comment #1

Scott Feinberg says ...

I beg to differ. I saw one of the first cuts of this film months ago and was blown away by it, as I think most people will be. I'm totally shocked to read this reaction.

comment #2

TheJeff says ...

McCarthy is a bit of a dilettante, no? This isn't really his turf. Mike D'Angelo liked it a lot.

comment #3

actionman says ...

Don't know if I'd call Todd McCarthy a dilettante (he's quite knowledgeable and has excellent taste for the most part) but I too was surprised by his back-handed positive review of Standard Operating Procedure. I haven't seen the film yet but Morris, in my head at least, has made one 4 star film after another so this lukewarm response was quite surprising to read.

comment #4

SpinDozer says ...

Taxi was recently dropped by The Discovery Channel due to its' "controversial" nature.

Look forward to seeing EM's picture.

comment #5

berg says ...

what grabbed me most about TAXI TO THE DARKSIDE was the realization of how much of our network news is censored

comment #6

Nate West says ...

McCarthy: "For all the finer intellectual points being made, however, 'Standard Operating Procedure' is an almost continuously disagreeable sit... because it consists of a litany of disgusting and just stupid behavior by individuals both inside and outside the frame."

"A litany of disgusting and just stupid behavior by individuals both inside and outside the frame"--an apt description of the Bush Administration. Morris has made another winner.

comment #7

le corbeau says ...

Are you telling me the picture Jeff posted doesn't make you want to LEAP UP and go see this movie?

comment #8

BurmaShave says ...

I think most Americans still need to be confronted with the ugliness of the situation. It's not medicine, it's chemotherapy.

comment #9

Terry McCarty says ...

What McCarthy seemed to be most irritated about was the stylistic overlay Morris applied to the Abu Graib photos/footage.

Seems like shades of the tricksiness that made THE THIN BLUE LINE an uneven viewing experience for me.

comment #10

cinemascopian says ...

When it comes to documentaries, I find David D'arcy, writing in Screen Daily and GreenCine, to be a more reliable and thoughtful critic than most. His review of SOP in Screen is the opposite of McCarthy's:

"among the best documentaries on the Iraq war and on official efforts to cover up ugly aspects of the 'war on terror'. It will test the current American aversion to most films about Iraq.
Critical support could be just the 'surge' that Morris needs to win over large US audiences and to reach beyond his loyal art house base – right into the America where the soldiers fighting the war live. In Europe and elsewhere, S. O. P. will rally a more receptive public and will confirm general views on the Bush administration. The film is assured a long shelf life as one of the definitive statements on the US occupation."

http://www.screendaily.com/ScreenDailyArticle.aspx?intStoryID=37269

comment #11

le corbeau says ...

What the FUCK about Abu Ghraib has been covered up?

The Army themselves exposed and prosecuted it. Certain corners of the media (NY Times, etc.) have beat it like a rented mule for three years now. It's the most publicized event in the world after the grand opening of Paris Hilton's thighs.

What's been covered up in Iraq is EVERYTHING ELSE.

comment #12

the king says ...

Morris doesn't make a bad film ... ever.

I worry mostly about overexposure of the Iraq topic.

I will purposely avoid Taxi so I'm not so burned out by the Iraq docs.

Loved No End in Sight

comment #13

Unison says ...

Good point, Mgmax.... Talk about shooting fish in a barrel. I don't see what Morris could have to add on an issue that's been so endlessly dissected besides some stylistic bravado.

comment #14

christian says ...

As if the story wasn't suppressed and Rumsfeld ever held accountable for his decisions that led to torture, sodomy and murder. Team Bush got soldier scapegoats while Limbaugh called it a "fraternity prank." O'Reilly claimed there wasn't torture. Hannity denies it too.

And so did most of you righties when it happened.

Here's a better summary:

Back in 2004, journalist Seymour Hersh said that we hadn’t seen the worst of what happened at Abu Ghraib:

"Some of the worse that happened that you don’t know about, ok. Videos, there are women there. Some of you may have read they were passing letters, communications out to their men. This is at Abu Ghraib which is 30 miles from Baghdad.

The women were passing messages saying “Please come and kill me, because of what’s happened”. Basically what happened is that those women who were arrested with young boys/children in cases that have been recorded. The boys were sodomized with the cameras rolling. The worst about all of them is the soundtrack of the boys shrieking that your government has. They are in total terror it’s going to come out."

Hersh’s account was supported by testimony given by former Abu Ghraib prisoners. But that, and the photos that had already been released, didn’t stop the wingnuts from disbelieving Hersh.

Some, including professional idiot Michelle Malkin, have never forgiven Hersh. Malkin has called him “one of al-Qaeda’s favorite journalists,” and decided that the awards Hersh won for informing the American people were indications that the Mainstream Media has a left-wing bias. I’ll believe that when Malkin breaks a story of this magnitude, and fails to win an award.

But sweeping the crimes of Abu Ghraib under the rug will not make us a better nation, and it won’t stop the attacks of the terrorists. If the Bush administration had been smart, they would have released all of the relevant material as soon as it came to their attention. Instead, they’ve fought to deprive Americans of information that we have a right to know, until the information inevitably dribbles out. Handling the Abu Ghraib affair in this manner has caused maximal damage to America’s prestige and reputation.

Perhaps now, Kool-aid drinkers like Michelle Malkin and Charles Johnson and the staffs of the National Review and Fox News will be forced to admit that what happened at Abu Ghraib was not the equivalent of fraternity hazing. It was torture and it was murder and it was child rape, and it was all done in the name of the United States of America. And until we come to accept that fact, it will keep happening.

http://www.appletreeblog.com/?p=1000

comment #15

SpinDozer says ...

Christian is correct, but the allegations go even further in that the orders came from Rumsfeld. There is, potentially, a great deal that remains covered up, but even if these allegations prove baseless, there was a cover-up of two or more years before those photos came out.

comment #16

le corbeau says ...

Like Pavlov's fucking dog.

comment #17

christian says ...

As opposed to your Bush running dog.

comment #18

le corbeau says ...

"The acting director of a Baghdad psychiatric hospital has been arrested on suspicion of supplying al-Qaeda in Iraq with the mentally impaired women that it used to blow up two crowded animal markets in the city on February 1, killing about 100 people." --The Times (London), today

Is Abu Ghraib really the only interesting story to come out of Iraq? Is it really the worst?

comment #19

christian says ...

It's part of the whole story, and one that the hearts and minds of the Iraq people care about. If you really care about them.

comment #20

le corbeau says ...

Do you have an opinion survey to back that one up?

Because I think it's one that western leftists care about, and one that Iraqis DON'T care about by now. Maybe they did 2 or 3 years ago. Maybe they never did, since they lived through far, far worse. But as far as I'm concerned, the burden of proof is on you to show that there's any indigenous Iraqi interest. I very much doubt it.

comment #21

christian says ...

"Maybe they never did, since they lived through far, far worse. But as far as I'm concerned, the burden of proof is on you to show that there's any indigenous Iraqi interest. I very much doubt it."

You know how ridiculous that sounds? Even Bush feigned more concern. You mean the Iraq people don't care about their fellow citizens and family round up and tortured, rapd. murdered and denied trials? Only "leftists"? That's your logic?

And show me the survey where the Iraq people say, "We're so use to being raped, tortured and murdered that this means nothing. A lark."

But here's one survey from 2004 after the scandal broke:

This poll conducted by the Independent Institute for Administration and Civil Society Studies finds that an overwhelming 92% of Iraqis perceive Coalition forces as occupiers, rather than as liberators or peacekeepers. 41 percent of respondents feel the Coalition should leave immediately and a further 45 percent believe that the occupiers should leave once a permanent government is elected.

http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/iraq/pollindex.htm

And here's the survey from 2007:

According to this poll commissioned by the BBC, ABC and NHK to assess the effects of the US military�s surge strategy, 70 percent of Iraqis believe the strategy has made Iraq�s security situation worse. The poll finds 47 percent of Iraqis want US-led forces to leave Iraq immediately and 34 percent want the troops to leave when the security situation improves. The results of the survey indicate the surge has hampered conditions for political dialogue, reconstruction and economic development and has not improved security. The findings come as US Commander General David Petraeus prepares to deliver his own assessment of the �surge� strategy to Congress.

comment #22

le corbeau says ...

You mean the Iraq people don't care about their fellow citizens and family round up and tortured, rapd. murdered and denied trials?

Yeah, they've cared about it for 30+ years. It's western leftists who didn't start caring about it until America started doing something about it.

comment #23

SpinDozer says ...

I think I'm gonna be sick, Michael fucking Gebert.

comment #24

le corbeau says ...

Didn't get sick at the idea of a psychiatric hospital chief pimping his retarded patients to murder people, got sick at idea of America doing good in the world. Interesting.

comment #25

SpinDozer says ...

What's interesting isn't that people can be evil, but that even otherwise bright people can be so wretchedly stupid.

comment #26

le corbeau says ...

I'll be looking to your judgement for guidance on that for sure.

Christian, I congratulate you on actually finding data to back your argument up. Well played.

comment #27

SpinDozer says ...

o I'm real concerned about what you'll be looking for. Christain's scholarship is what people who don't spend their time with Powerline and the Pajamahadeen call 'common knowledge'. You otta try that sometime then mebbe you won't look like such a stupid a-hole.