American Sniper

[MacGuffin]

Release date: January 16, 2015

Starring: Bradley Cooper, Sienna Miller, Jake McDorman, Kyle Gallner, Luke Grimes

Directed by: Clint Eastwood

Premise: A Navy SEAL recounts his military career, which includes more than 150 confirmed kills.

[polkablues]

Ol' Clint's arguing with chairs again.

[putneyswipe]

this movie in a nutshell:

[modage]

Tweeted the exact same thing last week.

https://twitter.com/modage/status/555747063548633088

[Kellen]

Seems like every awards season now in this country we get another movie dealing with the war.  All these flicks from Zero Dark Thirty to this have all just blended into mush in my head.  I did think Cooper was pretty good though.

[bigperm]

Just to offer some different thoughts, after seeing the movie twice. (Wife wanted to see it, I had seen the screener the first time)

It's not a great film for sure. It's good, but not great. Cooper does a solid job. A few things that keep it from being great - fake babies, terrible FX, and at times an awful screenplay. Like I mentioned not saying I'm right but just new observations to share, or at least how I recall them.

But I'd like to just focus on all the fuss since it opened,

1. Its Propaganda  2. It's Awesome (in the sense of Let's Roll) - Chris Kyle he's a hero!

Spoils Ahead




Eastwood has been very vocal about his hate of War, so why can't anyone land in the middle with this film?
I think Eastwood does do a good job at presenting Kyle and the MINDSET OF A SOLDIER in the modern day.

What does Kyle wanna be prior to joining the Seals? A Cowboy (pretty sure not he herding cattle type). Kyle is aimless and bored with his dream and regular life but walks into a  recruiting center and basically says i wanna kill where do i sign up? Does Kyle know anything of Iraq prior to going over there, not much other than what he watches on the TV. The number one controlling device in this day & Age - the TV is used very well in the film, we see 9-11, a soldier getting cut in half - Chris watches that on an Al-Jazeera type news channel, so on & so forth. What does Kyle know? He's angry and needs to do something with himself - and just so happens to be the Military's wet dream of a recruit. I mean take the american flag in this film. Does Eastwood open on a back sunlit shot of the flag waving in slow motion? if he did, the case for PROPAGANDA machine would certainly be at work, but when do we see the flag in the movie?
Kyle wears it on one of his hats, and more times than not it's associated with death. Hell Kyle isn't even traumatized, not showing much remorse that his first confirmed kill was child, its just they're EVIL and they are SAVAGES, he often says something like "the EVIL we SEE here", give or take. Again See, TV. I don't know.

Coming home he's bored to tears and amped all the time, hell how many times does he go back? All he cares about is getting the evil, the butcher the other sniper, even the weird hyped up score finally worked for me, when i put myself in Kyle's shoes. Eastwood never once says way to go Chris, but when I find myself getting excited to get the bad guys, I stop and say wait, this could be because this is how it feels to Chris.

His buddy fellow SEAL actually begins to struggle with what they are doing - "Do you want them in San Diego or New York?"Chris asks him,   perfect TV talking point repeated buy Chris, and in my opinion the type of shallow minded thinking is exactly what Eastwood is getting at. His brother says "FUCK THIS PLACE" after being there for a bit, but WHY CANT EVEYRONE BE LIKE CHRIS? But he likes it and deals with it so we see him when he's home and see his struggles but don't imagine another like his brother once returns home and is really screwed up, cause he can't deal with it all. Chris meets his maker by the same troubled vet who can't get back to "normal" life.


I think the movie lands in the middle quite well. I found it sorta terrifying. I certainly wish a few things could be tweaked so it would be great, but Eastwood pretty subtle overall but again these were new thoughts and observations form the second time i saw it.

[03]

did anyone watch the oscars? i dont think there's even a thread so i'm gonna throw this post out first for a redirect.