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Recently Released In Theaters Reviews
2012 Twilight: New Moon Planet 51 The Blind Side Mammoth Red Cliff Dare The Messenger Pirate Radio Precious The Fourth Kind The Box A Christmas Carol Men Who Stare at Goats The Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day Recently Added Spotlights Paul Rudd Jason Segel Nicolas Cage Rose Byrne Zach Cregger and Trevor Moore Jared Padalecki Amanda Righetti Clive Owen Naomi Watts Joaquin Phoenix Steve Martin Renee Zellweger Liam Neeson Maggie Grace Dustin Hoffman |
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 The understandable acridity that one senses is laced among Young's comments is also felt, though less palpably, by Donahue. To him, and to an ever-increasing number of Americans, the Iraq War is nothing short of a betrayal by the government to the American people – and especially to the troops. "It's beyond horrible," Donahue says. "We just seem to, you know, be consistently convincing ourselves of our goodness. And it's pretense, I'm afraid. We go and brag about democracy, democracy – less than half of us vote! And what we've discovered as we've made our way on this film and have gotten more involved in the [war protesters] who've been out there for a long time, alone often, speaking out against the war to a lot of empty seats – these people are the patriots! They believe in the Constitution. They believe in the Bill of Rights. I think if you put the Bill of Rights to a vote, this crowd in the White House would vote against it, a number of them." Body of War's main target, though, is not the Bush administration but the Congress that authorized the war. The vote in the House of Representatives was 296-133 in favor; the next day, the Senate voted 77-23. The film intercuts scenes of Young's experiences with these historic votes and the brief debates leading up to them, and singles out Senator Robert Byrd, a democrat of West Virginia, for being one of the lone voices against the resolution. According to Donahue, "What Byrd said was, and he says it in our film. And as he says these words, you see Tomas being carried up the steps of the capital by fellow soldiers, the IVAW – Iraq Veterans Against the War. Byrd says, 'This will be a blot on the Congress and the Executive forever.' To take a political vote – and that's what this was, three weeks before an election, imagine – to send our young men in harm's way." The overwhelming support for the resolution is a stark reminder of how uncontested the war originally was. "Every major metropolitan newspaper in this country supported this war," Donahue says. "That's what you get with corporate media. Being against the war was not good for business. Now I think that's a point largely forgotten by the American people. You want to be popular; if you own a television network, the last thing you want is some guy criticizing the president, especially at a time of war." (Donahue should know that firsthand. His 2002-03 talk show was the top-rated show on MSNBC but was cancelled because of the network's concerns over his anti-war stance – as opposed to Fox News's more popular pro-war hosts.) I ask, almost jokingly, if during the making of the film, ... |
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