Hacker Cinema
Born on the Fourth of July
1989 · Film · 145 min
Directed by Oliver Stone
Paralyzed in the Vietnam war, Ron Kovic becomes an anti-war and pro-human rights political activist after feeling betrayed by the country he fought for.
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5 comments on Hacker News
There is a lot of truth to that, and it applies to many of the other films people have mentioned in this thread.
It's easy to see why someone would find aspects of 'Saving Private Ryan' attractive (eg: Private Jackson, the sharpshooter), and it doesn't require much imagination to see how aspects even of Nazi villains can be attractive (they had the best uniforms).
It's more difficult to see how 'Born on the Fourth of July' would leave anyone - even a sadist - enthusiastic about war.
It's not like Kubrik's 'Clockwork Orange' in which some of the violence, in a sick way, empowers the main character.
Instead, the main character pathetically bumbles into shooting people he doesn't mean to, is shot himself, and turns into an angry loser in a wheelchair (until he finds his calling as a peace activist).
You might benefit from watching the film “Born On The Fourth of July”. Telling people to love it or leave it says a lot about who you are.
It was moderately successful at the box office ($100m worldwide) after a very troubled production but it only won sound and cinematography Oscars. Whereas Platoon for example won Picture, Director, Editing, and Sound. Coming Home won Best Actor and Actress.
Apocalypse Now wasn't a flop and had a reasonably good critical reception at the time (although Brando's performance was criticized) but overall it was seen as pretty middle of the road among Vietnam War and Vietnam War-adjacent (e.g. Born on the Fourth of July) films. Being seen as a great film by many mostly came after its initial release.
I think its time we all revisit "Born On The Fourth of July". Stone's bore of a movie in search of a plot. What it lacks in direction and basic story-telling it makes up for in emotion and political bias. I lost braincells watching this foolishness and it is enough to convince me to ignore all other politically sensitive Stone movies. Stone should go back to doing movies like "Conan the Barbarian", which is a classic.
Wow. While people like to paint Steve Jobs as sort of a one dimensional character ("Pirates of Silicon Valley" is a good example) he's actually fascinating in large part, I think, because he's really an enigma-- clearly brilliant and has accomplished so much, while being such an iconoclast. This is why attempts to portray him one dimensionally (like the book behind this movie, for instance) fail so miserably. People instinctively know he didn't create greatness simply by running around and being an asshole or lying to everyone.
This is the kind of role, that if handled by an actor with serious chops (and lets face it, I think about %50 of that is going to be having a good director) it could be a career making role with an oscar award attached.
While I like Kutcher as a person, respect his support for startups, I also recognize he's more of a social media celebrity, whose got comedic timing, but hasn't yet shown (or maybe had the opportunity to show) significant dramatic chops. Its quite possible he's got them, and he's suffered from being type cast. (Remember how Demi broke the mold by playing GI Jane... but then that also seemed to end her career.)
Sometimes unexpected actors can do great-- Tom Cruise in Born on the Fourth of July was a surprise to me, but I credit Oliver Stone for that one. The other example I can think of is Woody Harrelson in Natural Born Killers.
Harrelson's previous career was on TV as the good guy midwesterner kid, but Oliver Stone said "I saw something evil in his eyes."
I really don't think of Ashton Kutcher as having the necessary chops for this role (and the source material is itself so half assed and shallow that the project is starting from behind already.) This runs a very real risk of being of TV Movie-of-the-week quality.
I hope they get a great director and some serious work on the script, and that Kutcher dedicates himself to the role.
I'd love to see a biopic of Steve Jobs as on the nose as Val Kilmer's portrayal of Jim Morrison in The Doors. (Which is another Oliver Stone movie, but I promise you I'm not obsessed with Oliver Stone, he just handles this kind of material really well.)
Edit- I missed the part that this isn't based on Isaacson's work. So, whether the source material will be week (like almost everything written about Jobs since he didn't give people a lot of access) or not is open to question.
Also, as dlf notes, Kutcher was in The Guardian where he played a dramatic role, and did a damn fine job. I'd forgotten about that movie... But that convinces me that Kutcher has the potential to do a brilliant Jobs performance. Lets just how the script is good and the director is strong.