Body of War – Movie Trailer
Aug 21st
On September 13, 2001 — a mere two days after the 9/11 attacks — Tomas Young, a Kansan with an overwhelming sense of patriotism and loyalty to his country, felt moved to enlist in the United States Armed Forces. Equipped with the courage to fight and rid the world of the threat of terror, Young anticipated an appointment in Afghanistan that would enable him to join his fellow soldiers in rooting out and bringing to justice Al-Qaeda operatives. This did not occur, however, and President Bush’s order to invade Iraq stunned everyone, including Tomas. He soon found himself shuttled off to a land that posed no obvious threat to the United States, where he was instantly struck by a bullet from behind — and rendered both paraplegic for life and unconscious. Airlifted home, Tomas slowly regained awareness of himself and his surroundings, settling in for a long, grueling recovery at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in the nation’s capital, with the assistance and loving support of his mother. But the young man’s journey did not end there. As he lay in his hospital bed, unable to move, Tomas learned of the countless injuries and deaths afflicting hundreds of thousands in Iraq. In the process, he became one of the nation’s most ardent opponents of the Iraq invasion. With their nonfiction work Body of War, longtime television pundit Phil Donahue and documentarian Ellen Spiro join forces to relay Tomas’ heart-wrenching and yet deeply affirming story — both a testament to one man’s enduring inner strength and a towering condemnation of a localized conflict that owes much, if not everything, to the miscalculation and intrusion of the United States.
“Body of War” And for What?
Aug 21st
And for What?
BODY OF WAR is a movie everyone should see about something that should never have happened. It is a documentary about what life is like today for a young man who joined the Army after 9/11 and served in Iraq for only five days. Tomas Young’s unit had never been in Iraq before, and on their very first mission Tomas was in a truck and took a shot from above that hit him in the left shoulder and paralyzed him from the chest down. He never fired a bullet, and his war was over.
So, we follow Tomas around now that he is back in the United States, giving talks to various groups, meeting with different people, and just struggling to get around.
In an early scene, Tomas is at Ground Zero in New York City, and he says, “If it weren’t for this, I wouldn’t have joined the Army.” And if he hadn’t have joined the Army, wanting to go fight the terrorists in Afghanistan, he wouldn’t have been shot in Iraq, he wouldn’t have become paralyzed, and he wouldn’t have become dependent on the help from his mother and the wife he married after coming home.
Throughout the movie, we see and hear the roll call in the U.S. Senate as the Senators vote overwhelmingly to give President Bush the powers to go to war, as well as the testimony of various Senators and Congressmen in support of the bill.
One notable exception, however, is that of Senator Robert Byrd, who cautions against rushing into judgment and doing something they will regret.
There are also scenes from the White House Correspondents Dinner at which President Bush makes fun of looking for weapons of mass destruction in the Oval Office and everyone laughing inappropriately at the so-called “joke.”
You cannot watch this movie without crying for what we have done and for what we have allowed to be done.
The final vote in the Senate was 77 to 23, and the movie ends with a meeting between Tomas and Senator Byrd in which Senator Byrd refers to the 23 no-voters as the Immortal 23 and reads their names to Tomas as their votes are shown to the audience. Then Senator Byrd and Tomas congratulate each other for serving their country.
BODY OF WAR leaves everyone with the question, “And for What?”
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
Nixon, The Election Years – Movie Trailer
Aug 20th
Oliver Stone, the most outspokenly political American filmmaker of the 1980s and ’90s, directs this epic-length biography of Richard Nixon, the 37th President of the U.S., who was re-elected by a landslide in 1972, only to resign in disgrace two years later. Taking a non-linear approach, Nixon jumps back and forth between many different periods and events, from Nixon’s strict upbringing at the hands of his Quaker mother, through the many peaks and valleys of his political career, to his downfall in the wake of the Watergate scandal. The facts of his life are blended with supposition and speculation to create a portrait that is often critical of the man’s policies but displays an unexpected compassion toward his failings as a human being. Anthony Hopkins stars as Nixon, Joan Allen plays his long-suffering wife Pat, Mary Steenburgen portrays his mother Hannah, Bob Hoskins is cast as J. Edgar Hoover, Powers Boothe plays Alexander Haig, Paul Sorvino portrays Henry Kisinger, and Ed Harris plays E. Howard Hunt.
