OT: Favorite War Movies This Weekend
As we honor our fallen war heroes this weekend many of us like to watch one, or more, war movies. What are your favorite military related films/series and/or what will you be watching this weekend?
Fury - just watched this last night...awesome tank WW2 film if you haven't seen it
Patton - anyone not seen this? George C Scott is amazing
Midway - WW2 Battle of Midway retelling...long but very good
Kelly's Heroes.
Full Metal Jacket.
We had a guy in boot camp who looked like Private Pyle. Lost his shit and cut his face up with a razor one morning while shaving. No one had any idea he was headed in that direction.
Was the first movie I ever purchased on DVD back in like 1997 or 98. And if anyone has seen "Hearts of Darkness" on the making of the film, that's pretty cool too.
I'll throw in a vote for "Thin Red Line" for one of my favorite war movies. Haven't seen it in a while but thought is was pretty great story telling.
And for pure fun, outrageous entertaiment not quite in same category of war movie, I dig "Inglorious Basterds"
Apocolypse Now had its moments, but was mostly just pretentious. When Robert Duvall isn't in a scene, he is mostly replaced wiith suck.
and that big ambition may fall short to some or even many people. I can see that. It's not without flaws, I agree, but in totality, I love the effort to on take Conrad's story, use the river metaphor and lay it over the top of this really complicated, crazy war in Vietnam. Use the river as vehicle to journey deeper and deeper toward some of man's primal instincts.
Duvall is great but I think Martin sheen is also great, from opening scene to end. And IMO, excellent performances from Lawrence Fishburn, Dennis Hopper, Sam Bottoms, plus the actor that plays Chef, can't remember his name. And Chief too. Duvall's lines are the go to quotes you hear the most, but to me, there are other great characters too and great moments and scenes that don't involve Duval and the air cav.
Brando falls a little short as Kurtz IMO but utlmately he's effective enough for me to believe in him.
Das Boot
Saving Private Ryan
Hamburger Hill
Twelve O'Clock High
Midway
Gettysburg
Stalag 17
Kelly's Heroes
Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World
Patton
Flying Leathernecks
Band of Brothers
Was hoping someone would mention 12 O'Clock High. Excellent movie well worth seeing.
Band of Brothers is a classic.
Battle Of Britain is a flawed movie, but I think has the best ever aerial scenes.
Lone Survivor, like Blackhawk Down, was about 90 minutes of those guys just getting their asses kicked. I was worn out and ready to give up when it ended. Just so much respect for people who can carry on through those kind of situations.
I like The Pacific and Band of Brothers the best, in large part because there have been many books written about the men or by the men themselves...and it is fascinating to read those books and then compare them to the miniseries.
There are so many good war movies, its hard to narrow down to a select few. I come in expecting to list a few, then read through the comments and see so many more! And now I have a few added to me 'must see' list...
Have a good Memorial Day weekend, everyone! And to those that served - thank you...
The Steve McQueen character was Churchill's American nephew. After the war, he stayed and tracked down some of the Nazi officers.
as it was originally known was to honor the Union dead from the Civil War by "decorating" their graves. As a Boy Scout one of my "Decoration Day" tasks was to place national flags on the headstones of the Civil War dead in our local cemetery. And while in the service and stationed in North Carolina, one Memorial Day I inquired of a group of locals why it was that on Memorial Day in North Carolina all the local businesses remained opened. I was curtly, frostily informed that this day was "Yankee Memorial Day" and "we don't observe it down here." In fact states in the Old South have their own Confederate Memorial Days, which most assuredly are not celebrated on the same day as "Yankee Memorial Day."
Films Hollywood produced during WW II provide some insight into the mindset of Amerticans who lived and fought during that time. Humphrey Bogart starred in a number of these films, including Across the Pacific (1942) depicting the sneaky, evil "Japs"; Sahara (1943) in which an American tank crew collects a veritable United Nations group of military stragglers who then unite to confront the Nazi menance; Passage to Marseille (1944) deals with the issue of the French Vichy government's collaboration with the Nazis, and who can forget the scene in Casablanca (1942) where S.Z. Sakall sits down with a "good" German couple on their way to America on the eve of Pearl Harbor. The scene sent the message that not all Germans were Nazis, so avoid stereotypes --- undoubtedly a nod to the fact that so many Americans of German descent were at that time fighting against those Nazi bastards.
Another excellent wartime film is Wing and a Prayer (1944) an obviously highly censored, carefully crafted account of a lone American aircraft carrier sailing around the south Pacific, duping the Japanese into believing a whole task force was out there against them. The carrier's mission was to buy time for an American fleet buildup prior to the Battle of Midway. What the American public did not know --- of course --- was that military intelligence had broken the Japanese naval code and knew exactly where the Japanese ships were and how they intended to attack, making the American victory at the Battle of Midway the great turning point of the Pacific war.
A pleasant Memorial Day, and take a moment to thank --- or remember --- all those who served.
Though set during WW I, another Bogart film worth watching is The African Queen. Of course it's less about war and more about the relationship between the Bogart and Hepburn characters.
Paths of Glory - not about Americans, not about WWII or even Vietnam. It’s a story about French troops fighting in the trenches of WWI. It stars a young Kirk Douglas and is directed by Stanley Kubrick. You can really see Kubrick’s style emerging - a true pièce de résistance!
Full Metal Jacket - Kubrick returns to the war milieu in this bookend to PoG, a contrast between the regimented life in boot camp and the chaos in-country, both of which are pervaded by psychological mind-fucks.
Classics:
The Great Escape
Tora Tora Tora
30 Seconds Over Tokyo
The Longest Day
Patton
Sergeant York
New School:
Hacksaw Ridge
Dunkirk
U 571
Band Of Brothers
The Big Red One. Love that movie, but haven't seen it in forever. Now I need to watch it.
Pussy, Pussy*.
*French for push:)
Lee Marvin casually tossing away one of his men's blown off testicles.
Also handing Luke Skywalker an extra clip of ammo to continue shooting the corpse of a German soldier that tried ambushing Luke from inside a concentration camp oven.
Almost all movies I liked have been named:
- Saving Private Ryan
- Band of Brothers
- Das Boot
- Apocalypse Now
- Platoon
- Gettysburg
- American Sniper
There is one quiet film not on the lst which I greatly enjoyed . . . Joyeux Noel. Marvelous movie, definitely worth seeing.
I also would like to see more in the way of movies looking at World War 1, and also the Korean War.