Tag Archives: War

Movie Review – Whiskey Tango Foxtrot

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TL;DR – This is a film I should not like because it has many of the problems that usually frustrate me, but somehow it charmed me, and in the end I have to say I really liked Whisky Tango Foxtrot.

Score – 4 out of 5 stars

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot. Image Credit: Paramount.

Review –

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot is a really interesting film for a number of reasons, it has Tina Fey in her first real attempt to move into more dramatic roles, it is dealing with the aftermath of the War in Afghanistan post-Iraq when everyone forgot about it, it is analysing the culture that gets created in such a weird situation of extremes, and also because it engages in so many of the things that I dislike in films yet I still really like it for some reason.

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Video Game Retrospective – Spec Ops: The Line

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TL;DR – Why do we play Shooter Video Games?, Why do we want to be a hero?, Can we understand?

Spec Ops: The Line. Image Credit: Yager/2K.

Spec Ops: The Line was billed as a middle of the road shooter, which was released in 2012 to not much fanfare by its publisher. It wasn’t technically impressive, the only really new thing was sand physics, which were, well something a bit new. The controls were clunky, and even for its time the presentation felt old, enemies appearing from monster closets (or in this case monster shipping containers), the guns and action felt not as refined as its contemporaries, the level design had some issues ‘look a bunch of chest high walls, looks like we are going to have to fight now’ and it does not hold up as well on a second play through (which I did to put together this retrospective). Yet this semester when I have been teaching Media and War at University I have had many long conversations about this game and the profound impact it had on me and the impact it had (or should have had) on the genre.

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Movie Review – Bridge of Spies

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TL;DR – A solid film but it makes you wish for more

Score – 4 out of 5 stars

Bridge of Spies. Image Credit: Fox/Disney.

Review –

The Bridge of Spies is the third historical film we have had in a row now and unlike Legend (see review) and Black Mass (see review) it is not a mob flick, instead, it is all about spies. As well as this, unlike the other two, it actually is really quite good. The Bridge of Spies is a film about the Cold War, a time of bipolar world powers bent on outmanoeuvring each other and the fear of nuclear obliteration was very real one. Within this context, both the US and the USSR mobilised extensive resources to spy on each other and inevitably people got caught.

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