Lions For Lambs

[MacGuffin]

Trailer

Release Date: November 9th, 2007 (limited)

Starring: Robert Redford, Tom Cruise, Meryl Streep, Michael Pena, Derek Luke 

Directed by: Robert Redford 

Premise: Injuries sustained by two Army ranger behind enemy lines in Afghanistan set off a sequence of events involving a congressman (Cruise), a journalist (Streep) and a professor (Redford).

[Pubrick]

to answer the "quintessential yes-or-no question of our time", i would say:

yes, but it cannot be won.
no, if it cannot be won.

hardline war mongerers are talking in 'yes or no', opposers are speaking in 'ifs and buts'. if that scene and the movie expounds on that fundamental rift between the idealistic and the realistic, the simplistic and the analytical, it could be brilliant.

until november 9th, the real quintessential question of our time will be:

does this movie have balls, or does it only seem like it does?

[picolas]

that should be the tagline.

[Kal]

I love Tom 

[MacGuffin]

New Trailer here.

[Kal]

Thats one ugly poster.

[Pubrick]

this new trailer offers a new subplot involving the most promising of american youth (kind of heavy handed selection of a black and latino dude) being wasted and their good intentions exploited for a doomed political agenda. and so we return to the quintessential yes or no question of our time:

does this movie have balls, or does it only seem like it does?

it's certainly being marketed as a yes.

[SiliasRuby]

this new trailer offers a new subplot involving the most promising of american youth (kind of heavy handed selection of a black and latino dude) being wasted and their good intentions exploited for a doomed political agenda. and so we return to the quintessential yes or no question of our time:

does this movie have balls, or does it only seem like it does?

it's certainly being marketed as a yes.

P's right about this. Being a huge Cruise I'll see this no matter what but I just hope it will bring the fucking goods, and if it doesn't I hope it doesn't let me down too much.

[Kal]

I just saw that trailer in the theatre and I'm not sure... it tries way too hard in the trailer so the movie can be worse... hopefully I'm wrong cause I want this to be good...

[Alexandro]

the trailer i've been watching in thetres lately pisses me off. it seems this film is one long preach session. i hope i'm wrong. redford is a fine director and quiz show is one of my faves. meryl is the best and i'm also a cruise fan. but it seems they spend the entire film locked up in an office talking about how fucked up the situation in the middle east is...

and the title sucks.

[Redlum]

Redford did a great job of pacing the three scenarios of the film. That coupled with 90 minute run time, I don't think it had time to be preachy.

Part of the cinema I saw the film with were very clearly lured, unwittingly to a political film (that they would not otherwise have had any interest in) by the Cruise factor. This can only be a good thing.

hardline war mongerers are talking in 'yes or no', opposers are speaking in 'ifs and buts'. if that scene and the movie expounds on that fundamental rift between the idealistic and the realistic, the simplistic and the analytical, it could be brilliant.

I would say the film is constructed to allow these two sides to meet cinematically but not specifically expounded upon as part a confrontation between two characters.

this new trailer offers a new subplot involving the most promising of american youth (kind of heavy handed selection of a black and latino dude) being wasted and their good intentions exploited for a doomed political agenda.

This plot-line and it's two characters, although providing the "action" of the film, is/are actually far more interesting than I expected. Although they are more in service to the design of the film than to the themselves.

[cron]

i'm sad that this film wasn't good, because it's a criminal amount of misused talent on-screen. especially cruise, who i'll defend to death as one of the greatest character actors rite now.
i hate the way boomers think universal history happened. they seem to think it's as simple as a bunch of cartoonishly evil people in power deciding how much damage they are going to perpetuate. these movies where they make unsustained, ineloquent reductions of politicians and the armed forces are the worst. this movie feels absolutely dettached from reality in any way you look at it. and it saddens me that in a few years it'll get the attention of idiot teachers who identify themselves with the redford character, and it'll become a standard movie  to show at international affairs classes, and the world will be the same. can't say much for the supporting actors, all they had to do was lay on the snow wounded and scream.  i was expecting more , i dunno, wisdom, but it falls into that bunch of faggoty films that talk about 'making a stand' but only are a leftist whim that gives a bad name to what being  a liberal person means.  pay it forward comes to mind.

we either need a ban on the obnoxious idea that hollywood has of radical thinking, or a new bundle of mainstream directors with balls like spike lee and oliver stone when they fucking mattered. seriously, hollywood has become like a mausoleum for all the vices and stuff that human beings shouldn't be doing. i'm talking mainly about the paris hilton, michael moore binary. it's either the dumb cunt who couldn't care less about what's going on around her, or the dumb cunt who thinks he's changing the world of people who also think they're changing the world by not drinking coffee at starbucks.
i'm sorry i'm getting passional, but i can't stand cynicism of this scale anymore.
i used to say that farenheit 9/11 was a good movie because, aside from the brainwashing and the melodrama, its heart was in the right place.  now i'm not so sure.