High Rental Value: Ooh-Rah!
Jarhead 5/5For me, there's only one new DVD release worthy of note, and that is Sam Mendes' fantastic Jarhead. Based on the book by former Marine Anthony Swofford, Jarhead follows "Swoff" from boot camp to his experiences fighting in the Middle East. One thing I especially liked is that Jarhead focuses more on the soldiers than the actual war itself. This was a wise choice because it probably wouldn't have been as good the other way around. Performances are amazing across the board, and I'm surprised Gyllenhaal, Foxx, or Sarsgaard weren't nominated for any Oscars for their work here. Director Sam Mendes has yet another fantastic film to add to his resume, which includes two of my favorites, American Beauty and Road to Perdition. Jarhead was released in three different editions on DVD: single-disc widescreen and fool's screen (you heard me) editions and a two-disc collector's edition (obviously, my choice). I haven't bought the DVD yet, but I can't wait to. I highly recommend this one!
posted by W. @ 9:23 PM
3 Comments
3 Comments:
Actually I didnt care for this one too much. Though I liked its non-glorified portrayal of the soldiers, I felt that it couldn't decide what style of movie it wanted to be. It felt like a muddled docudrama. I left the theatre feeling very "blah". It wasn't uplifting, it didn't bring up any questions, and it vaguely showed the realities of war (but nothing like what other movies have done). Maybe, it was trying to show the absurdity of war. But, I felt it never really made a strong point. It looked more like a reflection on Gyllenhaal's character than a reflection war. I did think the acting was great, I just didn't feel like the movie ever made a strong definite statement. Something to grab onto. Maybe it wasn't supposed to.
A reflection on Gyllenhaal's character was probably what the filmmakers were going for. I thought it worked very well, though.
Jarhead reminded me a lot of another movie called Three Kings with George Clooney and Mark Wahlberg. Have you seen that one?
I liked Three Kings a lot. It wasn't your typcal war film by any sense of the word. I thought the story/direction/actors were all excellent. I think that was the first movie that I started to really pay attention to Goerge Clooney.
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