#Gunner Palace
file under: essential viewing
More like “required viewing”, Gunner Palace is a documentary about the U.S. Army in Baghdad during 2003-2004 - - following the invasion (”bomb it”) and during the occupation (”build it”). What you get is the perspective of those U.S. Army soldiers during this period. Interesting the way that morale flakes and flies all over the place. Worth viewing - - and toned down enough that you don’t need a strong stomach. (That lurks just off-screen.)
Interesting scene:
Soldier inspecting retrofit armor attached to a Humvee. “This is what our $87 trillion budget gets us. Light Humvees that we get to slap this armor onto made out of–” slaps the hull “–metal? Made in Iraq. And will slow down the IED’s explosion just enough so the shrapnel gets lodged in your body instead of passing straight through.”


[...] Maybe the examples just weren’t very good but I’ve had no trouble at all coming in contact with these films. I saw Boys Don’t Cry in the theater. Gunner Palace came to me by word of mouth. I saw a million ads for Team America (which is probably why I haven’t myself seen that one yet). [...]
September 17th, 2006 at 5:56 pm