"Univ. of Michigan cancels ‘American Sniper’ screening..."

‘Made students feel unsafe’

A scheduled movie screening of “American Sniper” at the University of Michigan was abruptly cancelled Tuesday after nearly 300 students and others complained the film perpetuates “negative and misleading stereotypes” against Muslims.

“The movie American Sniper not only tolerates but promotes anti-Muslim … rhetoric and sympathizes with a mass killer,” according to an online letter circulated among the campus community via Google Docs that garnered the signatures.

“Chris Kyle was a racist who took a disturbing stance on murdering Iraqi civilians,” the collective letter stated. “Middle Eastern characters in the film are not lent an ounce of humanity and watching this movie is provocative and unsafe to MENA and Muslim students who are too often reminded of how little the media and world values their lives. … The University of Michigan should not participate in further perpetuating these negative and misleading stereotypes.”...

The Center for Campus Involvement did not return multiple phone calls seeking comment, but its official Twitter account noted “Paddington Bear,” a PG-rated movie about a stuffed animal’s misadventures, will be shown instead of “American Sniper.”

“We have elected to pull the film from this week’s program and screen another movie in its place that we believe better creates the fun, engaging atmosphere we seek, without excluding valued members of our community,” the center stated.

Via Iowahawkblog

College cinemas used to screen John Waters movies; now a $350 million box office blockbuster is too "controversial" http://t.co/70YmPc0JcE

— David Burge (@iowahawkblog) April 8, 2015

My 2015 Oscars Predilections

Having seen only two of this year's Best Picture nominees, I can't offer superlatives. I saw American Sniper and gave my thoughts here. Last night, I watched Richard Linklater's Boyhood and in my opinion, it's the better picture.

I like most of Linklater's movies - perhaps because he is my age and he knows the 1970's Zeitgeist and beyond from my perspective.  I've liked his movies ever since Dazed And Confused -- a vastly underrated movie in my opinion.

Boyhood uses Linklater's original lapsed-time cinematography which is an art form unto itself. I liked it in his Before...trilogy and I like it in Boyhood.  Of course, it portends there being a subsequent film called Manhood. :0

Boyhood is really a movie for people who had kids during that time period. The back talk scenes are priceless as are the moments when parents and child really do connect. And there is something very alluring about Patricia Arquette which made me realize that Nicholas Cage is a fortunate man.

My Oscar predictions: Either American Sniper or Boyhood for Best Picture. I'd be happy with either.

#AmericanSniper

I saw American Sniper yesterday with my son. The other half of my family expressed no interest in seeing it nor even hearing what we thought of it. That probably represents America in a way.

My first reaction afterwards was to call my mother to get some PTSD family stories straight. Her brother-in-law (my uncle) had served in WW II and had survived fierce hand-to-hand combat at Guadalcanal, and had had problems. I was way too young to remember anything about that or the aftermath and she's my only living link back now. I will let those stories be, as horrific as they were, out of respect for the dead and for the living as they still affect the next generation(s). I also wanted to know more about an older cousin who had fought on helicopter gunships in Vietnam. He was older than me by 10 years and so I never knew him well as a kid like I did other cousins. I do remember his going over there -- conscripted. And I thought about him during scenes of "American Sniper." He returned home to a small Wisconsin town --the same one where my parents grew up and which I knew as a kid. I remember hearing about how dynamite explosions at a local stone quarry used to give him the jitters. My mother told me some detail about how his later marriage dissolved that I had never heard. I will not repeat those stories either, out of respect for the living but suffice it to say it could not have been his fault.

"American Sniper" isn't supposed to be about those wars but it is somehow. It's supposed to be about the Iraq War.  I have no family who served there, but only a dearly loved neighbor who did two tours in Iraq as a Marine. I wrote about him here. I thought about him too.

I felt a jumble of other emotions: guilt, anger, pride.  The anger came from critics dissing this movie as "pro-war." I mean, WTF?  Another piece of residual anger comes from unresolved issues dating back to Vietnam and its aftermath. When I was 19, I saw members of a mayoral administration openly cheer the "anti-war" killers of an innocent man -- one of whom is still at large. I can never "unremember" that.  That story doesn't belong here and I already wrote about it here. I see the same attitude today. I cannot square it with reality. The guilt part is more complex and I'm not quite willing or able to confront that yet, let alone talk about it.  The pride part come from the sense that somebody can still make movies like "American Sniper."  See it -- I think it's supposed to disturb you.