Best movie of this year hands down!

How sad is this?

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

It is a fine documentary but, as a tax payer and a thinking member of society (American or otherwise), it makes you angry – that was probably the filmmakers' intention (I hope). It boils down to a very simple human - if not more so - social thing. Responsibility. I'll sound like one of those Al Qaeda propaganda videos but I don't really care – as "western" societies, we should tread very carefully when it comes to interfering with "other people's business". Having powerful armies does not buy us the monopoly on being right.But let's get back to the responsibility thing. Sending thousands of "PlayStation Generation" children (especially the American ones, educated to a level of an infant, over privileged, immature, shallow, religious and totally convinced of their superiority, too boot), trigger happy and loaded with testosterone morons to a "far away land" for the purpose of pacifying it is irresponsible! Those people need moms and dads, not automatic weapons and armoured infantry fighting vehicles!!! And just so we're clear, dear "far right" friends - to me, it is personally insulting when "you" or the media call those people "heroes"! I think, Nazi Germany did it once – let's not copy them too much, shall we? I realize that there are many good servicemen and servicewomen who have something more in their heads than, pardon me, spunk, but they are outnumbered by idiots. Sorry. Intelligent, well educated, responsible, sensitive, critically thinking and open minded individuals don't make it to the army! Period. They just don't. Few do but that's as rare as a hooker with a doctorate.So who are those "heroes" if all the reasonable and responsible folks are sitting in their homes and watching "the other" part of society - the iron fist of democracy - represent them on CNN? Well, answer that question yourselves...The Abu Ghraib incident, I'm sure, is not an isolated one. Common rather, I'd say. No wonder the whole planet despises the United States and Great Britain. I understand that hatred. I am privileged though...to be on the other side of the argument and not worry about some cluster bomb blasting my asss to smithereens even though I don't even comprehend the reasons for the bombs falling. Feels good, doesn't it? To be save knowing that your side is the one delivering the blows and not receiving them. I'm sure that Wehrmacht and the SS personnel would tell you, with at most conviction, they were fighting the good war and for all the right reasons.That is the "responsibility" I'm talking about. Social, moral and human responsibility for one's actions. From the Government down to the least important private in the service. But that's the kind of thinking we're not ready for yet. Too forward. Army responsible for their actions, ha ha! See, if the military is a profession, why don't they have unions? It is because they are slaves! Obeying orders is a domain of slaves...or animals. That's what I could never understand – how can you possibly, as a sovereign individual, act simply because "someone" tells you to? And that "someone" is not at all obliged to explain themselves to you or explain the reasons for using you to carry out their wishes. Someone defined war once by saying "War is old people talking and young people dying". A truly profound quote.I think, ultimately, the power and responsibility for wars and what happens within their chaos lies with the man/woman holding the rifle. Let's leave it at that...

As someone who spent the majority of his adult life in the military, this documentary was especially disturbing.It's not as it there is anything new here. I saw Ghosts of Abu Ghraib, a better picture, and I am sure that I will see some of this again in Taxi to the Dark Side, or at least I am told I will. It is not that this is new or surprising, but that it needs to be seen and remembered as much as the Holocaust.That is not to say the murder of six million Jews stands equal to the abuses by our soldiers in Iraq, but that we need to remember this and make sure that we do everything we can to prevent it from happening again.The professionals will tell you that there is no useful information that can be obtained from tortured prisoners. They will say anything to make you quit. So, there is no excuse for what happened here. It was just people reverting to their animal instincts.The biggest shame, of course, if that no one above the rank of SSgt went to prison. That is just the way it happens. The troops are scapegoated and the officers are reassigned.The method used by director Errol Morris in telling this story was unique and really added to the film. It needs to be seen by everyone.

Standard Operating Procedure is a very disturbing documentary. The music and the images allow us to understand the prison and to see what went on in the prison. The clear context of the crimes against humanity that is so off putting and mainly off camera is contrasted with inviting film work that draws us into this story. There are very interesting images and techniques that are used that must be seen again for the simplicity and elegance of them. It is therefore a bit unsettling. Questions are asked and answered, but in doing so other questions arise. We find ourselves again asking for more information and questioning the truthfulness of everyone interviewed. Where are the commanders that ordered this to happen? Where are the political leaders that legitimated these behaviors? They are in the background. They seem to have run away to hide from the story and from history. Without pictures would we have been unable to see the abuses reported? Are we yet, with pictures, unable to see the real abuses? The aberrant seems to be the Standard Operating Procedure. We find ourselves questioning our own beliefs and wrestling with our own culpability.

Errol Morris's new documentary "Standard Operating Procedure" attempts to challenge the very medium of photography and bring to light the injustices at Abu Ghraib. The film somewhat succeeds in the first respect but fumbles its way through the second. Documentaries are inherently subjective and set out to portray a certain angle; that being said what Director Errol Morris says are his intentions and what appears on the screen are two totally different things. The film stumbles through the events at Abu Ghraib but fails to retain any real emotion, fluidity or energy throughout the work. Let's look at the good first. Errol Morris takes an interesting stance by constantly asking the viewers "What's outside the frame?" In a sense he's questioning the very medium he is using. This questioned is answered somewhat through testimonies but also quite literally by showing viewers photographs before they were cropped, such as the infamous leach photograph. Errol using some interesting techniques, most noticeably the use of the interotron. The interotron is a screen, similar to a TelePrompTer, that allows the interviewee to look directly into the camera, allowing for a more genuine first person feel to the film.However, for everything Errol Morris does right, there are a myriad of things done wrong here. While the cinematography of the film interviews via the interotron is interesting, the editing that pieces it together is awful. The film will cut different angles of the same person talking with gaps of black transition that last for almost two seconds. These pauses of black beg you to question "Is the film over?" which is always no. The film clocks in at 117 minutes, but it might as well be four hours long, because that's what it feels like. You can only watch people talk at you for so long. Morris attempts to spice up the picture by using grainy, melodramatic, slow motion sequences that serve little purpose other than to pad an already long film's running time and to flesh out images of his imagination in an attempt to sway the audience to his kind of thinking. Errol Morris has stated on several occasions that "Standard Operating Procedure" is not a political film. It sure feels like one. Morris paints himself as a detective, similarly to the way he did in "The Thin Blue Line", attempting to bring those truly responsible to justice. Those in the picture are responsible, but he wants to go after those higher up, who ordered the interrogation techniques and knew what was going on. The film merely graces that aspect, pointing a broad finger towards higher command and Bush administration. instead, the film indulges in the American atrocities committed at Abu Ghraib, while sympathizing with those who were jailed. Morris also blatantly hints towards the fact that every cell block in every prison in Iraq is performing this sort of torture to this degree. Why no photographs of any other cell block have not leaked, you can decide. "Standard Operating Procedure" is a failed documentary in that it attempts to be investigative but is so subjective in it's material that it just comes off as a fumbling clump of information. Nothing is truly resolved and more questions are asked than answered. It does give slightly more insight to the happenings at Abu Ghraib, but at almost two hours, S.O.P. is self aggrandizing and indulgent. Morris's political beliefs cloud his objectivity; the way he paints it, President Bush and Rumsfeld were fully aware from the beginning and actively trying to cover it up. Why would Morris take this approach? Because large government conspiracies are a whole lot more interesting than isolated incidents. In the end, there isn't a whole lot of reporting going on here as much as speculating.