Living it up

I’m thinking of narrowing the focus of this tumblr. What to focus on you ask? I’m not sure yet.  Cell Phone pics? (I have many of those), fashion? life? rants? Someone help!!! hehe 

To preface this post, I must say that I consider myself by no means a film reviewer.  I actually find that I have distinctly different taste in films as compared to most other people.  That being said, I do think that I have accumulated enough film, social, and English knowledge to appropriately articulate my own reactions to a film, and my reactions to the reviews created by others.  Now, I am not going to ramble on forever about the movie Act of Valor, but after seeing it tonight, I am struck with an overwhelming desire to write about it, and what better place than tumblr.

Essentially, before deciding that I wanted to see Act of Valor (Dir. Mike McCoy, Scott Waugh) I did the minimal Twitter/Facebook/Stumbleupon research one does before making any rash decisions.  Essentially what I found was that younger men loved it, housewives hated it, and reviewers, while I definitely saw mixed responses, for the most part weren’t the biggest fans.  Perhaps it has been my recent inundation with independant films, but I was shocked: how could reviewers not respond positivley to such a creative concept.  Yes, it was a risk to use actual Navy SEALS as opposed to trained actors and yes it was not the highest budget independent film of all time, but I think that reviewers, along with many viewers, were missing the point.  One review in particular stands out to me where the writer essentially said that they did not wish to watch “Live action Call of Duty”, and I agree, I don’t really enjoy video games.  Where I completely disagree is that that effect was not inteneded, we are supposed to be seeing what people are doing all over the world to protect us while we are sitting on the couch, doing nothing.  That’s not to say that I am not completely guilty of the exact same thing.  I think that the current 20 to 30 year old generation is the most numb, emotionless group in recent times.  We are so comfortable playing games where heads are literally blown off of bodies.  I could see blood and gore all day and be completely unaffected.  People didn’t like this movie because perhaps they thought that there wasn’t enough substance.  What these people are blatantly forgetting is that the blood violence that we so easily brush off as “standard Hollywood” is actually happening, it is the substance.  And we know that it is not just our soldiers, in many places it is civilians as well.  So anyone who critiques this film citing that there is too much blood, or not enough violence or no sex, to them I say: too bad.  Perhaps we should all take a chance to look at a film like this and say, damn am I lucky.  As I write this, and flip through links to reviews and comments on various websites, I am even dissappointed in myself, that this is how I am spending my time; sucking up other people’s negativity and throwing it back on the screen.  With that thought, and with great exhaustion of this topic for the time being, I will end this post, with every intention of continuing at a later date, and say this: To those who serve the United States and Navy SEALS, Soldiers, Policeman, anyone, we thank you.

Until next time. Victoria Hadley.