Oh holy hell, I am totally torn right now. I just heard on CNBC that a writer/reporter type guy named Seymour Hersh is coming out with a story that during the Bush administration there existed a secret assassination squad called the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) that answered directly to (and only to) the Vice President’s office. That’s right, Dick Cheney employed a personal hit squad. Apparently the group was made up of guys from Delta Force and other Special Operations units, but it existed and operated separate from the Pentagon and even the CIA.
And so I am torn, because when the Israelis do these things I’m all like, “Fuck yeah. That’s why you don’t mess with the Israelis” but when it is us doing it, I’m all, “Perhaps there is some moral ambiguity here that I’m not really comfortable with.”
And even more than that, I’m torn because while I realize that it is not a good idea for America to be getting back into the death squad business, the writer in me is all like, “Hell yes this is an awesome idea!” Because I totally want to write a regrettably action-oriented script one day, and things like this just lay the groundwork for that script.
Now you say, “But that was already a movie and it was called Munich.”
And I say, “Did you see Munich? Only Steven Spielberg could have fucked up that story quite so thoroughly.”
“Now wait a minute,” You say, “did you just cast aspersions on the living deity; the genius that is Steven Spielberg? Whom we have all unanimously agreed is the greatest film maker of all time?”
And I say, “Yes.”
Now I like him, I do. He seems like a good person and he has done some great work. Some of the best work I will probably live to see, BUT holy shit his last like five movies have been awful. They have had fun parts (there were parts of Munich I liked very much) but – all in all – they have been bad movies. I’m sorry. It is just true. They were all way too long and they had too many of those not-endings (when you think the movie is over and then, inexplicably, it isn’t). And they would get so preachy. And what the fuck is with the aliens at the end of A.I.? I mean - I’m not stupid - I get it, but it didn’t work. Movies have to work within their own little worlds. The great thing about a movie is that it gets to define its own reality. It gets to throw out the rules of our world and live by its own, but generally it goes badly when it then violates its own rules. I think A.I. did that. And so do you too! Don’t be a Spielberg apologist. You know it was bad.
And how about that scene at the end of Munich when Eric Bana is having sex and its inter-cut with the massacre from the beginning of the movie (that you didn't see at the beginning). You know what that was? Bad writing. Sorry Tony Kushner (you are great and wonderful, but you know that that ending was artificial and contrived. I bet Steven was standing over your shoulder as you wrote it, whispering in your ear, “I want to do the part when the hostages get killed at the END. Can you make that work?”)
So anyway, I like this idea of a government assassination ring. I like it as a premise for a movie, not as a foreign policy.
Here is a link
to a story about Hersh's findings.
No comments:
Post a Comment