romantic comedy zest. It is about a privately held country and the war business in the near future.

The film is very well done and super entertaining but it does not effectively address the subject matter of war as business in a meaningful way. That being said it is still an excellent movie it is just WTFM for it to be a serious statement film. That is a good thing. Statement films are usually wretched.

The characters and acting are superbly excellent. Plus, the situations are hilarious. From clandestine meetings in the basement of a Popeye’s Chicken franchise to the main character telling a journalist about their cultural sensitivity as a they walk by a soldier with a prominent “fuck haji” tattoo, the comedy is in exquisitely poor taste but uproariously funny. There were multiple times when I LOLed.

Ben Kingsley, Dan Akroyd, John Cusack, Joan Cusack and Marisa Tomei are all very, very good but I want to single out Hillary Duff playing confused, terrorist chic, teeny bopper Yonica Yeahbaby whose sings the lyrics, “I want to blow you…….    up” and later puts a scorpion in her pants to try and look seductive; amazing. 

Great, fun film with lots of good touches. Check it for good entertainment.

Content rating: 7.5/10

Style rating: 8/10

Out of the ones that I bothered to see, of course, here are the ones that disappointed me the most.

1.Stop-Loss
With the anticipation of this being Kimberly Peirce’s follow-up to Boys Don’t Cry, I was stunned to see just how much of a by-the-numbers film it ended up being.
2.Harold & Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay
They obviously should’ve stopped while they were ahead, because the first film really had no business being hilarious at all. It has definitely run its course now.
3.War, Inc.
Disguised as another film, this is essentially just Grosse Pointe Blank 2, just without any of the good qualities of the first film.
4.The Life Before Her Eyes
It looked like a rare good role for Uma Thurman outside of Tarantino projects, and with a director like House of Sand and Fog’s Vadim Perelman, it’s hard to believe it came out this disappointing.
5.Step Brothers
If Apatow-produced projects are anything less than non-stop hilarious, then they are a disappointment for sure. This one is such a scattershot piece of mostly-overdone physical comedy that it is just plain bad.
6.Righteous Kill
DeNiro and Pacino are finally together again! Yes they are, but it’s all put to waste in this formulaic murder mystery that would’ve fit nicely between some CSI or Law and Order shows.
7.Smart People
It was hyped as a sarcastic equal to recent indie gems like Little Miss Sunshine and Juno, but this one is mostly dull.
8.Be Kind Rewind
Proof once more that Michel Gondry should never write screenplays, but only direct. There are moments of fun in this film, but it is ultimately stale.
9.The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Yes, I had to include this film. Do not take it the wrong way, because I did like it very much…I was just expecting it to move me much more than it did.
10.Cassandra’s Dream
The build-up in this Woody Allen film is promising and the peformances by the leads are very good, but the resolution is maddening, and for the legendary filmmaker – extremely baffling.

Gestern Nacht war es wieder einmal soweit: Die neueste Form des Patchenkinos, das Notebook-Kino, hat bei mir einzug gehalten.
Nun stellt sich natürlich die Frage, was hat er sich angeschaut? Ich geb euch mal einen Tipp: An was erinnert euch der Titel dieses Posts? Genau: An einen der berühmtesten Briten mit der (ziemlich sicher) berühmtesten Zahl dieser Welt: James Bond alias 007.

Überraschenderweise war Quantum of Solice sogar gut! Nach wie vor nicht in einer Liga mit Agentenfilme wie War, Inc, Grosse Pointe Black (ja, ich steh auf John Cusack!) oder sogar Spy Game, aber die Entwicklung des neuen Bonds (von grottig, wie ich den ersten fand, zu ziemlich gut) lässt auf Zukünftiges hoffen!

Mir, als technologie-affinen Menschen, haben zwei Dinge besonders gefallen:

a) er fährt NORMALE Autos!!!
b) der Multitouchscreen zu beginn und Bond’s Handy

Ich hoffe bloß, dass M es bis in den nächsten Film schafft!

Und für alle, die das hier noch lesen ein kleines Goodie:

Watch Quantum of Solace (english)

Watch War, Inc (english)

Leider hat Megavideo neuerdings den Videogenuss auf 72 Minuten beschränkt, woraufhin man 54 Minuten warten muss….

Für die Techniker hier: Die Restriktion scheint IP-based zu sein. Cookies sind es jedenfalls nicht, MAC-Adressen ebensowenig,…

Recreating his role as a hitman, John Cusack gives a hilarious performance in War, Inc., a political satire set in Turaqistan, a Country occupied by an American private corporation run by a former U.S. Vice President (Dan Aykroyd). In an effort to monopolize the opportunities the war-torn nation offers, the corporation’s CEO hires Hauser (Cusack) to kill a Middle Eastern oil minister. Now, struggling with his own growing demons, the assassin must pose as the corporation s Trade Show Producer in order to pull off this latest hit, while maintaining his cover by organizing the high-profile wedding of Yonica Babyyeah (Hilary Duff), an outrageous Central Asian pop star, and keeping a sexy left-wing reporter (Marisa Tomei) in check.

A wobbly mix of violence and sentiment, War, Inc. takes up where Grosse Pointe Blank left off. A conscience-stricken killer in the previous film, producer/co-writer Cusack now plays an international assassin. In Joshua Seftel’s political satire, corporations operate like governments. In the volatile nation of Turaqistan, Cusack’s hot sauce-addicted Brand Hauser sets his sights on Omar Sharif–the oil baron, not the actor (it’s never clear why this is meant to be funny). As a cover, Hauser passes as the producer for an economic trade show with fellow operative Marsha (Joan Cusack) acting as his assistant. Trained by Southern smoothie Walken (Ben Kingsley) in his CIA days (depicted though flashbacks), Hauser now takes orders from an oily CEO (Grosse Pointe co-star Dan Aykroyd). Offing Sharif, however, turns out to be harder than expected. Hauser’s obstacles include left-wing journalist Natalie Hegalhuzen (Marisa Tomei) and foul-mouthed pop tart Yonica Babyyeah (Hilary Duff, erasing innocent images of Lizzy McGuire). Cusack and his crew come up with a few clever ideas, but too many crass gags blunt their thesis about military contractors run amok. Pitched somewhere between Stanley Kubrick�s Dr. Strangelove and Mike Judge�s Idiocracy, War, Inc. registers as more of a miss than a hit. On the plus side, Cusack and Tomei have a snappy rapport; it’s the more over-the-top performers who look out of place, especially Ms. Cusack and Kingsley, though the latter’s deft turn as a boozy hit man in the overlooked You Kill Me almost makes up for this misfire. –Kathleen C. Fennessy

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Other Products of Interest

• Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (Single Disc)
• Get Smart (Single-Disc Widescreen Edition)
• Incredible Hulk (Widescreen Edition)
• Forgetting Sarah Marshall (Widescreen)
• The Happening

Enjoying the finer things in life, Hilary Duff and Kristen Bell posed together at the opening of the new Avakian Veverly Hills Boutique. Looking good, ladies!

Photo: FlyNetOnline.com

One of the many bad side effects of the last eight years of the Bush administration is that irony and satire could not really flourish. Irony and satire can flourish only when there is a perceptible, lived discrepancy between what is permitted in life and what is not. For instance, when Jonathan Swift wrote that one way to solve the problem of all those starving Irish beggars that litter and spoil the look of Irish streets is to cook them and serve them on British tables and offered wonderful recipes to cook anything from Irish infants to pregnant mothers, including the right temperature to cook them in, the sauces to use etc, we read it in horror because we live in a world where we do not cannibalize each other. But the last eight years have changed all of that. The Bush administration has effectively removed the last ironic distance between what is allowed and not allowed.  John Cusack, who wrote and produced *War Inc.* and Joshua Seftel who directed the movie know this. *War Inc.* is a magnificent effort at making a truly satirical movie in a decade when it is not possible to be satirical anymore. Think *Full Metal Jacket* shaken and stirred with *Shoot Em Up* and you have *War Inc.*

The premise is this: it is the future and the whole universe is ruled by giant corporations. The one whose inner workings we come to know really well in the movie is the one called Tamerlane, appropriately named after the infamous Mongol marauder and modeled after Haliburton, the Vice’s company, currently ruling–sorry rebuilding–Iraq. Dick Cheney (played memorably by the wonderful Dan Aykroyd) orders Hauser (John Cusack–an assassin for the US government/Tamerlane) to go to Turaqistan, a Middle-Eastern/Central Asian country that the US/Tamerlane has invaded and conquered and is now in the process of “rebuilding.” His mission: to kill Omar Sharif, the CEO of a competing corporation. Hauser’s cover in Turaqistan is that he is a promoter/producer for *Brand USA,* a shock and awe expo that Tamerlane is sponsoring to rebuild Turaqistan, whose biggest sale item is the gala wedding of a hyper-sexed Central Asian pop star Yonika Babyeah, played fantastically by Hillary Duff, to the worthless son of a Turaqi U S lackey. Tamerlane is doing great things in Turaqistan: it sells Popeye chicken, democracy brand cigarettes to smoke, and when Tamerlane blows off your leg in a bombing raid, it uses the same military grade pins and bolts to fit prosthetic legs on Turaqi women so they can dance the can can.  They do not turn their backs off the country after they blow it up. It is all appropriately squalid.  Great scenes include the aforementioned can-can dance with prosthetic legs, an almost Kubrikesque moment with a MP and Hauser–the MP wants a ticket from Hauser and we see him chewing freeze dried coffee crystals–he is so wired that he starts shooting just for the sake of shooting. It is one hell of a party, as they say.  Tamerlane’s boss, the “Viceroy,” is just a disembodied voice that you reach through the backside of the Popeye shop–one big TV screen where the faces of several American cultural heroes morph into each other–Arnold Schwartznegger, Ronald Regan, Dubya Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, athletes, pop stars and so on–that is the Viceroy. His voice has been altered through a machine as well. A center piece in the first half of the movie is Duff’s song sequence “I want to blow you blow you blow you . .  Up” (Cusack wrote the song, the credits say), and the smuttiest take on Bush’s promise to conquer the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people, including other body parts, not mentioned.  The movie anticipates us throwing up at this point and in fact makes Cusack run out of the performance and throw up. Cusack’s character, the ruthless killer Hauser, falls in love with Natalie, a left-wing reporter (she writes for The Nation and the The Atlantic Monthly) played by the ever-wonderful Marisa Tomei. The movie has a strong script and the conversations between Natalie and Hauser makes you feel helpless–a love that is longed-for that can never happen. It cannot happen, not because they cannot make it happen–but because it will not mean anything–it cannot happen in that world, which is really this world that has created that fictional film world. Too many people have been simply destroyed by this administration and this war. The family story–Hauser, Natalie and Yonika–a sort of the caricature of the holy family–the father-mother-daughter–they can never exist anymore.  Think of the family that escapes Death in Bergman’s *The Seventh Seal*–the Knight dies so the family can escape. We cannot show such a sacrifice anymore.  Who among us is fitting to undertake such a sacrifice, War Inc. seems to be asking. The scale of destruction–and the human signature of it–is too big to be contained inside a familial love. This is an incisive commentary on what this administration has done to the world.

The cast is excellent. John Cusack almost always plays himself, I think, but I like the way he plays himself. I tend to think of Marisa Tomei and Maggie Gyllenhall in the same category–they are not really contemporaries but they both play wonderfully complex women characters with great vulnerability, humor and gentleness.  Tomei in *My Cousin Vinny* or even better *In the Bedroom.* Gyllenhall in *The Secretary* and *Sherry Baby.* Tomei is wonderful in this movie. An even greater revelation is Hillary Duff–I have seen Duff only in some creepy show on the Disney channel which I have forbidden my daughter to watch. Duff is really good in this movie; she can act.

The movie also has a great soundtrack. Blood of the Lamb sung by Wilco and Billy Bragg, The Clash, Amira Saqati, Strauss, Mendelssohn.

War, Inc.

Am incercat ieri sa ma uit la un film. Ii spune War, Inc.

Imi pare rau ca n-am citit sinopsys ca nu mi-as fi pierdut vremea cu o asa prostie de film. Ma asteptam la mai mult de la John Cusack.

Filmul se vrea un fel de parodie la adresa americanilor si razboiul din Irak dar nu reuseste sa fie decat o comedie ieftina cu actori cunoscuti.

Povestea inainteaza greu si pare un film pentru prosti mai degraba decat un film cu prosti Poate am trecut de varsta la care radeam de toate magariile si accentele false – sau poate chiar genul asta de comedie nu m-a prins niciodata. Whatever…

Cum nu ma simt prost, m-am oprit la timp (sper) – am sters filmul dupa vreo juma’ de ora.

Concluzia mea – daca chiar n-ai ce face, mai bine cauti alt film decat sa te uiti la asta.

A good idea gone bad. The only good thing I remember from this film was the opening. It starts with old western music revealing modern scenery. Looked like an interesting premise. Unfortunately the film disappoints in every way possible.

The stab at the war on terrorism is not enough to make a movie. The story and characters are badly written. The whole focus is on the cheap gags and jokes. By trying to make a political statement the film loses sight of what it should do more than anything, which is to entertain. The supposedly fun stuff gets boring after a while, the characters are only caricatures and the story is ridiculous. There is not a single highlight to point out which is testament enough for how bad this film is. Not even Hillary duff’s cute doe-eyes make this work even remotely. Worst of all Joan Cusack is totally wasted in this. STAY CLEAR OF THIS ONE!

Poster

My most recent RedBox rental was not using a free promo code I got from my friend on Monday. It was a code that RedBox sent me for filling out a short survey after renting a movie. Yes, I rented a movie for them using a promo code and they sent me a survey about the rental experience in order to give me another promo code for a free rental! I LOVE this company! I decided to rent War, Inc. a newly released (on DVD) movie starring John Cusack. You may not have heard of this movie since the Wiki entry claims it released in only 30 theaters nationwide. I will say that after seeing it, it should have been a MUCH bigger release. This is a good movie.

I love John Cusack. High Fidelity is one of the all time best movies ever. Grosse Pointe Blank is great. Speaking of, this movie reminds me a LOT of Grosse Pointe Blank. Not just because John and Joan Cusack are both in it. And Dan Aykroyd has a small, but hilarious role. Maybe it’s because in both movies John plays a hit man type character who has second thoughts about his job after he meets a nice girl. Maybe it is the fact that it appears an entire scene was ripped straight out of Grosse Pointe Blank.

But I digress. War, Inc. is about a hired killer, Brand Hauser (John Cusack), who works for a company called Tamerlane, which is obviously based on Halliburton. The president of Tamerlane is a former Vice President of the United States played by Dan Aykroyd. Tamerlane is a fictional desert (middle eastern) country that has been recently leveled by the first “privatized” war. With Tamerlane bombs, planes, tanks and soldiers having fought on behalf of the US. Now Tamerlane is holding an expo called “Brand America” with the hopes of selling off the rebuilding of this country to contractors of Tamerlane. Get it?

The entire movie is a political statement about how some corporations have become larger and more powerful than countries. At one point in the movie the “bad guy,” Walken (played by Ben Kingsley), states that the “United States is a division of Tamerlane.”

Brand Hauser is sent to kill someone while at the “Brand America” expo with the cover that he is the Expo Manager. Working at a large convention center made me giggle at how his character was able to just walk in and run an entire expo like it was no big deal. He does make a very “Expo Manager” type move straight off when he tells his assistant (also undercover) Marsha Dillon (Joan Cusack) that they should “flip the whole room” because the stage was on the East wall, and you “don’t want people turning away to pray!”

The love interest of the movie is an interesting triangle with a good twist at the end between Hauser, Natalie Hegalhuzen (Marisa Tomei) and Yonica Babyyeah (Hilary Duff). Hegalhuzen is a left wing journalist who hates Hauser and everything she believes him to be and he comments that she would hate him more if she really new him. Yonica Babyyeah is a middle eastern pop princess with a loser poser husband. I’m going to go out on a limb and say she is based on Britney Spears.

There is a lot of killing and blood in this movie, duh! It does revolve around an assasin! Something that made me cringe was actually not the blood, but watching Hauser drinking shots of hot sauce straight to calm his nerves.

I really enjoyed the movie. My left wing liberal self found myself cracking up at the OBVIOUS hits on Halliburton and the current administration. The movie also had some great comedic moments, especially with the interaction between Joan and John’s characters. They work so well together.

I’m not going to give away much of the movie because it would be hard to do so without giving the twists away.

I will give this movie 4 out of 5 stars and will be purchasing it immediately!

Funniest scene of the movie: Joan and John’s characters walk into the expo for a rehearsal of the opening ceremonies including a kick/dance routine starring all women using Tamerlane’s newest and greatest artificial limbs! They even begin to brag about how the Tamerlane bombs and artificial limbs actually use some of the same components!