Jarhead The Movie

[recon532002]

Just saw the movie Jarhead tonight, and it was Out F#!%king Standing Jamie Foxx does another Great performance in this Movie It was Frustating at times and found myself wanting to get in the S%#!t with them. And sad at times toward the end. I give this Movie two Nippers up it was worth the Money and time.

Semper FI Brothers
Recon

[eddief]

I plan on seeing it Sunday with my dad who is also a Marine.

[TAZMAN]

Also Saw It Tonite @ 2000 Totally Agree Outf*%king Standing, All Who Sees It Will Agree I Hope, Job Well Done And Then Some,b Brought Back Some Memories, Oorah!!

Semper Fi!!

[parrish03xx]

Just got done seeing it. Agree totally it is a very good flick to show so many points we see or will see during time in the Marine Corps.....

OOAH RAH

"I think God for every day he gives me in the Corp...OOAHRAH"

[BC22]

The movie was good, but it misrepresents the book. Swofford didn't enjoy his time in the Marines and was very clear about that in the book, talking about how the Marine Corps will screw you over, and how he and many of his buddies flaunted regulations when on leave/liberty, etc. The movie pretty much glossed over his dissatisfaction in his military career and became another "Oohrah" war movie.

[marinefamily5]

Myself I can't say because I haven't seen it yet, but the 2 Lcpl's I work that just got back from Iraq said that it wasn't worth the money that they paid to go see it but that is what is so great about this country is you can feel that way about stuff...........

[eddief]

I can't wait for it to come out on DVD. Me and my dad really enjoyed it.

[thedrifter]

Jarhead" probes the soldier's mind

by Eric Strelow, of the Advance Titan
Issue: Wednesday, November 09, 2005
Added: 11/9/2005 1:48:08 AM

Marines are called Jarheads due to their high and tight haircuts and the hollow emptiness underneath, according to the new film directed by Sam Mendes ("American Beauty," "Road to Perdition").

Aptly titled "Jarhead," the movie demonstrates how that emptiness is not merely within the Marines but instead is an encompassing, depressing and necessary facet of the modern war itself.

The film is based on the 2003 autobiography "Jarhead: A Marine's Chronicle of the Gulf War and Other Battles," by Anthony Swofford. The cinematic adaptation opened in theaters on Friday.

The story follows "Swoff" (Jake Gyllenhaal) through basic training and his six months in Iraq during the Gulf War. However, war film buffs might be hard-pressed to fit it nicely into the genre.

It is not so much about the war as it is about the hardships of being a soldier. Important here is the isolation, the bravado and the insanity that accompany fighting today's battles.

When one is merely a tool of that higher power that is the nation all one can do is try to live. Swoff's assigned spotting partner, Troy (Peter Sarsgaard), makes a point to halt all political talk at one point. That's not for them to worry about.

Swoff finds both companionship and annoyance within his sniper unit, and he remains distant, even with Troy, his closest friend.

Leading their unit is Staff Sgt. Sykes, who is played quite efficiently by Jamie Foxx ("Ray," "Collateral").

The Gulf War is a fitting backdrop and a good example of how a modern war is fought. The ground troops are portrayed as almost meaningless at times, yet they endure the heat of the desert the most.

Echoing this feeling of aimlessness is the film's fairly steady absence of violent confrontation. After all, Swoff is part of a sniper unit. Thus the gung ho rapid-fire intensity typical of a war movie is not present in "Jarhead"- not to say that the film is slow-paced.

Doubt and frustration among the troops keeps the dramatic level high throughout. A marine on night watch cooks sausage, which accidentally starts a fire. Swoff, who was supposed to be the one on watch, gets disciplined. Swoff takes it personally.

Letters from home bring good and bad news for the troops. While photos of girls back home and a baby are eagerly passed around. There is also a quickly cluttered bulletin board that displays pictures of cheating girlfriends.

Swoff worries his girl could be the next.

The desert is a lonely place. The war feels distant but always on the mind. Everyone aches for some action.

Tense scenes of threats, closecalls and discontent keep the audience on their toes. Iraqi soldiers or the Republican Guard could be hiding just beyond the next sand dune.

Horror, beauty and despair all get captured on film as the unit witnesses the oil fields burning. This darker setting contrasts the stale monotony of the endless sand. The evocative emotions of the scene break up the movie nicely.

The acting is brilliant, even if many characters are war movie stereotypes. The sergeant yells. The men are horny. The stupid one is stupid. Some sanity is lost in the madness that is war. But everything works well and evolves within the context of the story.

The viewer is allowed into the marines' mind-set. Ever so subtly, characters' points of view impress themselves upon the audience. The film does not push a message so much as illustrate the mental trials of these characters, most notably Swoff and Troy.

"Jarhead" could have dealt with more pressing controversies surrounding the States' first clash with Saddam Hussein, of which there are many. I'll fault them a bit for that, but honestly, making the film more political would drastically change the soldiers' perspective "Jarhead" seemed to be taking.

Sam Mendes appears to have done it again. "Jarhead" has an amazing and powerful cast and an equally powerful vision. Go out and give this unconventional war flick a try.

[thedrifter]

'Jarhead': Whose Stories Are They?

By DAVID CARR
November 9, 2005

Joel Turnipseed, a former marine who wrote "Baghdad Express," a memoir of the first gulf war, was sitting in Minneapolis watching "Monday Night Football" with his wife last week when a commercial for the film "Jarhead" came on the television.

"Jarhead" was directed by Sam Mendes and is based on Anthony Swofford's memoir of the first gulf war. The commercial showed marines in the desert hurrying to don their chemical protection gear. One of the characters, Troy, played by Peter Sarsgaard, put on his hood and turned to another, Swoff, played by Jake Gyllenhaal, and in his best Darth Vader voice invited him to "come to the dark side."

Mr. Turnipseed said he was shocked. "I turned to my wife and said, 'Honey, there is something funny about that,' " he said in a phone interview. "That scene is in my book, not Tony's," he added, referring to Mr. Swofford.

A little later on in the game there was another commercial for the film, this one depicting a scene in which a marine colonel gives a motivational speech to soldiers under his command. Much of the scene and some of the dialogue, Mr. Turnipseed recalled, seemed to come directly from the opening pages of "Baghdad Express."

The next day, Mr. Turnipseed went to see an advance screening of the movie. He says he saw enough to convince him that his book had been used for at least part of the movie without credit.

"I turned to my friend during the movie and said, 'I have always wanted to see my book on the big screen and there it is; I just didn't get credit for it,' " said Mr. Turnipseed, who served as a truck driver with the Marine Corps for about 90 days in 1991.

William Broyles Jr., the screenwriter and former marine who adapted Mr. Swofford's book for the movie, said that Mr. Turnipseed was confusing his own experience with the received wisdom of being a marine.

"The joke about the gas mask has been told 10,000 times," Mr. Broyles said by phone. "It is not his joke or mine."

Mr. Broyles admits that there are coincidences. But he says they are just that.

In Mr. Turnipseed's book, a colonel "burst onto the stage, grabbing the microphone from its stand while still in stride, like Wayne Newton doing Patton."

In the shooting script for "Jarhead," stage directions command that "Lieutenant Colonel Kazickis mounts a makeshift stage, grabbing a microphone in mid-stride like a Vegas M.C." What follows is a profanity-laced scene of call and response that is remarkably similar in both plot and language to the scene that follows in Mr. Turnipseed's book.

Mr. Turnipseed said he was loath to raise questions about a film and a screenwriter he holds in high regard.

"There is no way that I am going to come out ahead on this," he said. "The guy who says 'you stole my stuff' is always the jerk, but this is not something that is based on a scene I did; it is verbatim dialogue."

Mr. Broyles, the screenwriter, said he was sympathetic to Mr. Turnipseed's concerns, but he was equally firm in defending the integrity of the work he did on "Jarhead."

"I feel bad that he feels bad," Mr. Broyles said, adding that he had read and admired "Baghdad Express." "Maybe some of it stuck in my mind or maybe it was already there," he said.

"I don't have any conscious memory of using anything out of his book," Mr. Broyles said. "I can remember reading it and thinking, this guy really has it down. It was one of those unintentional coincidences that is frustrating for him, but there has been no effort to take anything from him."

Stephen Sheppard, a lawyer retained by Mr. Turnipseed to look into the matter, said, "We have been engaged by Joel, and it is a case that we are taking sufficiently seriously to explore alternative approaches to resolving this."

For his part, Mr. Swofford said that there was a similar scene in his book and that many of the elements of the speech in question are common to experiences in the Marine Corps. "The speech that Bill wrote for the script is part of the great officer's opera that has gone on for generations," he said. "The repetition and variation and appropriation are part of commander-speak. Bill heard it prior to fighting in Vietnam, and I heard it numerous times fighting for the Corps."

Mr. Broyles said that in truth the scene belongs to no one and to everyone who has ever served.

"These are not my stories, not Tony Swofford's stories or Joel Turnipseed's stories," he said. "These are stories that are held in common by all marines."

[thedrifter]

'Jarhead': Whose Stories Are They?

By DAVID CARR
November 9, 2005

Joel Turnipseed, a former marine who wrote "Baghdad Express," a memoir of the first gulf war, was sitting in Minneapolis watching "Monday Night Football" with his wife last week when a commercial for the film "Jarhead" came on the television.

"Jarhead" was directed by Sam Mendes and is based on Anthony Swofford's memoir of the first gulf war. The commercial showed marines in the desert hurrying to don their chemical protection gear. One of the characters, Troy, played by Peter Sarsgaard, put on his hood and turned to another, Swoff, played by Jake Gyllenhaal, and in his best Darth Vader voice invited him to "come to the dark side."

Mr. Turnipseed said he was shocked. "I turned to my wife and said, 'Honey, there is something funny about that,' " he said in a phone interview. "That scene is in my book, not Tony's," he added, referring to Mr. Swofford.

A little later on in the game there was another commercial for the film, this one depicting a scene in which a marine colonel gives a motivational speech to soldiers under his command. Much of the scene and some of the dialogue, Mr. Turnipseed recalled, seemed to come directly from the opening pages of "Baghdad Express."

The next day, Mr. Turnipseed went to see an advance screening of the movie. He says he saw enough to convince him that his book had been used for at least part of the movie without credit.

"I turned to my friend during the movie and said, 'I have always wanted to see my book on the big screen and there it is; I just didn't get credit for it,' " said Mr. Turnipseed, who served as a truck driver with the Marine Corps for about 90 days in 1991.

William Broyles Jr., the screenwriter and former marine who adapted Mr. Swofford's book for the movie, said that Mr. Turnipseed was confusing his own experience with the received wisdom of being a marine.

"The joke about the gas mask has been told 10,000 times," Mr. Broyles said by phone. "It is not his joke or mine."

Mr. Broyles admits that there are coincidences. But he says they are just that.

In Mr. Turnipseed's book, a colonel "burst onto the stage, grabbing the microphone from its stand while still in stride, like Wayne Newton doing Patton."

In the shooting script for "Jarhead," stage directions command that "Lieutenant Colonel Kazickis mounts a makeshift stage, grabbing a microphone in mid-stride like a Vegas M.C." What follows is a profanity-laced scene of call and response that is remarkably similar in both plot and language to the scene that follows in Mr. Turnipseed's book.

Mr. Turnipseed said he was loath to raise questions about a film and a screenwriter he holds in high regard.

"There is no way that I am going to come out ahead on this," he said. "The guy who says 'you stole my stuff' is always the jerk, but this is not something that is based on a scene I did; it is verbatim dialogue."

Mr. Broyles, the screenwriter, said he was sympathetic to Mr. Turnipseed's concerns, but he was equally firm in defending the integrity of the work he did on "Jarhead."

"I feel bad that he feels bad," Mr. Broyles said, adding that he had read and admired "Baghdad Express." "Maybe some of it stuck in my mind or maybe it was already there," he said.

"I don't have any conscious memory of using anything out of his book," Mr. Broyles said. "I can remember reading it and thinking, this guy really has it down. It was one of those unintentional coincidences that is frustrating for him, but there has been no effort to take anything from him."

Stephen Sheppard, a lawyer retained by Mr. Turnipseed to look into the matter, said, "We have been engaged by Joel, and it is a case that we are taking sufficiently seriously to explore alternative approaches to resolving this."

For his part, Mr. Swofford said that there was a similar scene in his book and that many of the elements of the speech in question are common to experiences in the Marine Corps. "The speech that Bill wrote for the script is part of the great officer's opera that has gone on for generations," he said. "The repetition and variation and appropriation are part of commander-speak. Bill heard it prior to fighting in Vietnam, and I heard it numerous times fighting for the Corps."

Mr. Broyles said that in truth the scene belongs to no one and to everyone who has ever served.

"These are not my stories, not Tony Swofford's stories or Joel Turnipseed's stories," he said. "These are stories that are held in common by all marines."

[MarineNoob26]

I havent seen the movie, but will really soon. Heard its awesome, but opinions differ. Guess I'll just have to check it out too! Is the book better, like in most movies?

[CplCrotty]

I did my own online review over at http://neophotog.blogspot.com/ I got a bit carried away though, wandering from the main subject.

[jinelson]

I enjoyed Jarhead and saw it in the best venue possible at the Oceanside 16 with a full theator of Marines. Really its a flick that only a Marine could totally relate too and its funny as hell. I wouldnt recommend taking your girl friend to see it but enjoy it with another Marine. OORAH!

Semper Fi

[Osotogary]

Jim,
Would you say that the movie is better than the book?
I'm thinking that if I had read the book, which I have, I'd be looking to get the same enchanted or disenchanted feeling as when I read the book, even with the creative license Hollywood film making is known for, at movies end.
If you had never read the book do you think that you would have liked this movie better?
Oceanside has that many (16) movie venues? LOL

[gus]

In my contry the movie will be there the 11th january 2006. I hope the cinema have it. because we haven't got all of american film in belgium and i want to see it a lot