Jarhead, revisited

(and some other stuff, for that matter) 

I rewatched Jarhead just now, since I felt like seeing Peter Sarsgaard and hearing him say things. I also wanted to be able to crochet in the background, and it's best to either listen to podcasts or watch something you're already familiar with so you don't have to give it your complete attention and have enough to put aside for crocheting. I have just about 2 weeks left to finish the thing I'm working on if I want to enter it in the fair, which I do, and I also hope that I win a ribbon of some kind. No lie, I'll be disappointed if I don't. I'd be happy with even a third place ribbon. So there's that.

The second time around is always interesting for movies because you can notice things that you maybe didn't necessarily notice the first time. This movie was directed by Sam Mendes, who also went on to direct the Bond movie Skyfall, which has a special place in my favorite movies. Upon rewatching, I noticed some interesting parallels to Skyfall, which may have been intentional references/allusions on the part of Sam Mendes, to his previous work. 

A) in this movie, there's a scene where the soldiers have two scorpions fight each other. In Skyfall, there's a scene where James Bond is in a bar and has a scorpion crawling on his arm as a kind of dare/game. 

B) Part of the opening act of Skyfall has James Bond fighting with someone on top of a train, which is going over a bridge. M is directing Eve, who is positioned to shoot, ideally the guy Bond is fighting. She conveys her hesitance about taking the shot to M because it's possible she might accidentally hit Bond. M, in a fairly notable quote from the movie, says "Take the bloody shot." James Bond gets hit and falls off the bridge and into the water, cue title sequence (I'm pretty sure that's when it happens - I haven't rewatched Skyfall in awhile) which is quite nice and on par to Casino Royale's title sequence. This scene with James Bond getting shot is an interesting (really!) contrast to what happens in one of the final acts of Jarhead - Peter Sarsgaard's character and Jake Gyllenhaal's character are a sniper team and they've been sent to take out some enemy combatants. They have the perfect shot but must get approval from higher ups, which unfortunately they do not get because an airstrike is going to happen shortly, which will kill the people they were intending to shoot. This scene is the climax of the movie, so to speak, and Peter Sarsgaard really steals the show here. I would say that his character in this movie comes across as a bit enigmatic (or maybe that's just the essence he gives off in all his movies?). 

Jake and Peter were both in pretty decent shape, naturally, for roles as soldiers. I think they're both about the same height (according to google, they are). I think it's Jake's bushy eyebrows that make him look sort of... bug eyed. Peter, on the other hand, does not have bushy eyebrows at all. I kind of wonder how they did the casting for this movie, particularly Peter, because he doesn't strike me as the first choice to play a soldier. Not that he did a bad job in this role or anything. He's just sort of delicate looking in the face, and the stereotypical idea of a soldier is masculinity. But maybe the idea was to convey that lots of different kinds of people join the military, delicate looking or not. There was a scene where I got a good view of Jake's fingernails and they were dirty, which probably makes sense as they were in a war zone, which probably doesn't exactly lend itself to nicely manicured fingernails. I'm not sure if prison does either, but I won't go into that again here; you can read my other post for more on that topic.   

Again it's interesting to think about the fact that this movie was a portrayal of the Gulf War, a conflict in the Middle East, and that there is still yet conflict in the Middle East, over 25 years later.  

I again noticed the brightness and beige-ness of the desert. And I liked the quote "Every war is different. Every war is the same." again. Visually this movie was pretty cohesive. The same guy did the cinematography for this movie and Skyfall. As far as other Sam Mendes movies go, I think American Beauty and Revolutionary Road (with Leonardo DiCaprio) could be interesting to see. I have also been told that No Country for Old Men is worth a watch, so that is another option that's on Netflix. I think American Beauty was on Netflix, but I'm not sure if it still is. And I could rewatch Memento. 

I... take satisfaction in the idea that it's more rewarding to me to watch Peter Sarsgaard movies than the hit or mostly miss-ness of online dating. Peter Sarsgaard I know for a fact that I like his appearance and voice, and that he's a good actor so he's much less likely to disappoint me. And I can watch his movies on my own terms, whenever I want. That seems like a better deal to me. Who needs a boyfriend when you can watch your favorite actors' (I say actors plural to include my other favorite actors as well, even though I'm definitely giving more of my attention to Peter at the moment) movies? I have a finite amount of time to spend and affection/attention to direct towards people. I think spending that time watching and directing that attention/affection to Peter Sarsgaard is a pretty good deal, as far as I'm concerned. 

The online dating is going... not too differently than it has in the past, I guess. It's just going. No one has commented about the "PETER SARSGAARD LOOKALIKES WELCOME" notice. Or the other times I mention him in my profile (no "You really like Peter Sarsgaard, eh?" messages, which I thought maybe my current profile would inspire, and to which I'd respond, "Yes, I really do, and I probably like him more than you"), which maybe I did go a little overboard with, but whatever. I don't really think I have that much to lose, and again, shaking it up could be interesting. I think maybe people just don't know who he is, so the statement doesn't hold that much weight for the readers. Maybe, for the heck of it, I should change it to a different, more well known actor. For that matter, I could put Jake Gyllenhaal, maybe. Although then prospective suitors might be more intimidated because perhaps they actually know who Jake Gyllenhaal is, and don't think they measure up to his looks (they probably don't). Or maybe they just wouldn't care and would think that it's still worth it to give me a chance. I have no idea what goes on in the minds of guys my age who do online dating. But thankfully, you, dear reader(s), can have a peek at what goes on in my mind about online dating because I write about it here on my blog.

Let's finish this off with some current news related subject matter. It's certainly interesting to watch Anthony Scaramucci do his showboating, and today he went totally unhinged on a phone call/rant to a journalist from the New Yorker magazine. Something else, I tell you! "Fucking paranoid schizophrenic!" It's like a train wreck and I just can't look away. Or maybe the better analogy here is... a nuclear accident explosion, or something. 

Edit: I finished writing this post as I was listening to Muse's album Absolution, and the song Hysteria was on. I think that could be an interesting song to use in a movie, somehow. 

Edit 2: maybe, just maybe, I could watch all (minus the ones I can't find/refuse to watch) the Peter Sarsgaard movies by the end of this summer, which would make for a nice alliterative (summer/Sarsgaard) blog post title in which I summarize the experience of watching all of them.