Despite what the media might have you believe is the most important thing to have you pay attention to (that Biden is old), it seems that the general public is more interested in learning about something else: Project 2025. Not that many appear to be...
i almost didn’t watch the movie because all the reviews i read were stuck on this one point but …
it was clear to me that this was true during the paramilitary soldier hostage scene; that was the closest the film ever got to contemporary political alignment and even then it was vague enough not to point fingers.
i’m so glad the movie i intended to see was sold out and i ended up watching civil war instead because it’s one of those movies that sticks with you and i’ve haven’t felt that way about a movie in a long time.
kirsten dunst was the reason why i went with this movie over the other options i had at that moment and i suspected that the movie would be at least decent from the start since i’ve liked every movie she’s ever been in; i would have seen this movie on opening day were it not for all the reviews i mentioned earlier.
Yup, I think a lot of people avoided the movie because there’s an obvious proximity to current events that’s just too stressful for casual viewing, but I think they did a pretty tasteful/artistic job making the politics of the narrative vague and even a little subversive. It ends up keeping you focused on the details because you’re looking for those clues, but ends up putting you in the shoes of the journalists, trying to piece together a political narrative that you can’t quite see in the moment while you’re being bombarded with the horrors of war and armed conflict. I love that part of the movie, because it presents that tension of what they’re there to do as journalists - taking pictures to catalogue a larger narrative as the soldiers they’re following lay dying in the fog of war and unable to clearly see the bigger outlines. The viewer ends up feeling a little resentful of the journalists, because they seem a bit uncaring about the horrors they’re witnessing in service of getting the chance of capturing history.
That’s also why I got a little worked up seeing it mentioned in this thread… op was doing the thing the movie was clearly going out of its way to prevent. Idk. The movie is great and I hate seeing it used as an inflammatory political statement.
I gotta say as a Californian, as much as we bag on Texas if our two states ever teamed up we would steamroll the rest of the nation.
that interests me greatly.
when i moved from san francisco to austin i was surprised by how many “don’t california my texas” bumper stickers and flags shown everywhere. at first i attributed it to having to switch to driving for my commute and i thought it was odd that i had never sensed a such a reciprocated sentiment expressed while lived in all of california; much less be so ubiquitous every you go.
yours is the first i’ve ever heard.
Most of our bagging on Texas is talking about how cute it is they think they’re in the same league as us, economically.
it’s still strange to hear (read) a californian say it since it always felt like a uniquely texan obsession comparing themselves to california and i felt it was lofty at best (and collective short-guy syndrome at worst) since california has around 33% to 50% more of everything than texas except land area.
because of that:
california + texas can steamroll the rest of the nation
california + new york can steamroll the rest of the nation
california + florida can steamroll the rest of the nation
no combination of the others can do the same, except maybe all three; meaning that california is an outlier so comparisons to it are mostly self defeating and comparisons to new york or florida seemed non-existent when i lived in texas.