19 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Made for a Different Kind of Memorial Day, June 29, 2006
This review is from: USA The Movie (DVD)
I hosted a viewing party for USA The Movie on Memorial Day because I thought it would be a good thing for my friends to watch instead of just eating barbeque ribs. There was plenty of beer (the good stuff) which might not have been such a good idea because 7 of my guests totally were blown away in a good way by this movie but two of my guests got so pissed off they practically tore me a new one with the kabob skewers. I loved it (not the skewers!) because there should be some heavy duty feelings stirred up about this war and war in general. There is no middle ground anymore these days and my "lefty" friends (and me) are sick of being dominated by the "right" who are rapidly being exposed for how wrong they are.
My pissed off buddies especially objected to the heavy truths in the statistics at the end of the movie which lay out some basic facts about the state of the world and the state of America these days. One of them started screaming "Prove it! Prove it!" and they were shouted down by the response "Open your ******* eyes. You'll see the proof!" A great time was had by all. We'll be doing it again on July 4th!
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11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Visual Literature, April 28, 2005
This review is from: USA The Movie (DVD)
To begin with, consider it to be a piece of literature that found its way to a DVD. Or if preferred, think of it as a treatise about "Man's inhumanity to Man" that has been presented in a digital format rather than textual format. The title: "USA The Movie" is a deliberate provocation that up front spells out the irony which permeates this visual literature.
The Poem, "Dulce Et Decorum Est" by Wilfred Owen (a quintessential war poet and WWI soldier killed in battle) accompanied by imagery of clouds and a half moon is the prologue. It sums up the film's intention and message. The final lines of the poem quoted here: "My friend, you would not tell with such high zest, To children ardent for some desperate glory, The old Lie: Dulce Et Decorum Est Pro Patria Mori".
To translate: "It is sweet and glorious to die for one's country" The poem details the brutal, gory death of one soldier dying in a gas attack. Owen calls the much spoken phrase : "Dulce Et Decorum Est Pro Patria Mori" a lie because he has seen the true meaning of war.
"USA The Movie" picks up this theme and plays it out over 90 minutes orchestrating a non-linear experience, which increases in intensity, sometimes discordant, sometimes synchronized, finally potent.
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8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
They Told You So, June 28, 2006
This review is from: USA The Movie (DVD)
Hundreds of thousands dead, thousands of American soldiers killed or wounded, the world sees us as a bigger threat to Peace than Iran, the country is quickly going broke, the Constitution in tatters, voting rights are being questioned, reporters are threatened with jail. USA the Movie told us so. Way back, right after 9/11, The filmmakers took off in a RV filming a man named James Kirk, a self-absorbed 1960's type as he interacted with the lay of the land pre-war. That's the ground floor of this film but so much more is built up from that.
USA the Movie, definitely NOT a documentary but still real, is filled with voices that accompany everything you watch: just like a chorus of angels and demons which must inhabit the head of schizoprenics or mystics. They tell us what has been before, and most disturbingly--what will be in the future. These are strong voices taken from real history or caught from the time that the movie was filmed--which has now turned into history.
The voices command, plead, scream, argue, contradict, warn. One says that "first they went after Russia, Then it will be terrorism, then they'll go after China and then it will be extra-terrestrials -- all to keep feeding billions of dollars to war profits..."
Protesters shout to "Rise Up", a calm voice explains how our corporations make us hated abroad," a smirking. Cheney-like survivalist tells us that we'll be glad to oblige the enemy with mass death , just like we did to the Japanese", Amy Goodman reads a list of statistics derived from the very first days of the invasion of Baghdad, which now seems almost nostalgic, given what was to follow over the coming years. Martin Luther King speaks the greatest words of warning: "We are heading down a dead end road that will lead to national disaster". He begs us, from his grave, to put aside our arrogance because otherwise God wil "rise up and break the backbone of our power". The whole film is more like a perfect example of the creative ravings of a human mind torn to bits by everything it has seen and heard and by what it senses will come. But I have to say, maybe the reason I love this film so much is because now that everything it was warning about has happened (which is a little freaky, if you think about it), it makes me feel like I'm not crazy to feel like I do. I watch it and think "That's right, the world is insane, it's not just me." Don't you think that is kind of comforting these days?
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