TrueJoshNight Truly Dreadful Film

FuzzyTagz If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

PiraBit if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

Logan By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

FamousGirlfriend Jordan O'Neill (Demi Moore) is selected to be one of the test subjects in an attempt to explore the possibility to change the policies for women in the navy. Unsurprisingly, there's more than one agenda in the mix.Yes, this is kind of a flat film. Yes: it has flaws. Yes, it's ridiculously predictable. But do I love this film or what? It's one of my dearest feel good films of all time. I think Ridley Scott managed to capture a few real issues in a film that is essentially an amusing and very simple story. The actors do a great job and the story is straightforward, I think it is all it was intended to be.Also, they beat each other up and there are helicopters and explosions.***SPOILERS and annoyingly large wall of text below!***The gender issue is so apparent it might as well be a joke, and in a lot of cases it is! Symbolic references to genitals everywhere. Maybe that's why it works so well. You want the jokes and extreme symbolism. And the helicopters and the violence.There are two powerful women in this film, both of them are trying to make it, but while being a woman is part of the strategy for one of them, being treated as a person rather than a woman is vital for the other. DeHaven is trying to make a feminist statement as part of a (not so clean) political campaign, Jordan just tries to do what she wants in life, despite being a woman.Jordan is victimised and diminished by basically all people around her, DeHaven being the most cruel of them all. At least C.O. Salem is honest. Even her partner is trying to hold her back to some extent, though he comes to respect her decision in the end. But Jordan never considers herself a victim and doesn't for one minute feel sorry for herself. There is just critique and hopeless idiocy in a lot of the characters' reasoning: 1) Women in combat isn't a yes/no decision, because it IS true that men tend to become more protective towards women, and that IS problematic in a war situation (I just read a book on this, so I feel comfortable stating this). Ideology and reality have a tendency to clash. But this doesn't mean that we can't change this: by the time this film came out the policies for women were different from they are now, so apparently we are getting somewhere. 2) There is always someone who decides what is and what isn't politically correct, and while striving for equality, what is important and what is just for show? Does forcing "gender education" upon someone really make a difference or is it just antagonising? Even if I thoroughly dislike the character C.O. Salem and all his opinions, I get where he's coming from and it's not only the 50s.How can we strive for equality when there are still people using their gender as justification or means to succeed? How can we look past "gender norms" when we are the ones upholding and creating them? And why are people not judged by what they bring to the table, when that should be the only thing that matters?

aldebaran68 OK. I'm European/ME background so not the greatest fan of the US military esp. not Hollywood depictions of it. I don't want Islam in Europe (they tried twice before, not a 3rd time thank you), but nor do I want the West intruding there. Libya, Syria, and Iraq we should not be there. So I don't like the Libyan bit. Yes it happened for real as a Western intervention, no I still don't like it. It was ineffective and unsuccessful. I hated the invasion of Iraq 2003. Why am I saying all this? Because for all the 'US military is the Best in the World' as this movie tries so hard to portray (best, meanest, roughest, toughest etc.) it hasn't won a single war since against Japan 1945. GW1 was a 100hr 'turkey shoot' hi-tech war against peasants. The US military is not the best in the world, just the most expensive, and the smallest by population resource base (about less than 1% of the population). I thought Blackhawk Down was a more realistic portrayal of the US SF in an Islamic environment. Now to Demi More. I thought she performed a thankless role well. Didn't do her career much good though… Personally I do not approve of or agree with women in combat roles. Not one bit. Any other part of the military-welcome, but not combat. Esp. not in the ME where it seems at least 60% of the US effort has been for the last 15 years. There is presently a huge controversy in the US about opening up the SF to women. They the SF operatives apparently do not want it. Only the politicos (very well portrayed in the movie) want it for stupid non-military or operational reasons. If a woman in uniform is captured in the ME by Jihadis, she will endure a nightmare that will scar, damage and ruin her for life.Out there attitudes to khuffar (Infidel/non-Muslim) women in uniform are many times worse even than for Muslim women who rebel against the religion. What DM went through with Master Chief would be 'a walk in the park' compared to what she would undergo in reality at Jihadi hands. So that argument about women in combat is mostly unrealistic. And the film portrayal, while maybe realistic about the training, is unrealistic about what an enemy would do to a Woman in uniform... Not merely 'a bit of roughness' but utter screaming barbarity... The point of GI Jane was to portray women going into SF training then into combat. It failed to show the outcome of that reality in the fully conflictual (Iraqi/Syria) ME. Possibly it only wanted to portray her readiness to operate in a unit while not showing 'cultural context'. This was cheating IMHO. Imagine GI Jane in Blackhawk down. That would much more realistic. Imagine her as a chopper pilot, like the guy who got dragged off. This movie failed to portray the argument of women in SF except in the most 'entertaining' light. So it was entertaining, for that I gave it 5. But for lack of realism in its representational purpose I wouldn't give it more. A 'Blackhawk Down' scenario with a female operative would have been much more realistic

meritcoba "I am wrong." Henry said.Henry and Kristl were sitting in their garage turned Cinema. The garage was a workshop with large windows and three sliding doors that was part of a petrol station. Henry and Kristl could rent it for an agreeable price, because the ground was polluted by oil and other fluids associated with cars that had spilled for decades onto the floor and fouled the soil underneath."We could make it into a public restroom." Henry had said. "We were going to make it into a private cinema?" Kristl answered. "We could make some money on the side to cover our expenses." Henry said. "And who is going to clean this restroom?" Kristl's gaze made Henry think of a snake about to strike. "We could make it automatic, perhaps."Henry sweat-ed a bit and felt like he had just discovered he was walking in a minefield. "A Henry o'matic." Kristl said with a flat voice.. "Uhmm." "Just wrong. Plain wrong. " Henry continued, "That is why I never get any girl friends.""But I am your friend?" Kristl said. "Yes, but I don't mean a friend friend, but a girl friend friend." "Ah." "A man like me would do something like this." Henry produced out of nowhere a small white dish on which was placed a chocolate éclair with dark chocolate of such fine color that it made Kristl's mouth water. Next to it was a fine silver spoon, that shone green in the light of the exit sign. Kristl was staring transfixed at the chocolate éclair. "You see.. I would have the notion that you give this to someone you like and that she, the she being you in this case, would like me for it. Just to be nice." "Who do you want to have killed for that?" Kristl smiled. "I don't want anything for it, you just get it for free because you are my friend. Not a girl friend kinda friend, but a friend friend." "Gracias." Kristl took hold of the dish with a slightly trembling hand. "But I am silly really, because women want to be tough cookies that like to be trounced so you get respect from them and you get trounced by them so they respect you.. And then the greatest praise you can get from them is: 'suck my dick'" Kristl was eyeing her éclair in a way that clearly showed she had not yet made up her mind to swallow it whole or eat it in small bits. She decided on the latter. "I am overjoyed that US finest troops are in reality dumb gung ho halfwits that are trained to a sharp killer edge by humiliation and torture. Guess that makes a good soldier." "suck my dick?" Henry said, "What does that mean?" "Well, she wants to be man really, so that guy can suck hers or his. I am getting a bit confused." "I was a bit embarrassed when that one guy walks up to her and stammers 'yu are okaj' to her like he was lurch from the Addams Family. I thought well, Seals, aren't they the finest of our men? Somehow Lurch doesn't quite fit in with that picture." "It actually makes me happy. Would be scary to think they were serious experienced intelligent men with a professional attitude. They could be effective and deadly..brr. " Kristl said and continued, "I was a bit annoyed when it was suggested it was bad that she might be a lesbian. Oh my god she is a lesbian! We have to put up with blacks, women, gays and now with lesbian So what does that say: you can be a woman in the army but not when you are a lesbian?" "Imagine being a black lesbian" Henry laughed. "But how do you feel about the whole movie?" "I have to say it was an exceptionally run-of-the-mill movie. I didn't like any of the people in it. They were an amalgam of faces in dark surroundings. Then the movie used all the clichés. The politicians who can't be trusted and sell you out if it suits their fancy. The lone hero Jane who, having no experience whatsoever in politics, manipulates that woman, with decades of experience in politics. The cigar crunching commander with the I-don't-like-politics attitude. The drill sergeant who is tough on her but finally grudgingly starts to respect her. The boys who first look down on her and then become her buddies." "Yes, but I think that was all you could do with the story." Henry nodded."G. I. Jane has proved that us women can be beaten and humiliated as any other man in the army. And isn't this sad? How great is it that such fine intelligent people are wasting their lives on something so utterly needless as the act of waging war? There are people who can contribute something of value to the progress of humanity, but the only thing they learn is 'how to blow things up'. The movie is a hallmark of utter waste: now we women can be as useless as any men because we have equal access to all the branches of the army." "Hurrah for equality." Henry said."Any more of those éclairs?" Kristl smiled. "A whole box of them." Henry winked as he showed her the box, "Come and get them." After chasing Henry for five minutes He gave in and handed her the box. "All for equality." Henry said."Jummy." Said Kristl.

Desertman84 Ridley Scott directed this flawed but involving study of Lt. Jordan O'Neil, a Navy topographic analyst who is chosen as a test case for the presence of women in combat. G.I. Jane is an action film tells the fictional story of the first woman to undergo training in U.S. Navy Special Warfare Group.The movie stars Demi Moore together with Viggo Mortensen and Anne Bancroft.The SEAL/CRT (Combined Reconnaissance Team) course depicted in the film is offered at Coronado Naval Amphibious Base in California.O'Neil is hand-picked by U.S. Senator Lillian DeHaven to go through the rigorous training right along with the men. Also,she faces sexism and physical challenges as well as the horse-trading by the Senator who selected her for the experimental program.In the story,aware that she is making history and knowing that 60% of all male trainees will fail the rigorous training, Lt. O'Neil struggles to prove herself physically and mentally worthy of becoming a Navy SEAL. What she doesn't know is that she is being sold out by hard-bitten Texas senator Lillian DeHaven, who is being blackmailed by the Defense Department with politically fatal base closings unless O'Neil fails the program. The complicated political subplot, however, only distracts from the film's real virtues -- the wonderfully staged scenes of CRT selection training -- and fizzles at its climactic moment. The training scenes are wonderful, however, as the central recruits are pushed to their physical limits by a grueling weeding-out process.Master Chief John James Urgayle, a steely-eyed, tough-as-nails instructor who somehow finds time to quote D.H. Lawrence when he isn't making people eat garbage and beating O'Neil senseless as part of a training exercise. Mortensen and the believably-buffed Moore are terrific, and their scenes of confrontation are the film's high points. Unfortunately, the screenplay by David Twohy and Danielle Alexandra falls down every time it attempts to sidestep a cliché, and the climactic mission positively wallows in a predictable Top Gun muddle. Still, the characters are engaging and those looking for an enjoyable variant on the basic- training sub-genre of high-octane modern action films should be pleased.Demi Moore tries a surprising turn to play Lt. Jordan O'Neil,who unfortunately turns more into an action figure instead of a character that is a human being the possesses both strength and weaknesses. Added to that,the it was an unrealistic execution of an intriguing premise and does not make it a point to make it realistic and plausible.Also,Scott's direction turn into making the film commercially viable by presenting Demi's scenes by overselling them. Too bad that it could have been a good movie considering the talent of the cast involved if the filmmakers prioritized telling a good story rather than prioritizing Demi's appeal into an interesting role.