A film review, but still….
So film critic Richard Brody writes a piece on Sylvester Stallone’s latest, Bullet to the Head (which I saw today – good to see that Hollywood is joining up in the War on Gun Violence by putting out these educational films; Bullet to the Head, Parker, The Last Stand, Gangster Squad, Hansel and Gretel – Witch Hunters, Jack Reacher….).
Let me excerpt the pertinent paragraph from Brody’s review:
In effect, the fabulous armamentarium that Jimmy Bobo maintains is the fundamental means of resistance for ordinary citizens against a government and its misdeeds. Some smart politicians and related cronies had the idea to hire low-level criminals as unwitting agents and then to dispose of them conveniently; one of these criminals, Bobo, is smart enough to catch on, strong enough to hold out, and tough enough to fight back. “Some will rob you with a six-gun, some with a fountain pen,” Woody Guthrie sang (in “Pretty Boy Floyd”), and “Bullet to the Head” is the story of bearing and keeping arms for purposes unrelated to a well-regulated militia and altogether connected to the ultimate, if veiled and limited, prospect of fighting back against the government.
(My emphasis.) Who are you, and what have you done with the New Yorker magazine?
Oh, wait:
Gun Sales Soar on Photo of Armed Obama
The White House’s attempt to portray President Obama as a gun user may have had unintended consequences today, as a newly released photo of Mr. Obama firing a rifle at Camp David set off a panic of gun buying across the US.
That piece is satire, but Obama as Gun Salesman of the Decade (and quite possibly the Century) is an already established fact.
But that one paragraph in the middle of a movie review? Wow. I guess I’ve found Stephen Hunter’s new nom de plume.