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DVD: The Green Dragon_____
I cannot think of a movie harder to watch for a Vietnam vet than Green Dragon . This movie is set in 1975 after the Fall of Siagon and tells the story of Vietnamese living in temporary refugee camps at Camp Pendleton, Ca while being processed into the States.
I have never thought before of the Vietnamese refugee plight when first coming to America. WHY? Maybe, it's because, with all our bungling of Vietnam, our one success was how we opened our doors to the Vietnamese when we left, especially those who helped us. It was not enough, but it was more than expected given the sorry record of our government in times past of abandoning its friends.
This story is the first time I've seen a movie (DVD) that deals with Vietnamese in America living in a refugee camps and basically telling the story from the Vietnamese viewpoint -some very poignant stories. All vets should see it.
Two parachutes.
God Bless America. JD
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DVD REVIEW: THE SQUID AND THE WHALE
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Review by: Amanda Phelps
In some ways, The Squid and The Whale was too much like life-focusing on the disintegration of a family. With a selfishness rarely portrayed even in real life, Jeff Daniels and Laura Linney are going through a divorce.
Their two boys are involved in the trauma "acting out" all the way through plagarism, drinking, and sexual acts.
The younger son masturbates and then spreads his ejaculation on books at the library or along the wall at school. How do people think up these things. Well, the writers have experienced it themselves, maybe? I don't know.
The older son kepts wrestling with his parents dysfunctionality. Basically the two kids are stuck in the middle of emotional warfare. Wow. So much of life.
What I think movies like this can really do is help us project to where we are in our own lives.
Can we take anything out of this movie? Well, maybe the Biblical admonition, "Thank you Lord that I am not like this couple." One thing for sure, kids don't ask to be born. If you have kids, they need to be the first priority.
In the Squid and The Whale, it was all about the parents, what they wanted and needed, and nothing about the kids. Sad. Too many parents are like this maybe. Granted, few families that I know would be emotionally sophisticated enough to figure out the issues of this movie, but who knows? On one level they might.
A second thing that struck me about this movie was that the couple had no value system- the kids cursed like sailors, and their behavior was bad. Amazing lack of parental skills and there are kids raised like this all over America. (posted April 13, 2007)
Two parachutes.
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New Book: VietVet Memoir 
Movie Reviews 
