Customer Reviews

USA The Movie

5 star:		(36)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

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!

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.

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?

I almost cut my wrists with this DVD. I was so angry at the world when I finished watching. I smoked a whole pack by the end. This thing isn't about America, it's about the world. It would have been "England The Movie" a hundred years ago or "Rome the Movie" a thousand years ago. It might be "China The Movie" fifty years from now.

And who are these people smugly pretending they know it all, splattering their pseudo-intellectual crap and slamming this film and claiming it has nothing to do with what is happening in this world? Is there war? Is there devastation? Go back to watching Britney's belly get ripe with her commercialized offspring. This isn't sci-fi and yes, it is a terrible piece of entertainment but a perfect piece of truth.

October 2005, We all know what's going on in the world and from start to finish this is a movie that brings home to us the strange times we are living in. It is so relevant to right now even though it was filmed right after 9/11 and onward through the launching of the Iraqi invasion. A bearded man, Jim, looks on as his comfy world falls apart piece by piece until he's left with dust By the end, his troubled eyes ask the question, "how did this happen?" Unfortunately, I see this same look in many people's eyes these days and sometimes when I look ion the mirror I see it in my eyes too..The movie has an impact that grows because it is a piece of media that is a warning. Many times in the film there is the motif of "the dead end road" or "road closed" which represents the direction the country might take if they go once more down the path of war (which obviously we did). Toward the beginning of the movie, Martin Luther King can be heard speaking over the image of young, carefree guys watching something which catches their attention (this scene is in the French Quarter of New Orleans way before the disaster of Katrina). MLK says: "Don't let anyone make you think that America has some divine, Messianic right to be a sort of policeman to the whole world." He goes on to say in the tones of a God "America is too arrogant...if you don't change your ways, I will rise up and break the backbone of your power and place it in the hands of a nation that doesn't even know my name..." I said relevant.

But the main thing I found while watching this movie was that it wasn't just relevant to these recent violent follies, the movie has a broader scope, focusing on the Big Gun of today (the U.S.) but implying that this version of dog eat dog is one in a long, long line stretching back in history. The end of the film could be the end of time or the dawn of time or both.

It was heavy watching the main character go through his darker moments when he had his seizure and went crazy. it was too personal and disturbing even though it was no doubt necessary for the story, I thought the movie was much more interesting than what's usually out there. I definitely recommend it.

Still on the fence about who to vote for this November? Wondering if we really were lied to about Iraq? Memory failing about whether Bush and Co. really did tell us that all hell would break loose if we didn't go get that crazed maniac Saddam who was on the brink of starting WWIII with his arsenal of death ? Well look no further than USA The Movie.

Yes, I agree that Saddam was/is a crazed maniac but that's not the issue here. We all know the arguments on both sides. USA The Movie itself isn't even a real anti-Bush movie, its scope is much bigger but this extra-creative film lays it out in Bush's own voice. Yes, he really did say that we were basically "all gonna die" (I'm paraphrasing) if we didn't disarm Saddam. He scared the crap out of us on purpose to achieve his own political ends. Or maybe he really believed it but that could be worse.

Whatever the truth was in Bush's head--here we are now with thousands of civilians dead, hundreds of our soldiers dead and thousands wounded, Saddam on trial like a whacked, out of work Hollywood producer and no apocalyptic arsenal to be found.

Makes you wonder, doesn't it? This completely one-of -a-kind piece of filmmaking puts some completely different thoughts, voices and visuals together side by side and makes you feel like you don't know which way is up until the final moments when you realize that you've been taken on a cinematic ride. It's a really, really good movie and so thought-provoking that you actually feel stunned and somewhat fuzzy at the end. Like you drank too many straight tequila's when you promised yourself you'd just have one. When your mind clears you wake up to the realization that you better VOTE yourself into a better world and keep working after that to clean up your act.

Thank God that there are films out there that don't follow the same old Hollywood crap formula. I think the digital revolution and the DVD revolution is actually making it possible for more interesting work to get out there even if you have to dig harder to find it.

I love it when a film takes its time to draw you in deeper and deeper into its inner emotional reaches. It really was like taking a trip through the soul of America and that soul is disturbed and confused. What really blew my mind was the way they used Martin Luther King's speeches about Vietnam and references to his assassination in a way that hit me hard. I found myself choked up every time i heard his voice. I've heard him speak before, of course, but the way they used the speeches here made me feel like I understood his message in a way I'd never thought about.

What can you say about a movie that has heavy statistics about war, oppression and a plea for compassion at the end of it where a credits crawl would usually be? In fact, there's no credits at all in the film. You have to access them by selecting them in the features. Somehow that made me think a lot. All in all I can't say enough about this DVD. Brilliant.

For years I've been wanting to read Martin Luther King's autobiography and right after I saw this film I was so fired up and inspired that I purchased the book right away and read it fast. It is incredible and so is this movie. King's struggle relates to this time completely. If you need to get motivated again to fight against oppression and commit to peace, this movie and King's book will do the job. Just great!

Great Film. It gave me a lot to think about. Reminded me of everything that led up to the war but it went beyond that too. I was especially struck by the "newsreel" style area with the retro music video that was like something out of Orwell's "1984". Very worthwhile.