The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara

I had been meaning to watch this for a while, but I finally got round to watching it today.

It's a fascinating documentary detailing the actions of Robert McNamara during his time as the Secretary of Defense for John F. Kennedy, and then Lyndon Johnson. It contains a lot of archive footage, but the main draw is the responses and explanations put forward by McNamara, who at the age of 85 is still bright, alert and sharp as a knife.

He looks back on his actions, and evaluates them with the benefit of hindsight. He also has some pertinent 'lessons' that should be noted by the current US administration.

Anyway, it's a great documentary. If you're interested in politics, the mechanizations of the military, and current affairs you'll find it really interesting.

Also, it comes highly rated on imdb.

Click here for imdb's review

Best doc I've seen in my life...everybody should see this film.

Way to bring it forward.

(won best doc Oscar in '03)

Yeah, it's a great documentary. McNamara seems to divulge a great deal, but - in certain key scenes - you can see he's got so many secrets that he's not willing to share.

'Bowling For Columbine' won best doc in '03, though.

Bowling won in 2002.

No, "Murder on a Sunday Morning" was 2002, "Bowling for Columbine" won in 2003. "Fog of War" was 2004.

They have it as '03 on the Academy Awards website database...are they wrong?

Bowling won it in 2003, Fog of War in 2004, like already said. And that's what it says on the Oscar official websites.

Fog of War won in the 2004 ceremonies which were held for 2003. The thing to remember is that every year's ceremony is for the year before which makes it confusing sometimes.

I set the record straight on this issue in my second post. Let's discuss the documentary; have you lot seen it?

'k forget it. The way their database is set up is whack.

The movie: Can't get over the part with the napalm overkill. Too messed up.

Yeah, that's crazy. Half of all the cities are gone, but they still decide to drop a nuclear bomb? That's rational.

He's very honest and self-critical in the most part, but what he says about his part in Agent Orange is a little suspect. Though, obviously no sane person would want to publicly admit to being responsible for that.