Current Events > Civil War is getting rave reviews after premiere

(+) Yeah! (+)

Andy Ngo involved in any way whatsoever = automatic "garbage" label

Literally unwatchable

Thats more from being confronted with uncomfortable truths about your views and less to do with spoiling a fun time

I don't have a defense. But I also am not going to take an extreme stance just because of that. My experience with the director and the A24 studio that backed out way outweighs that.

What extreme stance?

It's just a really bad look for your movie credits to say "Footage provided by the AP, Getty and Andy Ngo" as if he's a real journalist, instead of a fake news peddler who's still tweeting about how George Floyd protests and "Black Lives Matter curriculum" ruined his school system. It platforms a guy who it is irresponsible to platform. The goal of his body of work is to harm minorities and incite fear & rage in conservatives. There's no universe where this movie couldn't have been made without crediting him.

I don't know who Helen Lewis is but from a google search I guess she wrote trans panic content about bearded men showing their penis in women's bathrooms and women being too scared to say anything if trans rights are advanced. Nazi may be a less accurate description than TERF. She apparently used to be pro-trans but something about the bathroom discourse crossed a line for her. Also I think she loves the monarchy which is cringe but what can you expect from the British I guess.

Only CE would go call the writer/director of Men and Annihilation a secret right wing leaning chud.

Why are we talking and not listening? he asked. Weve lost trust in the media and politicians. And some in the media are wonderful and some politicians are wonderfulon both sides of the divide. I have a political position and I have good friends on the other side of that political divide. Honestly, Im not trying to be cute: Whats so hard about that? Why are we shutting [conversation] down? Left and right are ideological arguments about how to run a state. Thats all they are. They are not a right or wrong, or good and bad.

some politicians are wonderfulon both sides of the divide.

I'd love people who say shit like this to actually say who in the modern Republican party is wonderful. They never do it though, for obvious reasons.

Is this another Avengers movie?

A self proclaimed centrist I know thinks Liz Cheney would have been a great running mate for Joe Biden.

They're an idiot. Is Liz as bad as modern Republicans? No. That's such a low bar though. She's the same sort of Republican as her father and before Trump he was considered a monster.

9/10?

Thats better than the dark knight, inception, interstellar, arrival, Django unchained

must be a really good film

The movie is entirely apolitical and we rarely even know whose "side" most of the characters are on. It doesn't matter. All that matters is that the others are the enemy.

I'm not at all surprised they went this route. In today's climate making it a clear "right vs left" war would have gotten extreme amounts of anger from the losing side of the movie. I wouldn't want to poke that bear.

we rarely even know whose "side" most of the characters are on. It doesn't matter.

I'm disappointed that it sounds like they don't go into the backstory of the war. Damnit

From the writer/director moron himself:

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/alex-garland-civil-war-release-timing-1235852725/#!

Can I just talk about how Jesse Plemons, despite being in literally one scene where he's credited as an unnamed soldier (although I suspect he and his crew are more opportunists wearing gear than actual soldiers in any of the armies, same deal with the gas station guys), also made it the most memorable scene in the movie and fucking nailed it out of the park

Kirsten Dunst, his wife

Oh shit, TIL

Because you know what I scored those films?

I gave three of those a 10 and the other two a 9.

that's on A24 for heavily promoting this movie as being about a contemporary US civil war.

is it not?

Thats surprising because to me it comes across as more like 6 or 7 at the highest, I like being pleasantly surprised by a great film

The easy part of the review - the filmmaking. It's near flawless. The cinematography, the editing, the sound design. All fantastic, which helps lend a very taut, uncomfortable feel throughout. This is a very gripping film.

The harder part of the review - the story and the themes. I was unsure when I walked out exactly what I thought. But in the hour since I walked out, I can think of nothing else. It is starting to make sense, but I also keep finding contradictions. So yeah, it's a Garland film. This is the exact same thematic haziness seen with Ex Machina, Annihilation, and Men, but they aren't hazy because of a flaw in the writing. On the contrary, they inspire thought and discussion, as, similar to real life, things aren't simple. I could spend serious time debating them with fellow film goers. Yes, even the flawed Men warrants discussion.

I guess I haven't said anything about the themes, but it takes having seen the whole movie to get too specific. That said, apathy, disenchantment, and desensitization are at the heart of the film, while also having the desire to actually see and know everything. Let's stare at the deadly car crash, but detach ourselves from actually caring. The movie is entirely apolitical and we rarely even know whose "side" most of the characters are on. It doesn't matter. All that matters is that the others are the enemy. We also don't need the backstory; it is way too easy for all of us to make up a very feasible one.

Finally, I just want to mention that both Kirsten Dunst and Cailee Spaeny are wonderful. Dunst still has it in her, and Spaeny likely has a very bright future ahead of her.

9 / 10

is it not?

Whatever you expect from an Alex Garland movie, he always gives you something else."Civil War" is something else again. It premiered in the US hours before I published this and it's already divisive. I look forward to reading all of the arguments for and against, even though both early raves and pans seem to be operating under the reductive assumption that it's one of three things: (1) an alternative future history of a divided United States that's intended as a cautionary tale; (2) a technically proficient but empty-headed misery porn compendium that derives much of its power from images redolent of genocide and/or lynching, but ducks political specifics so as not to offend reactionaries; or (3) a visionary spectacular with ultra-violence that might or might not have something important to say but will definitely look and sound great on an expensive home entertainment system.

As it turns out, "Civil War" is mainly something else: a thought experiment about journalistic ethics, set in a future United States, yet reminiscent of classic movies about Western journalists covering the collapse of foreign countries, such as "The Year of Living Dangerously," "Salvador," "Under Fire," and "Welcome to Sarajevo."

Specifically, and most originally, "Civil War" is a portrait of the mentality of pure reporters, the types of people who are less interested in explaining what things "mean" (in the manner of an editorial writer or "pundit") than in getting the scoop before the competition, by any means necessary. Whether the scoop takes the form of a written story, a TV news segment, or a still photo that wins a Pulitzer, the quest for the scoop is an end unto itself, and it's bound up with the massive dopamine hit that that comes from putting oneself in harm's way. The kinds of obsessive war correspondents who rarely come back to their own countries don't care about the real-world impact of the political realities encoded within the epic violence they chronicle, or else compartmentalize it to stay focused.

Kirsten Dunst, his wife, pulled him in.

an alternative future history of a divided United States that's intended as a cautionary tale; (2) a technically proficient but empty-headed misery porn