Movie Review-Get Smart movies news

Get Smart

By Roger Ebert

The closing credits of “Get Smart” mention Mel Brooks and Buck Henry, creators of the original TV series, as “consultants.” Their advice must have been: “If it works, don’t fix it.” There have been countless comic spoofs of the genre founded by James Bond, but “Get Smart” (both on TV and now in a movie) is one of the best. It’s funny, exciting, preposterous, great to look at, and made with the same level of technical expertise we’d expect from a new Bond movie itself. And all of that is very nice, but nicer still is the perfect pitch of the casting.

Steve Carell makes an infectious Maxwell Smart, the bumbling but ambitious and unreasonably self-confident agent for CONTROL, a secret U.S. agency in rivalry with the CIA. His job is to decipher overheard conversations involving agents of KAOS, its Russian counterpart. At this he is excellent: What does it mean that KAOS agents discuss muffins? That they have a high level of anxiety, of course, because muffins are a comfort food. Brilliant, but he misses the significance of the bakery they’re also discussing — a cookery for high-level uranium.

Smart is amazingly promoted to a field agent by the Chief (Alan Arkin, calm and cool) and teamed with the beautiful Agent 99 (Anne Hathaway, who never tries too hard but dominates the screen effortlessly). They go to Russia, joining with Agent 23 (Dwayne Johnson, once known as The Rock). Their archenemy is waiting for them; he’s Siegfried (Terence Stamp), a cool, clipped villain.

And that’s about it, except for a series of special-effects sequences and stunt work that would truly give envy to a James Bond producer. “Get Smart” is an A-level production, not a cheapo ripoff, and some of the chase sequences are among the most elaborate you can imagine — particularly a climactic number involving planes, trains and automobiles. Maxwell Smart of course proves indestructible, often because of the intervention of Agent 99; he spends much of the center portion of the film in free-fall without a parachute, and then later is towed behind an airplane.

The plot involves a KAOS scheme to nuke the Walt Disney concert hall in Los Angeles during a concert being attended by the U.S. president. The nuclear device in question is concealed beneath the concert grand on the stage, which raises the question: Since you’re using the Bomb, does its location make much difference, give or take a few miles?

It raises another question, too, and here I will be the gloom-monger at the festivities. Remember right after 9/11, when we wondered if Hollywood would ever again be able to depict terrorist attacks as entertainment? How long ago that must have been, since now we are blowing up presidents and cities as a plot device for Maxwell Smart. I’m not objecting, just observing. Maybe humor has a way of helping us face our demons.

The props in the movie are neat, especially a Swiss Army-style knife that Maxwell never quite masters. The locations, many in Montreal, are awesome; I learned with amazement that Moscow was not one of them, but must have been created on a computer. The action-and-chase sequences do not grow tedious because they are punctuated with humor. I am not given to quoting filmmakers in praise of their own work in press releases, but director Peter Segal does an excellent job of describing his method: “If we plan a fight sequence as a rhythmic series of punches, we would have a ‘bump, bump, bam’ or a ‘bump, bump, smack.’ We can slot in a punchline instead of a physical hit. The rhythm accentuates the joke and it becomes ‘bump, bump, joke’ with the verbal jab as the knockout or a joke immediately followed by the last physical beat that essentially ends the conversation.”

Yes. And the jokes actually have something to do with a developing story line involving Anne Hathaway’s love life, the reason for her plastic surgery, and a love triangle that is right there staring us in the face. One of the gifts of Steve Carell is to deliver punchlines in the middle of punches and allow both to seem real enough at least within the context of the movie. James Bond could do that, too. And in a summer with no new Bond picture, will I be considered a heretic by saying “Get Smart” will do just about as well?

Movie reviews -hollyhood news

movie reviews

# #1 - Get Smart
The closing credits of “Get Smart” mention Mel Brooks and Buck Henry, creators of the original TV series, as “consultants.” Their advice must have been: “If it works, don’t fix it.” There have been countless comic spoofs of the genre founded by James Bond, but “Get Smart” (both on TV and now in a movie) is one of the best.

# #2 - Kung Fu Panda
In Kung Fu Panda, Jack Black is the voice of Po, a clown-eyed, sheepishly neurotic, roly-poly panda of no visible athletic ability who trains to become a lightning-limbed martial-arts master.

# #3 - The Incredible Hulk

Rebooting a blockbuster franchise that never got off the ground in the first place may not seem like the smartest move, but there is a certain brute logic to it: Scrutinizing the bomb in question can offer up 100 mistakes from which to learn.

# #4 - The Love Guru
What is it with Mike Myers and penis jokes? Having created a classic, funny scene with his not-quite-visible penis sketch in the first “Austin Powers” movie, he now assembles, in “The Love Guru,” as many more penis jokes as he can think of, none of them funny, except for one based on an off-screen “thump.”

# #5 - The Happening

Something in the air is turning normal people into self-destructive crazies prone to flinging themselves off buildings and blowing their brains out.

# #6 - Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

What are you, like, 80?'' the brash young James Dean wannabe asks the familiar-looking professor of archaeology in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. The cocky kid (who demonstrates an awful lot of Indiana Jones' spirit in his swagger) calls himself Mutt, and is played with a kick by Shia LaBeouf.

# #7 - You Don't Mess with the Zohan

If "You Don't Mess With the Zohan" isn't the bravest movie ever made about current Arab-Israeli relations, it's at least the bravest movie ever made about current Arab-Israeli relations featuring a former Mossad agent who shags Lainie Kazan.

# #8 - Sex and the City

As a Darren Star series on HBO, Sex and the City may have come in tidy half hours, but what those sparkling and fizzy episodes added up to, in spirit, was the great chick flick of our time. The show was that rare thing, a fairy tale you could believe in.

# #9 - Iron Man

After Tobey Maguire's gawky boyishness and Christian Bale's glower, the ''offbeat'' casting of comic-book films is now the new normal. (The trend really started back in 1989, when Tim Burton turned a saucer-eyed noodge like Michael Keaton into Batman.) Yet it's still bracing to see Robert Downey Jr. redefine what it takes to be a superhero in Iron Man.

# #10 - The Strangers
The strangest, most intriguing thing about The Strangers is that the two main characters are already dead -- before the masked psychopaths even show up outside their door. (Don't worry, that's not a spoiler.

Movie Review: Machete news

Movie Review: Machete (2010)

MPAA Rating: R

Starring: Danny Trejo, Robert De Niro, Jessica Alba, Michelle Rodriguez, Lindsay Lohan

IMDB Link: Machete

Movie Trailer: Trailer

The character of Machete has been swirling around in the warped mind of Robert Rodriguez for at least nine years (he made his cinematic debut in Spy Kids, of all things!). Seemingly just an interesting bit character, things changed after monstrous buzz was received from the fake movie trailer that was patched into Grindhouse. People wanted to see the machete wielding vigilante enact justice. And so three years later, those cries have been answered and the tough Mexican ex-Federale returns to the cinema, not as another addon, but in his own full featured movie, fittingly titled Machete.

It’s perfect timing too — the campy 70’s-80’s vibe appears to be making a comeback (Piranah 3D) and Machete fits right in with its over-the-top comic violence, sexy girls (many of whom are unnecessarily naked) and intentionally flaky characterizations and clichés.

Senator John McLaughlin (Robert De Niro) is a sleazebag politician running for re-election on an anti-immigration platform. To go along with McLaughlin’s stance that Mexicans are no better than parasites, campaign manager Booth (Jeff Fahey) figures a choreographed assassination (another way of saying fake) attempt on McLaughlin by a filthy immigrant will ensure a swift victory. No doubt he is right, but his mistake lies in the hiring of, now day laborer, Machete (Danny Trejo) to do the dirty deed.

Playing the role he was born to play, Trejo brings the angry, tattoo muscled, blade swathing juice as he seeks revenge against both the drug kingpin responsible for killing his family (Steven Seagal) and those politico bastards who set him up as their patsy. In absolute comic fashion he slices, stabs and eviscerates his way through hordes of bad guys with the help of two lovely brunettes — taco truck vendor Luz (Michelle Rodriguez) and ex- I.C.E. officer Sartana (Jessica Alba). The bloodshed is unequalled and brutal, but with a name like Machete, should we, could we expect anything less?

Rodriguez and first time helmer Ethan Maniquis keep the action and absurdity of Machete cranked full throttle for most of the film never miring it down with the now-hot-topic of illegal immigration — except to poke fun at those at the extreme ends of the debate. They certainly get the most out of their actors too — De Niro and Seagal are clearly up to the task at making their roles as incredulous as possible and for not taking anything seriously (Hell, De Niro hunts Mexicans with a rifle as sport!). As mentioned before Danny Trejo has been taking on these types of roles, albeit in a much smaller fashion, his entire career so he nails it (he’s been in nearly 200 movies playing this kind of badass — who says you can’t make a living off of being typecast?!?).

As for the ladies rounding out the cast, they all look damn good — wouldn’t it be a wonder if they all could act as well? The stretch is Lohan, who takes on the role of a drugged up slut, who, with her mother, does web porn. Okay, so it isn’t so much of a stretch nowadays for her — I hope her stint in the clink gets her freckled ass back on the right track.

Machete is everything it purported itself to be — a nonsensical, campy B-flick filled to the brim with blood and breasts. It has its flaws but they don’t impair it from being the perfect smash-bang movie experience to end the summer with. Sissies, however, need not apply.

Movie Review: Dear Zachary news

Movie Review: Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father (2008)

MPAA Rating: NR

Starring: Kurt Kuenne, David Bagby, Kathleen Bagby, Andrew Bagby

IMDB Link: Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father

Movie Trailer: Trailer

I don’t cry at movies. I mean, I’m not some unemotional or unattached person — many movies have touched me profoundly. But I have trained myself not to cry at movies. Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father made it real tough.

For anyone who has read or heard anything about this film, you’ve probably heard that it is emotionally devastating. After I posted on my Facebook account that I had just seen the film, people began responding almost immediately about how the movie is so incredibly sad. Likewise, if you search Tumblr blogs with the keywords “Dear Zachary,” 95% of the posts contain the sentence “this is the saddest movie I have ever seen” or something to the same effect. Documentary or not, however, being incredibly emotional doesn’t make you a good film, and in fact, being too emotional can often be a detractor. Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father, though, is a beautiful and surprising story every minute of the way.

First off, I would feel incredibly cheap if I gave away any plot details, because I feel it is necessary to experience it as the filmmaker presents it — for this movie is ostensibly a journey for both the filmmaker and the viewer. Using interviews, still images and found footage (via old home videos) Kurt Kuenne set out to make a film in hopes of a specific discovery. As the months and years went by while documenting, the film began to change into something else, and instead of continuing on his explicit path, Kuenne decided to change his direction and make something entirely different. As a viewer, you don’t anticipate these changes, but you feel them as the filmmaking itself adapts along to the beats of the story. I’ve always felt that the best documentaries usually contained the best editing and Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father runs quickly and cleverly throughout. Kuenne smartly edits the film to call back to previous images and sound bites, giving dramatically different messages depending at which point of the story you are watching.

The film’s biggest weakness may also be its biggest strength. Because of the extremely personal subject matter, Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father is the antithesis of biased filmmaking. This was often upsetting to me because we’re never allowed to have the whole story and Kuenne never masks his hatred or joy for specific people. As any good documentarian does, he tries to let everyone involved tell their side of the story, but of course when parties in the negative light refuse to comment or take part in the film, they are even more vilified by the filmmaker. I have to commend Kuenne, though, because he never holds back what he is feeling, which is strange (and dangerous) to see in a non-fiction film. At certain times during his narration, Kuenne actually becomes choked up — moments that are incredibly real, but equally manipulative. I always try to separate myself from a film and realize when it is unfairly toying with my emotional sensibilities, but there is no possible way to blame Kuenne. Perhaps it’s poor filmmaking, and perhaps he injects too much into a story that is already so sad without any additional manipulation, but it is the only real way this story could be told. If an outsider set out to tell this story, it could have only reached a certain level of emotion and storytelling.

Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father does some really nice things to tell the story it wants to tell, but it’s not a film that should be put on a pedestal as wonderful filmmaking. Still, its roller-coaster and unflinchingly devastating story is something that should be seen by everyone. It will never be forgotten by anyone who sees it.

Movie Review: The Wild Blue news

Movie Review: The Wild Blue Yonder (2005)

MPAA Rating: PG

Starring: Brad Dourif, Donald Williams, Ellen Baker, Shannon Lucid

IMDB Link: The Wild Blue Yonder

Movie Trailer: Trailer

I just watched Werner Herzog’s 2005 science fiction fantasy film The Wild Blue Yonder, and am left in that rare position of not having much to say of the film that could really change the opinion of a viewer, pro or con, toward it. This is not because it is good nor bad, simply because it is one of those works of art that is not even on a good/bad scale. It is beyond such reckoning, a purely aural and visual experience for most of its 81 minutes, and thus has an effect similar to the phantasmagoric end of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Yet, as appealing as that is, the film then has intercut documentary footage of a 1989 space shuttle mission, interviews with NASA scientists who speak all sorts of gobbledygook, and snippets of actor Brad Dourif as a psychotic alien (or kook who believes he’s an alien) spouting even more nonsensical stuff about his being part of an earth invasion force from a planet in the Andromeda galaxy, whose planet froze over and became uninhabitable. That planet is improbably called The Wild Blue Yonder. Dourif, despite Herzog’s praise of him on the DVD audio film commentary, as one of the best actors around, is nothing of the sort. He scowls, jibber-jabbers, and just plays a standard mentally ill person throughout most of the film — often ranting about how aliens all suck; which is wholly disconnected with the collaged NASA footage of the space mission, the interviews, and other footage of a musician, Henry Kaiser, swimming under Antarctic ice. It’s simply not good acting. Yet, somehow, Herzog makes the most of it, and its utter insanity lends the whole film an air of interest, not unlike Orson Welles’ great pseudo-documentary F For Fake (especially in the digressions on Roswell and scenes of mathematicians arguing on chalkboards), and also a bit similar to his earlier film on the First Gulf War, Lessons Of Darkness.

The narrative, however slight, is this: The alien (Dourif) comes to earth some decades ago, in a Third Wave of colonizers, before the supposed 1947 Roswell UFO crash, because his home planet entered an Ice Age. Upon landing, they attempted to establish their own version of Washington, D.C. out in the California desert, thus justifying Dourif’s rants out in a ghost town. Their failure leads him to the conclusion that all aliens suck — a point he repeatedly hammers home. It also lets him go on about how mankind has ecologically ravaged the earth. He speaks of his CIA involvement, and more found footage, of the Jovian Galileo mission, allows him to hypothesize on the Roswell matter. Then he claims that the aliens brought with them microbial diseases. NASA launches a space mission to find inhabitable planets, but none are found in the Milky Way, until, via silly mathematics, a gateway to the Andromeda galaxy is found — one even the aliens did not know of. As the earth is getting more and more uninhabitable, humans, who shortcutted their way to the alien Andromedan world, decide to explore it. Cue the Antarctic ice footage, meant to portray the frozen atmosphere and liquid helium ocean of The Wild Blue Yonder. While intensely beautiful and hypnotically mixed with the oral sounds of a bunch of Sardinian singers and an African singer, the film becomes really indescribable — but not in that good nor bad way. You just have to watch, whether you like or dislike it. When it’s done, we see that the humans have returned to earth, aged only 15 years (comparisons of the archival footage vs. that Herzog shot for interviews) while the earth went through 820 years, and reverted to a wild state. Humans left the earth, and now treat it as a planetary game preserve. In the audio commentary, Herzog reveals that shots of the high green plateau that ends the film were from Venezuela, part of the leftover footage from his earlier film The White Diamond.

The DVD is put out by Subversive Cinema, the film is shown in a 1.85:1 aspect ratio, and it features a theatrical trailer and trio of fairly interesting making of featurettes. But the centerpiece special feature is the audio commentary by Herzog, Dourif, and Norman Hill, a longtime Herzog collaborator. Herzog, as always, has brilliant moments, as both a describer and raconteur of things. His best moment on the commentary comes at his most bleakest, for, as a man with boundless vision in his art form, he unreservedly and pessimistically believes that mankind will never travel to the stars, even though we theoretically know it can be done — we simply lack the technology and financial resources to do it at this stage of our development. Dourif is very hit and miss, and often rambles on about environmentalism. When asked direct questions by Hill, who serves as the moderator, it’s apparent that he knew very little of the final film’s aims, as he was only paid to read his scripted parts in the desert, and nothing more.

Yet, despite its manifest flaws — such as editing out a good ten minutes more of the space shuttle footage, and numerous oddities — such as Herzog keeping in NASA astronomer Martin Lo’s sneeze an hour and four minutes into the film, The Wild Blue Yonder is one of those film’s it is difficult to stop watching once it starts. It’s like a hallucinogenic Imax nature film. It is innovative even when it is plodding, and addictive even when it is annoying. The film seems almost a requiem for the earth or humanity, even though it ends on an upbeat note. Loneliness dominates the film, and the seminal score by Dutch cellist Ernst Reijsiger and the wailing of Senegalese singer Mola Sylla only adds to that feeling. While I disagree with some critics’ claims that this is a tone poem or cinepoem, there is no doubting the film is rife with poesy in many forms. It’s just that there is too much oddity and narration to qualify wholly on that score; especially with the recurring shopping mall motif that pops up in Dourif’s rants throughout the film — be it in the California desert or under the Antarctic sea ice. And these sorts of rants are just a bit too obvious and politicized for a Herzog film. Usually the director’s rapier is sharpest when most tangential politically.

Of course, the way that the film works best, and most logically, can explain the mixed and matched footage (which, with new context — the inner tale of the film, shows how malleable the seemingly mundane space shuttle images can be), the odd, dreamy music and Tarkovskyan images, is that the Dourif character really is as mentally ill as he seems to the objective viewer. That he is a nut — likely an environmental nut — who has spun this wild tale, and is somehow projecting his dream madness to the viewer. After all, Herzog always has been obsessed with ecstatic truths, rather than the mundaner real world things. And the very fact that the ‘science’ of the film is often utter nonsense, and that the chronology of the film is bizarrely scattershot, makes the Dourif is a nut interpretation all the more plausible; as he seems a hairy descendant of the old 1950s UFO Contactee mythos, casting himself as an embittered and unlistened to potential savior of the earth,

The Wild Blue Yonder will doubtlessly bore many people, and it will turn off still others for a plenum of possible reasons, and in no way, shape, nor form, is this a masterpiece on par with the best in Herzog’s oeuvre. But, even if one views it in the worst way, and calls it a daring failure, it is a film worth watching again. One day soon, I will.

Movie Review: Survival of the Dead news

Movie Review: Survival of the Dead (2009)

MPAA Rating: R

Starring: Oshri Cohen, Itay Tiran, Michael Moshonov, Yoav Donat

IMDB Link: Lebanon

Movie Trailer: Trailer

George A. Romero not only created the modern zombie horror genre, but he is still considered by many as the master of genre — even with mostly unsuccessful films like Land of the Dead and Diary of the Dead. Personally, I can’t call myself a huge Romero fan, but I am a horror film connoisseur and consider Dawn of the Dead one of my favorite horror films of all time. Still, even though I had very little expectation for Survival of the Dead, I came out completely unsatisfied.

The major problems I have with the film are the zombies and their lack of any horror. Although I wouldn’t call any of Romero’s zombie films “scary” he completely pin-pointed what makes zombies frightening: There are millions of them and they will never stop until they eat you. Sure, they might move slowly and are (for the most part) incredibly stupid; there is still nowhere you can run. I understand Romero’s damnation of the new-age running zombie, but without showing us more than ten zombies in a single shot and basing your film on the premise of having your characters going to an island with a small zombie population, there isn’t much left in the area of thrills. To sum this argument up, one of the lead characters literally rolls his eyes as a zombie stumbles toward him, as if to say “these zombies are more annoying than life-threatening.” When your characters are doing this, the audience will inevitably feel the same way.

What some of Romero’s previous films lack in overall horror, they are almost always saved by really sharp satire, whether racism, consumerism or a reliance on technology. The social commentary of Survival of the Dead is so slim, it doesn’t have enough relevance to save the film. The film focuses on two warring (and strangely Irish) families who live on an island off the coast of Delaware. The hatred of the patriarchs of these families boils down to one common disagreement: Whether or not we should kill the zombies, even if they are the ones that we love. This could be an interesting question with good arguments being made on both sides, but it was never clear outside of the obvious “zombies eat people” vs. “but I love my daughter, I don’t want to kill her” paradigms. And, this argument doesn’t have any of the bite or pure humor that can be found in any of the previous films.

One slightly redeeming quality of the film is the step forward in Romero’s zombie mythology that comes toward the end. I won’t spoil anything with specifics, but it mirrors Romero’s previous progression of zombies becoming more organized and smarter. What zombies are able to learn potentially provides a cap on the complete Romero zombie story, but probably not without at least another film. It’s exciting that we can see a complete progression in these films, but I don’t know if I would care to sit through another film without knowing it is the final chapter.

Survival of the Dead is a film that I think anyone can stay away from. The die-hard fans are going to be unsatisfied by the lack of horror and commentary. New horror fans stumbling on to this film are going to be even more unsatisfied by the deplorable CGI effects. I can’t call Survival of the Dead exactly painful to watch (Romero is, after all, a competent filmmaker), but there is really nothing to latch onto to call this a positive or worthwhile entry in the Romero canon.

Movie Review: Lebanon news

Movie Review: Lebanon (2009)

MPAA Rating: R

Starring: Oshri Cohen, Itay Tiran, Michael Moshonov, Yoav Donat

IMDB Link: Lebanon

Movie Trailer: Trailer

“Man is steel. The tank is only iron.” On July 12, 2006, conflict began between Israel and Lebanon. It began when Hezbollah soldiers fired rockets into Israel and blew up two armored Humvees patrolling the Israeli side of the border. Three soldiers died. Two other soldiers were taken by Hezbollah into Lebanon. Israel responded and for 34 days they carried out air strikes and rolled into Lebanon with tanks and foot soldiers. The writer/director of Lebanon, Samuel Maoz, was himself a gunner in one of those tanks, so this is a sort-of autobiography of his experiences. You can feel that placing this story on paper and on celluloid was a form therapy for Samuel. He places us, as the audience, in the dark, dank, cold, putrid, unwelcoming pit of a monster that he knows all too well. And because the camera never leaves the inside of that tank, save for two small book-ending scenes, he shows us what it felt like to be sequestered in those claustrophobic spaces only understanding the outside world what we see through the gunner’s scope.

A single tank is sent into a small town that has already been bombed by the Israeli Air Force. Inside the tank are four young men: Herzel (Oshri Cohen), the loader; Assi (Itay Tiran), the commander; Yigal (Michael Moshonov), the driver; and Shmuel (Yoav Donat), the gunner. For all of them, this is their first taste of war. The first day of fighting pushes all four of these men past anything they were trained for. For who can be trained to fire on unarmed civilians, to plow their way through streets that just hours before teemed with life, to see the blood and havoc that war creates and not let it change and effect their humanity?

The other film that is constantly being brought up when one speaks of Lebanon is Waltz with Bashir, the foreign picture Oscar contender of 2008. Both of them deal with the same war and the same psychological trauma it inflicted on its soldiers, but in wholly different ways. This film showed me an entirely new angle to war, one I had not seen in any war film. The closest comparison that comes to mind is the German film Das Boot but even in that film the sense of confinement doesn’t feel this suffocating. It is impressive that I felt the same heart-pounding, dizzying feeling I got from the first twenty minutes of Saving Private Ryan from sections of this film and, as I’ve said, the camera never leaves the inside of the tank.

When the gunner is looking out his scope, we get to see some sunshine. We get to see a family torn apart. We get to see a soldier bleed out. We get to see inside a travel agency and have a weird feeling in the pits of our stomachs as the cross-hairs of the cannon rests upon a picture of the Twin Towers. Most times with any slight movement the turret moans and creaks in protest, but as with any gimmick there are other times when this is cheated, when empathy is being attempted and the whirrs and clanks would get in the way, so they are left out all together. Apart from this story necessary hitch, the rest of the sound design makes it feel like the world is about to come crushing down around us. The only real gripe I have is that the score is sometimes misaligned and did not add to what I was watching. However, that is a small quibble for a film I honestly and wholeheartedly respect.

The first thing that struck me as I was watching Lebanon was how confident the film making felt. For only being the second film that Samuel Maoz has ever directed and first one written, you can feel how much he knew this story and exactly how best to portray it. He was able to take what could have been a gimmick and made it impressive. If I venture to read more into it than may be there, it showed how myopic the “war machine” is. The young men, specifically the gunner, can’t really see most of the destruction that their shells are creating. One of God’s little blessings. Just as the people who sit in plush chairs and push pens across paper to declare war cannot see the destruction they cause. Like I said, that may not be what Samuel was going for, but it feels apropos.