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<TITLE>Why We Fight at the Kenworthy Performing Arts Centre</TITLE>
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<FONT FACE="Verdana"><B>This week at the Kenworthy Performing Arts Centre...<BR>
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<FONT COLOR="#800000"><H2>Why We Fight (PG-13)<BR>
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Friday, April 28<BR>
7:00 PM<BR>
Saturday & Sunday, April 29 & 30<BR>
4:30 & 7:00 PM<BR>
</B>$5/adults, $2 children 12 and younger<BR>
<B>(see Review below)<BR>
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Next week at the Kenworthy-<BR>
<BR>
<FONT COLOR="#000080"><FONT SIZE="5">Brokeback Mountain (R)<BR>
</FONT></FONT>Friday & Saturday, May 5 & 6<BR>
7:00 PM<BR>
Sunday, May 7<BR>
4:00 & 7:00 PM<BR>
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Also in May at the Kenworthy-<BR>
</B><BR>
<B>Neil Young: Heart of Gold (PG)<BR>
</B>May 11-13, 7:00 PM<BR>
May 14, 4:30 & 7:00 PM<BR>
<BR>
<B>Match Point (R)<BR>
</B>May 18 & 19, 7:00 PM<BR>
May 21, 4:10 & 7:00 PM<BR>
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<B>Rendezvous Talent Showcase<BR>
</B>May 20, 7:00 PM<BR>
$10/general admission<BR>
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<B>Inside Man (R)<BR>
</B>May 25-27, 7:00 PM<BR>
May 28, 4:05 & 7:00 PM<BR>
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<B>Coming in June:</B> Boys of Baraka; Children’s Matinee series: Dreamer; Cheaper<BR>
by the Dozen 2; Wallace & Gromit<BR>
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Regular movie prices: $5/adult, $2/child 12 or younger<BR>
KFS series pass prices: $30/10 films, $75/30 films. KFS pass good only for Sunday movies.<BR>
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For more information on movies, events, rental rates, and/or to download a schedule, visit our website at www.kenworthy.org<BR>
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This week’s review-<BR>
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</B><FONT COLOR="#800000"><H2>Why We Fight<BR>
</H2></FONT><BR>
Documentary film written and directed by Eugene Jarecki<BR>
Rated PG-13 (Parents strongly cautioned). It contains some disturbing war images.<BR>
Running time: 1 hour, 39 minutes<BR>
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<B><I><U>As reviewed by Sean Axmaker writing for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer<BR>
</U></I></B><BR>
The title of Eugene Jarecki's provocative documentary is a reference to the propaganda documentaries produced by Frank Capra during World War II, when the question wasn't so divisive.<BR>
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The crux of "Why We Fight" is a prophetic warning from President Dwight Eisenhower. In his 1961 farewell address, Eisenhower cautioned the country to resist the pressure exerted by the "military-industrial complex," a now-familiar term that he coined to describe the program he himself created to keep America militarized, and urged Americans to keep its power to influence government policy in check.<BR>
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Framed by 9/11 as well as Korea, Vietnam and the many other American military excursions since World War II, with the invasion of Iraq as both argument and illustration, Jarecki mounts an argument that more than influences state policy, the military-industrial complex shapes it.<BR>
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Jarecki has an agenda, to be sure. We're talking no-holds-barred alarm at U.S. military imperialism, justified to the public with such malleable, vague concepts as "freedom" and Orwellian transformations of unthinkable ideas into defensive strategies with a simple name change (think "pre-emptive strike").<BR>
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The Bush administration makes an easy target, with its recent history of publicized "facts" since proven wrong. But Jarecki is more alarmed at the culture behind the administrations and the way the media allows the government to shape the debate and the definitions of war and international policy.<BR>
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There's plenty of ammunition here for liberal conspiracy theorists, which surely will limit the audience to those already in Jarecki's political camp. Which is too bad, for it is a sobering history lesson as well as a political polemic on foreign policy and the growth of war into America's biggest business.<BR>
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<B><I><U>As reviewed by Manohla Dargis writing for the New York Times<BR>
</U></I></B><BR>
The title of Eugene Jarecki's "Why We Fight" sounds like both a declaration and a question. While variations on these three words are repeated throughout the film - posed as a question to various Joes, Janes and sometimes little Timmy - it is clear from the start of this agitprop entertainment that Mr. Jarecki has a very good idea why America has seemed so eager to pick up arms over the past half-century. <BR>
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Calvin Coolidge famously said that the chief business of the American people is business; 80 years later, Mr. Jarecki forcefully, if not with wholesale persuasiveness, argues that our business is specifically war.<BR>
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Mr. Jarecki borrowed the title "Why We Fight" from a series of films made by Frank Capra for the military during World War II, and it's after that war that the story of the military-industrial complex begins. It's a story Mr. Jarecki tells with appreciable energy, using images culled from newsreels, educational and military films, and original material. Bombs explode, wars are fought, and talking heads fill the screen. The editor of The Weekly Standard, William Kristol, waves the flag for the right, while Gore Vidal shakes his pompoms for the left, invoking American amnesia. Everyone sounds smart, if not always convincing, as when Mr. Vidal states that Truman dropped atom bombs on Japan only to frighten Stalin and declare war on Communism, even though the Japanese were trying to surrender.<BR>
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Mr. Vidal's assertion would give some historians pause and others an attack of apoplexy. Which raises a problem with films of this type: Who's telling the truth? <BR>
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One person's politically convincing argument is another's propagandistic screed, and whether you buy the film will doubtless depend on your existing beliefs. That said, even those of radical political persuasion might find it hard to accept Mr. Jarecki's argument that American militarism is, underneath the talk about freedom and democracy, a simple question of dollars. If nothing else, such thinking ignores that wars are fought not just by governments working in concert with big business and lobbyists, but also by people. In this respect, Mr. Jarecki's use of a retired New York cop named Wilton Sekzer, who lost his son on 9/11 and supported the invasion of Iraq because he believed President Bush's assertion that the two were linked, is problematic, and not only because one grieving father cannot represent an entire nation.<BR>
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In Mr. Jarecki's formulation, successive American governments have waged wars and conducted secret military operations for profit, and then sold these campaigns to us as necessary, even righteous. The idea is that because the public buys the lies, it also buys the wars. Too bad this doesn't explain why people buy lies, including the obvious ones. <BR>
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There's something comforting in the idea that our mistakes can be pinned on presidents, propaganda and Halliburton, perhaps because then it seems as if we didn't have anything to do with them.<BR>
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<B><I><U>As reviewed by Chris Hewitt writing for the St. Paul Pioneer Press<BR>
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"Why We Fight?" In a word: Money.<BR>
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Eugene Jarecki's documentary is like a Michael Moore film without Moore, and that's a good thing. Where Moore preaches to the choir, Jarecki goes for balance, collecting opinions from both sides of the political aisle about how military-centric the United States has become. The movie begins, in fact, with a Republican hawk, Dwight D. Eisenhower, who said goodbye to the presidency with a speech in which he coined the term "military-industrial complex" and eerily predicted an economy that relied on wars to help it flourish.<BR>
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Jarecki believes that prediction has come true, and so do most of the people in his film. The surprise is that those people include Republican Sen. John McCain, who pauses in the midst of criticizing Vice President Dick Cheney to take a call from Cheney (suggesting that either Cheney has amazing timing or amazing wiretaps).<BR>
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The arguments in the handsome, fluid "Why We Fight" head in the same direction as they did in "Fahrenheit 9/11," but Jarecki is a more levelheaded filmmaker, one who is willing to acknowledge viewpoints that don't agree with his own. He bites off more than he can chew — a segment about a young man enlisting in the Army goes nowhere — but the biggest accomplishment of the movie is that it eschews name-calling rhetoric and focuses on the issues. Instead of figuring out where to point the finger of blame, "Why We Fight" says we must realize we have a war machine that has gotten out of control.<BR>
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The film comes up with several answers to the question posed by its title, but it might more aptly be called "Why We Shouldn't Fight." Says McCain, whose intelligence and calm make parts of the film seem like round one in the 2008 presidential campaign: "We have not an obligation to go out and start wars, but certainly to spread democracy and freedom, throughout the world."<BR>
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Should you go? It's a breath of fresh air, especially since civil, intelligent discourse is so rare these days.<BR>
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<I>Film reviews researched and edited by Peter Haggart<BR>
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<I>Kenworthy Performing Arts Centre<BR>
</I>508 S. Main Street, Moscow, Idaho<BR>
</B>208-882-4127<BR>
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</U></FONT>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~<BR>
PAMELA PALMER, <B>Volunteer<BR>
</B>Mailto:ppalmer@moscow.com<BR>
Film and Events Committee <BR>
Kenworthy Performing Arts Centre<BR>
<BR>
http://www.kenworthy.org<BR>
To speak with a KPAC staff member, <BR>
call (208) 882-4127<BR>
Mailto:kpac@moscow.com<BR>
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