Tuesdays mean the release of new DVD’s. That being the case, I usually find myself up until almost five in the morning watching those films that have been released that I’ve been waiting for. In some cases, I randomly choose films, which can lead to both disappointment and pleasant surprises.
Last night I watched two films, Rendition and In The Valley Of Elah, and I though them both worth mentioning in a post.
Rendition
As one can assume from the title of the film, it’s basically about the US practice of Extraordinary Rendition. In a way, it leans on the story of Maher Arar; in others it demonstrates the futility of torture.
When the film was release it received mixed reviews, some claiming that Jake Gyllenhaal’s performance was a detriment to it. But, as far as I’m concerned, not only is his performance quintessential, but also that his character is the crux of the entire film.
While Rendition can be viewed on the surface as a film simply about both the entirely illegal practice itself and the methods employed to illicit information, the metaphor provided by the struggle and consequent actions of Gyllenhall’s character represents something far more important – conscience. Embodied in his character is the conscience of an entire nation, one that would no doubt be sickened by the realities of those practices that the United States government has covertly instituted or augmented since 9/11. To me, that is the real message of the film, and Gyllenhaal’s performance, given that he is not a case officer but forced into the role of having to act as one, is one that is, in my opinion, near perfect. It is one that reflects not a brash inward struggle, but a silent and confused one, one torn between loyalty and truth that does not produce the sort of immediate moral conclusions that one might expect.
In many ways the film is flawed, but as a metaphor for the struggle of a nation’s conscience embodied in the experience of one man, it profoundly succeeds.
In The Valley Of Elah
Based on actual events, this film delves into the realities of the affects of the war in Iraq on US combat soldiers and how their moral compass is altered both while at war and after returning home. It is, I believe, a must see film.
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I want to see Rendition. Reese is cute as reeses pieces… I want her hair…. Love Jake, too…
I have never heard of the second one.
If you haven’t already seen Mr. Brooks, DON’T BOTHER.. Piece of crap…. Poor Kevin Costner, can’t catch a break……….. oh, it sucked the big one.
Thanks for the post….
See Pirates 3 yet?
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I’ve recently watched both of these films, both great, and both more frightening than most hollywood horror films. I never heard any of the backlash about Gyllenhalls performance, and I have to say I’m really surprised because I thought he did a great job.
The one thing I didn’t like about Rendition was the focus on the torture of an innocent man….with only a slight mention to the fact that torture of any man, even guilty, is wrong and doesn’t produce accurate results.
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I love Tuesdays. I always head straight to the HMV downtown on my lunch and pick up a movie. It’s my weekly ritual.. which would be why I have well over 120 dvds (eek). Which I realize is nothing compared to Matt’s collection.. I’m, of course, guessing..
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You mean you weren’t watching them on HD-DVD?
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I just finished watching my all time fave movie of last year and year before. Lucky Number Slevin, I can’t get enough of this movie…. Brokeback Mountain is just starting on movie central.. It’s goona be a tough afternoon for t..
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Ballz McGee, I too thought Rendition was a very good film and hard hitting, with JG’s performance nigh on perfect for what it was intended to be. The torture scenes, in my opinion, needed to be focused on one man so you could see what he and his family were going through on a personal level. If you see how it directly affects characters you have become familiar with, it hits you that bit harder. I found it so accurate when JG argued that for every single guilty detainee they torture they make a thousand enemies from innocent ones who were subjected to the same treatment. Slightly different note, but if anyone hasn’t seen There Will Be Blood yet, you are missing one of the great all-time performances by Daniel Day-Lewis.
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Mr. Brooks?? Cmon that movie was great compared to most of the stuff coming out these days. I am no fan of Kevin Costner, but thought he did a great job in that movie…..but I am probably comparing that to Water World!
Pyemaster, I do agree with you that it did need to be focused on one man for the story to hit a personal level, just thought they could have spent a little more time talking about torture in general, not just torture of an innocent man.
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speaking of dvds…
GO SEE “once”
it’s the best movie I’ve seen in years, sort of a singer/songwriter love story/modern musical
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Quoting Ballz McGee:
Too much sitting in cars talking about things and him and William Hurt moving at the exact same thing with the same movements really creeped me out and was re-dick and unnessasary.. I can’t spell today… That just does not look right, that word.. unnecesary? unnecessary?…. are they planning a speel check on here soon?
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I thought Mr Brooks was quite good too actually, he has admittedly made some bad film choices but he is still one of the very few actors in Hollywood to refuse to do a sequel.. Ill forgive his poor film choices for his good ones, Dances With Wolves and A Perfect World to name a couple.
McGee, I think the fact he was innocent is why the film hit so many. The people out there that feel Rendition (the act not the movie) is an integral part of national security would not be swayed by the general subject of torture, the innocence of the victim is the splinter under the nail as it were. The plight of the innocent people caught up in the brutishness of the Bush administration is where conscience exhales.
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Well, I’m always up for seeing a movie more than once, unlike my husband, which is why we own one movie, which I bought.. for him…… Gone in 60 Seconds……. and even then, he usually only watches one scene.
I guess I will wait for the movie to come on the box and I will watch it again…… I was kindof in and out for the first half hour of the movie…. in and out of the living room… did I miss something really good in that first half hour? the rest of the movie, to me, totally reeked.
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p.s. Ballz McGee sounds like the name of a movie. ha ha ha… good name, dude.
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i was downtown (in toronto) when Rendition was premiered at the film festival and i had the chance to speak to a man who was an actual victim of rendition, he was held captive for years without contact to his wife or family. its scary shit.
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Rendition has been around a lot longer than 9/11. They were using methods similar since the ’70’s were they not? I read up on Extraordinary Rendition and it’s been around a lot longer than 9/11, that’s where the ’70’s comes from, but I’m sure they’ve been doing it longer than that.
Using torture to extract information is as old as religion. The Egyptians are experts at it. They grab a handful of people, extract information, grab another handful and extract information and repeat. They are aware that they are extracting information from innocent people who really don’t know anything, but they do, however, find people that do know the real information.
They’ve been doing this for a very long time and are very good at it, regardless of concern for the innocent who are tortured unjustly.
I was talking to a friend from Egypt about this over the holidays. He understands my concern, but he also says “this is just how it is”.
It is a shame that they can’t change their ways based-on the logic that people confess to anything under torture, but hey, if people thought with more logic the world would be significantly different than it is now.
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Extraordinary Rendition began during the Clinton administration.
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Quoting Matthew Good:
I love you.
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I just watched In The Valley of Elah. That was an amazing piece of work. I don’t really know what to say. What a year for Tommy Lee Jones.
Brilliant
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OMG!!!! Tommy Lee Jones.
Yep, guilty.. I fall into the category of people who see movies with actors I like….. fully completely admit it..
with two exceptions:
English Patient (before I knew who both those hotties were)
and
Emelie
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Speaking of Clinton…I learnt recently that, In his autobiography, My Life, he revisited his role in the Rwanda genocide. He again publicly flagellated himself for the apathy and indifference that insured the slaughter. He fingered domestic politics, a callous Congress, a timid UN, and the shell shock of his administration
Three months before My Life came out the National Security Archive, a Washington D.C. non-government research institute sued in court and got hold of classified intelligence reports. The most damning were the eyes-only national intelligence daily reports that the CIA supplied to Clinton, Vice President Al Gore and other top administration officials on the Rwanda massacres. In the reports, diplomats, military and UN officials, aid workers, and intelligence operatives on the scene gave first hand accounts of the holocaust, and told of boasts that Hutu leaders made to wipe all Tutsis out.
The documents are smoking gun proof that Clinton knew from the moment that Hutu thugs hacked to death the first innocents that the slaughter was in full swing. Barely two weeks after the carnage started, Clinton officials privately called the killings genocide. Yet, Clinton, Gore, and Secretary of State Madeline Albright would not publicly use the word. A chilling eyes-only Defense Department memorandum advised Clinton administration officials that if they used the word genocide to describe the carnage it would compel the government “to do something.”
Source: Earl Ofari Hutchinson @ http://www.alternet.org/columnists/story/20872/
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Quoting Matthew Good:
According to
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extraordinary_rendition
The act, which I was referring to, was used before Clinton’s admin, in the ’80’s, and most likely before. Though the specific name was different, the idea was the same - capture, torture, confess.
It has only recently, as you pointed out, outsourced by the Clinton Admin via the CIA, much like most things in the ’90’s.
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“Battle For Haditha” is a great flick to watch out for. A documentary filmmaker basically recreates the actual events leading to the massacre at Haditha with method actors; actual Iraq vets, Iraqi refugees, etc… very “real” and incredibly balanced.
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The beauty of the film “In the Valley of Elah” is that it shows in heartbreaking clarity how ordinary good people can end up doing very bad things. Nobody falls down the slippery slope; they are seduced to slither down it willingly on their own belly.
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Just watched In The Valley Of Elah last night. Jones was fantastic, as always. What is it about him that’s so damn likable?
I’m looking forward to these from John Cusack:
War Inc. http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=daFGJkKFevI
Grace is Gone http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=APqIvlCSLzM
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I enjoyed Rendition, but I thought the short documentary, “Outlawed” in the bonus features was more chilling, especially Binyam Mohamed’s diary read by his brother.
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I laugh at all the people who went to Rendition thinking it was a love story involving Reese and Jake.
I haven’t seen either of these movies, but their on my ‘To Watch’ list. Thanks for recommending them!
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Funny, I just watched Elah last night. Great movie with a great statement about how our young are being mentally destroyed and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Thanks again Bush administration for ruining the future of a country in yet another way, by destroying it’s youth which are supposed to be it’s future! You know, if we really want to dismantle other countries we should just send our ultimate weapon “BUSH”, over and let him run the place for a few years! Think of the destruction, it would be massive! Woops, I just realised he can’t be everywhere at once so we already do this by proxy with the US appointed clone leaders!
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I have a friend that suffers from PTSD. When he got back from Bosnia, which was his last tour before he left the army, he was…to put it mildly, a mess.
I saw In the Valley of Elah yesterday, easily one of my top twenty movies, certainly one of the top ten of the year. Tommy Lee Jones was, as always, phenominal. But Susan Sarandon was very good as well. The scene were she sees her sons remains and asks if the room is cold is particularily difficult to watch.
Mr. Brooks was really good. I thought Costner was very good, especially for taking such a risk.
Another good movie is Gone Baby Gone.
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When was ‘Elah’ in theatres? I just googled it, there are people in it I don’t even remember seeing in previews….. Also Jason Patric, one of my faves of the past… wow…… Promotions for movies really suck sometimes….. The preview might only be on once and if you weren’t watching tv that day, it’s gone forever……. Very different from the old days where movies were previewed for weeks on end before it hit theatres.. now you see the preview maybe one week before release.. very odd.
Now, I must google Gone Baby Gone…….
What no love scenes with Reese and Jake?
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I found Gone Baby Gone very disturbing. Maybe it was all the f-bombs.
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Thanks for the warning. I will remember not to fire it up with my kid around.
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Gone Baby Gone was the best film I saw in 2007.
Then Michael Clayton.
Then Eastern Promises.
There Will Be Blood was the worst film I’ve seen in over 3 years. Stay far far away.
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I love Viggoooooooooo!!!!!
Whose the fave for the Oscar?
Haven’t seen Eastern Promises yet, not a big fan of Naomi Watts…. can’t pin point why yet, she just does nuttin for me…..
Michael Clayton? Where have a been? Another movie I have never heard of…
My blog is actually called MOvie girl…. wtf time to come clean… I know nothing.
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Matt, though I’ve yet to see “In the Valley…” I saw rendition in the theatre, and was struck by the same things. With regard to your post, do you mind if I ask a question? I wonder where the notion of “Conscience” comes from? I’ve been locked in heated debate with those around with regard to a human moral compass. I’m quite interested to know your thoughts…
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Quoting T-Lee:
I think the favorite is ‘No Country For Old Men’ at the moment.
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Jeez, another movie I have never heard of.
When my 4 year old goes to college, I guess I will finally get to see the good stuff again..
I’m all about the mainstreem again, it seems. Before my son, I was really into finding the ‘real’ stuff.
Some favourites to note are:
My life without me - starring our own Sarah Polley……..
Pieces of April - with Katie Holmes who I’m sure Tom would never have approved of that movie, so glad she did it before him and her.
Mullholland Drive - not enough people saw this movie, I feel… and not enough recognition for it.. Justin Thoreax you ask? google him, he’s friggin hot, to boot.
The only thing I liked about the LIttle Miss Sunshine movie was that kid that never spoke….. the ‘Jesus was wrong’ kid…… The last scenes disturbed me. ie. onstage stuff
Oh , I could go on……
I wish Sarah Polley did more stuff but she’s now directing……. I LOVE HER.
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Matt, you need an open movie thread.. I keep stealing everyone’s thunder. sorry dudes.
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Crap, it is bugging me… What was that movie called with Viggo and William hurt? Mario Bello was Viggo’s wife… My IMDB isn’t working…. it keeps ‘aborting’ whenever I try to log into it… urg…..
Anyhow whatever the movie was called, would love to know your thoughts on it…. it’s one of those movies I still can’t decide if I liked it or not….
Man, one movie I need to see again, because it’s been waaaaay too long is The Game with Michael Douglas and Sean Penn… AWESOME AWESOME AAAAAAAWESOME MOVIE..
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It was ‘A History of Violence’.
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Thank you!!!!!! yes……..
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rendition was good. jake’s performance was really good; as mentioned above. and that line really struck me too…
gone baby gone was also REALLY good.
no country for old men = wtf ending. but really good movie.
there will be blood, also, weird ending. but good movie. day-lewis = wow.
but best movie that was totally snubbed: Into the Wild. = WOW.
i havent seen in the valley of elah. will do now.
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I’ve been noticing (and so have a lot of others) that the recent spate of anti-war movies (”…Elah”, “Rendition”, “Lions For Lambs”, “Redacted”) did crappy at the box office, and some critics have said because the war and all it’s horrors are so much in the news, the public doesn’t really want to go to the theater to be reminded about it all again.
I my self bought “Outside The Wire”
http://outsidethewire.com/
And I’m waiting for “Young Americans”
http://patdollard.com/young-americans
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Rendition has nothing to do with the war in Iraq.
Redacted, out of all of them, is a highly important film, and only saw limited release. But none of the afore mention films are anywhere near as important as “The Ghosts Of Abu Ghraib”, “Hijacking Catastrophe”, “The Road To Guantanamo”, “Iraq For Sale”, “No End In Sight”, and most importantly - “Why We Fight”.
Men and women get sent to war and therefore their stories should be told. But of paramount importance is the telling of why they were sent to war in the first place.