Worst movies of 2014: American Sniper glosses over Chris Kyle’s lies. Photo illustration by Slate. Photo courtesy of Warner Bros. The Movie Club is a weeklong conversation about the year in film. Read all the entries here. Dana! I’ll defend it. Stephanie knows that I’m a huge research nerd. I’m not knee-jerk against lying in biopics. But when critics catch a film in a lie, we have to ask it, “Why?” The falsehoods in American Sniper are dangerous because a lot of audiences leave the theater thinking that Chris Kyle was a role model. Okay, time to eat 12 pink boxes of marzipan and readjust my mood. I, too, was once as Dana wrote, “a Wes Anderson agnostic.” And boy, that performance from Fiennes.
I wish Movie Club was as permanent. If the readers will indulge me one last plug as I’m getting dragged out the door: Watch a film called Nothing Bad Can Happen. Farewell, Dana, David, Stephanie (if those are your real names), The mediocrity of ‘American Sniper’ Clint Eastwood's new film "American Sniper" has become the latest battleground in the culture wars. Washington Post columnist Alyssa Rosenberg explains why its politics matter. (Jorge Ribas/The Washington Post) When the 2015 Oscar nominations were announced last week, I put “the parade of accolades for ‘American Sniper'” at the top of my list of poor decisions the Academy voters made this year. The Clint Eastwood movie, about one of the most effective snipers in American military history and his journeys from the United States to Iraq and back again, is a passion project for its star, Bradley Cooper, who optioned Chris Kyle’s memoir himself.
Given the attempts to discredit Ava DuVernay’s “Selma” over questions of its historical accuracy that many commentators have treated as an excuse not to engage with her often very fine filmmaking, it seems important to me to emphasize all the ways in which “American Sniper” is mediocre as a movie. Again, there are rare exceptions. Bradley Cooper denies American Sniper is 'a political movie' | Film. It’s one of the most patriotic films in recent memory, the story of Chris Kyle, the deadliest sniper in US military history, who killed at least 160 people in Iraq.
Directed by Clint Eastwood, American Sniper has been described as “a heartfelt salute to US muscle” – but its star and producer, Bradley Cooper, denies that it’s a political film. “It’s not a movie about the Iraq war; it’s about the horror of what something that a soldier like Chris has to go through,” Cooper said at a press conference in New York.
“It’s not a political movie at all, it’s a movie about a man – a character study. We hope that you can have your eyes opened to the struggle of the soldier rather than the specifics of the war.” Cooper was speaking alongside co-star Sienna Miller; the film’s writer, Jason Hall, and Taya Kyle, Chris’s widow. The opening of the film depicts Kyle killing a pubescent boy and his mother as they attempt to throw a grenade at American marines. American Sniper: anti-Muslim threats skyrocket in wake of film's release | Film. American Sniper continues to draw record-breaking audiences as it barrels into its second weekend in wide release, but a group representing Arab-Americans says the rate of anti-Arab and anti-Muslim threats resulting from the Oscar-nominated war film has already tripled.
Citing what an executive for the group told the Guardian was a “drastic increase” in hate speech on social media, the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee wrote letters this week to actor Bradley Cooper and director Clint Eastwood to ask them to speak out “in an effort to help reduce the hateful rhetoric”. The film, which was nominated for six Academy Awards including best picture, depicts the story of Chris Kyle, the famed US navy Seal notorious for the highest known single kill count in US military history. A quick search on Twitter leads down a rabbit hole of anger. One tweet read: “Nice to see a movie where the Arabs are portrayed for who they really are - vermin scum intent on destroying us.” Don't hate on critics of 'American Sniper'—criticize its flawed hero.
This article is not about American Sniper. It is about Chris Kyle. That’s an important distinction because, as American Sniper continues to break box office records, many of its fans are having trouble separating the flesh-and-blood human being from his celluloid counterpart. This was perhaps best embodied by Kid Rock’s response to the public criticisms of the film made by Seth Rogen and Michael Moore on Twitter. “F*** you Michael Moore, you’re a piece of s*** and your uncle would be ashamed of you,” he wrote. “Seth Rogen, your uncle probably molested you. I hope both of you catch a fist to the face soon. God bless you, Chris Kyle. The fact that Moore had focused on Kyle the man and not Clint Eastwood’s movie, while Rogen had limited his criticism entirely to the movie without mentioning a word about the real man, escaped Kid Rock, much as it has eluded others in the pro-American Sniper camp, including Craig Morton, Blake Shelton, and Sarah Palin.
Photo via Warner Bros/YouTube. My Teachers. Our lives are shaped by people and events. Most of us area pretty good at documenting, and often celebrating, the important events. And as for the people who shape our lives, they are the heroes (and "sheroes") we carry around in our hearts and souls. Many people can readily identify one man or one woman who has made a difference in their lives and I applaud those people. Some of us, I believe, are even more fortunate to have a group of people who influenced us. For me, that group includes the teachers who helped me build the person I became.
While there were several important teachers in my life, I want to share with you some stories about Mrs. The 1950s and 1960s were a great time to experience life. Mrs. Mrs. As I grew older I was your typical kid, and while many people may have a hard time believing it, I was actually a little shy. Years later I realized that Mr. I went to high school at Long Beach Poly. Not being one to let things lie, I went to Mrs. Hero definition. Define warrior. 7 heinous lies “American Sniper” is telling... - Salon. I was an American sniper, and Chris Kyle’s war was not my war. I spent nights in Iraq lying prone and looking through a 12-power sniper scope. You only see a limited view between the reticles.
That’s why it’s necessary to keep both eyes open. This way you have some ability to track targets and establish 360 degrees of awareness. I rotated with my spotter and an additional security team member to maintain vigilance and see the whole battlefield. I scrutinized every target in my scope to determine if they were a threat. In a way, it’s an analogy for keeping the whole Iraq mission in perspective and fully understanding the experiences of the U.S. war fighters during Operation Iraqi Freedom. For the past 10 days, “American Sniper” has rallied crowds and broken box office records, but if you want to understand the war, the film is like peering into a sniper scope — it offers a very limited view. This portrayal is not unrealistic. During my combat tour I never saw the Iraqis as “savages.”
I served in Iraq from 2004 to 2005. Twitter response to american sniper. Should American Sniper Come Under Fire? – The Stanford Review. Or is the flawed movie a medium to talk about a flawed society? Beyonce’s Loreal ad seemingly whitewashes the talented singer, a Los Angeles woman, on behalf of her city’s entire Asian-Pacific Islander population sued Miley Cyrus after the star apparently mocked those with slanted eyes, and Pitch Perfect 2 demonstrates “casual racism”, such as the “Quiet Asian” stereotype, to get laughs. All of these examples show that pop culture represents only certain ideas, which, in these cases, relate to beauty and ethnicities. The recent movie American Sniper exemplifies this same phenomenon but raises the stakes because of its questionable portrayal of the protagonist’s heroism and its controversial representation of Iraqis. Both of these accusations have far-reaching and even violent consequences but colleges should not discount, ignore, or ban American Sniper.
The film should instead be seen as a medium to spur dialogue and maybe even promote change.