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☆ ‘Civil War’ sends a message that’s more dangerous than the violence it depicts onscreen
▼ + stars: | 2024-05-12 | by ( John Blake | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +15 min

In “Civil War,” tanks trample democracy. But the messages they send may be more dangerous than the violence depicted onscreen: The collapse of democracy is inevitable. In the film, Humphrey Bogart plays Rick, the cynical owner of a Moroccan nightclub at the onset of World War II. John Springer Collection/Corbis Historical/Getty ImagesOther World War II-era films like “Don’t be a Sucker,” which emphasized racial and religious tolerance in America, emphasized the same message. The box office success of “Civil War” ensures, though, that more “American carnage” stories are likely headed our way .

Persons: Yuval Noah Harari, Harari, Volodymyr Zelensky, ”, Alex Garland’s “, Donald Trump, Casablanca ’, Humphrey Bogart, Rick, “ We’ll, Dooley Wilson, Ingrid Bergman, Everett, Rick —, Adolf Hitler’s, Democracy’s, Cristóbal, Berry, “, Frank Capra, Frank Sinatra, Sinatra, ” Frank Sinatra, John Springer, Kermit Roosevelt III, Roosevelt, ” Roosevelt, Reagan, Obama, Ronald Reagan, Barack Obama —, Diana Walker, ” Reagan, Reagan’s, Barack Obama, Chuck Kennedy, Trump, hasn’t, Walt Whitman, Whitman, ” Whitman, ” Read Whitman, ” Walt Whitman, Ian Beacock, ” Beacock, Beacock, Ivan Illich, ” Kirsten Dunst, John Blake Organizations: CNN, Casablanca, paragon, Library of Congress, Nazi, Convention, Former, Lions, Hulton, “ Locations: Russia, Ukraine, Ukrainian, Russian, America, United States, “, Casablanca, Moroccan, Adolf Hitler’s Nazi, Nazi, Charlottesville , Virginia, Vietnam, Kansas, Kenya, Denver , Colorado, Austrian, China

☆ Opinion | Give Me Liberty or Give Me … What?
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-21 | by ( Carlos Lozada | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

If the American experiment finally decides to call it quits, how might a national breakup begin? Perhaps California moves toward secession after the U.S. Supreme Court strikes down the state’s strict gun control measures. Or Texas rebels when disputes over abortion laws grow deadly and the state’s National Guard remains loyal to the second Texan republic. These scenarios are not of my own creation; they all appear in recent nonfiction books warning of an American schism. We never learn exactly who or what started the new American civil war, or what ideologies, if any, are competing for power.

Persons: David French’s “, Barbara F, Stephen Marche’s “, “, Alex Garland’s Organizations: U.S, Supreme, state’s National Guard, statehouse, America, ” Locations: California, Texas, Barbara, ” Marche

☆ Opinion: It’s time to change the way we think about sociopaths
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-20 | by ( Opinion Sara Stewart | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +7 min

CNN —This piece contains mild spoilers for the Netflix series “Ripley” and a scene in the movie “Civil War.”Are we finally ready to take another look at why we love to hate sociopaths so much? But his rendition of Ripley – highly capable, chameleonic, but never what you’d call charming — represents a refreshing take on one of the most famous sociopaths in literature and film. Gagne feels Hollywood’s nearly always gotten it wrong with portrayals of sociopaths, reducing them to a collection of cartoonish, villainous traits. In fact, I found one of film’s most recent sociopaths to be singularly chilling because of his very plausibility. He’s in Alex Garland’s “Civil War,” the polarizing film about a vaguely-sketched conflict set in the modern-day United States.

Persons: Sara Stewart, Ripley ”, Sara Stewart Todd Thompson, Andrew Scott’s, Tom Ripley, Patricia Highsmith’s, Scott, who’s, Ripley –, Steven Zaillian’s, “ Ripley, Jennifer Rubin, ”, Rubin, Tony Soprano, Walter White, Patrick Bateman, Dexter Morgan, Don Draper, I’ve, Emily Nussbaum, Norman Lear’s “, Archie Bunker, Carroll O’Connor, Penn Badgley, Joe Goldberg, Sociopath, Patric Gagne, Gagne, Hollywood’s, vilify, Jenna Ortega, Alex Garland’s “, Jesse Plemons —, —, Owen Gleiberman’s, “ Garland, ” Gleiberman, Ripley, sociopathy, we’ll Organizations: CNN, Netflix, Washington, Vogue Locations: Pennsylvania, ”, United States, America

☆ What It Would Really Take to Have an American Civil War - The New York Times
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-17 | by ( Ross Douthat | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

This week Donald Trump was put on trial by a liberal prosecutor on what seems like the most nakedly political of the multiple charges that he’s facing. This fairly pitiful scene made an interesting accompaniment to the country’s biggest movie at the moment, Alex Garland’s “Civil War,” which depicts a version of contemporary America riven by civil strife, with various secessionist forces at war against a dictatorial president who’s stayed on for a third term. That president is clearly a Trump-like figure, but the movie is extremely light on politics; it’s mostly interested in juxtaposing scenes of brutality — mass graves, tortured prisoners, firefights and summary executions — with the familiar American landscapes of shopping malls, carwashes and the pillars of the White House. We aren’t supposed to ask for detailed how-we-got-here explanations; we’re just supposed to meditate on how easily It Could Happen Here. Some people who like “Civil War” find the political lacuna admirable, since it cuts the movie free from current ideological preoccupations and lets us take the antiwar message straight.

Persons: Donald Trump, MAGA, Alex Garland’s “, who’s, it’s, we’re, ” Organizations: Trump, White Locations: York, carwashes

☆ The Dystopian ‘Civil War’ Reaches No. 1 at the Box Office
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-14 | by ( Brooks Barnes | More About Brooks Barnes | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Hollywood executives — not all, but most — have insisted for years that uncomfortable, thought-provoking, original movies can no longer attract big audiences at the box office. Alex Garland’s dystopian “Civil War,” set in a near-immediate future when the United States is at war with itself, sold an estimated $25.7 million in tickets at North American theaters, enough to make the film a strong No. 1, surpassing the monsters sequel “Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire.” Ticket sales for “Civil War” exceeded the prerelease expectations of some box office analysts by roughly 30 percent. IMAX screenings provided nearly 50 percent of the “Civil War” gross. “Civil War,” starring Kirsten Dunst as a journalist on a military embed, became the latest example of ticket buyers breaking with Hollywood’s conventional wisdom about what types of films are likely to pop at the box office.

Persons: —, Alex Garland’s, ”, Kirsten Dunst, Christopher Nolan’s “ Oppenheimer Organizations: North, “ Locations: United States

☆ Opinion: ‘Civil War’ is more than a reflection on America’s divisions
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-13 | by ( Opinion Noah Berlatsky | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +7 min

Noah Berlatsky Noah BerlatskyAlex Garland’s “Civil War” has mostly been discussed as a reflection of, and a warning about, America’s current partisan divisions. Unlike the actual US Civil War, this one doesn’t seem to have any particular racial or racist connotations. But it’s the same kind of cop out that powers most of Hollywood’s most iconic Vietnam war movies. Hollywood Vietnam war movies generally aren’t about whether America did the right thing, nor are they about how America’s choices affected people in Vietnam. Stanley Kubrick's "Full Metal Jacket" (1987), starring Matthew Modine as Joker, is based on the events of the Vietnam war.

Persons: Noah Berlatsky, CNN —, Viet Thanh Nguyen, Noah Berlatsky Noah Berlatsky Alex Garland’s “, ”, he’s, Garland, Nick Offerman, Lee, Kirsten Dunst, Joel, Wagner Moura, Jessie, Cailee, Sammy, Stephen McKinley Henderson, Lee Wagner, Trump, Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi, Jesse Plemons, that’s, Francis Ford Coppola’s, Stanley Kubrick’s, don’t, —, Dawn ”, Stanley Kubrick's, Matthew Modine, It’s, transfixed Organizations: CNN, Union, Hollywood, America, Central, Warner Bros Locations: Chicago, Vietnam, Viet, American, Washington, California, Texas, Hollywood Vietnam, American Vietnam, Hollywood

☆ Opinion | ‘Civil War’ and Its Terrifying Premonition of American Collapse
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-12 | by ( Michelle Goldberg | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +3 min

Going into Alex Garland’s astonishing new film, “Civil War,” I expected to be irritated by the implausibility of its premise. In one 2022 poll, 43 percent of Americans said they thought a civil war within the next decade was at least somewhat likely. “Civil War” has received plenty of adulatory reviews, but Garland has also been widely criticized for eliding the ideological forces driving America’s fracturing. But now that I’ve seen “Civil War,” which is neither glib nor cynical, Garland’s decision to keep the film’s politics a little ambiguous seems like a source of its power. Still, it’s not a stretch to interpret the film as a premonition of how a seething, entropic country could collapse under the weight of Donald Trump’s return.

Persons: Alex Garland’s, ”, Garland, “, I’m, —, Lee, it’s, Donald Trump’s Organizations: “, Florida Alliance, Western Forces of, New People’s Army, Southwest, Portland Maoists Locations: America, California, Texas, Loyalist, East Coast, Western Forces of California, Austin , Texas

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