Month: March 2011

Just bought Apple TV. Search not as expansive as I would have liked. But there are plenty of movies I have wanted to watch which I didn’t want to spend the money to rent and weren’t worth the hassle of entering them into Netflix que debates with Sharon. Streaming screams out for filmfiles, even if I couldn’t find Mildred Pierce. Only need to watch five or six movies a week to pay for the device in a reasonable time. We can do it with no problem. And, there is no late fee or crazed drives to return rentals.

As for Stripes, you should be ready for a bumpy ride. Great to reacquaint with early Murray, Harold Rambis, and the late, great John Candy. Warren Oates brings generational glue, anchoring the tale for the WWII and Korean Vets. Listed as a comedy, the absence of a conditioning word like “black” deprives the flick of legitimacy.  The first half is funny and sexy; the second is scary.

Murry and his buddy can’t handle life. Goofballs and slackers, they enlist into the Army for a European vacation, training, and some benefits. Some still follow their path, earning $20,00 or more as an enlistment bonus, a sum that would require some to work four jobs in a week to accrue. They end up in a troop of misfits let by Oates. Afraid to be sent back to 9 to 5, and after a shot to the bread basket by Oates, they work the troop into shape and earn an assignment to a special forces team whose task it is to test a new high tech tank disguised as an RUV. To further the romance of  service, they team up with two more qualified MPs who happen to be female and whisk them off in the vehicle for a tryst. While screwing, the home team thinks they have been kidnapped and go off to free them. The rescue team gets captured and the slackers then have to rescue them, starting a minor war with an unnamed enemy (Joe Flaherty), smite them, and return heroes.

This movie speaks to our worst dreams. Metaphorically, the US Army does what it wants, bringing its people into places where they may not be wanted. The officers come from a privileged class, educated, and clueless, charged with overseeing members of the underclass whom they send into battle willing to risk the lives of other but not their own. Both sides party without regard to the customs of  the places they inhabit, ignorant of the possible consequences, while remaining blind and deaf to the real purpose of  their undefined missions. Assume the tank works. Certified, it becomes a superior killing machine. No one wants that responsibility. Don’t explain the mission. Just tell me what to do.

The consequences of their conduct goes unquestioned. Force will cure any missteps. If captured and they get tortured, a act of the heathen enemy that could later be justified by invasion, assuming they cannot be traded for our hostages. Civilian casualties or the accidental destruction of property can be fixed with post-war reparations. And the players, they are are rejects who couldn’t make it elsewhere and who can be sold on the Army life, sir, as much because they don’t have anything else going on in their lives as that they have ideosyncrasies which can be translated into killing, fighting, and destroying skills. We hope at the end of the movie that this is how it used to be. What could be bad. They could be in jail. Now, you can even use enlistment as a get out of jail card, so long as you haven’t lost the ability to carry a gun.

Then they make them heroes and give them medals for winning a war they started.