Anyone else seen it yet? I went tonight and really enjoyed it. Portrayed a soldiers life quite well I thought.
Jarhead
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JRB
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I saw it Friday. It was almost over the top, but in a good way. I knew the Marines did some serious changing to folks, but add in the conditions of the Gulf war, and there were really serious changes. I liked it. What was horrible, about 30 minutes left, I heard 2 kids talking. I turned around to see someone brought some kids, like 5 and 7 to see it. Wow - this thing had graphic portrayals of everything that dictates an "R" rating, except drugs. I wanted to go all war-like on them for that. All in all, great movie.
I took my buddy to go see it Friday night. He flies down to Parris Island tomorrow. I thought it was a pretty damn good movie myself.
Was it a typically gory "shock" film or was it actually documentary style in nature?
J
JRB
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No real gore. Totally psychological gore really.robdamanii said:
Sounds like a worthwhile movie to see. There's been a distinct lack of them lately.loco said:
I'm waiting to hear a review from some actual jarheads before wasting my coin.
I did see Sahara last night on the plasma here at the house. Entertaing.
I did see Sahara last night on the plasma here at the house. Entertaing.
J
JRB
Guest
I saw it with a guy that grew up with a dad that was a drill instructor, and a son that is a Marine that just came back from the sand, and he couldn't believe how well they conveyed the darkness of what those guys can see. I think you will find strongly mixed reviews from Marines. Some Marines won't want to even see it. It's about special ops snipers, so even other Marines think they are super weird. One guy even said it,N8 said:
"you STA guys are fu*king weird".
It looks like a really good movie. Some of the trailers reminded me of "Full Metal Jacket."
Planning on seeing it.
I plan on seeing it. I read the book it's based on a year or two ago. Not sure how it translates to film, but it seemed that a lot of the book was about drunken escapades and fights in foreign countries (which are not all that exciting to read about). Had some good parts, though.
i saw it friday and thought it was a great movie. It is alot like full metal jacket for the first thirty minutes. Great movie conveys war differently than bush wants you to see it. it is mentally challenging on the soldiers, they already feel the guilt of war before they leave training camp. The main guy never even shoots anybody, none of them do. i would give it a 7.5 out of 10. 10 out of 10 for a WAR MOVIE THOUGH
i refuse to go see it. i have enough friends and ex-co workers with PTSD and every time i go to a VA hospital it makes me sick to see all the Gulf War soilders with Lymph Node cancer. groups of people sitting talking with big holes in thier throats from DU (depleted uranium) exposure from tank rounds. and i was exposed on more than one occasion when some tank track skirts were ripped open, so who knows how much ive absorbed through my respritory system. no thanks ive been over there, and done that. that's enough for me.
I'm glad they didn't just sugar-coat the military in that movie so people would think it's "frikkin' cool to shoot someone", or something to that effect. It's good that there's an accurate portrayal (at least, it sounds like it according to people above) of the modern military instead of some propaganda-esque film. In fear of turning this into a political thread, I'm stopping here.
It definitely looks like a film worth watching. Hopefully I'll be able to get to the theaters in the near future.
It definitely looks like a film worth watching. Hopefully I'll be able to get to the theaters in the near future.
J
JRB
Guest
They do that, but it seems to come from some sort of searching that some Marines may go through. Don't think that the Marines don't remove themselves from reality to be able to kill. They are a branch all to their own. This is second hand of course, but it seems like the Marines that say it isn't that way, say it out of guilt. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but they do have a different mentality. I have some very good friends that are Marines, and they certainly have some different thoughts than me. I am surprised at what they do, but they do say they are "the few, the proud", and that's a true statement.Bldr_DH said:
Yeah, it's worth going to see. Especially if you've spent some time in the Marines, or are planning on joining. I never thought Id actually see a movie that captured the way I felt alot of the time so well.
The Marines wont endorse this, becuase its just a bit too real. The movie really isnt a war flick, as much as it is just an insight into Marine life. I can see how people would either be motivated to join by it, or completely scared away. Go see it.
The Marines wont endorse this, becuase its just a bit too real. The movie really isnt a war flick, as much as it is just an insight into Marine life. I can see how people would either be motivated to join by it, or completely scared away. Go see it.
I saw it. Not bad. Stayed true to the book. Everybody acted just like a Marine in it. Saw a lot of myself and my friend's in it. Just make sure you know that not every Marine feels the same as Swofford does. His story isn't every Marine's story. Not everybody whines so much.
I've always thought that the book's author was a bit high on himself and glamorization of his own pathos. He's carefully crafted a persona for himself, like lots of smart Marines do in an attempt to balance the 'geeky' tendency of being a member of an organization with their own vision of themselves as the cynical, dark, covertly intellectual tough-guy who's still a real badass.
Probably see the movie on DVD, though.
Probably see the movie on DVD, though.
J
JRB
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Snipers aren't special ops guys??? Weird. I just learned something. I kind of figured that if you crawl on your belly for 4 days to take a shot, that's a special deal.MikeD said:
He wasn't a HOG either, he was just a PIG. As far as Scout/Snipers go, the HOG is the king, the PIG is the jack. There's a big difference. I've got one HOG and one PIG in my platoon. You can tell the difference immediatly. The PIG acts like any other infantry Marine, the HOG is the toughest son of a bitch I've ever met.
Jorvik said:
HOG, PIG...
whatever. None of it compares to the PAO. True hardinage and ownitude.
I pan on seing it on Friday.
You're right. PAO Marines are supreme. I don't know why SOCOM hasn't tried to copy them yet.BurlyShirley said:
Shoulda made a movie about combat weathermen...Nothing like spec ops with a laptop.
I saw it and liked it. Definately very different from your average war flick. I thought it was pretty deep.
The USMC has always been SOC- Special Operations Capable. We aren't a part of SOG or SF because we have our own way of doing things and don't give a rat's ass about the allure of wearing a goofy french hat. Marines are hard, Scout Sniper Marines are some of the hardest of them. Swofford was not a SS, he was attached to STA platoon from a line company (filling an empty slot out of need) and his book has been criticized by everyone from the Commandant down to his former platoon mates as being utter bull****. Now for the perspective on the movie from a Devildog:
I liked it and I hated it. It was realistic, to some degree in that it captured the boredom and the rowdiness that most war movies don't touch on. There was a lot (LOT) of creative license taken to make it a more interesting story, but that's not what bothers me. What bothers me is that people will take this at face value and assume that all us Marines want to do is f uck and kill things. Granted, those are two things that we tend to train for and/or pursue, but we aren't the bunch of neanderthal shi theads that were in this movie. We work hard and would kill or die to protect each other, but we don't run around masturbating to the thought of the "pink mist". I hate the fact that there will be many to whom Jarhead is an "accurate" portrayal of what it means to be a Marine.
I liked it and I hated it. It was realistic, to some degree in that it captured the boredom and the rowdiness that most war movies don't touch on. There was a lot (LOT) of creative license taken to make it a more interesting story, but that's not what bothers me. What bothers me is that people will take this at face value and assume that all us Marines want to do is f uck and kill things. Granted, those are two things that we tend to train for and/or pursue, but we aren't the bunch of neanderthal shi theads that were in this movie. We work hard and would kill or die to protect each other, but we don't run around masturbating to the thought of the "pink mist". I hate the fact that there will be many to whom Jarhead is an "accurate" portrayal of what it means to be a Marine.
You obviously arn't a PAO Marine. Those guys are nuts.jon cross said:
Yeah no kidding. PAO kills all. Im going to wank off to the pink mist and then take a picture of it.Jorvik said:
loco said:
As it's been pointed out, special ops is specific terminology; it doesn't just mean you do a cool job. (Even the use of "SOC" with respect to a MEU in general has gone out of use for several reasons, and even when it was in use, it never implied that every member of a MEU was a member of 'special forces.')
And as has also been pointed out, not everyone in STA is necessarily a scout/sniper, nor are all scout/snipers in STA platoon.
MD
Sweet. Take a picture so I can show all my buddies here in the barracks how hardcore PAO is.BurlyShirley said:
BurlyShirley- I was thinking about taking the PAO indoc. Should I start eating babies now to toughen up? Or should I wait until the indoc?
If you start training for the Textile Repair Course, you'd be better off. No harm in over-preparing.Jorvik said:
No one messes with the Stitch Bitch.
Ed: If you've never met the Stitch Bitch, he does exist:
3211 Fabric Repair Specialist
3212 Fabric Repair Chief
How would you suggest I go about training for that? I've heard of guys pounding nails into concrete with their peni. Will that make me tough enough?MikeD said:
I went to see it Friday with a Marine friend that just got back from Iraq. I know this is about the first gulf war so don't start.
I am glad that there was not a ton of political stuff in the movie.
My friend said that his boot camp was very similar to the movie except that he had a drill instructor that was about 8 inches shorter than my friend and the instructor would pull up a foot locker to yell down at him. (which made everyone laugh and made things worse). He thought they didn't do enough talking about Swoff's attitude coming into the Marines and explaining his thoughts on himself as he changed during his time in the Marines. Overall he said it was a OK movie and was glad that it didn't take on a antiwar stance.
My take on it..I thought it was pretty good. If you are looking for a "war" movie this ain't it. It is more the emotional toll that soldiers pay in battle than actual fighting.
I am glad that there was not a ton of political stuff in the movie.
My friend said that his boot camp was very similar to the movie except that he had a drill instructor that was about 8 inches shorter than my friend and the instructor would pull up a foot locker to yell down at him. (which made everyone laugh and made things worse). He thought they didn't do enough talking about Swoff's attitude coming into the Marines and explaining his thoughts on himself as he changed during his time in the Marines. Overall he said it was a OK movie and was glad that it didn't take on a antiwar stance.
My take on it..I thought it was pretty good. If you are looking for a "war" movie this ain't it. It is more the emotional toll that soldiers pay in battle than actual fighting.
Well, screw scout sniper or PAO. I'm sold. I'm going to reenlist so I can lat move to 3211.MikeD said:
It was ok, for Hollywood.
Not 100% accurate as none of the Marines were playing spades in their tent.
Part where Jamie Foxx's character does the simulated gas attack isn't accurate either. First thing you do is don and clear your mask(process of taking the mask out of the carrier and purging all the air in it to make an airtight seal), then call out gas, gas, gas while you touch your shoulders with your knuckles (imagine a muscleman pose).
Without getting too nitpicky, overall it was an ok movie.
Not 100% accurate as none of the Marines were playing spades in their tent.
Part where Jamie Foxx's character does the simulated gas attack isn't accurate either. First thing you do is don and clear your mask(process of taking the mask out of the carrier and purging all the air in it to make an airtight seal), then call out gas, gas, gas while you touch your shoulders with your knuckles (imagine a muscleman pose).
Without getting too nitpicky, overall it was an ok movie.
The Few, The Bored, The Marines
CBS News | Nov. 8, 2005 | Sudhir Muralidhar
In his Gulf War memoir "Jarhead," former Marine Anthony Swofford argues that most of the war movies that are ostensibly anti-war "Apocalypse Now," "Full Metal Jacket", "Platoon" serve as pro-war to the troops on the ground. The visceral scenes of carnage, fanatically reconstructed to drive home war's cruelty, only rile up and energize the men who are entering that reality. But the film adaptation of Swofford's memoir, which goes to extremes to avoid politics of any kind, doesn't engender any emotion at all. As war movies go, it has little interest in saying that war is hell or virtuous. The strongest message that comes through is that war is tedious.
That the audience is left more indifferent than invigorated is due to the fact that director Sam Mendes and screenwriter William Broyles Jr. have chosen to take from Swofford's story all the vivid details of life in the military but none of the underlying human development. Like the memoir, the cinematic version of "Jarhead" follows the enlistment and eventual deployment of Tony Swofford (played by Jake Gyllenhaal) to the Middle East during the Gulf War. While going through early training all the standard scenes of grueling boot camp are included Swofford gets selected for Sniper Team Alpha, where he is paired with a gung-ho spotter (Peter Sarsgaard) and placed under the leadership of a typically demanding sergeant (a surprisingly ineffective Jamie Foxx). The rest of the film focuses on the anxious, frustrating time when Desert Shield became Desert Storm and Swofford's troop went from monotonously passing days and weeks in the barracks to patrolling the desert of Saudi Arabia.
The Gulf War was primarily won through strategic air bombings and missile strikes, producing few American casualties, so it provides much less dramatic fodder than the failures of Vietnam or the heroic battles of World War II. (Even the one compelling feature film about Desert Storm, David O. Russell's excellent "Three Kings," relied on a concocted story about missing gold to maintain two hours of dramatic tension.) In his book, Swofford accomplished the impressive feat of holding the reader's attention through what was essentially an uneventful tour (he saw little combat action), largely on the strength of his prose and his reflective account of personal evolution from diehard Marine to jaded war veteran. It is not surprising that both literary features are missing from the film adaptation, but it is disappointing that Mendes and Broyles have not bothered to replace them with something else. Instead, we get a recital of the main events with little of the human element beyond the requisite scenes of Swofford and his fellow Marines crying over their cheating girlfriends or complaining about the general difficulties of being stationed thousands of miles from home.
This lack of emotional depth is a problem that has plagued Mendes' previous work ("American Beauty," "Road to Perdition"). To those who have followed his career it will not come as a surprise that he tries to compensate through cinematography; the film's greatest strength lies in the visual portrayal of Army life in the Middle East. Shot by the acclaimed cinematographer Roger Deakins, "Jarhead" looks terrific, and there are some visually magnificent scenes that capitalize on the expansiveness of the desert landscape. But Mendes' brand of visual formalism seems least appropriate for a film about war, where messiness and unpredictability abound and human emotion is crucial to understanding the true effects of life on the ground. Without anything to suggest that these characters are evolving, we are left with little more than appreciation for their predicament and a rather woolly hope that things turn out for the best.
That the film engenders a certain amount of goodwill is largely due to Gyllenhaal, who makes for a surprisingly convincing soldier. I've never really warmed up to his overly sensitive screen persona in the past, but his sleepy eyes and delicate voice help to make his transition from boyish new recruit to first-rate Marine all the more persuasive. As his sniper partner, Sarsgaard brings his usually welcome dose of wry intelligence to a role that doesn't quite warrant it. As Sarsgaard plays it, his character is both the smartest man on the field and one of the least levelheaded, a contradiction that never truly feels genuine. The rest of the cast are typical war-movie caricatures: the gruff sergeant, the Bible-reading southerner, the married man with two kids, and so on. That none of them leaves a notable mark is just another sign that "Jarhead" has taken all the major characteristics of the films in the war-movie pantheon, to which it so obviously wants to belong, without finding a way to prove distinctive.
Ultimately, by refusing to engage with the political and emotional ramifications of the events it depicts, the film adaptation of "Jarhead" comes across as limp and tentative. They may alienate audiences, but political biases at least serve to hold a film together, to make the whole seem more than just the assemblage of its various parts. Mendes wants to depict the military in wartime without offending any sensibilities. Unfortunately, by insisting on such determined silence, he has produced a picture that doesn't communicate anything at all.
CBS News | Nov. 8, 2005 | Sudhir Muralidhar
In his Gulf War memoir "Jarhead," former Marine Anthony Swofford argues that most of the war movies that are ostensibly anti-war "Apocalypse Now," "Full Metal Jacket", "Platoon" serve as pro-war to the troops on the ground. The visceral scenes of carnage, fanatically reconstructed to drive home war's cruelty, only rile up and energize the men who are entering that reality. But the film adaptation of Swofford's memoir, which goes to extremes to avoid politics of any kind, doesn't engender any emotion at all. As war movies go, it has little interest in saying that war is hell or virtuous. The strongest message that comes through is that war is tedious.
That the audience is left more indifferent than invigorated is due to the fact that director Sam Mendes and screenwriter William Broyles Jr. have chosen to take from Swofford's story all the vivid details of life in the military but none of the underlying human development. Like the memoir, the cinematic version of "Jarhead" follows the enlistment and eventual deployment of Tony Swofford (played by Jake Gyllenhaal) to the Middle East during the Gulf War. While going through early training all the standard scenes of grueling boot camp are included Swofford gets selected for Sniper Team Alpha, where he is paired with a gung-ho spotter (Peter Sarsgaard) and placed under the leadership of a typically demanding sergeant (a surprisingly ineffective Jamie Foxx). The rest of the film focuses on the anxious, frustrating time when Desert Shield became Desert Storm and Swofford's troop went from monotonously passing days and weeks in the barracks to patrolling the desert of Saudi Arabia.
The Gulf War was primarily won through strategic air bombings and missile strikes, producing few American casualties, so it provides much less dramatic fodder than the failures of Vietnam or the heroic battles of World War II. (Even the one compelling feature film about Desert Storm, David O. Russell's excellent "Three Kings," relied on a concocted story about missing gold to maintain two hours of dramatic tension.) In his book, Swofford accomplished the impressive feat of holding the reader's attention through what was essentially an uneventful tour (he saw little combat action), largely on the strength of his prose and his reflective account of personal evolution from diehard Marine to jaded war veteran. It is not surprising that both literary features are missing from the film adaptation, but it is disappointing that Mendes and Broyles have not bothered to replace them with something else. Instead, we get a recital of the main events with little of the human element beyond the requisite scenes of Swofford and his fellow Marines crying over their cheating girlfriends or complaining about the general difficulties of being stationed thousands of miles from home.
This lack of emotional depth is a problem that has plagued Mendes' previous work ("American Beauty," "Road to Perdition"). To those who have followed his career it will not come as a surprise that he tries to compensate through cinematography; the film's greatest strength lies in the visual portrayal of Army life in the Middle East. Shot by the acclaimed cinematographer Roger Deakins, "Jarhead" looks terrific, and there are some visually magnificent scenes that capitalize on the expansiveness of the desert landscape. But Mendes' brand of visual formalism seems least appropriate for a film about war, where messiness and unpredictability abound and human emotion is crucial to understanding the true effects of life on the ground. Without anything to suggest that these characters are evolving, we are left with little more than appreciation for their predicament and a rather woolly hope that things turn out for the best.
That the film engenders a certain amount of goodwill is largely due to Gyllenhaal, who makes for a surprisingly convincing soldier. I've never really warmed up to his overly sensitive screen persona in the past, but his sleepy eyes and delicate voice help to make his transition from boyish new recruit to first-rate Marine all the more persuasive. As his sniper partner, Sarsgaard brings his usually welcome dose of wry intelligence to a role that doesn't quite warrant it. As Sarsgaard plays it, his character is both the smartest man on the field and one of the least levelheaded, a contradiction that never truly feels genuine. The rest of the cast are typical war-movie caricatures: the gruff sergeant, the Bible-reading southerner, the married man with two kids, and so on. That none of them leaves a notable mark is just another sign that "Jarhead" has taken all the major characteristics of the films in the war-movie pantheon, to which it so obviously wants to belong, without finding a way to prove distinctive.
Ultimately, by refusing to engage with the political and emotional ramifications of the events it depicts, the film adaptation of "Jarhead" comes across as limp and tentative. They may alienate audiences, but political biases at least serve to hold a film together, to make the whole seem more than just the assemblage of its various parts. Mendes wants to depict the military in wartime without offending any sensibilities. Unfortunately, by insisting on such determined silence, he has produced a picture that doesn't communicate anything at all.