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Movie trailer: Billy Lynn's Long Halftime WalkMovie trailer: Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk
About the author
Sam Roggeveen
Sam Roggeveen is Program Director of the Lowy Institute’s International Security Program. He is the author of The Echidna Strategy: Australia's Search for Power and Peace (Opens in new window), published by La Trobe University Press in 2023.
This looks amazing:
Ang Lee directing and Steve Martin in a dramatic role is is enough to whet my appetite, but it looks like the film also explores the phony 'thank you for your service' patriotism that the Lowy Institute's recent guest James Fallows has written about in 'The Tragedy of the American Military'. In fact, that article contains a reference to the book Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk, by Ben Fountain, which Fallows calls 'The most biting satirical novel to come from the Iraq-Afghanistan era'.
For an Australian take on the same phenomenon, I recommend James Brown's Anzac's Long Shadow.
Sam Roggeveen