spanishspy
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Post by spanishspy on Jul 2, 2016 0:00:26 GMT
Has anyone here seen the recent movie Free State of Jones? I saw it with my father last week and I was absolutely blown away.
It's a disturbing film, a brutal and uncompromising film about an ugly period in American history. It will make people uncomfortable, but I feel that is for the best; we don't have enough movies about the Civil War and Reconstruction period.
The tension in this movie is amazing, and the photography is used quite well. It uses silence to great effect, and the battle scenes are intense.
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tfsmith121
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War is the remedy our enemies have chosen
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Post by tfsmith121 on Jul 2, 2016 2:50:54 GMT
Yep, saw it last evening; very impressed by the film-making and the story that was told, which is a very complex one and not something that lends itself to an easy three acts and a coda type of structure. I have seen some criticism that seems like it comes down to either a) this is not the screenplay the critic would have written, or b) it's too difficult to follow the two story lines, set eight decades apart, which amounts to the critique that anything more than a linear Setup, Confrontation, and Resolution structure is too hard to follow.
I thought it was excellent.
Best,
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spanishspy
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Post by spanishspy on Jul 2, 2016 3:16:49 GMT
Yep, saw it last evening; very impressed by the film-making and the story that was told, which is a very complex one and not something that lends itself to an easy three acts and a coda type of structure. I have seen some criticism that seems like it comes down to either a) this is not the screenplay the critic would have written, or b) it's too difficult to follow the two story lines, set eight decades apart, which amounts to the critique that anything more than a linear Setup, Confrontation, and Resolution structure is too hard to follow. I thought it was excellent. Best, The ratings in Rotten Tomatoes were in the 40% area, but my father and I both agreed it was far better than that. |
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tfsmith121
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Post by tfsmith121 on Jul 2, 2016 18:05:29 GMT
I would agree with you there; many very effective scenes...
Best,
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spanishspy
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Post by spanishspy on Jul 2, 2016 18:28:17 GMT
I would agree with you there; many very effective scenes... Best, The one that stood out to me was when Newton and Serena with her daughters, all armed, were standing off against the Confederate tax collectors. |
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tfsmith121
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Post by tfsmith121 on Jul 3, 2016 23:16:40 GMT
Yep. One can also view the entire second act, from Knight's actions on the farm against the impressment detail through to the retreat back into the swamps before the final rebel surrender, as symptomatic of how to raise an insurgency, the cycles of action and reaction, and the failures of counterinsurgency.
The exact same scenes, with changes in uniform and actors, could have been set anywhere from Spain to Aghanistan.
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spanishspy
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Post by spanishspy on Jul 4, 2016 0:33:04 GMT
Yep. One can also view the entire second act, from Knight's actions on the farm against the impressment detail through to the retreat back into the swamps before the final rebel surrender, as symptomatic of how to raise an insurgency, the cycles of action and reaction, and the failures of counterinsurgency. The exact same scenes, with changes in uniform and actors, could have been set anywhere from Spain to Aghanistan. Thinking about it, you're right; it's a textbook example of an insurgency, and why states are bad at countering insurgency, especially ones that have clear demographic biases like the Confederacy. |
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tfsmith121
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Post by tfsmith121 on Jul 4, 2016 0:48:33 GMT
Yep ... it's one of the many lessons from American history one would expect various alleged thinkers would have been paying attention to over the last several decades, but oh well... Santayanna is proven correct yet again.
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spanishspy
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Post by spanishspy on Jul 5, 2016 0:15:04 GMT
Yep ... it's one of the many lessons from American history one would expect various alleged thinkers would have been paying attention to over the last several decades, but oh well... Santayanna is proven correct yet again. It's why Vietnam and Afghanistan were the distance apart from one another that they were; the anti-counterinsurgency fears of the seventies were no longer in charge by the early 2000s. |
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tfsmith121
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Post by tfsmith121 on Jul 5, 2016 0:44:04 GMT
True. There are those who counselled against each - Shoup and Gavin re Vietnam, Shinseki re Iraq, etc. Be helpful if the dissenting voices were listened to...
Best,
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spanishspy
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Post by spanishspy on Jul 5, 2016 13:40:14 GMT
True. There are those who counselled against each - Shoup and Gavin re Vietnam, Shinseki re Iraq, etc. Be helpful if the dissenting voices were listened to... Best, Also Mearsheimer and other IR academics cautioned against Iraq. Can't say I know much about Vietnam. |
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tfsmith121
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Post by tfsmith121 on Jul 6, 2016 4:58:05 GMT
Dave Shoup won the MOH at Tarawa and rose to Commandant ( 4 stars); Jim Gavin won two DSCs in the ETO with the 82nd and rose to Lieutenant General (3 stars). They should have been listened to...
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spanishspy
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Post by spanishspy on Jul 6, 2016 17:01:41 GMT
Dave Shoup won the MOH at Tarawa and rose to Commandant ( 4 stars); Jim Gavin won two DSCs in the ETO with the 82nd and rose to Lieutenant General (3 stars). They should have been listened to... That seems reasonable. |
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tfsmith121
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Post by tfsmith121 on Jul 6, 2016 19:26:15 GMT
Yes, one would have thought...
Santayana was right.
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spanishspy
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Post by spanishspy on Jul 6, 2016 20:03:51 GMT
Yes, one would have thought... Santayana was right. To our consistent misfortune, he was. |
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