| Military industrial comedy |
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| written by mkaliher2 |
April 10, 2011 - 2:55 AM PDT |
On first viewing, this update of Doctor Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb seemed disjointed and disorienting. But the second time around, Dan Aykroyd's sight gags as a character quite similar to Dick "F**k off" Cheney, recently retired vice president and chairman of a Halliburton-like death empire seemed more amusing. Then there's the Islamic bimbo pop star, played by Hilary Duff, who's really quite good, and her idiot Islamic hip-hop wannabe boyfriend who is so lame he manages to shoot himself in the butt . . .
But, really, I think the director was trying to deal with a serious subject -- the idea that we're killing off or turning into terrorists half the population we're trying to convert to democracy; bombing Libya, rather than Syria, our good buddy -- who actually trained the terrorists who bombed the G.I. disco in Germany; and decimating Iraq -- when fifteen of the nineteen 9/11 terrorists came from Saudi Arabia, our good buddy -- rather than seeking retribution from those actually responsible or, better yet, pursuing peace and truly democratic ideals.
But it was brave attempt on Hollywood's part, and -- I'm very sorry to say -- probably the best we can hope for. As Neil Postman wrote back in the 1980s, we're amusing ourselves to death -- and, I might add, the deaths of hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of other innocents since the end of World War II. In any case, it was great to see Marisa Tomei, and John C. and his clever sister Joan working together, after their outstanding performances in High Fidelity. |
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