Reviewing Act of Valor

On Friday I went to the movie theater for the first time in several months to take in Act of Valor, a movie about and starring active duty Navy SEALs. I wasn't really planning on reviewing it formally like this, but I find the reactions I have seen to the movie quite interesting and wanted to weigh in from a different perspective. This review may or may not contain spoilers so consider that the requisite warning.

See, on the Left, people hate the movie for not having whining crybaby SEALs who aren't sure of their orders because they're coming from corrupt commanders who are using the SEALs to do all manner of horrible things in the name of making money and increasing their personal power. They want their morally ambiguous, maybe-the-bad-guy-isn't-really-bad-and-we're-not-really-good, convoluted plot with conflicted characters and all of that nonsense. They're also incredibly offended by the "jingoism" and overly pro-military nature of this kind of movie, referring to it as basically a two hour advertisement for the SEALs.

On the Right, people call the movie tremendous and powerful, a great film you should all run out to see because it's about Navy SEALs who do their jobs well, who protect Americans from threats about which they will never know, and who will lay down their lives for their brothers in arms and all of us back at home without hesitation or doubt. You should see the movie to support the troops and more importantly, send Hollywood a message that we like these kinds of films.

Well, they're both wrong. Act of Valor is not a good movie, not because of its tone or how it portrays the SEALs, but because the basic mechanics of filmmaking such as directing and editing are not good at all.

Now let me preface the rest of my review by noting that I love action movies. My all time favorite movie is Armageddon, which is a much loathed film by Michael Bay wherein Bruce Willis saves the world from an asteroid. That movie changes shots on average every 1.5 seconds. So clearly I am no stranger to things like hyper fast editing and shakey cam. It does not bother me physically, and even though I have become jaded to the use of shakey cam, I am usually ok with it.

This movie, however, gave me a headache inside of five minutes, so if you get motion sickness or any adverse affects from the above kind of camera work, I suggest you not see this in a theater. I attribute my headache primarily to the camera tending to change focus often and randomly, sometimes being just enough out of focus to be noticeable, which is likely due to the director's preference for handheld and helmet cameras combined with extreme closeups and tight shots. Often a character's chin would be cut off while leaving several inches of space above his head, and similar odd camera work, even for the steady-cams. By the middle of the movie, I just wanted the camera to zoom out a few inches so the thing on the screen was at least in frame.

Beyond that, the editing and the pacing is incredibly abrupt and awkward. For example, at the beginning of the movie a subtitle tells us the scene is a HALO training jump in California. The SEALs all dive out of the plane and fall through the air in formation for a minute or so, and then before they so much as pull their chutes, the movie abruptly and inexplicably cuts to a terrorist driving an ice cream truck on the other side of the world. The jump has no ties to the rest of the movie, nor does it indicate whether or not the characters in the movie were participating in it. There's even a much better nighttime HALO jump later on that they do follow through with, so this standard "guys jump out of airplane" scene that we have seen a hundred times before is even less necessary.

This happens quite frequently throughout the movie, with the perspective suddenly switching from one set of characters to another or from one place to another with little rhyme or reason. This makes a fairly straightforward plot seem jumbled and messy, which is then exacerbated by the fact that the SEALs talk like well, SEALs, and they use lots of terms that are abbreviations and otherwise meaningless to a lay person. So it can take a minute to reason out what they meant, but the movie will cut somewhere else rather than give the audience the time to do so.

As for that plot, it is quite simple and direct. One of the SEALs is having a baby, but they're called on mission to find a CIA agent who was captured by a smuggler and is being tortured for information. During their rescue of the agent, the SEALs discover the smuggler is working with the aforementioned terrorist to get suicide bombers into the US, and they need to be stopped.

One might think with such a nice easy Point A to Point B plot, we'd have time to get to know the characters involved, but unfortunately not so much. Of the SEALs who are actually participating outside the action scenes, only two of them really have any screen time to speak of, and most of our time spent with them is rehashing their very first scene where one ribs the other about having a baby.

The rest of the group gets a very brief narration at the beginning of the film as to who they are, but otherwise have almost no dialog to speak of with the exception of the interrogator who gets some time near the end in arguably the best scene in the film.

Despite the emphasis on the SEALs being the stars, the supporting cast does feature quite a few recognizable faces from TV and other bit parts. Their characters are almost entirely glossed over though, including the CIA agent that ends up tortured. We spend a few minutes with her learning she is good at Scrabble and likes children, but that's it. Once she's rescued, she disappears from the film entirely.

The only characters the film does seem to develop are the main villains, creating a couple of guys who are not merely caricatures of evil as liberal critics would have you believe. The smuggler clearly loves his family and is not totally on board with the terrorist. The terrorist similarly feels the weight of sacrificing his lieutenants.

Naturally, the 300 lb. gorilla in the room is the acting. Suffice it to say, you can tell who does what for a living. Although I will add the SEALs do much better when they're one on one with one of the pros or when doing the action stuff.

The action, by the way, is standard action movie fare. Nothing terribly special, and the camera doesn't really hold still long enough to get the full effect of the live ammo that was used. The First Person Shooter cam shows up too, which thoroughly ruins any feeling of authenticity that was built up by making it look like somebody stopped the movie and hooked up an X-Box.

Once the video game cutscene is over, Act of Valor closes on a strong and touching note, but not because it's the natural end result of the film building up to it. In fact that part could be cut out and run standalone as a commercial, and it would likely still pluck at the heart strings of anyone who saw it so long as they were informed these guys were real Navy SEALs and not actors.

That, I feel, is the crux of the difference between myself and those who liked this movie. The presence of the SEALs as actual participants creates an artificial connection to the film that helps people to overlook things that normally would be lambasted. Anyone who has a healthy respect and admiration for our military and the SEALs in particular will want to bend over backwards to ignore the things that Michael Bay certainly doesn't get a pass on.

Even in this review, which most would note as highly critical, I can't bring myself to use words like "terrible" to describe the movie, or to speak frankly about the quality of the acting in some scenes, because they're real people portraying things that they likely experienced first-hand. Were the SEALs' parts played by normal actors, I imagine the descriptions of it being "tremendous" and "great" would come back down to "not bad" and "watchable", and certainly would have me pulling no punches.

Ultimately, the only reason I could give to people to go see this movie is to support the SEALs themselves. Chances are if you're not a jaded sort like me, that aforementioned artificial connection will have you leaving the theater satisfied despite the flaws. However, if you really want a good movie about Navy SEALs, I would suggest finding a copy of Tears of the Sun instead which is far superior in every way.

A Caindidate's End

Herman Cain's campaign has officially been suspended, following a month-long odyssey of twists and turns. Just before that odyssey began I had publicly endorsed Herman Cain on The Not Ed Morrissey Show. I argued he was the only candidate in the race far enough outside the political thought process to have a shot at actually attacking the problems in Washington in a substantive way. I still believe that much, at least, to be true.

I don't know if the sexual harassment allegations against him are true. I don't know if he was prepared to be the President of the United States (or if it's even possible to be prepared for that job.) I don't know if he could beat Barack Obama. But he was my only hope in the GOP field, and it saddens me to see him go, especially this way.

Now, to be clear, much of what happened to Herman Cain was of his own making. No rational assessment of his candidacy can claim otherwise. His inconsistency of message between himself and staffers (Mark Block in particular) and general inability to clearly articulate stances on foreign policy questions were certainly troubling.

But what troubles me most about Herman Cain is the way he was treated compared to others in the race, and the gloating and glee over his destruction. He was immediately dismissed as unqualified and unelectable, unworthy of the support he garnered even as he became the ostensible frontrunner.

What is it about this man that commanded so little respect? His entry into the race was greeted with derision. His accomplishments in business brushed aside to simply be described as "the pizza man." Repeatedly my betters in the media chided me that he had "no executive experience" because apparently being a Chief Executive Officer is not "executive experience."

When his response to a question was imperfect or unclear, the benefit of the doubt was never given to him. It was immediately clipped and reported as merely another piece of evidence that Herman Cain knows nothing about anything.

Consider: it is still often repeated that Herman Cain does not know China has nuclear weapons. Their evidence? His use of the phrase "develop nuclear capability." It took a full day for the media to realize the word "develop" does not automatically mean "from scratch" even if it is sometimes implied, and to "discover" that Cain worked on those pesky things that deliver nuclear weapons to targets, ballistic missiles, for the Navy. Nor was there any walkback when reporters realized this, merely complaints that Cain did not quickly respond to the non-gaffe by sending them a copy of Webster's Dictionary.
　
And when the Politico story broke (conveniently right as Herman Cain was getting ready to go to foreign policy camp), they weren't laughed off the Internet for their hack work. Instead, Herman Cain was blamed for not being prepared to deal with their story. It was his fault Politico refused to tell his campaign what the story was about so that they could use those 10 days to prepare. It was Cain's fault all the records regarding the story in question were sealed and the participants under NDA such that the only place to get information on it was Herman Cain's memory, and so it was Cain's fault he could not remember every detail of an incident over a decade prior or of an investigation and agreement of which he was not a part. It was Cain's fault he hadn't alerted the media at the outset of his campaign that, years ago before he was running for president, he was cleared of sexually harassing women.

Compare that with say, Rick Perry, who for each debate was given a new lease on life because of his "excellent record" running one of the few states in the union that can run itself. Each new debate is "his last chance to get back in the race." Even after he quite explicitly insulted the very people he wanted to vote for him. Even now, it's "well he's just a bad debater" or "he just had a brain fart." Nobody complained he hadn't told them about his "racist" rock either when that non-story broke. Clearly because he worked in government he can't possibly just be unprepared, stupid, or only in the race because the GOP told him he could win in a walk.

Or Mitt Romney, whose ability to avoid the media almost entirely and "win" every debate by not spectacularly imploding makes him "very Presidential." His executive experience as governor is touted as a plus even though it was fiscally ruinous to his state, and he's obviously very clever and witty to deflect when he's asked if he could name all 59 points of his economic plan, rather than unaware of them and unprepared to discuss them.
　
Or Newt Gingrich, whose actual proven sexual indiscretions are apparently no big deal because he'd clean Obama's clock in a debate due in large part to him having spent the last decade or so learning to talk smack on TV as a professional commentator. I thought giving the media grief was the Press Secretary's job, but he's a disgraced former Speaker of the House, so I must be wrong.
　
The irony is, this foolish "pizza man" with no experience and who had no business running for the highest office in the land...is still to this day the only candidate who demonstrated the ability to lead during this primary. He targeted a specific problem we have, created (along with experts) a plan to address that problem, and turned the entire national discussion to both that problem and his solution to it. This in turn "inspired" other candidates to come up with their own solutions.
　
But because he didn't have all the answers (and had the temerity to admit it) Herman Cain was the dumb unprepared charlatan running just to sell books and thus totally unqualified for the position he sought.
　
Perhaps it is my naiveté speaking, but I always thought the hallmark of a leader was the ability to lead. I guess in this day and age, it's more important to have a quaint rehearsed response to every issue of the day or a helpful deflection when one doesn't.
　
In the end, whether you believe Herman Cain did himself in or the media took him down, the only people now considered "qualified" to lead this nation are again the professional politicians. And that is truly a sad thing to behold.

Bang

It's rare lately that a subject in the news gets under my skin so much that I feel the need to stop and write a post about it, which is one of the reasons this blog has been so quiet. However, what has taken place over the past few days forces me to blog.

You see, all of the hateful rhetoric is making me write this post. I simply have no will of my own to resist it. I have been inflamed and incited to the point of having to share my insight on this matter. The crazy left-wing bloggers, politicians, and columnists who continue to churn up hatred of anyone with whom they disagree by trying to tie them to the shooting in Arizona despite a total preponderance of evidence to the contrary have pushed me right over the edge into a psychopathic rage requiring that I spew forth dialogue uncontrollably.

I must attack these people and attack them until their ideas are totally dead. They've placed targets on themselves, and I'm totally unable to resist taking aim and firing away with everything I've got.

So here goes. If the theory is that "hateful rhetoric" against government or other specific individuals is sufficient to make a psychopath kill people, and thus we must stop it immediately, then when, praytell, will all of the people stirring up hate against Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Tea Partiers et. al. by stating this incident is their fault shut up? Because clearly they are inciting hate against these individuals, and based on their logic, this will certainly cause some psychopath to take a shot at one or more of them, which would then make all of the people who stirred up this hate complicit in the attempted or successful murder.

Congratulations Krugman, Sheriff Dupnik, etc. by your reasoning, you are now accessories to a future (attempted) murder.

Bang.

Captain America No More

I've certainly been away from blogging for several months, but one story has so thoroughly baffled me that I feel compelled to discuss it, particularly in light of all of the changes that have occurred in the United States over the past few years. And that is this one:
The Director of the upcoming Captain America film has decided their Captain America will not be a "flag waver."

Let's demonstrate how infuriatingly stupid that statement is with an image:

Not a Flag Waver

Here is a character whose name is Captain America, whose uniform and shield are essentially American flags, and who started his career by punching out Adolph Hitler and other Nazis. Please explain to me how it is possible for this character NOT to be a flag waver. Every time he moves his shield around, he will be waving the flag.

Now, a number of superheroes back in the day were walking talking American propaganda machines. Superman used to stand for "Truth, Justice, and the American Way" after all. (Yes, yes I know he's a DC hero and the Cap is Marvel, you comic book enthusiasts out there.) Many of them ended up punching out Nazis themselves.

But, unlike them, Captain America's job was specifically to fight Nazis, to run around as the walking, talking emblem of American values and American might. Otherwise they would have called him something like "Captain Allies" or "Captain Freedom." Of course, over the years Captain America has evolved beyond a living breathing American slogan, but his core character believing in America and American values stayed mostly the same.

This isn't just stupid because of the obvious disconnect between trying to make a guy whose costume IS the flag into a non-flag waver, it is also stupid because over the past few years it has become a trend throughout the United States, particularly in media. And this is due to a couple of factors really.

One has to do with how Hollywood approaches making movies nowadays. It is no longer about an art form and telling an interesting story. It is now much more about an accountant sitting with a statistician attempting to determine which combination of standard elements put together in a given genre will generate the maximum amount of revenue. Since the worldwide market has become a huge source of profit for movies, the accountant and the statistician are quick to remove elements that they feel will possibly hamper that goal. That means they really don't want to potentially alienate citizens of other countries who could be offended at the notion of America being exceptional.

While that is a sad thing and the Lego-block assembly of movies today has certainly destroyed the quality of American cinema, the other reason is harder to correct and substantially more insidious. The other reason is that people in this country have got it into their heads that we must learn to fit in with the rest of the world, that we cannot be exceptional or unique or "better" than other places for the very act of doing so requires us to push them down. That idea is one small step for the mind, and one giant leap towards self-destruction.

You see, when we talk about "America", we're not talking about the chunk of land between Canada and Mexico. We're not talking about the White House or the Capitol Building. We're not talking about the President or the Congress. We're not talking about Wall Street or Main Street. We're not talking about the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution.

No, what we're talking about...is an idea: that every man, every human being, every sentient life form, has the capacity to make him or herself...better. That he or she can be stronger, faster, wiser, richer, happier - no matter his or her starting point. That it is our right, our duty as sentient beings to seek out that betterment, and through that betterment others in turn will be raised up, that our children shall climb higher by standing upon our shoulders.

No matter if you were black or white, man or woman, gay or straight, educated or layman, rich or poor, you could be better than you started. And that is an idea that so rarely and so briefly appears in human history that it is a wonder we have survived 200 years with it.

Captain America himself is the very embodiment of this idea. He was a scrawny, insignificant geek who became a superhero. He took the risk of taking the Super Soldier serum in the hopes that he could become a better man, more capable of defeating evil, and he became a superhero to whom millions of people both fictional and real looked to for inspiration in their own personal quests to better themselves.

So long as that is the case, Captain America will always be a "flag waver."

Nature's Rules

The Crane Technique

Most people remember Mr. Miyagi for his famous "wax on, wax off" training method, but the Karate master gave Daniel-san lots of sage wisdom about all facets of life in The Karate Kid, including one gem that has particular relevance to yesterday's Health Care Summit. You see Daniel was always in a rush to learn, and even though he had barely grasped the basics of how to throw a punch, Daniel immediately asked to be taught the advanced Crane technique when he saw Mr. Miyagi performing it on the beach. In response, Mr. Miyagi chuckled and admonished him, "First learn stand, then learn fly. Nature rule Daniel-san, not mine."

Like Daniel, President Obama and the Democrats are perpetually in a rush to do everything, and they always want to do the biggest thing they can. Yesterday at the Health Care Summit, the President once again reiterated his resistance to smaller and more incremental steps towards health care reform by saying, "baby steps don't get you to the place where people need to go."

What the President does not realize is that government is barely capable of standing up straight without falling on its face, nevermind taking baby steps, particularly now that it is drunk on spending. When it does manage to get moving, it does so with all the grace of a tranquilized elephant, stumbling around stepping on people and crashing into things. Thus, trying to do anything at any speed greater than baby steps is most likely going to result in pain and suffering for everyone along the way to the destination, provided one can even get there.

Unlike the President, most Americans understand life from Miyagi's point of view. They recognize that big sweeping reform rarely works out well because the more that changes, the more difficult it is to control those changes. More importantly, it can become impossible to account for and adjust to the unexpected consequences of those changes. This is a simple fact of existence.

It is, as Miyagi says, nature's rule, not ours, and it cannot be simply wished away because we have an emotional reaction to sad stories of people who have had health care nightmares. The President can spend another seven hours telling health care horror stories, but that will not change the fact that we cannot simply sprout wings and fly off into the sunset. Trying to move with leaps and bounds when one can barely stand up straight is only going to result in a splitting headache and a bloody nose as face unexpectedly meets pavement.

Further, the President does not seem to grasp that while we stand there holding a bag of ice to our head, those people whom we so desire to help are still left out in the cold, and, if the injury is a broken leg instead of a mild concussion, we will be completely incapable of helping anyone. Indeed, this has been demonstrated extremely well by the last six months of complete gridlock in Congress as it fights over the health care issue to the detriment of every other challenge facing the nation.

How much more progress could have been made in the last six months if Democrats had focused on targeted, simple reforms upon which everyone could agree? Removal of restrictions against buying insurance across state lines. Health savings accounts. Tax cuts and breaks. All things that almost everyone could support if they're truly willing to put aside partisan divides. All things that could have immediate and positive effects.

Instead of taking small, careful steps like these to assist people, the President is content to continue flapping his arms in a futile attempt to fly, only to repeatedly fall on his face. One can only wonder how many more of these painful face-plants President Obama will have to endure before he realizes that while baby steps may not be as fast or as grandiose as a superhero-style flying rescue, they will at least be progress in the right direction and come with far fewer injuries...

There Are Four Lights, Mr. President

There's a classic episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation in which Captain Picard is captured by the Cardassians in an attempt to glean information about Federation defense plans. Picard is given over to Gul Madred, played by David Warner, who proceeds to torture the good captain in every way imaginable (waterboarding is curiously left out) including inserting a device into Picard that can instantly cause pain and continue to do so for prolonged periods of time.

The hallmark of the repeated tortures is the test Gul Madred uses to determine if Picard has finally submitted. Madred has placed above and behind him, four spotlights. He turns them on, and then he asks Picard the simple question of "how many lights do you see?" Picard naturally counts four, only to be rebuked by Gul Madred that there are, in fact, five lights. This exchange is repeated a number of times over several days, and when Picard disagrees, Madred inflicts pain on Picard, even leaving the pain device on for hours after Picard quips "what lights?"

Eventually, the crew of the Enterprise foils the Cardassians' plot and forces the return of the captain. In one last attempt to break Picard, Madred insists the Enterprise has been destroyed and the coming guards are going to take Picard to a hellish prison, unless Picard can properly answer the question, "how many lights do you see?" Picard appears to waver, but the guards break the ruse, and in one last act of defiance Picard screams, "There are FOUR lights!"

Last night during the State of the Union, President Obama stood up and tried to convince Americans that there are five lights, not four. He wants us to ignore that which we see with our eyes and hear with our ears and reason with our logic, in favor of his fairy-tale world view, wherein everything can be fixed with the power of his very presence.

...


Once again, he claimed to be for transparency and openness in government, and yet this is the same man who has repeatedly stifled transparency. His administration has conducted back room deals with all of the same people he spends his entire speech deriding. He supports massive pieces of legislation upon which Congress votes prior to reading, and he proceeds to tell us how great these bills are when he, himself, cannot answer precisely what is written within those thousands of pages.

Once again, he claimed he was for cutting spending and reducing government waste, and yet he signed the pork-laden Stimulus bill, the earmark-laden Omnibus, and he would happily sign the bribe-filled health care bill that passed the Senate.

Once again, he tells us that same health care bill is something this country needs, even though it does not come anywhere near his ideal (single-payer) , contains nothing to reduce health care costs, creates a massive federal bureaucracy, and does not even cover everyone who needs insurance.

He tells us he wants to cut taxes for the middle-class, while supporting a health care bill that will force them to pay fines if they don't get health insurance commensurate with some to-be-created government panel's wishes.

He tells us he hates the bank bailouts, and then turns around to say he wants to give more money to banks, just smaller ones. Money, I might add, that came back from banks he just finished deriding, and that we, the taxpayers, owe on a loan we took out on behalf of said banks.

He claims he wants to focus on jobs, and then spends his entire speech talking about policies that will not only fail to create jobs, but will likely cause more layoffs. He wants to tax banks that we just finished bailing out and who are not lending enough as it is as if the tax will encourage them to lend more.

He says he wants us to fight Al Qaeda, and yet his administration continues to do everything possible to make it easier for Al Qaeda to operate such as foolishly trying KSM & Co. in New York City Federal Court and refusing to treat the Underpants Bomber as an enemy combatant and intelligence asset.

And, he wants bi-partisanship in all of it. Yes, the man who has let hyper-partisans like Reid and Pelosi repeatedly lock Republicans out of the process, the man who has met with Republicans fewer times this year than I can count on one hand, the man whose administration has repeatedly demonized and dismissed those who had opposing ideas as simply wanting the status quo, wants bi-partisanship.

To top it all off, he claimed he hates the fact that it's always campaign time in Washington. This from the guy who hasn't stopped campaigning on the idea that everything is Bush's fault even after taking office.

I'm sorry Mr. President, but the only thing I have to say to you after that speech is:

There are FOUR lights!

For those interested in the Star Trek episode, it is the sixth season, two part episode entitled "Chain of Command."

Merry Christmas

I could write a long and philosophical post about religion or the true meaning of Christmas or keeping spirits up even in these gloomy times, but it's been done by better folks than I far too many times.

So, I'll just wish you all a very Merry Christmas, and here's hoping you get all the gifts worth getting.