Biography - Pat Tillman Review

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(More customer reviews)A beautifully well done, partial story of Pat Tillman, an American Hero and his sacrifices. Pointed out facts but in no way claimed that Pat's "way" is the only way. Unbiased reporting of a tragic loss that is experienced every day by many. In no way did it make Pat out to be better than anyone serving their Country and that pleased me. Moving, thought provoking and a must see in my book. For young people needing a "hero" which I feel there are far too few of in this world today, Pat is a great choice! God Bless him and his family. I know he touched my life and my son's life in ways I could never explain.

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Patrick Daniel Tillman for many is the embodiment of America's patriotic spirit. Turning his back on a lucrative, successful, and hard won professional football career, Tillman answered the call to duty in the wake of 9/11. He and his brother joined the Army, their goal the elite Rangers fighting corps. It was just weeks after Pat married his high school sweetheart, Marie Ugenti. After 28 weeks of training, he was sent to Afghanistan as part of Operation Mountain Storm. The operation's objective was to disrupt and destroy the infrastructure of the al-Qaida terrorist organization and ultimately find Osama bin Laden. On April 22, 2004, Tillman's platoon was ambushed in the early evening near Khost in a mountainous region near the Pakistan border. It was announced that he was killed by the enemy after his heroic leadership helped to move a split section of his platoon to safety but five weeks later, the Army gave a different story, saying he died by probable friendly fire. Shortly after his death, Tillman was promoted from specialist to corporal and awarded the Silver Star and a Purple Heart. An estimated 3,500 attended a May 3 memorial service in San Jose, one of many tributes to Tillman. "Pat's best service to his country was to remind us all what courage really looks like," Arizona Senator John McCain told the crowd, "and that the purpose of all good courage is love."

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Osama Review

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(More customer reviews)This 2004 Golden Globe award winner for Best Foreign Language film, directed by Afghani Siddiq Barmak, is a stunning indictment of the repressive, fundamentalist Taliban regime and its treatment of women. Filmed on a shoestring budget, the film is a composite of a number of true stories, coalescing into one. It is harrowing look at a feudal sort of government that equated women with little more than chattel. Forced to be totally dependent on men, the question arises as to what would be their fate, if all the men in their world were to no longer be there for them.
This is the issue that confronts one particular woman, a widowed doctor, who treats patients in secret. Unfortunately, the hospital, if one can call it that, has not paid her for some time, and she can no longer work there. Moreover, it has become too dangerous for her to travel the streets, as she is a lone woman forbidden to travel the streets without the accompaniment of a member of the male sex. As her household consists solely of three generation of women, having lost her husband and her brother, circumstances are dire indeed.
She must devise some plan of getting or earning their daily bread, if they are to survive. She turns to her young timid daughter, a girl on the cusp of womanhood. She decides that her beautiful daughter must disguise herself as a boy and go out into the world to help earn some food for the family, or they will die. Thus, the daughter is transformed into a boy called Osama. The mother then takes Osama to see a kindly former comrade of Osama's late father, who now runs a small dusty shop. There, Osama is left to work, stirring cauldrons of steaming milk, scenes that are positively medieval.
Passing as a boy, Osama is obliged to do those things that a male is expected to do. So, when the Taliban police come to the shop looking for boys for indoctrination at a mullah run school, Osama has no choice but to go. Thus, begins the downfall of Osama. Despite the best efforts of Espandi, an enterprising street urchin who has befriended Osama and knows her secret, Osama is to continue a harrowing journey that only one of her sex may travel.
This is an intriguing film that, despite being somewhat choppy and disjointed in the telling, provides a birds-eye view at what life was like for women under the Taliban. The beautiful imagery of the film is a strong counterpoint to the harshness of Taliban rule. It is a mercy for women that the Taliban is no longer in power. This film certainly brings home the absolute cruelty of that regime towards women.
Though the director uses non-actors for the roles in the film, each one of them does a yeoman's job with the given role. Arif Herati, who plays the role of Espandi, has a great deal of screen presence. Marina Gobahan, who has the starring role of Osama, is excellent as the timid and shy girl who reluctantly cross dresses as a male in order to help her family. Her terror of being killed and her fear of the Taliban is palpable throughout the film. Her eyes are most expressive, world weary and infinitely sad. It were those very eyes that drew the director to cast her in the role of Osama. This is a film that will leave its imprint on the viewer.
The DVD offers little by way of special features, though it does offer a moderately interesting interview with the director that runs about twenty minutes in length.

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Inspired by a true story, this Golden GlobeÂ(r)-winning* drama is the first film made in Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban. Hailed by critics as 'stunning(Entertainment Weekly),breathtaking(Slant) and 'emotionally charged(Screen International), Osama isa striking work of cinematic art(L.A. Weekly).After the brutal Taliban regime bans women from working and forbids them to leave their homes without a male escort, a 12-year old girland her mother find themselves on the brink of starvation. With nowhere left to turn, the mother disguises her daughter as a boy. Now calledOsama,the young girl embarks on a terrifying and confusing journey as she tries to keep the Taliban from discovering her true identity.*2003: Foreign Language Film

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Charlie Wilson's War (Widescreen) (2007) Review

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(More customer reviews)Congressman Charlie Wilson from Lufkin, Texas, a ruggedly handsome man, who was a committed anti-Communist, with a few character flaws, who loved to have a good time, enjoyed alcohol and was a ladies' man ... became one of the unsung heros of the Afghanistan War. He was the only civilian to ever receive recognition and honor by the C.I.A. for his part in helping to drive the Russians out from Afghanistan. This film is based on the true stories written by the author George Crile in his book, "Charlie Wilson's War: The Extraordinary Story of How the Wildest Man in Congress and a Rogue CIA Agent Changed the History of Our Times". Essentially, there are two formulas to win this war on a global scale: the first is, "money + power = secret arms deals" and the second is, "clandestinely obtained weapons + motivated Afghani fighters = success". Serendipity often comes into play when success occurs on a global scale and Charlie Wilson seemed to benefit both from the unexpected and unknown ...
Charlie Wilson was sitting in a hot tub at Caesar's Palace with three young ladies, two of whom were strippers, and some male business partners, when he first saw Dan Rather on assignment in Afghanistan, presenting the plight of the mujahideen. Dan Rather described the difficulty they had fighting the Russians who had superior technology and arms. When he returned to Washington, he read the teletype from API, UPI, and Reuters and asked the C.I.A. how much was in their budget for clandestine operations in Afghanistan. He was told $5 million dollars, he quickly told them, "double it" [Charlie Wilson happened to be on the Senate Appropriations Committee]. From that point forward, Charlie Wilson was committed to helping free the Afghanistan people from Russian control ...
Tom Hanks does a superb job in playing the role of Charlie Wilson. At some point, he was contacted by Joanne Herring (played to perfection by Julia Roberts) who is a wealthy socialite from Texas who recently became a 'born again' Christian. She knew President Zia, the Prime Minister of Pakistan and arranged for Charlie Wilson to meet this Pakistani leader. He pled his case that the Afghanistan fighters needed better weapons to fight the Russians. He wanted the US to provide weapons *but* wanted Parkistan to control their distribution. More than 1/5 of the population of Afghanistan had escaped across the border to Pakistan and lived in squalid conditions due to the war with the Russians. At another point in the film, Charlie Wilson had a visit from Gust Avratakos, a rather independently minded C.I.A. agent [which got him into hot water with his superiors] ... who also had a stake in helping free Afghanistan. These two unlikely partners dealt in secret deals and meetings with an Israeli weapons and arms agent. They obtained the needed Stinger anti-aircraft missles for the Afghani fighters to use against the Russian bombers which turned the war around completely. At some point in the film, Charlie Wilson had gotten political and economic support from Doc Long, another Senator who had strong religious beliefs. He committed his total support to Charlie Wilson's position in this war.
While Charlie Wilson may be viewed as a flawed hero, he and Gust Avratakos single-handedly provided the weapons and arms needed by the mujahideen to win the war against the Russians. Amazingly enough, as time passed, the 10 million dollars initially committed to this clandestine venture turned into $500 million dollars. Few men can fund a pet program and spend money of this magnitude and get away with it. This film does a superb job of presenting the circumstances and particular events which showed how the nearly impossible became reality. In many ways and on many levels, the film presents events in too much of a simplistic and entertaining fashion, for which I deduct one star. No doubt, the book is more thorough and complete in providing the complex details which led to the success which Charlie Wilson and Gust Avratakos achieved. Nevertheless, this is a most enjoyable and well done film. Erika Borsos [pepper flower]

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Academy Award® winners Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts and Philip Seymour Hoffman star in this compelling and witty film from Oscar®-winning director Mike Nichols and Primetime Emmy®-winning writer Aaron Sorkin (The West Wing). Based on the outrageous true story, Charlie Wilson's War shows how one congressman who loved a good time, one Houston socialite who loved a good cause and one renegade CIA agent who loved a good fight conspired to bring about the largest covert operation in history.

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The Kite Runner (2007) Review

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(More customer reviews)Khaled Hosseini's THE KITE RUNNER was one of those first novels that captured both public interest and the hearts of the many who read this story of childhood unconditional love and redemption set against three stormy decades in Afghanistan. Though Hosseini was approached about the story's adaptation to the screen soon after the novel was published, there seems to have been a rush to get the visual form of the poetic novel before the audience, a journey besieged by unsuspected political intervention and criticism by the Afghan government. But after seeing the film, this intrigue heightens the intent of those involved in translating the book to film - writer David Benioff and director Marc Forster.
People may argue both sides of whether or not the dialog be in Afghan languages (Dari, Pashtu,Urdu) with English subtitles or be in English throughout: the choice of using both languages is severely hampered by the decision to place the Afghan translations in an overlay on the screen while the English subtitles are place off the viewing field. A small point, perhaps, but one that makes the first viewing of the film difficult to follow visually. As far as the actors are concerned, the two young lads who were chosen to portray Amir (Zekeria Ebrahimi) and Hassan (Ahmad Khan Mahmidzada) are perfect: closest of friends living in a household where one (Amir) is the son of the master of the house and the other (Hassan) is the son of the grounds and house keeper - a factor that serves to underline class differences that will later become increasingly poignant. The boys are inseparable, reading stories together and flying kites in competitions - each lad specializing in one of those pastimes. But disaster crumbles the boys' victory in the kite flying contest when Hassan is beaten and raped by the town bullies while Amir cowardly runs for safety, deserting his friend. Suddenly the Russians invade and that change factors into the need for Amir and his father to move to America where Amir is educated and becomes a writer. Twenty years pass. After the fall of Afghanistan to the Russians and subsequently to the Taliban, Amir (now actor Khalid Abdalla) receives a telephone plea from Hassan's father to return to Kabul. Amir, now married and a successful writer, feels the need to return to amend for his past omission as well as to assuage Amir's fears. When he arrives in Kabul he encounters a war torn country he no longer recognizes, discovers past secrets as to his and Hassan's true identities, and sets out on a journey to bring closure to a childhood love and promise. It is a touching tale of redemption and the strongest echo of the magic of the novel.
THE KITE RUNNER as both novel and film will appeal to all audiences sensitive to scars that wars leave on children and adults alike. For this viewer the film lacks the intensity of the book in that the time spent with the childhood of the two boys feels secondary to the personal journey of the adult Amir. But that is not to say the film is less powerful in the end: the story is one that leaves an imprint on the audience that last long past the ending credits. Grady Harp, March 08

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Amir is a young Afghani from a well-to-do Kabul family; his best friend Hassan is the son of a family servant. Together the two boys form a bond of friendship that breaks tragically on one fateful day, when Amir fails to save his friend from brutal neighborhood bullies. Amir and Hassan become separated, and as first the Soviets and then the Taliban seize control of Afghanistan, Amir and his father escape to the United States to pursue a new life. Years later, Amir – now an accomplished author living in San Francisco – is called back to Kabul to right the wrongs he and his father committed years ago.

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