HBO's Generation Kill

rly hope this is good

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uSQ_7u2v_zs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhDZCel68_M

anyone read the book?

The book is excellent, very insightful into what it's like to be one of the soldiers without getting all Dispatches-gonzo or anything.

I also read the memoir by the officer leading the platoon - pretty good when he's talking about entering the Marines and training/Afghanistan, but when he covers the same ground as Kill in Iraq he doesn't have much to offer that's new.

the latter is One Bullet Away.

Been meaning to pick up Thomas Ricks' Making the Corps, too.

well as an hbo follow-up by producer-writers of a beloved hbo series, it only has to surmount the high bar set by john from cincinnati.

last war book i read was probably this, years ago

http://www.randomhouse.com/images/dyn/cover/?source=9780345311979&height=300&maxwidth=170

I saw Ziggy in that last promo!

yeah i guess he's the humvee driver

btw every bus stop in b-more has a promo poster up for this with a grinning soldier wearing aviator shades. he looks not unlike the guy inside the tank here (NSFW)

the fuck, is that from the x-rated version of Kelly's Heroes? Where's Donald Sutherland?

"dirty" dozen

(i think it's from a penthouse mag or something)

I guess I think this looks good.

I feel like maybe Simon has a bit of a tougher hill to climb with telling us something new about the Iraq war than with telling us something new about police work, drug dealing and city government in a depressed American city.

well as an hbo follow-up by producer-writers of a beloved hbo series, it only has to surmount the high bar set by john from cincinnati.

i thought john adams was pretty good, and i believe it was a follow-up by the producers of band of brothers

I feel like maybe Simon has a bit of a tougher hill to climb with telling us something new about the Iraq war than with telling us something new about police work, drug dealing and city government in a depressed American city.

-- Hurting 2, Sunday, June 29, 2008 10:49 PM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

uh i don't. you really think there's less new "material" in iraq than in a cop show??

Cop shows (which The Wire is not, btw) are mostly made by people who have knowledge of police work and no interest in creating a realistic portrayal.

War, otoh, has been done many times as the subject of good literary fiction, high quality film, long form journalism and documentary, and my impression, at least, is that there have already been many strong attempts at giving "the real story" of the Iraq war in fiction or documentary form.

i hope you don't mean jarhead

Cop shows (which The Wire is not, btw) are mostly made by people who have knowledge of police work and no interest in creating a realistic portrayal.

-- Hurting 2, Sunday, June 29, 2008 11:01 PM (10 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

the wire took a cop show as its starting point, even if you think that it transcended it.

and do you really think we're suffering from a glut of superior iraq war art?

i mean, people are still making good stuff about world war 2. this one isn't even over yet! i feel there are so, so so many stories that are yet to be told.

Looking forward to this. Gonna be crazy flipping from it right to Mad Men, though.

liked the first episode

swedish dudes accent is sort of distracting

"the commander offered no sitrep on j-lo's situation"

No sergeant major would be that much of a dick.

why the fascination with this? friends have been really excited about it starting - i couldn't care less

Same guys that did the wire, I thought.

this sucked. laughable even. it was like a 15 car pile-up of cliches. i'm not very sympathetic though. trying to make the iraq war look cool and badass just seems like bad taste to me. even the title of the episode - "Get Some" - made my teeth hurt. aw yeah yippi ay yay motherfucker welcome to iraq booyah towelhead fag bitchs! how colorful! if i were a marine i would cringe watching this thing. it makes almost everyone in it look like a complete idiot. and you figure this is just the tip of the iceberg. generation nu-metal now has years of sad material to work with. and i don't care how worldweary/warishell/whyarewehere? the POV of this shit is. it all just adds up to a sham mythos based on shit. no matter how dispirited your grunt's eye view is, you are still managing to romanticize something that in no way shape or form deserves to be romanticized. i can actually see recruitment numbers going UP after this whole thing airs.

sorry, i'm not usually such a sourpuss. i like war movies! it's just that this piece of shit war almost doesn't deserve art or something.

im curious to know what aspects of the war or being a marine you thought were being romaticized scott

like you said, 90% of the characters are portrayed as idiots; the marine corps is looked on as thoughtless, uncaring, and somewhat incompetent; the war itself is unglamorous (so far) and ultimately inhumane

xpost: Much like that piece of shit war in Southeast Asia.

I suppose I'll hang with this at least until the next episode. It's a little high on corn & cringe, sure, but there's a lot of sham mythos that you actually do buy into to some degree at the outset of any action. I thought "Get Some" expressed that pretty well. Guys do say shit like that. The anticipation of reality setting in -- as hinted in the conclusion -- is what will keep me watching.

From The Wire crew, I thought this had a strangely skewed ethnic make-up. The Marine Corps has got to be comprised of a near three-way split, black-white-hispanic, especially in a recon unit. No black or latino officers, and hardly any significant characters?

And that fucking Mr. Potatohead character! Hard-asses make Sergeant Major, but assholes get weeded out.

i haven't seen this yet (no hbo) but i heard part of an interview about it with david simon on npr yesterday. he didn't sound like he meant to romanticize war; one thing i heard him say was that he wanted Americans to understand the nature of modern warfare, because he thought that would make everyone loath to go to war. but that doesn't mean that he succeeded...

it's just that this piece of shit war almost doesn't deserve art or something.

i wish there were more art about it! the fact that there hasn't been much yet seems sinister.

http://www.hiphoplead.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/10/camron.jpg
no hbo

From The Wire crew, I thought this had a strangely skewed ethnic make-up. The Marine Corps has got to be comprised of a near three-way split, black-white-hispanic, especially in a recon unit. No black or latino officers, and hardly any significant characters?

the figures for enlisted marines in 2004: 62% white, 12% black, 14% hispanic, 10% other (according to this: http://www.armyg1.army.mil/hr/docs/demographics/FY04%20Marine%20Corps%20Profile.pdf)

77% of officers are white

"he didn't sound like he meant to romanticize war"

i'm sure he didn't! but that's just the nature of war movies. they ALL end up romanticizing war, whether they mean to or not. just as every cautionary movie about gang life or skinheads has made people want to join a gang or become a skinhead. doesn't matter if everyone dies in the end. or things end in tears. blackhawk down was kickass!!! fuck yeah! made me wanna go get some!

see i spent the whole hour thinking "wow that looks like it sucks" and "thank god im not in the marines"

77% of officers are white

For the entire Corps, but these are infantry and recon units. Come on.

i'm not saying don't make war movies. i guess i'm just saying be fucking careful if you make a war movie! or something. or make a documentary. i'm just so fucking sick of the us -vs- them shit. i'm sick of the demonization of the faceless majikal enemy/other too. and i know more of this shit is coming. i can feel it. vietnam was great for that kind of sci-fi mystikal hoodoo. we were fighting ghosts! i guess i'm just sick of all the cliches. raw recruit learns life lesson, trapped in a world that we never made, etc. all that crap.

none of this applies, however, to dolph lundgren or any ultimate fighting champion who happens to make a low-budget movie in south africa about rogue mahdi army operatives and their quest for saddam's hidden gold. to them i say: carry on, gentlemen.

I'm not sure if your criticism is that the idiocy level is too high or not high enough. Or that it's too real, or not real enough.

xp that stuff might be coming up but i think youre reaching to make that argument about this first episode, where the only contact with the 'enemy' is made as they surrender and are all presented as very fearful humans w/ families, loved ones, etc

i mean i didnt unconditionally love this by any means but i had a very different reaction to its treatment of the soldiers, the war, the enemy, etc.

"I'm not sure if your criticism is that the idiocy level is too high or not high enough. Or that it's too real, or not real enough."

i don't even really know what i mean. i'm a little hungover. and cranky. that show just bugged me. i think i'm just sick of that one-dimensional soldier/u.s. view. especially with this war. maybe i would like this thing more if it had that multi-dimensional multi-POV thing going on a la The Wire.

the book is pretty awesome and so far this sticks pretty close to it as far as characters and story goes. fwiw the ethnic makeup of this show so far is pretty much exactly what the book is, as far as i know. so short of making one of the in-real-life white dudes black or hispanic i'm not sure what could have been done on that point. i'm guessing the show will follow the book in that it will start out gung-ho and eventually begin to hint at the eventual clusterfuck. i also think it makes the marine experience in this war look pretty terrible and confusing and aimless and goal-free.

The ethnic make-up is a minor point, I guess, but in casting a show -- or writing a book -- decisions are made as to which characters are important. I'm just saying that in six years as a grunt I was never in a unit with no black officers, or in a hooch with one lone "dark green marine", as we say. And race hate was kept on the down-low -- any NCO would put a clamp on that shit.

"Eventual clusterfuck" exactly describes vibe I got from episode one. Or what I felt in early 2003.

The book reflects the people that were actually in the 1st recon unit vehicles with the author. The names used in the series are the real people's names too. But racism will be highlighted more in later episodes.

The criticisms above don't sit well with me because the story/book is a book about these specific people that Evan Wright encountered while embedded. They were interesting people and their stories made a great book. So far, the series is true to the book.

The only character that bothers me so far is Evan Wright's portrayal. I assume they're making him out to be a little bungling to show how he must have felt when he came on board. Because he's actually totally cool and immediately likable.

the nature of war movies. they ALL end up romanticizing war

I think the Deer Hunter is the only exception to this I can think of.

the only exception i can think of is maybe johnny got his gun. deer hunter was badass! russian roulette! yeah!!!

"aw yeah yippi ay yay motherfucker welcome to iraq booyah towelhead fag bitchs! how colorful! if i were a marine i would cringe watching this thing."

You've clearly never met a Marine, played team sports with any seriousness, been around frat boys or hung out with more than three men in a confined space.

been there and done that. i know what men are like! doesn't mean that it can't gross and/or tire me out sometimes.

then why are you watching? It's likely going to be seven episodes of the same thing?

The book reflects the people that were actually in the 1st recon unit vehicles with the author That he chose to write about. I'll have to read this.

and when i said marines would cringe, i just meant how they were portrayed in that episode. even if it's true to life and realistic and how things are, i would still cringe.

"then why are you watching?"

there wasn't anything else on! i checked!

i loved The Art Of Failure, by the way:

http://www.hbo.com/docs/docuseries/artoffailure/index.html

http://www.salon.com/ent/tv/feature/2008/07/07/burns/index.html

Scott, I refer you to page 6 of Jarhead.

http://books.google.com/books?id=xCSTtg6oSPwC&pg=PA6&sig=ACfU3U3q6urgwzC6CYs7VF6UGq9mH71diw&vq=%22watch+the+same+films+and+are+excited+by+them,+because+the+magic+brutality+of+the+films+celebrates+the+terrible+and%22&source=gbs_quotes_r&cad=1_0

And yeah, plenty of huge assholes make sergeant major.
And no, no self-effacing marine would think this makes them look stupid any more than anybody I've known in law enforcement thought the first season of the wire thinks that makes cops look stupid.

But what do I know I never went to the shit and I was a blue suiter. I did, however, spend the entirety of my service on joint bases, and like 90% of my work colleagues are former military from all branches, I thought this was great lols.
Did everybody get the Ripped Fuel gag? Memories. DARPA is always putting out grants to find a new supplement to keep troops awake and operating well beyond the 36-hour sleep deprivation barrier or whatever and it's like guys, you know all your infantry are already constantly hopped up on red bulls and bad coffee and diet pills.

Also very glad to see Ziggy getting more work. ten will get you fifty he gets killed, of course.

When one enlisted officer says to another,

salon doesn't employ any actual editors, do they

watching the making of documentaries gave me a pretty good sense of who dies and who doesnt based on which real-life characters show up for interviews

sgt colbert is the 5th cylon~

plenty of huge assholes make sergeant major

Prob'ly so, mine were always cool. Company gunny was invariably a prick. I understand, for dramatic tension & all, you gotta have that kind of character & any fault-finding invariably leads back to "but that's how it was in the book, so that's exactly how it was."

"but that's how it was in my company, so that's exactly how it was"

Paths of Glory and All Quiet On The Western Front, not so much with the glorifying of war.

Well, I didn't write a book, but if I did the SMaj would wear a white hat. Picking nits, I know, it's just one of those elements made me go "whoah-whoah-whoah" when I was watching the thing.

I did appreciate the Ripped Fuel ref & bits of language like "Susie Rottencrotch" & such.

"Scott, I refer you to page 6 of Jarhead."

there you go. i mean, what skinhead doesn't completely ADORE romper stomper and american history x?

not saying you shouldn't make these movies, just saying that they have always been serious party faves and definitely fuel the fire. show young dudes running around with guns and i don't care how bleak your shit is, you're gonna make people want to go run around with guns. even me! and i hate guns! i've never laid a finger on anyone in my life, but a good war movie makes me want to go red dawn on someone's ass!

the thing about this episode, and again this is why i said if i were a marine i would be embarrassed by this series: it kinda confirms a lot people's worst nightmares about the war. that from the president on down the whole thing has been fought by idiot bumpkins.

haven't seen this yet but i'm not really expecting much from the first episode just based on how slow the wire first episodes were in general

scott what did you think of band of brothers?

i couldn't make it through a whole BAND of brothers. just a couple of brothers. maybe i'll watch the whole thing someday on dvd. i loved saving private ryan though. war movies resemble a lot of the dreams i have at night, so maybe that's why i feel a closeness to them. well, war movies ands zombie movies.

genuinely frightening moment the other night and totally reminding me of one of my many no escape nightmares: watching that scene in blood diamonds where the guy with the axe or machete asks the guys: "short sleeve or long sleeve". ahhhhhh! that freaked me out. i wasn't big on the whole movie and by the end i was completely numb to the sight of yet another pickup truck filled with murderous kids, but it had its moments. worst parts were with aging lady journalist and her incomprehensible patter and trying to take leo seriously as an ex-merc expert tracker marksman diamond smuggler. but i have that problem with every leo movie. i can't take him seriously as an adult.

The Art of Failure made me want to go Red Dawn on Chuck Connelly's ass.

i love anyone who reminds me of my hero, brian cox. and that's who connelly reminded me of.

http://www.fawcettsociety.org.uk/Images/brian_cox_l.jpg

show young dudes running around with guns and i don't care how bleak your shit is, you're gonna make people want to go run around with guns. even me! and i hate guns!

Maybe you're just a closet conservative because no true liberal would react this way!!! </joeks>

But seriously, all the fratty dick-waving and gun-toting is just to build up to the episode's punchline, that the first time they meet Iraqis face to face, the marines have to screw them over in a sinister, inhumane way, and they know this.

i'm half-feeling some of scott's complaints about ep. 1 while the other half of me thought it was well-done. i really like the pizza delivery scene juxtaposed with the guy being lazy with passing word on to the officers about their orders. and then later the same guy fails to tell them about the cancelled escort until the last minute, after bragging about tinting his windows. i think the small stuff like that was great

re: the art of failure - FUCK that guy there's nothing heroic about being a self-pitying tantrum-throwing manbaby. he obviously needs some 12-step program type shit but who cares really. shitugly paintings too.

i thought it was pretty well done. alot of it was in the little things - like passing around the chew.

i liked his paintings!

http://www.dfngallery.com/images/connelly_friends_475.gif

http://www.dfngallery.com/images/connelly_selfportrait91_450.gif

http://www.dfngallery.com/images/connelly_studio05_450.gif

someone buy me this one:

http://www.dfngallery.com/images/connelly_homo_475.gif

speaking of iraq and art, the warrior writers combat paper project is pretty cool. they get vets to turn their uniforms into pulp and then the pulp into paper that they then create art on.

http://www.greendoorstudio.net/combatpaper/1.jpg

http://www.greendoorstudio.net/combatpaper/2.jpg

http://www.greendoorstudio.net/combatpaper/3.jpg

http://www.greendoorstudio.net/combatpaper/4.jpg

http://www.greendoorstudio.net/combatpaper/5.jpg

http://www.greendoorstudio.net/combatpaper/6.jpg

the alter-ego thing was probably connelly's best work. would have been funny if that young actor had pulled off a big comeback for him

dang i just saw this it is THE SHIT imho, fuk u scott

briania's posts remind me a little of when i watched the first season of the wire with a former junkie (lol) and she had little nitpicks about everything related to the drug trade - still otm about the racial makeup tho, i thought that was pretty glaring.

I thought this was very good. I read a bunch of articles that suggested it was hard to tell anyone apart, which I thought was absurd. I wish I had read through the glossary on the HBO website before watching the show, but otherwise everything felt pretty straightforward to me. Lots of cool stuff. Nice to see Officer Colicchio and Ziggy Sobotka again!

+ beecher!!!

holy fuck! that was Ziggy!!!

And it really was Ziggy, just straightened out a little (a lot).

THAT SONG IS STRAIGHT HOMOSEXUAL COUNTRY MUSIC SPECIAL OLYMPICS GAY

Anyone sponsor DVDs of The Wire to our fightin' boys?

In honor of the Marines of Generation Kill, and all of our troops stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan, HBO and its partners are sending care packages overseas containing the items troops most frequently request. The troops have determined the items—YOU determine how many are sent.

Donations can be placed at no cost to you by going to www.genkilltroopdrive.com and following three quick steps.

The donation drive starts NOW and will continue through the finale of the Generation Kill miniseries on August 24th. All donations will be shipped overseas this fall.

Spread the word—every click counts!

PO-LICE THAT MOO-STACHE

That episode was so, so good. It looked and sounded amazing on my friend's theater HD setup. Still a little corny and stilted in places, but arguably the standard bearer for Iraq War films, I think.

Well, considering it's going up against the likes of In the Valley of Elah (fuck you haggis and your upside down flag shit), Stop-Loss (not worth the wait, kim), and Lions for Lambs (lol Crooze), it didn't have to fight much for that standard.

Really enjoying it.

I really liked the book, and the teevee thing is living up to the standard. I have a tough time not thinking 'Ziggy' and 'Colecchio' though.

Wright's next projects:
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/news/e3ifb184e208a328349e0e2122a9c02743a

peter berg is a butt

I didn't recognize Colicchio until someone mentioned here that he was in this -- turns out the actor (Benjamin Busch) is actually a Marine who spent time in Iraq IRL: http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2005-07-28-infantry-cover_x.htm

Gentlemen, we just seized an airfield. That was pretty fuckin' ninja.

i really liked the last one.

I am looking forward to seeing officers get skewered on teevee some more

see, my biggest problem with the show is that i keep hoping all the main characters get blown up or shot in the head so that i won't have to listen to them talk anymore. or maybe that isn't a problem! it's just a waiting game.

sharpshooter blowing up that dude's head from a distance is my favorite part so far. more heads blowing up, please!

"I am looking forward to seeing officers get skewered on teevee some more"

and this too, please! wait, did you mean literally skewered? cuz that would be cool.

All the characters except for officers and high-ranking NCOs seem like bros. Including the dude who calls everyone brah.

Kinda sad we're not getting more motormouth Ziggy.

MASA LLAMA LAKE-UM LADIES!

I think my favorite shot so far is the look on post-coital grin on Beecher's face when they're like "We just got LIT UP."

look on

the ambiguously gay sniper guy is playing himself in this! also lol @ his imdb photos like whoa

Fruity Rudy is great - "I hope this is GOOD kharma, man"

HBOless, I will wait for this to come out on DVD and then Netflix it. Damn wife just needed friggin' Showtime. Hrmph.

yeah i didnt notice until this ep that rudy reyes is playin himself - AWESOME

"if sadaam had been investing in iraq's pussy infrastructure instead of his gay-ass army, we wouldn't even have to be here!"

**mouths "wow," marveling at the mildly coherent views espoused by the unwashed subaltern specimen in front of him**

this show could've been written by anyone really - well any half decent writer

it doesn't feel very david simon - feels too flat in places, normal, and the whole godfather story isn't properly ironised enough - the david simon I know wd've undercut his stupid soliloquy at the end of ep.2 w/a big dose of wtf

I mean, I'm enjoying it, it's watchable, it's just not great

plus the actor's voices sound funny - esp. ziggy's

does colicchio know what a blended haircut is?

peter berg is a butt

-- cankles, Thursday, July 24, 2008 9:20 AM

lol

"**mouths "wow," marveling at the mildly coherent views espoused by the unwashed subaltern specimen in front of him**"

yeah, i couldn't tell if he was supposed to be impressed or if he thought this was possibly the dumbest person he had ever met.

ahhhhh, that was me.

"this show could've been written by anyone really - well any half decent writer"

or even a not so decent writer.

too bad they didn't make it a smart multilayered multiple point of view thang a la the wire. stories from journo/soldier/iraqi/suicide bomber/brit soldier/etc view. that would have been great. as it is, it's just cliche city.

yeah, what's the actual point of the journo so far - other than as an object of (quite funny) ribbing?

he has no perspective - other than that foisted on him by the perceptions of the marines

dude's a cipher plain and simple

the wire is cliche city too! u missin the point doggie~!!

the whole godfather story isn't properly ironised enough - the david simon I know wd've undercut his stupid soliloquy at the end of ep.2 w/a big dose of wtf

i was expecting that too, but i was glad when it didnt happen imo

my friend hates this show cuz he thinks the rolling stone stuff is there to give effete northern liberals an 'out' and let them know it's ok to laugh at stuff, or something*; i can see his point

*

i still don't like this show after the second ep ftr. i would rather watch bill maher do a one man cold read of platoon than see another cutaway to the rolling stone dude mouthing "oh wow" after the ritalined-out driver guy says something controversial-yet-surprisingly-trenchant-for-a-retard

You guys have kind of a goofy perspective on Rolling Stone guy -- the frigging book was written by him, so him being represented w/ the other 'characters' that were actually there doesn't necessarily have a 'point' or a perspective, it's just part and parcel of them trying to tell the story as it actually happened. If anything, I think the problem with that character is that they didn't do anything to use him as a narrator/framing device like voiceover or giving him more dialogue to justify him being in the filmed version; as it stands he's just this guy who shows up, doesn't say or do much of anything, and really isn't that much of a contrast to the other characters so far. It's not even like you need a cipher to represent the outsider's P.O.V. because if you're a civilian watching something about military life you've pretty much got that P.O.V. to begin with.

Lucky for him he wound up embedded in a unit that knows all the same white people songs he already knows, my air force basic peeps only sang along to wu-tang and BG

I haven't watched episode 4 yet, but this isn't really working for me. I liked Jarhead (film and book). I feel like this is better (certainly than the film) but I can't help judging it by the standards of the Wire. It obviously lacks The Wire's depth, which is mostly because it's seven episodes, but the surprising thing is how little of a story arc there seems to be, especially given how short the season is. It's like a series of "and then what happened was...", "and then what happened was..." with no rhythm or intensity. A lot of these individual events are interesting and its important people here about them (especially the incompetence/mistakes), but I think in the absence of a narrative it's not going to finish the season with as many viewers as it started.

I don't really get Scott's view at all though. Some men enjoy war, and it would be disingenuous to pretend that that's not the case.

The zingers are brilliant and a few of the characters are perfect. I voted for Ziggy in the Wire characters poll so no surprises that he's my favorite here. He's going to make a great character actor who only plays fuck-ups.

I'm really hoping the narrative picks up steam, but with four to go I don't rate it's chances.

I'm glad they're not hanging too much of the story off the reporter, who is the least interesting character by far, but I feel like it needs some sort of narrative angle.

Having said that, "THAT SONG IS STRAIGHT HOMOSEXUAL COUNTRY MUSIC SPECIAL OLYMPICS GAY" is something I try to find a place for every day, so it's not been all bad.

HEY BUDDY IT'S TEN IN THE MORNING DON'T YOU THINK YOU OUGHTA CHANGE OUTTA YOUR PAJAMAS

Yeah, I was just writing something about GK and saying that, basically, the fact that this is (supposedly) a pretty straightforward retelling of real things real people did is both a strength and a weakness. On the one hand, you don't get (as much of) the dramatic bullshit of more staged war movies and when it hits you emotionally it feels a little less deliberate. On the other hand, as interesting as it is to get any ground-level view of the Iraq invasion, you keep remembering that the only reason you're getting this group's stories and not any of a hundred others is that that happened to be the one a writer went and stayed with for a short period of time. If The Wire was a war movie, it'd be one of those big grandiose ones full of dramatic compression and character composites, not a little brief slice of life like this.

i love the night scenes, they're almost black and white but they have this crisp digital look to them

the worst parts imo are when godfather or iceman say shit like "gentlemen.....*DRAMATIC PAUSE*....." and iceman's delivery is really terrible. every time he opens his mouth he uses that same cheesy-ass intonation.

i hate captain america so much. so hateable.

I disagree; I don't think he's hateable at all - he's done some stuff which is border-line despicable but he gives off a nervous, frightened air - he seems a bit lost and scared and it's hard to hate someone like that?

i love the night scenes, they're almost black and white but they have this crisp digital look to them

Yeah true, as much as the visuals in this are mostly pretty standard for the setting, there's occasionally some really striking stuff. I feel like some of the shots, daytime and nighttime, where you see bullets whizzing right toward the camera, are something I haven't seen done in quite the same way before (but then, I haven't seen a whole lot of war movies). Anyone know how much of the special effects were in-camera and how much was added in post-production? I feel like a lot of it would have to be greenscreened but it's hard to tell on looks alone (just like you'd never know that the high rise towers in The Wire were painted in with CGI unless you knew the actual towers were imploded a decade earlier).

I am finding myself really wishing each episode won't actually end. The closer the clock winds towards 10:15pm on Sundays the more frustrated I get that I have to wait another week. I haven't felt like this in a really long while about anything on TV (disclaimer: I never got to see the Wire when it was actually in broadcast)

on the other hand I'm becoming conscious that the end of the last episode cannot possibly be satisfying, since there's going to be no comeuppances, no melodramatic last stands, no thank-you-jesus moments or whatever, just like real life. At least with Band Of Brothers we got to beat the Axis powers. Maybe we'll get some kind of cursory epilogue? Ugh. I hate to even think about it.

xpost I was thinking the exact same thing watching this week's ep... and then thinking, what the fuck am I going to do after #7 is done with? Takes a lot to make me sit forward on the couch these days.

yeah i cant get enough of this shit. also cant wait for the dvds, so i can turn on subtitles.

iceman is an unrepentent swede!

Alexander Skarsgård

Voted the sexiest man in Sweden in 1999

Five times voted the sexiest man in Sweden.

His mother is a doctor.

He lives in an apartment in Stockholm, Sweden near his parents.

Has four younger brothers, Gustaf, Sam, Bill and Walter, and has one younger sister, Eija.

Supports the Stockholm based football club Hammarby IF

Son of actor Stellan Skarsgård and My Skarsgård.

Brother of Gustaf Skarsgård, Sam Skarsgård, Bill Skarsgård, Eija Skarsgård and Valter Skarsgård.

I unashamedly love the iceman/ray repartee

ditto fruity rudy helping pappy with his shaving and humectant application in this last one

IT'S ALL SO TRUE

btw for those non-vets in the room the shared grooming responsibilities are all but impossible to shirk afterwards. I don't carry around a pair of fingernail clippers anymore but I will on occasion use my lighter to cure a colleague of his errant shirt strings if need be

yeah, I warmed up to this a whole lot more since my posts above

the 12-year old playing Fick is awesome btw. anyone read his book?

i really like this show.

i feel like ppl upthread are being really hard on it for not being the wire.

also it's definitely sort of "drifty" and not as traditionally dramatic as, say, band of bros. but like tom said, it's the iraq war.

the sort of bizarre boredom mixed with odd slices of terror is basically what i've heard from my two friends that were in the war.

Yeah, I love it, and basically have since the first episode.

Also, I think it's drifty because that's what happened to this particular group of dudes. If it was about guys in fighter jets, it probably wouldn't be.

"the sort of bizarre boredom mixed with odd slices of terror is basically what i've heard from my two friends that were in the war."

that's pretty much what everyone says about every war.

i just read nancy franklin's review in an old new yorker. basically, she says: no brains falling out of a dead kid's head, no credibility. if you are gonna get real, than get real. and how the RS pieces were better than the book and the book is better than the mini-series, etc.

i just think it's boring boring. and the characters annoying. needs more john cena.

http://www.darkhorizons.com/2006/marine/marine1.jpg

ep 5 was great. i love the captain america guy

"the sort of bizarre boredom mixed with odd slices of terror is basically what i've heard from my two friends that were in the war."

that's pretty much what everyone says about every war.

-- scott seward, Tuesday, August 12, 2008 6:31 PM (19 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

i don't know anyone that was in other wars. just what these dudes said about iraq is all.

i just read nancy franklin's review in an old new yorker. basically, she says: no brains falling out of a dead kid's head, no credibility.

scott man that is just a bunch of damn gibberish. so the show is pulling punches by showin hella dead kids but not showing their brains poppin out? eat shit!

it was pretty funny tho how hbo showed the marine immediately after GK

nancy franklin is the worst.

the 12-year old playing Fick is awesome btw. anyone read his book?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l65kXXgSFc8

also it's definitely sort of "drifty" and not as traditionally dramatic as, say, band of bros. but like tom said, it's the iraq war.

the sort of bizarre boredom mixed with odd slices of terror is basically what i've heard from my two friends that were in the war.

Sure, but it's really hard to make good drama out of that. I'm not saying they should have paid more attention to Rob McKee and Syd Field when writing this thing, and, given the premise and the agenda, what they've done is brilliant. But they definitely have a tough job.

Episode 5 was awesome though. This is the first one where I've felt they got the bizarre boredom mixed with odd slices of terror thing to work as TV. And now I'm kind of developing a soft spot for previous episodes and I was definitely getting the "I don't want this to end" vibe.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ML77ev1SDI

pancakemonster7 (4 days ago)
Some good exersice.

"Dead! Alive... dead! Alive, dead, alive, dead!

Oooh coz I can't get enough of war propoganda 'but from a different, grittier perspective'. Will this make it to the UK? On second thoughts...I might actually watch it if its 'from the makers of The Wire'. What tv needs is not more Cena.

Cracking post.

If The Wire was a war movie, it'd be one of those big grandiose ones full of dramatic compression and character composites, not a little brief slice of life like this.

im going to push my luck with a kind of bullshit analogy but i was thinking that if the wire was the victorian novel as t.v. with its mutiple povs and lens of science moments than gk intentionally has a more modernist take on storytelling. the wire was concerned with critiquing institutions and they way the served and failed to serve ppl and its creators chose a method of storytelling that facilatated that.

what i guess i think is valuable about gk is that by keeping the show focused on the quotidian/psychological it avoids creating a false narrative in the interest of perspective. like as a slice-of-life it avoids creating some fallacy about universal experience while seeming more true (?) affecting (?) despite being just one unit's experience.

not that "its intentional" is a great defence against ppl finding the show boring or drift-y or w/e but i do think there's a lot of depth to the show that would've been erased by attempting something more layered and grandiose.

I don't think that analogy is pushing your luck at all. Interesting idea.

"purpose for entering iraq: jihad"

it's funny that the translator used to be in eastenders

tariq
http://www.bbc.co.uk/eastenders/images/characters_cast/characters/tariq_l/tariq_larousi_large_2.jpg

"purpose for entering iraq: jihad" felt like an incredibly indelicate way of making a political point. it's one I agree with, but it was done so unsubtly that I unsuspended disbelief and was annoyed more than anything.

Pretty sure that actually happened in the book. Nate's speech after was a bit heavy-handed.

the look on Brad's face when he's comforting the Marine who took out the driver!

I love this series so much.

http://www.malibumag.com/site/article/james_ransone/

Ziggy on growing up/getting past being a junkie during filming

Thanks for that link, milo

wow, ziggy is hott

also pretty smart and tuned in, if that link's anything to go by

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v345/skinheadbrian/soldiersdick.jpg

Only one more episode!

I saw Ziggy on Mercer St. last week. he looked peeved.

Critical Iraqi Hottie, nice

Parallels to The Wire becoming more obvious and more awesome.

the past episode was great.

I am starting to really enjoy this.

me too and it's about to be over

i want a season 2

Johnny Cash was a bit much

am0n demands a prolonged occupation

Why'd it have to end? I am never deleting these episodes from my tivo.

LOVED Reporter's 'serpentine' dash to safety. AND the look Iceman gives Ray when he hands him the cup at the end (gin?).

Stay frosty.

i thought it was a spit cup

I never thought of that. Makes more sense, really.

Am so desperate for the show not to be over I've started reading the book.

haha yeah i went and bought the book after work today hoping to extend the feeling i had watching the finale. interested in hearing what the ppl who weren't as hot on the show think now that its all over if theyre still watching.

Jesus I haven't been left with this kind of feeling since the fourth season of The Wire.

Accidentally deleted my tivo'd episodes. Will now seek out torrents, since I do NOT like the idea of going without. Hell, I've already watched the final ep 3 times since Sunday. And a Dec 16th release date for the DVD is just too damn long to wait.

So far I'm finding the book to be very close to the series...aside from extra nuggets of background and scene setting, it's like reading the show.

http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/showpost.php?p=53860&postcount=54

Funny how every guy who tells his side of the story turns out to be preternaturally calm, patient, and reasonable in his story and Evan Wright is the bumbling craven opportunist.

So surreal.

http://www.rudyreyes.com/

HAHAHAHAHAHA fruity rudy!

is this good? i can't seem to find anyone who's actually enthusiastic about it... everyone's like "ya. you should see it. it's good." and says no more

I'm only three episodes in and it's quite good.

i loved it

nigga did u read the thread? hella pps was enthusiastic abt it!

also i decided i hate scott based on his not digging this

It was very good, though maybe not as engrossing as the book.

I will probably be more excited when I get around to buying the DVDs and watch them close together rather than having to wait a week.

nigga did u read the thread? hella pps was enthusiastic abt it!

― ㋡ (cankles), Tuesday, December 30, 2008 1:14 AM (23 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i didnt want to get spoilered. ok ill watch it!

Once you get a snapshot of Rudy, you'll understand

Haha yeah you can click on the link above. It won't really spoiler anything.

if he can do it, so can you

omfg

lolololo

http://www.rudyreyes.com/images/heroliving-1/rr-heroliving_16.gif
http://www.rudyreyes.com/images/heroliving-1/rr-heroliving_18.gif

Watched this a month or so ago and can't get it out of my head. So much better than rumored, reviewed, or advertised. I think it's one of the best "war movies" ever, the only major mistep being, I think, the Wire-traditional music montage scene where everyone walks out on the home-video screening.

http://photos-d.ak.fbcdn.net/photos-ak-snc1/v2283/119/117/36803967/n36803967_38491083_161.jpg

I thought it was definitely an idictment on war and the marines, partially considering the two actors from The Wire that were in this played the fuck-up dockworker's son, Ziggy, and the cop that got kicked off the force for beating on a black teacher waiting for a roadblock to be cleared. Pretty meta, yes, and the homicidal kid in the hmv had the same creepy stare that the guy who played Marlow had.

i didn't see it as an indictment on the marines at all, and really not on war either. i felt it was much more an indictment, along similar lines as The Wire, of what happens to the little guys when people play politics with war.

believe it or not, English is my native language...

i've been tempted to buy this, but it's so freakin sad and brutal, i'm not sure i want to watch it over and over again.

I watched it when it first aired, and I have it saved to re-watch but haven't been ready to go back. I think I'm nearly there though. But I agree, it's visceral enough that it stays with you long after you've stopped watching.

Also agree that it's definitely more of an indictment of the war machine, the politics of leadership etc. Some of the marines come off a little poorly in their portrayals in book and tv show, but as a whole you end up thinking that it's to their credit that they will still stand shoulder to shoulder with each other regardless - even with all the bullshit from Godfather, Casey Kasem and Encino Man, that with few exceptions the rest of the men still will always respect chain of command no matter what. Maybe that's a failing too, but watching the show made me appreciate it a little more.

[oy, sorry for longwindedness...got carried away]

i didn't see it as an indictment on the marines at all, and really not on war either. i felt it was much more an indictment, along similar lines as The Wire, of what happens to the little guys when people play politics with war.

Maybe it's pure semantics - indictment of the structure and systemic dysfunction of the marines and the war, yes, but these structural and systemic dysfunctions can't be easily separated from "marines" and "war," and I'll stop before this starts to sound like things I had to read and write in college.

i think the show's creators were careful not to turn the series into some kind of left wing anti-war, anti-Marine, statement is all. they say in the special features that they made the series for the soldiers, and it made sense to me.

everyone in that movie who was portrayed as a contributing factor to the systemic dysfunction of the marines were people who did not live by the 'warrior code', and instead were either psycho or people excelled in kissing ass and impressing the right people, or sometimes both i guess.

i think the main intent of the series was to illustrate to the viewer the toll that war takes on human beings, both physically and psychologically, and then say: do not take this shit lightly; do not use these guys as a political tool, and do not let the suits from the pentagon dictate military strategy once they are on the ground.

Great thread (finally finished going back and reading). I think the show manages to mingle empathy and admiration for the soldiers with the possibility that what we're watching is a crime.

For lack of anything to watch, yesterday, I started watching this. I'm curious to see where it goes.

rockapads super otm

this was fucking great; did all eps in a two day stretch and wish i'd watched sooner.

Weird weird weird coincidence... Last night I found out that one of my high school teachers was the father of the real-life Damon Fawcett character (Damon later took his own life in 2008 after succumbing from PTSD)

I'm very late in this as I had never heard about this show until now.
Somehow I found it by chance last week and binged watched the whole thing within a few days.
it's fantastic.
As someone said upthread, I think it's one of the best war movies I've ever seen (it's more of a movie than a series to me).
at first it does seem drifty/boring but then I found that's part of the power of the show. the fact that it's not overdramatized (like Band of Brothers or most/all war movies).
Also the fact that there's no soundtrack music (except J. Cash at the end).
and it reminded me of the feelings you get when you're in the context of a group of young guys (minus the big difference of war obviously) : it is often dumb, sometimes moving or unnerving and funny. but mostly it depicts well the bonding and caring that you develop in these situations.
and as an adult, the issues regarding hierarchy/management/petty office wars are also very strong (cap America and the second to encino guy are unbearable).
and of course the stupid/criminal/pointless aspects of most decisions during war time (the surprise of the house bombing after they had been watching it for a while was shocking and I think it's the first time a bombing actually felt real in a fiction : the sound, the shockwave...).
also agreed with many people upthread : as soon as each ep was over I was craving for the next one (that's the good thing of not watching it upon release, you don't have to wait a week inbetween !)
I actually started rewatching it !

Yeah, it was really good, and no one talked about it, not really, despite the connections to The Wire. Likewise, few people talk about The Corner, which preceded The Wire.

We should watch this again. good revive

Rudy's website has been updated to the current style
http://www.rudyreyes.com/

It's very Patagonia catalogue now.

was rewatching ep2 yesterday and it reminded me of one thing that I found, maybe not realistic : when they go throw the city that 7000 marines couldn't take and make it through the heavy fire, none of them get killed or even injured although they're like an elephant in a hallway during the ambush. I had the same thought in a later ep when they're stuck at night in front of a bridge surrounded and shot at.
but I suppose that's what really happened as told in the book and also they're like the elite of an elite corp (I found online that they were like 300 in recon for 300 000 marines at the time) of the mightiest military in history against non professional guerilla...
Fruity Rudy is awesome (as are the gay jokes with him, somehow, since they're the kind of terrible jokes - gay, racist, macho - that may be ok within a certain group of people with close relationships... unlike the "jokes"/harassment towards the female marine later on, for instance).

http://68.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_ljvq8fwCgx1qj9e4to1_1280.jpg

speaking of which : a very minor detail but I was wondering why they would wear extra scarves when they already have to wear so many things and it must be crazy hot !

RIP: https://deadline.com/2024/07/evan-wright-dead-author-generation-kill-obituary-1236013714/

That’s a shame.