Hacker Cinema
In the Loop
2009 · Film · 106 min
Directed by Armando Iannucci
The US President and the UK Prime Minister are planning on launching a war in the Middle East, but—behind the scenes—government officials and advisers are either promoting the war or are trying to prevent it.
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There's this 'criterion of embarrassment' / 'cui bono' sort of standard[0] that really helps judge these things. So many people perform science that seems to always confirm the positions they've held. All the "society is terrible today" people like to quote LendingClub's "70% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck" without knowing it's LendingClub content marketing. The snail darter guy happened to find a novel species that is endangered and genetically identical to a non-endangered one just in the place where he was trying to get a dam banned. The sustainability guys find that companies that focus on sustainability do better. The diversity guys find that companies that focus on diversity do better. A scientist who gets a grant from Philip Morris finds that cigarettes aren't bad for you.
It reminds me of something my dad said while watching Generation Kill - a TV show adapted from the written work of an embedded journalist in Iraq. The show, made by Americans, depicts the US armed forces as ramified through with bumbling fools seeking glory with a few competent people in there. So we finish watching the series and my dad says "Only the Americans would make a show like this" and it's somewhat[1] true. I think perhaps that being able to create a machine that tells you the truth is crucial to success and I feel that the US's peak period as unipolar hegemon (Gulf War I to the end of Obama I) this was more the case than it is today, though this is more of a feeling than anything I have verified.
It also reminds me of an old sort of censorship, one which George Orwell talks about in regards to Animal Farm[2] - a book that was criticized because it perhaps harmed the greater cause of communism. There's too much to quote in his essay because I find the whole thing worthy of reading, but here's one bit:
> Both publicly and privately you were warned that it was ʻnot doneʼ. What you said might possibly be true, but it was ʻinopportuneʼ and played into the hands of this or that reactionary interest.
...
> Is every opinion, however unpopular – however foolish, even – entitled to a hearing? Put it in that form and nearly any English intellectual will feel that he ought to say ʻYesʼ. But give it a concrete shape, and ask, ʻHow about an attack on Stalin? Is that entitled to a hearing?ʼ, and the answer more often than not will be ʻNoʼ. In that case the current orthodoxy happens to be challenged, and so the principle of free speech lapses.
There is even today an orthodoxy of sorts and if you were to contradict it, it is considered sinful to say so. I'm Indian so perhaps it is safe for me to use this as a race of choice but what if it were found that Indians actually are less smart than, say, White people. Could such a thing be published if it were true? People often say "what are you going to do with that information?" and somehow I don't share that view that all science must necessarily immediately deliver applied benefit. Knowing is good for its own sake. Truth is good for its own sake. Or at least that's what I believe.
I suppose I'll only know through the period of my own life whether this belief is adaptive. Who knows, a present or future power might be one formed entirely through inaccurate data and information[3], and we might be as Orks and painting things red might make them faster because we believe it so in sufficient numbers.
0: Obviously there are limits. Eli Lilly benefits from GLP-1RA drugs working well but they do in fact work well.
1: Others obviously also make fun of themselves, but something like In The Loop parodies specific people more than the whole machine and its participants. Generation Kill feels much more real a depiction of large organizations and their incentive mechanisms - especially how they grind forward and get the outcomes they want despite everything else. Perhaps my least favourite parts were the emotional-breakdown bits at the end, which I've since found out that the participants themselves said were invented for TV.
2: https://www.marxists.org/archive/orwell/1945/preface.htm
3: Open societies like ours have the problem that external misdirection leaks into internal data but perhaps with sufficient computerization we can keep separate truth and propaganda within the structure of government
"May be on the brink of"... that is the most In The Loop [1] thing I have read in a while.
[1] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1226774/
I guess a more recent film is almost impossible to make you feel the same "feeling" again when watching it. But close calls I would say would be:
- Wag the Dog (1997)
- In the Loop (2009) [the closest, in my opinion]
PS: The Death of Stalin (2017) and Don't Look Up (2021) also try, but I think they don't manage to get that close.
I would also say that Coen brother's works, also of high quality and appealing to a similar-minded crowd, though are completely different animals.
> the so-called "Dodgy Dossier"
One of my favorite movies of all time, In The Loop [1] deals with exactly that. It's extremely funny, and dark.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_the_Loop
Also the spin-off movie In the Loop.
If you haven't heard of them, The Thick of It is basically a modern version of this show. By Armando Ianucci, the man who went on to make Veep (with Julia Louis Dreyfuss). Both series have been praised by insiders who say "The show is just like what happens in reality!".
He's also made the movies "In The Loop", set in the run up to the Iraq War, and "The Death of Stalin".
Personally, I'd find that far more entertaining than yet another show with people complaining about their builders not turning up on time (not that I watch these you understand).
"What did you expect? They're builders! Have you ever seen a film where the hero is a builder? No, no, because they never f-cking turn up in the nick of time. Bat-builder? Spider-builder? Huh? That's why you never see a superhero with a hod!"
[In The Loop]
In The Loop is a fantastic movie. Really funny. Highly recommended.
I hope that it is not the most honest, but I do agree that it is the best.
If you like The Thick Of It, you may also like the film 'In The Loop' and 'Veep' (both also 'created' by Armando Iannucci) as well as the Australian 'The Hollowmen'. 'Utopia', the sort-of follow on to The Hollowmen (which is excellent), is quite good too. There is also the 'Armando Iannucci show', which is very good, but also very different.
There is also supposed to be the Afghan version of the 'Thick Of It' too, although I have not found a source for that with translation.
It's not just Nordics. Non-native speakers tend to see swearwords as funny (aren't they the first thing one learns, after all? Even as a kid!), I'm guilty of that myself.
For English in particular, this is reinforced by abundant film material: the cooler the movie, the highest the chance to have it packed with swearwords, because it makes it sexier for native-speakers. This results in non-natives (who will likely consume this sort of exceptional material but not necessarily the more average stuff) assuming "harsh" language is more acceptable than it might actually be in practice. Some productions' appeal is almost entirely based on swearwords, e.g. In The Loop.
The name reminds me of the report from In The Loop called PWIP-PIP[0].
[0]: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1226774/quotes?item=qt0957918
This is one of the central themes of In The Loop, a feature film spin-off from the excellent The Thick Of It (UK TV show), and a funny and possibly pretty accurate depiction of the USA-UK relationship.
I watched the first 4 episodes of HoC this weekend and am quite disappointed.
Production is very good, acting is quite good (although Spacey simply plays "high status" all the time with a rigid upper lip and not much nuance).
For me there are two problems
- The two main characters are cynical people who are obsessed with power and just plain mean... and they win every time. I don't care for them; at this point I would like to watch them fail and be humiliated, but I don't think it will happen, so I lost the main incentive to watch the next episode.
- The whole thing is predictable. At the beginning of each episode a minor setback appears for the Underwoods, and they defeat it with a smirk (Robin Wright's smirk really gets on my nerves now, although she's probably one of the most beautiful women in the world).
- - -
On http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Cards_(U.S._TV_series) a critic is quoted saying "This hardwired venality is what makes this show so watchable. Here are the realities of political life as most of us suspect them to be."
I'm not sure. I think HoC takes itself and its subject much too seriously. I think reality is much more absurd and difficult to control, as described in Armando Iannucci's writing, which I can never get enough of (The Thick of It, In the Loop, Veep, etc.)
- - -
EDIT -- The rant above is a little off-topic; the on-topic point is that this is a very good move for Netflix and that (as others have noted) they really don't have a choice.
If they don't produce their own exclusive content they are at the mercy of other content producers who will try to price them out of the market (and would succeed in doing so).