Catch-22

Image via wikipedia

Joseph Heller's first novel, released in 1961, was Catch-22. A biting satire of war, the military and bureaucracy, the book quickly became regarded as a classic as well as one of the most highly acclaimed works of the 20th century. It tells the tale of Captain Yossarian, a bombardier in the US Air Force stationed in Italy during the Second World War, a man who desperately wants to go home and get away from the madness of the war. It is however, I shall concede, a slightly tough read as it is told from quite a few perspectives and non-chronologically. But is well worth putting the effort in. These people from amazon.co.uk clearly disagree though:

Just because a book is a classic doesn't mean it is good (It kinda does actually... That's why it becomes a classic. Because it is both critically hailed, and popular). Maybe at some point it was good and maybe in the future it may well be good again, but presently it just seems a bit over rated. (I'm sorry, but books don't just stop being good. They can stop being relevant, but the anti-war, anti-bureaucratic message is as important today as it ever was. Maybe you're just too thick to 'get it'?)

Here's another with clear anger management issues:

I wasted three weeks of my life reading this book (I bet you didn't though. It's not like you read for every minute of every hour of every day. You have lost some number of hours. That is all. And you'd have only wasted them anyway.). The main reason I persevered is that everyone (even the people giving it five stars) seems to say the beginning is difficult and it take a while to get going (Actually, I've never found that, to be honest. It does take a while to get used to the seemingly haphazard chronology, but if you're intelligent it shouldn't take that long to grasp what's happening). In my opinion, if it's a good book you shouldn't have to trudge through the first third of it (I certainly never felt I was 'trudging through'.)(otherwise maybe only give it 3 stars?). (Maybe they felt that the start didn't drag as much as you imply, or that the second two thirds more than made up for any slow start?)

Well, I read it. I lost count of the times I threw the thing at the wall in frustration. (Really? You threw it at the wall that often that you literally lost count? Why didn't you mark notches on the bed post?)

I finished it. I wish I'd never picked the damn thing up in the first place. (If it's been thrown at the wall as often as you suggest, the book probably wishes you'd never picked it up too...)

And another who seems to be unsure of the age of the book:

Catch-22 is an anti-war book for the easily led and the ignorant (I think you'll find the ignorant usually read Dan Brown...). It's for people who just say "War is bad" without really thinking about why it's bad. (I think most people know why war is bad. It probably has something to do with all the death and whatnot. Just spitballing here...)

The book is basically Dilbert in World War II (It is a bit actually. Of course, since Catch-22 beat Dilbert into existence by some 28 years, you're argument is somewhat weak.). As in the comic strip, all the people in charge are unbelievably stupid, don't care about the people they command, and are extremely selfish (Since Heller based his novel on his own personal experiences in WWII, I think its fair to say these people do somewhat exist, though obviously the novel versions will be highly exaggerated.). The common soldiers are of course much smarter than the commanding officers and try their hardest to get out of work (Well, that is where much of the humour comes from). Their unwillingness to fight is justified (by the book, anyway) because their commanders are just so evil and stupid (Well they are. If Yossarian was a member of any other squadron he would have been sent home for a rest some time ago). Everyone's behavior is cartoonish and annoying (Cartoonish was intentional. It is, after all, a blackly comic book. I found none of the characters annoying).

This edition of the book includes a preface by the author in which he, instead of saying anything useful, writes mostly about how everyone thinks his book is wonderful. Well, it's not. (There are so many people who seem to think that they are the ultimate deciders of what is good or bad. Maybe we should have a big Royal Rumble to see who wins that right...)

Finally, we have this guy who, I suspect, may be a somewhat right-wing American...:

 There are many myths that persist in modern life. One myth is that war is "meaningless", "useless" or "insane." (Okay then, what is the meaning or use of the deaths of millions in war?) Another myth is that Catch-22 is a good book (Oh I see. All those critics and authors haven't actually read the book, it's just a myth they subscribe to. Well, thanks for telling me that. Jackass). The reality of this second myth was brought home to me when I attempted to read this book (Hmm... I don't like that 'attempted' in there...). I gave up in disgust after 80 pages (Then what the holy fuck are you doing on here reviewing it then? I gave up on Moby Dick at a similar point - I didn't have the patience - but as a result I refrain from commenting upon it. You can't possibly give a fair and balanced review from such a small extract). I felt as though I was reading a children's fairy tale rather than a serious piece of literature (Really? It's not exactly a child-friendly book...). This is a horrible and insulting book (In what way is it insulting?). The "plot" (if one can call it a plot (Yes you can. Because that's precisely what it is)) is pointless (Well you would think that. Having read just 80 shitting pages! How the fuck do you know where the plot goes, you didn't give it any chance to develop. Prick) and the writing is sarcastic and juvenile (It is sarcastic. It's called satire, look it up. I think you'll find that it is a widely recognised technique of 'serious literature'. It is juvenile in places, but so is the military, so what are you complaining about?). We are told by fans of the book that the author intended it to be read this way, as a clever statement about "the insanity of war." (Well we say that because its true. That was kind of the whole point of the novel, really)

What a load of rubbish. War is ugly and brutal, but it is not "insane." (Except the very concept of war is insane. Killing ordinary people doing a job to free people is, at the very least, stupid. Those who die on the front have played no part in the politics that began the war. Why should they be the ones to suffer?) Many American wars were fought because people believed passionately in a noble cause and were willing to fight to defend that cause against those who would vanquish it (Yeah. Just look at Vietnam. Or Cambodia. Or the Gulf. Or Iraq. Or Afghanistan. Or Libya...). Among these were the Revolutionary War (democratic government (They didn't like some laws.)), the Civil War (individuals' rights vs. states' rights (That's an incredibly simplistic view. There were economic causes that were just as important as rights.)) and World War II (the defeat of fascism (That'll be why they joined in 1939, and not two years later when they were attacked then...)). Catch-22 is an adolescent little book which is applauded by people who believe that nothing is worth fighting for. (Curse us pacifists! How dare us hold a contrary view to yours?!)

I think that'll probably do, eh? Till next time!

Band of Brothers

There's clearly more than a dozen there...

The Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks produced TV miniseries Band of Brothers is regarded as one of the greatest pieces of television ever, as well as one of the finest pieces of work on WWII. Unsurprisingly it didn't take long to find some contrary reviews on amazon...:

Apart from the brilliant start (All seems fine so far...), this series just turns into the Dirty Dozen (I spoke too soon...), with hundreds of Germans just dropping dead like cannon fodder lol (People who get shot in wars tend to die if I'm honest...), hardly any American casualties (Well, yeah that's true. No, wait, it's bullshit. Quite a few characters are killed with still more paratroopers picking up permanent injuries), if this was real life the war would've been over after the first week of D-Day... lame. (This was based on the accounts of the men who served in Easy Company so there is very much a basis of fact. However, this series is entertainment. Thus it will not be perfectly accurate and will have been sexed up a little. But a 'little' is where it seems to stop with this series, according to veterans of WWII, as well as more recent wars, and historians. So naff off.)

We'll start off our inevitable journey to America to this reviewer with a reasonable point. Just a shame the way they argue their point is utterly ridiculous really:

Just bought this product and the wife and I started watching this HBO product and find it has no closed captioning in English (This, you'll notice is the reasonable point. So you'll know what's coming up next...), it only has Spanish! This is discriminatory against all Americans (What? No it isn't. It's discriminatory against those with hearing difficulties, but not everyone. Not unless every American is deaf, anyway. It would be discriminating against every American if there was only Spanish audio as well.), and, especially, all people with a hearing handicap! (Not 'especially'. Only. Though this is still pretty awful I'll agree.) WTF, how many Mexicans buy this series about Americans fighting in WWII? (Wow. That is pretty generalising. There might well be millions. WWII didn't just affect America you know. In fact, it affected most other countries involved in the war an awful lot more than it did you. Britain was there from the start and lost 450,000 people, nearly 1% of our population. And we got off lucky, Poland lost almost 6,000,000 (3,000,000 from the holocaust alone) while Russia lost a horrifying 24,000,000. And all that is ignoring the damage to towns, cities and infrastructure that the European countries had to cope with afterwards. So maybe other countries will want to watch a programme about US troops, eh?)

Well, after the rather depressing end to that, lets move quickly on to the next review:

This is a show that combines WWII melodrama with modern teen-TV dramas (No it doesn't. It brings sometimes harrowing WWII drama to the small screen) to create a horrid mixture of bad acting (The cast was incredibly strong. As everybody else in the world seems to have realised) and war-glorification (Yup, there's nothing like dead friends to glorify war...). It makes war look like a paid vacation with your buddies (With bullets, explosions, injury and death. I'm forced to ask: What kind of holidays do you go on?). Also: it waaay overglorifies American soldiers, who were far from being the best soldiers in the war (The series doesn't say they were the best. Just that these men believed they were. Every man believed that the unit they belonged to was the best. As this was told from the Easy Company's perspective it was inevitable that Easy Company would be portrayed this way) None of these characters/soldiers would have held up for 24 hrs. on the eastern front. (And yet they held up for days surrounded by German soldiers. And anyway, the Russians couldn't survive a day on the Eastern Front either, hence their massive losses. It's pretty hard to survive in cold like that, against that number of enemy)

I was never given any reason to care about any of the characters (Yes you were. Maybe you're just a psychopath - in the true meaning of the word). Some were so cuddly "terry bear" ish that it was sickning (How dare those people be likable! Bunch of pricks, dying for their country...). This is a perfect example of America's isolation for the realities of the rest of the world and of war in general. (Well, yes, but all other country's are the same though aren't they? British films about the war are about how we won the war, same with the French and everyone else)

There is no real pathos or drama here (It's there by the bucket load), only blood and gut scenes and melodrama(much much more melodrama than B&Gs). The story is very poorly written and tries to deal "sensitively" with too many different characters. (It's excellently written and manages to deal with the many characters making each different and recognisable.)

Makes you feel like war is something the Beverly Hills 90210 teens did on their spring break. (No it doesn't you ignorant bastard. It makes it seem like a pretty horrible thing.)

I really hate people you know...

Generation Kill Pt. 2

They ran to the toilet just after this picture was taken...
Image from The Telegraph

Here's what you've all been waiting for, the second part of Amazon.com's reviews of Generation Kill. First up to the plate we have this:

I am a big fan of HBO series and I was extremely disappointed in this one, I Just finished 24 years in the US ARMY as an Infantryman and this depiction of the Iraq war is a joke, from the less than realistic backdrops to the absurd tactics, not to mention the wooden performances of 98% of the actors (Yes. That's why it was nominated for Outstanding Casting at the Emmys. Because they gave such bad performances). After seeing this series I would be pretty upset if I were a Marine, because they are not even close as to how they are portrayed in this mess (If only several of the Marines depicted in the series were playing background characters. Oh wait. They do). If you want to see an outstanding HBO miniseries spend your money on "Band of Brothers" (You're not limited to one series per life, you know. People can watch both). Otherwise run far from this one (So if you don't watch Band of Brothers, you have to physically run away from this if you see it? That seems a little extreme to me). There is just too much anti-war (A war drama that's anti-war? They should be strung up! How dare they suggest that war is stupid?) stitched through the episodes that takes allot of the "wind out of its sails".

Now we have this expert:

Once again we see how every day that goes by we see how every generation becomes more ignorant (Actually, the population's IQ increases every generation. It's called natural selection), more out spoken about a lot of nothings nothing they know not (That sentence just makes no sense whatsoever). Just because they read it in the news paper or watch it on TV or online, it must be true right? (Actually, many of my generation are incredibly cynical about the media. Especially myself) 

I come from a long line of Marines from me joining after high school to my father being in Vietnam to my uncles in Korea and WWII. (Woo for you. Other Marines have said they found it very accurate. Including the Marines shown in the series)

Yes this series has a lot of truths, the vulgarity, profanity the racism, the over cellos Coos, combat senerios, to the rules of engagement.

From how Iraqis are welcoming you with open arms to then trying to kill you when your not looking. (Ah. Good old-fashioned racism)

As a Marine in my opinion this series has a lot of Anti-War (Yes. It does. Those liberal bastards), Anti-Bush BS! (It's not BS. It's the truth) You would think with the internet people would actually educate themselves, that's how Obama got elected! (Yes, voting for Obama is the stupid thing to do. Not voting for Bush, who is, let's not forget, regarded by historians as one of the worst Presidents of all time. And an idiot.)

This is War , war is dirty and war is nasty, but this series make us Marines look like a bunch of un organized morons. (Then why would they have Marines both in front of the camera and behind, making sure everything was accurate. Surely if it was so bad, they'd have had nothing to do with it? Or had the script changed?)

We as Marines are trained to kill, you can call it brain washing from boot camp but that's how it is. (Yes. And that's what they are shown to do. And you are kinda 'brain-washed'. There are lots of problems with how ex-soldiers aren't 'switched off' when they leave)  

Yes we do have a human side also. No one should be allowed to make movies or write books based on what they think war is, specially if they have never served and actually gone to war!! (The journalist who wrote the book was there. That's how he wrote it. In fact he was praised for putting himself in actual danger. He was in the lead Humvee much of the time and, at one stage, was given a gun to defend himself) 

This series is garbage! If your a part of the ignorant generation this series will fit you just fine.. (You, like the man last week, ought to stick to The Green Berets. The lies in there should please you. Now please fuck off and take your racist, ageist and old-fashioned views with you.) 

And bringing up the rear in this collection of reviews:

Sure the firefights and comraderie camaraderie is in here, but the one UNDERLINING UNDERLYING, SUBLIMINAL point it makes in each episode is the wontan wanton killing of civilians and collateral damage the US military does in Iraq (Not really. It's merely one factor of the series). The sheer joy and amusement of the military at the destruction it is causing is harpped on, and on (Apparently the Marines stigmatize a soldier who kills a civilian, so they're hardly amused by the destruction). I saw the whole serise series (except the last episode) (So not the whole series then) and the writers also just love to show men defacating and urinating and shooting civiliand civilians, women, children, structures, etc.; as long as they're showing guns spitting spent shells and having that cool sound of M-16/M14 goin going off. (That's not a complete sentence. The part after the semi-colon doesn't really have a conclusion, it just ends)

I also read the book and it seems the author was also fully engrossed in only recording the civilina civilian casualties. Each time they came in contact with the enemy, woemen women and children were the only ones that got paragraphs and paragraphs of details. (Perhaps this is because details such as these are the most likely to gain an emotional response from the reader. Would you rather he had swept the civilian casualties under the carpet? Actually, I imagine you probably would. Because you don't care about the truth. Just as long as your views remain unchallenged, you'll be happy)

Oh and there were Syrians Syrian and Iraqi jihadists that got killed also, but you get a sentance sentence and then on to the chilren and innocents getting shredded left and right. It did happen, I read it on in "One Bullet Away" by Nate Fick, the guy featered featured in Gen. Kill the book and tv series, but come on, give the guys some credit. (If you know it happened, then what is the problem? The fact that the creators didn't shy away from showing civilian casualties should be rewarded, not punished)  By the way, "One Bullet Away" is a waaaay better book than Gen. Kill. The Gen. Kill authore author just likes to let you know how many times men in war go use the bathroom. He also details it over and over and over. We know guys out there don't have nice restrooms or private bathrooms, okay. It goes without saying. But to write about it over and over... The tv series also likes this aspect of the tale. You get to see guys' butts alomst every 15 minutes (Oh the horror! Is there something your not telling us?). You sure don't see that on Platoon by Oliver Stone, or even implied on Tour of Duty(the '80s tv series). (Well, wouldn't it be boring if every war film/series was the same?)
The brutality of war is shown, but mostly how it affects women and children in the line of fire. (These are some of the facts of war) The real bad guys don't get much time in the book or the tv series. In no way does this compare to Saving Priveate Private Ryan and Band of Brothers. Those movies/series were about the heart of the US military, not the heartless ones they are portrayed here. (They're totally different wars. They shouldn't be being compared on such merits anyway)

I for one will not be buying it on DVD (I'm sure David Simon et al will be utterly devastated, we'd better put them all on suicide watch or something...), nor do I recommend anyone else to do so either. Unless you like to see the killing of innocents by our incompetent military(which is what the book and series paint our miltary to be) (Sorry, but they can be incompetent. Look at the continued violence in Iraq and Afghanistan for example). I did 12 yrs in the US Navy so I know a little about military comraderie camaraderie (And nothing about the infantry's war). It's shown here, but in a deceitful context.

It's not all bad though, some of the comments (often from Marines) hate these reviews even more than I do. Look them up. Also, I realise that this post is long and unwieldy, exactly what I was trying to avoid, but I was an idiot and managed to collect all the long ones together. I'm sorry. I'll try harder next time.

The Hurt Locker

If only he'd been a giant smurf... Image Musicfeeds

The Hurt Locker, as you may remember, won Best Picture at the Oscars earlier this year. The Academy Awards are decided by 6,000 professionals and leading figures in their field, such as actors Michael Caine and Tom Hanks and directors like Danny Boyle. However, instead the Academy should have asked these guys, they are obviously far better at determining the quality of a film:

how this movie beat the film avatar i have no idea, its the same old war film, things get blown up people die... (Well it wouldn't be a realistic war film if no-one died would it? Unfortunately the world's armed forces do not use Nerf guns to fight each other. And as for the explosions, it's a bomb disposal squad. Explosions are quite an important area of their work I understand. Also, IN AVATAR THINGS GOT BLOWN UP AND PEOPLE DIED! You can't complain about elements in one film, and praise another film ignoring the fact that it contains those exact same elements! Fucktard)

ok its not the worst movie ive ever seen but how!!! HOW!!! did avatar get beaten by this i will never know (Because Avatar was an astoundingly unoriginal film. The plot (if you could call it that) was ripped straight from Pocahontas with a few Smurfs thrown in. The only things it had going for it were the special effects and the 3Dness (which I still don't like). There was no character development. The acting was generally poor. The direction was good, but nothing particularly special. And the whole thing was just a little bit preachy. Oh, and the ending was pretty obvious from pretty early on. So, there's a bunch of reasons. Pick one.)

my advice would be not to buy this and pre order your copy of AVATAR (Or, better yet, ignore this Avatar fanboy's advice and read some real, unbiased reviews upon which to base your decision.) :) (I really want to punch that stupid smiley face)

 Right, moving on to a slightly less stupid review we have this person passing off opinion as fact:

Pure Hollywood fantasy. (And what film, may I ask, isn't?)

Turned this rubbish off less than half way through (Then how can you review the whole thing?). I appreciate it is only a film (I don't think you do), but I found the part where the British servicemen were being portrayed as idiots laughably, but at the same time offensive, as it shows a complete lack of respect to the brave servicemen who risk their lives in the REAL world (They weren't servicemen. They were a Private Military Company (PMC) so had practically nothing to do with servicemen).

Once again the U.S. of A saves the world! Maybe someone in Hollywood should start reading some history instead of inventing it before filming rubbish like this. (Unfortunately that's just cinema. As it happens, I felt that this film was less pro-America than most other war films)
Save your money and buy a decent film like Private Ryan or Black Hawk Down, far more realistic, believable characters and edge of the seat action. (So, you slate The Hurt Locker for being too American, but then choose Ryan which is far more 'U.S. of A saves the world!' I see. That makes sense. I would also like to point out that Ryan is not 'realistic' by your standards. No-one would send a whole military team through enemy occupied territory to save one man. These are just films. 'Real' and 'Realistic' are different things that's why they're two words.) This film is just pitiful. (I'm sorry to tell you that this is just your opinion. And as such, is no more important than anyone else's.)