I'm a fan of Pixar, but that trailer for "Brave" makes it look like the movie's plot is going to be one cliche after another. A Disney movie about a girl who chafes at the lady-like roles her culture has assigned her? NO WAI!!!

The marketing for this movie is already very clever. They've figured out that Americans are sick and tired of the same old blame-America war movies, and many Americans also know about the horrendous human rights record of UN peacekeepers around the world. So if all you know about this movie is what you see in the trailer, it looks like the UN is the bad guy! Protecting its own, covering up for sexually deviant behavior among its useless peacekeeping troops, etc. Add a brave, American, female cop as the whistle blower? That doesn't sound half-bad.

Word of mouth likely will overcome the effects of the deceptive trailer, but this movie will probably get more business than most of the recent anti-war movies have.

This is similar to the recent campaign to stigmatize the use of the word "retarded." Advocates of the mentally challenged who advocate that stigmatization need to toughen up and realize that if they just wait awhile the word will lose all of its power. It will still be used, it will just lose its association with disabled people. Exhibit A would be the use of the word "lame" to describe something that is undesirable, poorly executed, and so forth. Does anyone honestly think that the use of that term harms cripples?

It's the same thing with "gay." The word's meaning has changed meaning significantly over the last fifty years. So now it continues to change... big deal. Sack up, Gleetards.

I really enjoy this movie--it's one of the few flicks for which I have a DVD. It's very bloody, so if that troubles you then stay away from it, I suppose. I love that picture at the top of the post, btw: great to see Bishop, Vasquez, and Hudson together again!

"It's classified, Ice Cream Man. It's classified."

Despite my other issues with "United 93"--the infernal shakey-cam being my main problem with it--at least its makers didn't change the terrorists into white supremacists or neo-nazis. The "Sum of All Fears" adaptation is still the nadir of that particular aspect of what you're talking about in this post, Mr. Hudnall.

But you're right: if "The Sum of All Fears" were to be adapted today, would the filmmakers change the terrorists into American employees of Blackwater... or perhaps disgruntled American officers trying to wag the dog to get the country to properly invest in our wars...? It's hard to say. But we can probably all agree that they wouldn't use the villains from Clancy's book.

wat

Please, Sarah, PLEASE stay politically relevant by being a lower-case-L libertarian Republican, not a capital-L Libertarian. American voters will never go for things like privatizing the military, privatizing the courts, isolationist foreign relations, and so forth.

A libertarian Republican, on the other hand: that would appeal to a lot of voters--more and more as time goes by...

inb4 But Dylan is whiiiiiiiiiiite!

Does anybody watch a James Cameron movie for the wisdom and social commentary? He's just so ham-handed with that stuff. His villains practically twirl their mustaches after strapping damsels to railroad tracks.

Actually, now that I think about it I'll bet a lot of the Cameron world-view seeped into the culture at large thanks to the success of things like Titanic. (grumbles) Dagnabbit...