"Club Penton" - Ask questions to Hollywood insider "Penton-Man"

[Bobby Henderson]

Generation Kill has more than its fair share of "Hollywood" sprucing. Some elements of it are accurate and ring true while others are pure fabrication. My father is a retired career Marine and a notable author of several military non-fiction books regarding the Marine Corps during the Vietnam War. He doesn't exactly give Generation Kill a ringing endorsement.

Embedded journalists can tell a fairly compelling story about war, but it's not quite the same as the perspective of the actual service man doing the fighting. Even when the experienced grunt is telling the story far too often the Hollywood machine interferes with the story to inject the usual, tired conventions into the mix.

[DenonCI]

Shark,

Did you watch the interviews with the actual men from the supplements? One of the guys thought the author/screenplay was too harsh on the officers (which I agree). If they were that incompetent, then most would have died under their leadership. I don't care what organization you are, there's always animosity from the "grunts" to the "management."

[Penton-Man]

The sun is starting to come out!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6aJDN5PT08

Time to dust off thee ole tux.
Deci or Jason, make it look pretty for the par-tay………..

It came with the green decal and I didn't steal that wooden hanger.jpg

[sharkshark]

Originally Posted by DenonCI

Shark,

Did you watch the interviews with the actual men from the supplements? One of the guys thought the author/screenplay was too harsh on the officers (which I agree). If they were that incompetent, then most would have died under their leadership. I don't care what organization you are, there's always animosity from the "grunts" to the "management."

Yeah, I did... It's an edited piece, so it's hard to make a judgement, but who he was responding to was the soldier directly under the command of Captain America, one who was brought up on charges for something his commanding officer in fact did (and was in turn exonerated for). So, yeah, complicated.

Your point regarding officer's competency brings forth conflicting responses - from the grunts' perspective, they were the ones keeping it all from collapse. From the officer's perspective, they had everything in control. The point is that the film, form the perspective of the witnesses, shows that (certain) soldiers felt that these certain oficers were the cause of their problems. What should not be concluded is that, necessarily, this POV is a correct assessment, merely that it was in fact what they believed to be the case.

Bobby, I'm curious if you read the link above (or even watched the entire series) - forgive the spoiler for those that haven't seen it, but I really do feel that people miss the entire boat if you don't see it to the end, where he's interviewing Godfather, and he articulated succinctly that the allegations about Captain America and Lt. Fick were weighed at the same time. This is a 2 minute scene, and I think one of the most poignant of the whole piece (and might be missed by many).

The whole point of the piece (and the nature of the embed, as per the author's post on the link above) was to get the "bottom up" perspective. What's I think unique about this is that we're told, from the narative's point of view, that the situation on ground level is messed up, complicated, and seemingly incompetent from above. This, however, is never claimed to be objectively the case (even the bombing of the village or any of the other incidents are seen through the eyes from those on the ground).

The point was that the men in the one Humvee thought certain things about their mission and their superiors, and the film provides that perspective. For the casual viewer, yet, it will seem that there is some denegration of the officers at the expense of the grunt's POV. However, this entirely misses the subtlety of the narrative. If we didn't see the grenade bounce off the pavement and hit the guy in the back of the head (ie., saw a report from HQ) would we think a civilian had been shot in the back without recourse? The filmmakers have done an extraordinary job at not only ripping apart our expectations regarding this type of conflict, but doing so in a way that very much calls into question some of our assumptions regarding the protagonists, their conclusions, etc.

Bobby, while your dad's experience is of course valuable, I'd be curious what he points to in terms of "sprucing". I'm not for a moment suggesting that there aren't cinematic conventions at play here, but I'd be surprised if some of the more seemingly preposterous elements were in fact far closer to the (perceived) history than it might appear. Additionaly, your father must certainly recognize that this particular mission, with its inherent weirdness (sending a recon unit as a form of improv calvary in the deserts and cities of Iraq) is more than a bit removed from his experiences in Indochina.

At any rate, I once again do encourage you to not only take the time to watch the whole series to draw your own conlclusions, but to delve into that blog post in its entirety... It'll take some time, but I really do think it's worth it (and provides a far better articulation about what we're discussing than I ever could).

[sharkshark]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

The sun is starting to come out!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6aJDN5PT08

Time to dust off thee ole tux.
Deci or Jason, make it look pretty for the par-tay………..

I think Penton's trying to say he scored Oscar tix.. Man, I guess he's even more happy that D9 is up for a few awards... Funny, that penguin suit doesn't look like a rental, but it does provide Jeff's crack troops with a hotel to stake out in order to unmast the grand P-man... Must be a long flight from Vienna to LA in order to catch the red carpet entrance, no?

Have a ball tonight, Penton, we'll be watching from up here.

[Jeff Kleist]

think Penton's trying to say he scored Oscar tix.. Man, I guess he's even more happy that D9 is up for a few awards... Funny, that penguin suit doesn't look like a rental, but it does provide Jeff's crack troops with a hotel to stake out in order to unmast the grand P-man... Must be a long flight from Vienna to LA in order to catch the red carpet entrance, no?

I have far better methods of doing it, besides that's totally bait. He'd probably stay at the hotel next door just to take pictures of the stakeout

Besides, hiring paparazzi is totally beneath me. If it's not a plan worthy of Bond it's not worth doing

[sharkshark]

who's the old dude on the bike?

at any rate...

My Oscar pics (time stamped and dated for public humiliation should I prove wrong on all counts)

Actor: Jeff B
Cinematography: White Ribbon
Foreign: White Ribbon
Sound Editing: Avatar
Supporting Actor: Chritoph Waltz
Costume Design: Young Vic
Makeup: Star Trek
Sound Mixing: Avatar
Leading Actress: Sandra Bullock
Directing: Hurt Locker
Score: Up
VFX: Avatar
Supporting Actress: Mo'nique
Doc Feature: The Cove
Song: "The Weary Kind", Crazy Heart
Screenplay Adapted: Up In the Air
Screenplay Original: Inglorious Bastards
Anim Feature: Up
Doc Short: China's Unnatural Disasters
Short Anim: A Matter of Loaf and Death
Art Direction: Avatar
Editing: Hurt Locker
Live Short: The Door
Best Pic: Hurt Locker


I'm going on a limb with a couple, esp cinematography and screenplay for IB (I'm predicting no tech awards for it, despite a strong push for sound) but, as always, it's a crapshoot.

My fav film of last year that was nom'd was definitely A Serious Man, followed by IB. Neither, of course, will win best pic, alas.

Happy Oscar day, everyone! For P's sake, I hope I'm wrong about D9 being shuttout...

[pro-bassoonist]

Good evening,

There is a certain member in this thread, residing on the West Coast, that I believe would be interested in knowing what the current membership number is

Have a wonderful week.

Pro-B

[Jeff Kleist]

So Penton, how many people actually enjoy sitting through the 4 hours of the Oscars? It takes an eternity Is it simply the price you pay for open bars all night long ?

I do have suggestions for saving a lot of money on next year's show. Just put all the awards in a box, put everyone's name up on the overhead and tell them to come get it. 15 minutes tops.

I also do Spaceball-style weddings and graduations. Your ceremony in 30 minutes or less or it's free

[sharkshark]

oh, lord...that was so shockingly, shockingly terrible... Forget the winners for a sec (15 right, plus my "5-pt bonus" for getting top 6 prizes...)... But, jeez, from a guy that made Hairspray, the think was lifeless and stiff. Just a miserable show, clunky... Hell, they skipped all imagery during the cinematography section (glitch? to make up time?) but then did interpretive breakdancing to the tunes of best score.

Horifying. I hope, Penton, that the after parties are less somber and stupid.

WR didn't win, but I did think of you when Sony Pictures Classics got a shout out... Kudos!

[DenonCI]

Shark,

It wasn't that bad. I thought Baldwin and Martin did a great job as hosts, but I do agree the dance numbers were pretty stupid. Also, why did they do personalized announcements for best actor/actress and then have the envelope reader reread all of the names? Pretty stupid.

As for all the free drinks....better hope LAPD doesn't set up a sobriety checkpoint

[Bobby Henderson]

I agree. This year's Oscar telecast was not very impressive. It just didn't seem very organized. I have visions of a broadcast director and technical director screaming over their head sets for certain camera guys to "get a shot" and then just hitting whatever button on the switcher seemed right at the time. And the format they started using last year for the Best Actor and Best Actress categories is a real time vampire.

Not many surprises at all either. The only ones I didn't expect were the Best Sound Editing and Best Sound Mixing awards going to The Hurt Locker. Really? I figured Avatar would be the leading contender and perhaps Up being a credible challenger. Oh well.

Regarding Generation Kill, yes I watched the entire series and even recorded it to my DVR. I think the mini-series' creators certainly meant well but there's a lot of tid bits that miss the mark on accuracy, some of which was slanted to serve the story's interests rather than follow realistic details. This is a common problem with lots of military movies. The Oscar winning movie The Hurt Locker has its problems with accuracy. On the bright side, most military oriented movies these days at least have the actors sporting something closer to regulation hair cuts.

Many other professions are inaccurately portrayed in movies and TV shows. In addition to knowing lots of career military people I also know a few cops. One of my co-workers is a former DEA agent and spent nearly 20 years doing police work. Another friend is a Captain in the Oklahoma Highway Patrol. These guys laugh their butts off at all the outright nonsense in many action movies and series like CSI.

I have nearly 20 years of professional experience doing graphics work and I laugh all the time at movies showing phony-baloney BS regarding what technology can supposedly do to everything from blurry cell phone pictures to murky surveillance camera footage. Seriously, I would LOVE to have that "enhance photo" filter that screenwriters keep throwing into just about anything involving computer graphics. What would be more funny is to hear conversations from the graphics people who have to put together the graphics imagery for those parts of the story line that are 100% pure fantasy.

Probably my favorite scene of total bull crap involving graphics in a movie: the scene in Enemy of the State where the government geeks hack into a clothing store's surveillance camera and then rotate a captured still image in 3D space. I was howling with laughter the first time I saw that.

These errors in accuracy are very common. Just pick a skilled trade, find a movie covering it and you'll probably find something wrong with the portrayal. Some of it is lazy writing. Some of it is filmmakers insulting the intelligence of audience members to force a certain story angle. They're hoping the liberties they take will fly by most audience members. But they alienate the group of people they should be trying most to entertain. If the show comes off as authentic to others doing that work for a living then it's going to ring true for anyone watching the feature.

It is more difficult to write a story involving a certain line of work, make it 100% accurate and still have something that is entertaining instead of dry & boring. But that's why those guys are paid the big bucks.

[sharkshark]

Oh, I agree, in general, and the knee-jerk reaction is to assume a "Hollywoodization" of the story... What's pretty damn unique about GK is that not only is it a contemporary history (5 years from the event), but that the marines themselves are actually participants in the film (hell, "Fruity Rudy" plays himself!) Throughout the entire production they went through great efforts to portray the POV of the soliders and embedded journalists.

I'm not claming to say that there aren't liberities, but I will say that I bet far fewer are taken than in many films that purport to fit into the "documentary" rubic. Ironically, by creating a narrative, episodic piece they may well have stumbled across a greater truth.

That aside, I'm being a broken record - I just think this particular work is being too quickly dismissed. HL is an excellent example where there are clear deleneations from military protocol (the "solo mission" is pretty damn ridiculous, somewhat mitigated by the treatment he recieves upon trying to reenter the base). The scene of him removing his armour is also pretty over-the-top, but aparently based in part on an Israeli bomb tech. That asie, it's clear that HL is a composite tale, taking bits and pieces of reportage and crafting a generally taught, decent (not amazing) film.

GK is a whole 'nother leve, and I feel, respectfully, that you're doing it injustice by casually diminishing the obvious extent it went through to portray the complexity of the situation. I think it fair to criticize GK on many grounds, but a simple dismissal of it as "Hollywood" is I think unfair, given this nuance, and I frankly can't think of many other cinematic productions that have come closer to providing such engaging ambivalence about the whole sitation.

Don't get me wrong, it does achieve the Olympian heights of the Wire, but I think it's a great work of cinema (that happens to be on TV), and based on the response of a wide range of both military and civilian criticism, I'd suggest it's more successful that you're giving it credit for, on both aesthetic grounds and attempts at providing a high degree of authenticity.

Oh, and as a fellow graphic designer, I think you'll appreciate this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vxq9y...layer_embedded

[sharkshark]

Originally Posted by DenonCI

Shark,

It wasn't that bad. I thought Baldwin and Martin did a great job as hosts, but I do agree the dance numbers were pretty stupid. Also, why did they do personalized announcements for best actor/actress and then have the envelope reader reread all of the names? Pretty stupid.

As for all the free drinks....better hope LAPD doesn't set up a sobriety checkpoint

And NOT read them for best picture!

Yeah, the whole thing was an abomination... Even the opening seemed tired, and I like NPH.

In a night filled with a dreary sense of seriousness, the playing of "I Am Woman" when Babs and Kate left the stage was, to be mild, in poor taste. It'd be like "Camptown Ladies" for Mo'nique, no? I'm sure some would
"get a kick" out of that... (ie., http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0H2W1lK7P-I - includes many words NSFW, but from one of the finest films ever...)

[DenonCI]

Originally Posted by sharkshark

And NOT read them for best picture!

I think Tom Hanks wanted to get in the limo to go party.

Yeah, the whole thing was an abomination... Even the opening seemed tired, and I like NPH.

Too bad he can't sing very well. (no range)

[Bobby Henderson]

Originally Posted by sharkshark

GK is a whole 'nother leve, and I feel, respectfully, that you're doing it injustice by casually diminishing the obvious extent it went through to portray the complexity of the situation.

Go back and look what I wrote. I'm not the one "casually dismissing" Generation Kill. I said my father, a retired career Marine and military non-fiction author, didn't give Generation Kill a ringing endorsement. He was put off by a number of big and little things in the story narrative. Considering his background and expertise on the matter his judgment is not a "casual" dismissal. When I watched Generation Kill I sensed a few things weren't right. Talking at length with my father made the situation a little more clear.

Also, Generation Kill isn't being "quickly dismissed" by the public at large either. The mini series received lots of rave reviews. OTOH, not many of those critics are Marine combat veterans either.

Originally Posted by sharkshark

What's pretty damn unique about GK is that not only is it a contemporary history (5 years from the event), but that the marines themselves are actually participants in the film (hell, "Fruity Rudy" plays himself!) Throughout the entire production they went through great efforts to portray the POV of the soliders and embedded journalists.

That unique point of view unfortunately got twisted into one of the show's bigger flaws. The "grunt" on the ground does not have the "big picture" perspective of those in command. But the spruced up storyline often suggested the Marines in command were incompetent or were making decisions based on selfish agendas. The monologue from "Godfather" late in the series regarding the chain of command didn't "right" the story's wrongs as far as my father's judgment was concerned.

The level of drama and conflict between characters was obviously amped up to make the story more cinematic. The kind of Hollywood drama so many productions insert into military movies could play out as insubordination in real life. But that kind of conflict is inserted anyway due to stubborn conventions in film making.

My father was able to see both sides of the perspective, first as an enlisted grunt in the closing days of the Vietnam War and years later in a leadership role as a Warrant Officer serving in Beirut in the early 1980s.

Want a surreal, zany situation? Try patrolling the streets of Beirut as a "peace keeper" in 1983 with your hands effectively tied behind your back due to certain rules of engagement dreamed up by politicians. You take fire from Shiite fighters as well as Israeli troops acting like cowboys who fire first and then find out who they were firing at later. All the while you can't return fire! Despite that screwed up situation the Marines who served in Lebanon in the early 1980s did so with distinquished professionalism.

The Marine Corps does have, and sometimes works to maintain, a tough, bawdy and crudely funny image. The troops don't get along 100% perfect with each other, but in the field of combat they work far more in the direction of professional solidarity than the usual character friction often shown in the movies.

[Alan Gordon]

Originally Posted by Bobby Henderson

Go back and look what I wrote. I'm not the one "casually dismissing" Generation Kill. I said my father, a retired career Marine and military non-fiction author, didn't give Generation Kill a ringing endorsement. He was put off by a number of big and little things in the story narrative. Considering his background and expertise on the matter his judgment is not a "casual" dismissal. When I watched Generation Kill I sensed a few things weren't right. Talking at length with my father made the situation a little more clear.

It sounds to me like his issues with it are similar to your issues with the way photography is portrayed in films, and your cop friends with the way police work is often portrayed...

... or the way Jeff feels about the "science" of "Defying Gravity".... or the way I often feel about comic book films.

When we are casual observers, we can suspend disbelief, but when we know better, sometimes, even the small things can ruin the whole thing for us.

~Alan

[DenonCI]

Originally Posted by Alan Gordon

It sounds to me like his issues with it are similar to your issues with the way photography is portrayed in films, and your cop friends with the way police work is often portrayed...

... or the way Jeff feels about the "science" of "Defying Gravity".... or the way I often feel about comic book films.

When we are casual observers, we can suspend disbelief, but when we know better, sometimes, even the small things can ruin the whole thing for us.

~Alan

Ignorance is bliss

[sharkshark]

I guess we're pretty close to agreement... My point is this:

That unique point of view unfortunately got twisted into one of the show's bigger flaws. The "grunt" on the ground does not have the "big picture" perspective of those in command. But the spruced up storyline often suggested the Marines in command were incompetent or were making decisions based on selfish agendas.

As far as I'm concerned, that's entirely what the work was about... In a typical war drama, you're supposed to share the feelings of your "hero" (your Campbellian protagonist, if you like), and when you see thing from their perspective, you live in the story. GK, however, has all those trappings, and I do think many will simply take it at face value. However, and I'm certainly not projecting this on the narrative (the commentary tracks make it explicit) - the work definitely is about this very notion, namely, that the frontline troops are in this weird bubble, where they see things that from their POV are egregious. These are unique Marines, in that they are meant to be front-of-spear troops, self reliant. They had officers from Inteligence Ops that were on their first real combat duty. The author talks about incorporating the competent officers from other companies as a direct reflection against the (directly observed) issues with the likes of "Encino Man" and "Captain America". That said, there are lots of times where our "heroes" are wrong, clearly out of the loop, or even just downright confused. The judgment to shoot the kids on the camels comes from a conflicting report on high, one that was not passed on by one company commander, but executed by another element (namely, our key Humvee). Heck, Iceman, as worldly and educated as he comes across, a sort of Zen warrior, can't tell Portuguese and Spanish apart.

There are small little scenes like this that basically tell what the characters think and feel, present things as they see them, even when they're wrong. The author reflects in the commentary to the third episode that one regret is that by focusing on the "bottom up" some may unfairly get an impression of Godfather, but what he was reporting was the -grunts- impression of him, for good and bad.

The monologue from "Godfather" late in the series regarding the chain of command didn't "right" the story's wrongs as far as my father's judgment was concerned.

Fair enough, but it DOES do something quite wonderful, namely, make you question what you've just seen. And, on second viewing, it becomes even more evident that this is no hagiography of these characters. So, while I think the reaction would be valid in many, many cases, in GK, because of this scene (and several others that are more subtle, but uncovered on closer viewing) I think it does an astounding job of avoiding the very pitfalls that you describe your father as being uncomfortable with.

Now, there's a bigger issue, I'm again not claiming that there aren't things "amped up" for cinematic purposes. It's a film, a 7hr one but a film nonetheless. Does your dad (or you) have a better work to point to, one that is more effective at showing this conflict in a more palatably realistic light?

Again, I'm no expert on the Marines, and you (and, naturally, your father) are entitled to whatever opinion you'd like. I'd simply suggest that if in fact there are any cases where a narrative film can adequately give a sense of the actuality of events, then GK certainly fits that bill. However, let me be clease - it's not a great work because of its accuracy, it's that its (apparent) accuracy informs its narrative thread, namely in providing a sense of chaos, confusion, humour and horror that other, more straight forward films brush aside for the sake of traditional narrative convention.

So, got any Amazon links to your Dad's books?

ps. I knew a Labanese (of Christian background) who told me truly wacky stories about 81/82 in Beirut. Was your Dad there when the bombing of the compound/withdrawl took place?

[sharkshark]

Originally Posted by Alan Gordon

It sounds to me like his issues with it are similar to your issues with the way photography is portrayed in films, and your cop friends with the way police work is often portrayed...

Yeah, so if "enhance" is stupid and silly in 99% of films, we should be happy when it's done right (like in, say, Blow Up, a film about the very art of photography and the inadequacy of the camera to "witness" without a person to carefully view the photo)

If a tree falls in the forest, does the pope poop in the woods?