BEFORE: I just sped my way through the Golden Globes - once an awards show is on my DVR, I prefer to zip through the vast majority of the acceptance speeches, and most of the silly montages (although, since the Globes had to work in both TV and movies, they seemed to keep the useless montages to a minimum) and I don't really watch the clip packages, either - just get me to the next set of presenters, list the nominees and tell me who won. I can usually get through a three-hour awards show in under an hour this way, and get on to my next movie. Look, do we really need a clip package from "Black Panther"? Everyone in the world who was going to see "Black Panther" has already seen it, and the few people who haven't probably aren't going to consider it. I may watch "Crazy Rich Asians" in the future, or I may not, but a series of clips isn't going to factor into that decision.
As it stands, I've got a limited amount of time before the Oscars, which are on February 24, just 48 days away. But on February 1, I switch my focus over to romance films for at least a month, so really, I've got just until the end of January to watch any potential Oscar-worthy films - this is probably why I'm always playing catch-up, because I have such a tight window between the end of the year and the date of the Oscar presentation - and this year, I've already made up my mind which screeners I can fit in between now and January 31 - and the only other 2018 films I have room for between now and then are "Mission: Impossible - Fallout", "Vice" and "Welcome to Marwen". Only one of those is now a real contender, but hey, maybe the action film will win some technical awards, you never know.
My point is, it's too late for me to work in some of the big winners and nominees from the Golden Globes, they're all in the category of "I would like to see that, but not at this time, probably later" - and that covers "Bohemian Rhapsody", "Green Book", "A Star Is Born", "BlacKkKlansman", "Mary Poppins Returns", "Stan & Ollie", "First Man", and even "Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse". They're all on my radar, I would like to see all of these films, but just not at this time, probably later. Tomorrow I can make a list of the screeners that I'll have access to, and start making some kind of plan. And once I start making the links, things should come together, I can imagine a John C. Reilly chain that contains "Stan & Ollie", "Holmes & Watson", "Ralph Breaks the Internet", along with "The Sisters Brothers" and "The Little Hours", with that last one on Netflix. See how easy that is? And I'm probably going to need SOME way to link to Episode IX in December, I'm already thinking about Adam Driver in "BlacKkKlansman" or John Boyega in "Pacific Rim: Uprising", but that's still a long ways off. Still, it's good to know that if I use up all my Oscar Isaac or Domhnall Gleeson films in January, I'll still have some options. Mark Hamill was in "Brigsby Bear", and that's on my list, just saying - it's never too early to think about the linking options.
Tonight, John Krasinski carries over from "Promised Land" and I'm kicking off an action-packed week that SHOULD end with "Mission: Impossible - Fallout", if all goes well.
THE PLOT: During an attack on a U.S. compound in Libya, a security team struggles to make sense out of the chaos.
AFTER: OK, so I'm a little ashamed to admit this, but even though it didn't happen very long ago, just over six years ago, I could not remember what went down in Benghazi. To be fair, those events got turned into a total political football during the 2016 election, blame got cast all around and especially on a certain Democratic candidate, until "Benghazi" just sort of became shorthand for "I want to end this debate very quickly, so let me go to my slam-dunk, all-purpose burn." But what really happened in Benghazi? Something to do with the Syrian Civil War - no, that was Aleppo. Russia invaded - no, that was Crimea. Ugh, too many military operations to keep track of in the past few years, plus we never finished the ones that George W. Bush started!
Yeah, you can say I really needed to watch this film to get it straight, and that's assuming that the filmmakers didn't get everything 100% accurate - because who does, really? Benghazi was in Libya, and back in 2011 Gaddafi (or Khadafy, or Qaddafy, or whatever) was asked to remove himself from his palace of residence, and that request came from the insurgency. Umm, they didn't ask nicely. The U.S. sent a new ambassador to be the liasion to the new Libyan opposition, and also the CIA had been building a covert presence in Libya for months, monitoring groups like Al-Qaeda and also Ansar al-Sharia, from a secret base. To say that the area was politically unstable would be a huge understatement, and things came to a head when Libyans attacked the U.S. embassy on Sept. 11, 2012.
Yes, the U.S. had people gathering intelligence in Libya. And the conclusion drawn from that intelligence was that the area was an unstable powder-keg, so you might think that the logical response to that conclusion would be to withdraw from the area. But hey, hindsight is always 20/20. Live and learn.
The CIA Annex in Benghazi was just one mile from the embassy, so the terrible decision facing the members of the GRS (Global Response Staff) who were technically contractors working for the CIA, was whether to respond to the embassy attack, and risk revealing the location of the CIA Annex. If this film is to be believed, their CIA chief ordered them not to go, but 6 members of the GRS went to the embassy to secure the location and try to save the ambassador. By this time, the building had been ransacked and set on fire, so they were unable to locate him in the burning building, then to make matters worse, they were followed back to the Annex.
The Annex then was hit with wave after wave of Libyan militants, while a response team tried to get authorization to launch from Tripoli, and then encountered difficulty getting out of the airport, then MORE difficulty trying to find the CIA base. Well, to be fair, it was a secret base - but you'd think they would have been able to send proper directions to the rescue team, right? Look, I'm not the one who's going to complain about whether or not this film was completely accurate in the details of this event - I'm more likely to be the guy to complain about the fact that when you cast a bunch of white men with similar looking faces, then cover those up with similar-looking beards and a whole bunch of grime and blood, it becomes impossible to tell one soldier from another.
And I don't think they were trying to make some kind of grander point about soldiers losing their individuality, I think someone just cast a bunch of guys with similar features. Maybe mix it up a bit, that's all I'm saying. "OK, sorry, we already cast one guy with a scruffy beard, blue eyes and wiry curls - NEXT, please." Just saying.
And I'm not one for "boo-RAH" patriotism, either. But I can still be glad that I'll most likely never be in a firefight myself, and that the closest I'll ever come will be watching one in a movie. For that, I'm thankful to others for their military service. I don't know how much action should be in a movie and how much downtime there should be between firefights where the soldiers think about their families and what it all means, but this ratio seems about right.
Also starring James Badge Dale (last seen in "The Grey"), Max Martini (last seen in "Fifty Shades of Grey"), Dominic Fumusa (last seen in "Focus"), Pablo Schreiber (last seen in "Vicky Cristina Barcelona"), David Denman (last seen in "Fair Game"), Matt Letscher (last seen in "Her"), Toby Stephens (last seen in "Die Another Day"), Alexia Barlier, Freddie Stroma (last seen in "Pitch Perfect"), David Costabile (last seen in "The Post"), Payman Maadi, David Giuntoli, Demetrius Grosse (last seen in "Saving Mr. Banks"), David Furr, Kevin Kent, Christopher Dingli, Davide Tucci, Shane Rowe, Gabor Bodis, Wrenn Schmidt (last seen in "I Saw the Light"), Kenny Sheard.
RATING: 5 out of 10 Tangos
No comments:
Post a Comment