An over-examined subject, agreed, but The Australian‘s Eddie Cockrell has nonetheless interviewed yours truly, USA Today and Talk Cinema’s Harlan Jacobson, and Hopscotch Films’ co-owner Troy Lum about the uniform snubbing in this country of all the Iraq War movies. And he’s done a good job of mapping it all out in very precise detail. The piece ran two days ago.
Explanation #1: “Iraq war movies have all been guilt-trippers about an ongoing conflict, whereas the Vietnam movies were all made after the last helicopter left the roof of the American embassy.” Explanation #2: “There have been no surreal, eye-popping, epic-scaled Iraq war movies along the lines of Apocalypse Now or anything that has attempted to sum up the tragedy of the war, except for one, In the Valley of Elah, which deserved a better reception.” Explanation #3: “Everyone is waiting for a facsimile of the last 40 per cent of Stanley Kubrick‘s Full Metal Jacket, which is arguably the best Vietnam War film.”