Just to let you all know, I am having the old problem with comments not appearing on posts again. (GP, Sarah, and others…) I have commented, but they are not showing up. Please check your Spam folders again, and see if they are there.
This is getting to be a real bore. WordPress please note!
American Sniper (2014)
***This is a true story, so spoilers are already out there***
I am late to this film, obviously. I bought a used copy from Amazon for just £1, and watched it yesterday. Clint Eastwood directed this true life story of Chris Kyle, the most effective sniper in US military history. Kyle is played by Bradley Cooper, and his wife by Sienna Miller. This is a long film, so also a longer than usual review.
The film begins in the Iraq war, and immediately flashes back to the boyhood upbringing of Kyle. We see a stern yet caring father, determined to bring up his sons the right way; reflecting his values, and learning to hunt. The young Chris shows a natural talent with a rifle, but he really wants to be a rodeo star. Fast forward to Chris in his late twenties, (Cooper) touring the rodeo circuits with his younger brother, and enjoying moderate success. Then the US embassy bombings occur in 1998, and the fiercely patriotic Kyle enlists in the military, training to become a Navy Seal. Despite being one of the oldest recruits, his determination gets him through, and his skill with a rifle gets him trained to become one of the elite snipers, providing cover for troops operating in the streets below his high vantage point.
He also meets an attractive young woman in a bar (Miller) and falls for her, beginning a serious relationship which soon leads to marriage. During his wedding, the unit receive their orders to travel to the war in Iraq, and the film transfers the action there.
For me as a viewer, it is in these foreign locations where the film excels. Always convincing, with a constant feeling of threat, danger, and menace. The tension rarely lets up, even during the quiet moments, and everything from the dusty streets, to the still rooftop lairs of Kyle, are always believable in the extreme. Much of the action is seen through the magnification of his telescopic sight. We see what he sees, in real time, with decisions having to be made in a heartbeat. To fire, or not to fire? The pressure of protecting his comrades on the ground patrols, and the complications of perhaps making a ‘bad kill’, and facing the repercussions of that act. Cooper acts this stillness surprisingly well, and small facial movements show us his thought process, as he makes life and death calls every day.
Returning home to his wife and new baby son, he is a changed man. She senses the difference in him, and the distance he feels from his life back in America. He is restless, worrying about his comrades, keen to return to combat. Their relationship suffers, but endures.
Back on his second tour of duty in Iraq, he is faced with an enemy sniper, a skillful Syrian insurgent. This man is killing US soldiers at an alarming rate, and Kyle makes it his mission to try to find and stop this man. But this is not the same story as we saw in ‘Enemy At The Gates’, though the theme is similar. By now, the enemy is also aware of this effective American sniper, who has killed so many of their fighters. They put up a huge financial reward for anyone who can kill him, so now Kyle has to operate with a price on his head too.
Home on leave once again, things are not getting any better. he has a baby daughter, and a growing son. A wife who is unhappy managing alone for months on end, with children who hardly know their father. She wants Chris to come home, to stop serving in Iraq. She becomes convinced that he has a death wish, and that he won’t stop until he gets himself killed over there. But he won’t leave his comrades unprotected, and remains convinced that they have to stop the militants in Iraq, so that the war doesn’t come to the US in the long run.
So, two more tours of duty, and an eventual return home for good are covered. When overseas, Chris still hunts for the elusive enemy sniper, often getting tantalisingly close, only for the man to escape at the last moment. The cost to his own well-being is dealt with, as he constantly drifts back and forth between caring for his family, and worrying about those left behind. There is some debate about his unquestioning patriotism, and the futility of the ongoing war that sees his younger brother drawn into the conflict, as well as the loss of so many of his good friends.
The ending is done with dignity, and lack of show. It is almost the perfect ending.
So, is it good? It is very good indeed, as far as I am concerned. The action sequences are often brilliantly handled, and make for nail-biting viewing at times. But the best moments are those when we look along the rifle, through the sight with the same view as Chris. Those moments when you have to make that call; take the shot, or not. It leaves us wondering what we would do, and transports us into the heart and mind of the shooter. Taking us to a world we can only imagine, if we have never been in the military.
Eastwood got this one just right. Here’s a trailer.
I was watching a drama on television recently. It was pretty good, and I was enjoying it. As the climax approached, the police officer received a text. It was briefly flashed on screen, but too small for me to see it clearly. She replied, and her colleague acted on that reply, which was also quickly shown on the screen. But I was left wondering what each had sent to the other, and why the colleague did what he did, as a response to her reply.
This is nothing new. No doubt attempting to reflect the trend of mobile phone use in society as a whole, text messages are becoming an important part of TV shows and films. Everything from dull soap-operas to mainstream blockbusters are having huge chunks of their plot played out on tiny phone screens. In some cases, the whole story-line is a series of ‘to and from’ texts, and in extreme examples, even the ending of a drama is only disclosed by way of a message sent, or received.
OK, I am old now, I admit that. But so is a huge percentage of the viewing public. We don’t all see as well as we once did, and cannot always react as quickly to a message flashed briefly on a screen. We all know that people send and receive texts, they are part of modern life. But do they have to feature so heavily in television and film drama? Countless films and dramas were made (mostly better ones too) before the portable phone was ever conceived, let alone invented. They sometimes relied on notes left at a scene, a letter received, a transcript from an interview, or court proceedings. But they were shown clearly on screen, and lingered long enough to read properly, without slowing down the action.
The BBC series ‘Sherlock’ dealt with the electronic age so well. Text messages, emails, and computer searches were all flashed up on the screen alongside the action in equal proportion. They were easy to read, and stayed around long enough to make sense of what they said. Surely this idea could be adapted to all TV drama, and most films too?
If this carries on, I will be at a loss to work out what is happening in so many programmes and films, it will hardly be worth my while bothering to watch anything. Anyone else annoyed about this?
No? Just me then…
Although I write this blog from Beetley, I have no idea how many people who live here actually read it. I have been approached by a few dog-walkers in the past who tell me that they do read it, but as over half of my readers are from America, and more than ten percent from other countries, I cannot say with any certainty that more than three residents of Beetley are regular readers.
Despite this fact, I am going to appeal to any Beetley readers for information about the sad howling dog. Over the past couple of weeks, we have been woken in the early morning by the mournful howling of a dog, in a nearby house. It sounds like a wolf in one of those old films, and can howl for more than an hour at a time. On occasion, this has lasted well into the day, and also started much earlier in the evening. It is very upsetting to hear, and makes us most concerned about the poor animal, which is either shut in alone inside, or left outdoors for long periods.
Locating the source of this canine lament is not as easy as you might think. Despite being a relatively small area there are many houses around, and some side streets to investigate too. Then there is the nature of how sound travels. Sometimes, it seems as if the sad dog is howling from a house behind our back garden. But if I go outside, the sound appears to be from the other direction, across the road at the front of the house. Even wandering around as the howling can be heard is of little help, as when I think I might have located the place of origin, the source of the howling changes to come from behind me. Sound is a strange thing indeed.
So, if anyone knows what is going on with this dog, and its heartbreaking cries, please let me know.
The Calling (2014)
***No spoilers***
Susan Sarandon, Ellen Burstyn, and Donald Sutherland in a Canadian thriller about a serial killer in the small-town backwoods. This looks like one to watch. Or does it?
Weary police Inspector Hazel Micallef (Sarandon) runs the small force policing this snow-covered town in the middle of nowhere. She drinks too much, all the time in fact, and argues with her superiors. Her daily routine is dull, and she drives home to the house she shares with her mother, a retired judge, (Burstyn) to drink some more. Then a local old lady is found dead, in very unusual and gruesome circumstances. Hazel has to step up, and soon realises that similar murders have a connection to that of the old lady.
Bur she has a past, and her drinking problem is known to all. They won’t take her seriously at first, so she has to try to tackle a series of grisly crimes, helped only by her also weary detective colleague, and a fresh-faced new boy who has transferred from Toronto. Things begin to get even more sinister when a religious connection is revealed, and consulting the local priest, (Sutherland) Hazel soon delves deeper into the mystery.
The building blocks of a great film are all there. An unusual killer, some gory details of the crimes, and the religious mysticism that surrounds the case. Moody winter locations, and the different setting of small-town Canada. Then there is that top-notch cast, all getting on a bit, but reliable as ever. I started to forgive the familiar police story standbys of alcoholism, suicidal tendencies, extra-marital affairs, and has-been cops at odds with modern methods and their bosses. Deciding to give it a chance, I settled in for the long haul, and watched it to the end.
Despite some nice atmosphere, and that previously mentioned unusual story-line, and great cast, the film-makers settled for a mix of seen-it-all-before situations. Sutherland and Burstyn were simple set dressing, their talents not even scratched. Sarandon played her part in her familiar style, all aggression and boss-woman, with no softer side. The camera spent as much time focusing on her endless bottles of bourbon, as it did following the action. As the tension builds to the climax, it feels as if it is going the wrong way, and has missed out the good bits on the journey.
I was left wanting more of Christopher Heyerdahl, who plays the creepy killer, and wondering why someone of the stature of Ellen Burstyn was even in the film to begin with. A film to watch if you have absolutely, positively, nothing else to do. It’s not ‘Fargo’, that’s for sure. Here’s a trailer.
Being a man of a certain age, I am lucky that I don’t have to look into a mirror that often. I do like to shave though, and brush what is left of my hair into something not resembling a floppy hedgehog. So at least once a day, looking into a mirror at my face is a necessity.
There are recent photos of course. But something about that two-dimensional image is never quite as disturbing as what looks back at me, from the bathroom mirror on the wall above the hand-basin. The sagging neck, jowls where cheeks once flourished, and bags forming on the bags already under my eyes. Ears slowly growing larger, lips drooping perceptibly. It’s getting harder to separate neck from chin, and the backs of the hands holding the razor and keeping the skin taut look like someone else is shaving my face.
There was a time when I looked into mirrors to check on things. Was my tie straight, and my hair parted correctly? A brief smile to check that I was still on form, a pat of the after-shave onto my firm cheeks, and off I went. Sometimes, I try to remember that face from not so long ago. The face that looked back at me, not the flat one in youthful photos. I can no longer recall the detail, or the differences from what I see now.
I have grown into a face that has reflected my past, and the excesses of youth. The years of work, some times of worry and stress, and many hours of happy smiles. It is my face, and I am stuck with it.
But I wish it didn’t look like someone else. Someone not me.
Transgender fish
I read about this many years ago now, but it popped into my head again this morning.
Ever since the rise in popularity of the contraceptive pill, two female sex hormones, Oestrogen and Progestin, have been released into our water supply in huge quantities. Even diluted down into small amounts, we all must ingest some of these; in our daily drinks, and when we wash, or brush our teeth. As a result, men began to take in female hormones at a young age for the first time, and women reintroduced them into their bodies, adding to those already present.
I read an article in a Sunday newspaper decades ago now, about how fish travelling along waterways were changing sex. Male fish tagged at one spot were discovered to have become female, when caught and reexamined later. Female fish had developed male characteristics, in the same study. It seems that a constant intake of these hormones means that female fish begin to develop more Testosterone, a male hormone. As for the males, the female hormones begin to reduce the existing Testosterone in their bodies, leading to a gradual change in body shape, and an eventual gender transformation.
The article speculated that this could well affect humans exposed to the same changes in the water supply over long periods, especially with birth-control drugs becoming more popular, and more concentrated.
Fast forward a few decades, and what do we see?
‘Man Boobs’, or ‘Moobs’. Do you ever recall seeing men with these, before 1960? I don’t. Do you notice them in old photographs? I don’t. Have you ever heard of men being emotionally labile, or in touch with their feminine side, during say the 1950s? I haven’t. Did men have ‘hips’, when you were a child? I never noticed any. Before the first contraceptive pills were widely issued for use in 1962, men had little or no presence of female hormones in their bodies, at least until Oestrogen became present as they got older. So the balance of nature was dramatically upset, as every male of any age was ingesting these hormones from birth.
What about women? When I was young, I rarely if ever saw a woman with a bald head, or receding hair. Except for ladies from certain ethnic groups, I also never saw them with noticeable facial hair, excessive arm hair, or random hairs on their breasts and chest. Since the late 1960s, many women have been subject to excessive levels of Testosterone in their bodies, as their intake of Oestrogen increased. Given the right circumstances, and a certain genetic predisposition, some women began to experience male pattern baldness, as well as beard growth on their face and upper lip. It is also possible that the same causes led to an increase in infertility, and the ability to carry a child to full term. There have been increases in the instances of Womb Endometriosis too, and debatable psychological changes in the way that some women behave in a more aggressive manner than they once did.
I offer no scientific link, and no firm proof. Just that old story about the fish, and my own observations. Then you can throw all the hormones given to animals like cows and pigs into the mix, and the hormonal balance of humans has been irrevocably upset. Write it all off as a conspiracy theory, if you choose to do so. But the next time you see a man with discernible boobs, accompanied by his prematurely balding wife, think again.
Doctor Wu
My love for the American band Steely Dan knows no bounds, I confess. In my recent A-Z challenge, their music featured as my top choice in more letters than I can recall. They have also been mentioned in these Significant Song posts previously, but I make no apology for showcasing another of their songs.
The band consisted of the talented duo, Donald Fagen and Walter Becker. They wrote and produced the music, calling on session musicians when they were needed. From just one word of Fagen’s distinctive vocal, their original and unique style was always instantly recognisable, and they never had any real competition.
From 1972 until 2003, they released many amazing records, both as a band, and with solo projects too.
Sadly, Walter Becker died this month, and that got me thinking once again about their huge catalogue of great songs, and the collaboration that was almost the soundtrack to my adult life.
So, this one is for Walter. Rest in peace.
“Where the Cuban gentlemen sleep all day”.
Groove Is In The Heart
I featured this song as part of a general playlist, back in 2013. I heard it again recently, and it took me back once more, to a time and place in summer 1990. A happy time, made even happier by this funky song from Deee-Lite.
Fronted by the fascinating and rather gorgeous Lady Miss Kier, this New York based House Music trio took the charts by storm with their debut album, enjoying worldwide success with this single release. For the MTV generation, their psychedelic video was just right, with Miss Kier’s gyrations holding the attention of any viewer. Using countless samples from established artists, the group caught the mood of the moment, combining high camp with a great beat, and surprisingly good vocals too.
They broke up in 1995, going their separate ways. I would be hard pushed to name any of their other six top ten hits, but this track has stayed with me ever since.
I Have Nothing
I rarely mention Whitney Huston on this blog. This song is from her film ‘The Bodyguard’ (1992), which I quite frankly hated. Just because someone is a terrific singer doesn’t mean that they can also act. However, since her death, so many singers try to copy her, or emulate her style. They rarely get remotely close.
Whatever I think of her, her talent as a singer is undeniable. The correct word is unsurpassed, to be completely frank. Nobody has ever quite managed the effortless power that she brings to her songs, and the flawless vocals that seem to come so easily to her. More than many, this particular song seems to illustrate her unique talent to just keep going with that almost unbelievable vocal.
Although I don’t actually own a single one of her records, I happily bow with due respect, to her immaculate performance.
Retired, not expired: words from the after(work)life. And music. Lots of music!
Independent views from someone who offers some historical context
Studying the Civil War and American History
Real Mom Life, Messy & Magical
Books | Poems | Reviews
Writer of horror/fantasy/urban/worldbuilding. All those nice things which mean I get to use my imagination.
Committed to thoroughly reviewing books on the American Civil War!
Interesting, entertaining & educative media
Reading Into Our Past...
Musings on cats, travel, gardens and life
Aspergers syndrome, bipolarity, photography, art, poetry.
A Writer's Life: Moments from the Life of a Poet and Author
Hop in, visit my backyard garden..
flotsam and jetsom.
All Food, All The Time...Because "Everyone Eats!"
An open blog for stories about the animals in our lives
Reflections on learning about the Civil War--Copyright 2020
Cogito Ergo Sum
Founder of the Three Things Method of Storytelling
beetleypete