Entertainment For Lively Minds
War! What is it good for?? .... Movies apparently
Posted by badger_king on 11 September 2009 - 1:03pm.
Ok, so I was watching Three Kings over breakfast this morning (as you do, when only employed part-time). And I thought I would get some more lists out of people.
As I'm enjoying war films at the moment, I'll list my top 5. If people can recommend some more for me, and discuss merits therein, I would me most grateful.
1. Apocalypse Now (1979)
2. Dunkirk (1958)
3. Platoon (1986)
4. Three Kings (1999)
5. Jarhead (2005)
Any others worth watching?
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Saw "Patton" again recently
Love that.
Full Metal Jacket
a.k.a 'Docklands - Redevelopment Now'.
Das Boot
Would recommend both film and book - nerve jangling.
Nice wide remit
Cross Of Iron - Peckinpah very effectively moving away from the Westerns
Battle of Algiers - almost docudrama and still shocking
Thin Red Line - meditation on the effects of war
Kelly's Heroes/Where Eagles Dare - both classic hokum with Clint
MASH - very silly but far better than tv series
Deer Hunter - russian roulette..De Niro, Christopher Walken..nuff said
and maybe I can squeeze in Zulu
Zulu
Yeah! Haven't seen that for years! Good film.
May the Force be with you.
Or doesn't that count?
Black Hawk Down
Far, far better than you'd expect from something with Josh Hartnett in it, and perhaps Ridley Scott's last decent flick. The soundtrack's great too.
Everyone's raving about the new Kathryn Bigelow, too.
(Was there ever a Carry On Up the Front, by any chance? If not, there should have been. Phwar-ha-HA!)
Hurt Locker
Saw it last night, as good as everyone says it is, fingernails regrowing as we speak
seconded hurtlocker
not about iraq it's about war and blokes excellent straightforward war film
enthusiastically third that...
( started a 'Hurt Locker' thread about a week an' a bit ago 'cause can't stop raving about it.)
'Apocalypse' and 'Thin Red Line' great with a big g, philosophical, poetic, 'Three Kings' has amazing technical flash, tight plot and fierce moral outrage; HL's a different beast altogether, leaner, cleaner, unburdened by any specific agenda or message but still gets ya thinking... And clenching!
Hamburger Hill
Although it was a long time ago, I remember it being rather good.
Great film.
Though sadly overlooked in comparison to the 'big' Vietnam flicks - Apocalypse Now, FMJ, Platoon etc.
Bridge too Far
All star, but great fun. Also I always enjoy "The Battle of the Bulge".
For Clint, "Heartbreak Ridge" is corny as anything but again great fun.
how can you mention those two
in the same post heartbreak ridge is rotten
I know it's kind of crap
but there are some great Clint moments - at the beginning when the guy in jail is badmouthing the Marines and Clints hands his cigar to a little squirt and growls "Hold this boy, war's been declared". Training his platoon: "It is your will against mine and you WILL lose". Parachuiting: "Jumping out of a perfectly good airplane is an unnatural act" etc etc. To his ex-wife: "did we have a mutually nurturing relationship" EX-W "hell we didn't have a relationship, we were married"..... Actually, I have seen a lot worse. I watched "Phone booth" last night for example, which consisted of 2 hours of people shouting.
Thin Red Line
Directed by Terence Malick, it's as visually extra-ordinary as Badlands his most famous film. Stellar cast, a good angle on the war in the Pacific and gripping from start to finish.
Another vote for The Thin Red Line
Excellent film. I thought Ben Chaplin was particularly good and is somewhat under-used these days.
And a third
A stunning film. Sean Penn excellent as usual, as is Nick Nolte.
I'd also like to add a mention for Conspiracy, a chilling examination of German top brass and bureaucrats "organising" the holocaust starring Kenneth Branagh, Stanley Tucci and a host of a familiar faces. More of a TV movie than anything (made by the BBC I think) and definitely no battles included but superb nonetheless.
The Longest Day
Where Eagles Dare
Guns Of Navarone
Other, less violent, Sunday afternoon WWII films all helped along with Action Man & a dad of war vintage to make me and my brother believe that we were still at war with the Nazis. This lead me to scribbling out East & West Germany in the Philips atlas which I still have 30 odd years later. As a child you could get Nazi Action Man dolls? The 70's were bleedin' hardcore.
Nazi Action Men
My children have discovered my stash of WW2 Action Men stuff - tanks, Nazis and British troops - lovingly kept by my mum, on recent trips to my parents house. Surreal conversations ensue - what's this daddy? it's a flamethrower I think, and that Sub Machine-Gun goes with the German...
Like This?
Channel 4 Top 100 War Films...
Log on here and fill your boots!
http://www.channel4.com/film/newsfeatures/microsites/W/greatest_warfilms...
My favourites are
Big Red One
Gallipoli
A Bridge Too Far
The Bridge at Remagen
Ice Cold in Alex...
...sun and sand (and quicksand), lager, John Mills and Anthony Quayle in non-regulation khaki hotpants, Sylvia Syms (phwoar etc)...then there's Bridge on the River Kwai, Great Escape, Deer Hunter, Dam Busters, and, actually, Saving Private Ryan.
Come and See
A Russian film called Idi Smotri (Come and See) is the most realistic war film I've ever seen, brutal and really affecting.
2nded!
An outstanding film that deserves to be far better known.
Oooooh ooooh
"The Battle of Britain".
Did you read this?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/starsandstories/6175448/The-Batt...
I want to watch it
...right now. have you ever seen a Spitfire fly over? I believe I have something in my eye. I was listening to a folky singer/songwriter on Mike Harding talking about a song he'd started writing about a Spitfire but couldn't finish, then the BNP pushed a leaflet through his door with a Spitfire on the front....suddenly he knew EXACTLY what it was going to be about. Bastards.
My choice is fairly routine...
Das Boot
Apocalypse Now
Reach For The Sky
The Way To The Stars
MASH
'Roma, città aperta' by Roberto Rossellini...
is a masterpiece. Really.
No-one has mentioned
The Cruel Sea - considering the era when it was made it's jingoistic component is virtually non existent.
The Bridge on the River Kwai
Lawrence of Arabia
Kelly's Heroes
Von Ryans Express
Cruel Sea - Seconded!
Especially for the bit where the U-Boat is hiding under the floating survivors. Jack Hawkins really exhibits moral dilemma
it's good on the home front
too it's not all rosey at home plus they drink like fish. Plus th element of drudgery to fighting the war.
That scene
hunting the U-boat gets me all choked up every time I've seen it.
And then...
Powell/Pressburger - Battle of the River Plate, Life and Death of Colonel Blimp and A Matter of Life and Death.
It Happened Here
Made for tuppence by Kevin Brownlow and Andrew Mollo in the early sixties it observes a post Nazi invasion Britain through the eyes of an Irish nurse. The film stock was donated by Kubrick, reel ends from Strangelove. What would now be called guerilla film making, no permits, no pack drill.
Lovefilmed
Lovefilmed
Not a Film exactly
But i've just seen "Band Of Brothers". Stunning
as is "Generation Kill"
Hurt Locker is fantastic. Believe the hype
Broadsword calling danny boy...
Where Eagles Dare - fantastic.
Worse war movie - does 'Wild Geese' count?
Wild Geese
A great movie.
Agree
I shared a flat in 81 with a bloke who had an early video machine - the first I'd seen and he had the Wild Geese on vid, so i watched it a lot. Who knows why? But I came to appreciate its finer points!
I'm so happy you mentioned the Wild geese
I could scream ... well go on them.
yahroo yahroo....
I've not seen this film too many times either
bagsy being called "Captain Rafer Janders"
Love it to bits.
"Can't leave 'im to the Simbas.."
"That's the best news I've had since I threw up my breakfast. "
.....
Days of Glory
The film about the French Algerian troops is also pretty good. For worst can I pitch in with that awful piece of US revisionism that is "U571" - the writing out of the British effort continues. Thanks, Spielberg.
days of glory is good
except the grocer from amelia is in it and nobody notices he has whithered arm and can't hold a rifle
War not War
All below - not strictly war films as such - but linked to themes of war
The Hill (Lumet), Paths of Glory (Kubrick) and - above all - La Regle du Jeu (Renoir) - which is the best film ever made. Fact.
here's some
In which we serve. (the bit were noel coward says good bye to his ship mates)
The way ahead.(it's film about world war 2 tommies (not commados or ambulance drivers or prisoners or renegades) but normal british soldiers
went the day well (thora hird as avenging angel land girl)
The dambusters (barne wallis new cross's finest telling the man form the ministry "well you could tell them I designed it")
Ice cold in alex (for the tight shorts and sylvia syms looking so hot)
Some not mentioned
waterloo (it's just mad)
the last samurai & glory (great fighting scenes)
Saving private ryan ( we know about the first 20 minutes but the rest is good too)
Longest day (the duke in a wheel barrow)
Overlord do track down this lost gem it's weird mix of archive and staged scenes defintiely worth seeing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overlord_(film)
we were soldiers (mel gibson's best film slightly over does the religious warrior stuff but good war film)
Master and commander (this ship is england....)
Dr strange Love (just a great film)
Can we count 7th Calvary films ?
but the best war film i ever saw was one night when i couldn't sleep and was allowed downstairs to watch with my parents and eat cheese on toast in front of the popping gas fire. I can't remember what the film was but some yanks drove into paris and shot up a cafe with bazooka. The next day I could correct my older brother as we drew our big pictures of sherman tanks and spitfires (on fan fold computer paper) and the kids at school were agog at my seeing this gem.
Of course it will be rubbish now but this has to be the best war film ever.
Maybe It's 'Is Paris Burning?'
There is a sequence in IS PARIS BURNING? where a bunch of yanks in a jeep (I think Anthony Perkins is one) drive into Paris and find themselves in battle. The premise of the movie is the German plan to blow up the city as they retreat, destroying its monuments and museums. While the German commander wrestles with his conscience, will the allied troops get there in time? Well... since the Louvre and Arc de Triomphe are still on all the postcards, the suspense maybe suffers a bit. But it's dynamically shot in B&W Cinemascope, blending archive footage quite seamlessly, and stands up pretty well. It's directed by Rene Clement, who made two of the greatest war films - LA BATAILLE DU RAIL and JEUX INTERDITS.
Thanks I shan't
watch it it would spoil the whole thing! But I will keep and eye out for the other 2 they sound good LA BATAILLE DU RAIL is that similar to The train with Burt Lancaster?
Good Thought - Don't Ever Watch It
I think you're right not to want to watch the film: your memory of that night and the feelings it evokes should not be tampered with.
I had a similar idyll - unusually, my mum let me stay up to watch TV: it was film called TRAPEZE, Tony Curtis vying with Burt Lancaster for Gina Lollobrigida and guess what - they were trapeze artists. Would Tony Curtis achieve the impossible backward-triple-somersault, or would Lancaster foil him - or even kill him - for nicking La Lollo? Just when things were shaping up nicely, my dad suddenly reverted to form, announced that my continued presence represented liberalism run amuck, and sent me off to bed.
Over a decade later I caught the film again: a pale shadow of my heightened memory, and the disappointingly predictable ending was not the bloodbath I had feverishly imagined. Still - one thing I hadn't noticed first time around was TRAPEZE's representation of oedipal struggle: curiously appropriate.
Yes, I hadn't thought of it till you mentioned it, but LA BATAILLE DU RAIL would have been an influence on THE TRAIN: it's a really exciting story of how resistance workers on the railways sabotaged the Nazi war effort. What makes it more impressive is that it was made in 1945, right after the Liberation. British filmmakers would have been content to make a 'this is what it was like' glum-a-thon: but the French make it a fast-moving suspense picture.
Clement's later film JEUX INTERDITS (Forbidden Games) is about two orphaned children crossing France during the Allied invasion. It is an extraordinarily tough and violent film, yet the children treat the whole thing like an adventure game, and emerge unscathed. Beautiful.
And THE TRAIN - terrific picture! Beats VON RYAN'S EXPRESS hands down: because how can you have a great train movie when it doesn't crash? (Von Ryan's shock ending doesn't really make up for the lack of locomative destruction).
true
all great train films do end in a crash that's my learning point for today thanks :)
Although not a fillum, Band Of Brothers was v good
Overlord
Totally agree with Chris G that this 1975 one-off is a rare gem indeed.
Someone's description of Overlord as a British version of Saving Private Ryan if directed by David Lynch is a good one:
that looks pretty good
Though it does look like it was made in the 1940s.
Though I guess that's the point. Maybe?
You are correct, Badger King
What makes Overlord so stunning to look at is it's seemless mix of archive footage and specially shot scenes showing the progress of British soldier Tom on the run up to D-Day. It genuinely looks like an epic documentary , not a low budget art movie shot in 1975. The Imperial War Museum lent loads of previously unseen footage to the film, and original German cameras and lenses from WW2 were used to shoot the dramatic scenes so that they matched the archive footage. Stanley Kubrick loved this movie (only complaining it was an hour and a half too short!), and it's influence on the army training scenes in Full Metal Jacket are evident.
Oops
Wrong thread.
My Five
I think what most people seem to mean by war movie is WW1/2/Vietnam
My five within that group
-Lawrence of Arabia
- Ice Cold in Alex
- Paths of Glory
- Apocalypse Now
- Tora, Tora, Tora
My five outside that narrow definition
- Salvador
- El Cid
- The Wind That Shakes The Barley
- Gettysburg
- Sophie Scholl (WW2 but about civilian resistance in Germany)
El Cid
I always remember as kid popping in out of the front room seeing if it had got to the good bit yet seemed to be alot of sophia Loren running round in stagey looking castle saying thinsg like " don't go, day will kill you, I will never see you agen.." while the rest of her tried to throw off the shackles of the evil tyrant of her bodice !
Like the idea of Gettysburg but possibly because alpha male plutocrat Ted Turner paid for it it's very top down in it's view of war. There's long scenes where people you half recognise play generals and hide behind beards giving orders. Apart from that it's not too shabby. Makes an interesting contrast to Culloden which was on the tv the other day and was inbalanced on the other side of equation but striking none the less.
Culloden
I didn't see that it was on.
I'm guessing that this is the BBC production from c 1964?
If so I can still recall the idea of it, but no detail.
just checked I player it's not one
but yes it was groundbreaking at the time being shot as if it was news footage. It's polemical from left wing perspective ie protrays the british parliament forces as "english" and filled with cockney barrow boys instead of the many lowland scottish troops present. Also all generals feckless exploiters. That being said and stepping past some "see you jimmy" wig and tam o shanter conbination it's a really good film.
Good
I recorded it but haven't watched it yet!
if you like Robert Mitchum
Check out
The Enemy Below: a US destroyer captain (Mitchum) plays cat and mouse with a U-boat commander (Kurt Jurgens)
The Hunters: an excellent Korean war drama about shot down fighter pilots.
did anybody actually play 'Colditz' The board game?
fantastic. however my war films would be;
rewatchable and great:
1. 'escape to victory'
2. 'where eagles dare'
3. 'the battle of britain'
great, but depressing and only to be watched once;
1. 'come and see'
2. 'downfall'
3. that one by that french geezer called something like shadows and fog about auschwitz
or just watch 'the world at war' with larry olivier and get the best of both worlds. well, it's real. so prepare to be a bit depressed. well, a lot depressed.
P.S.
war films which i just don't get;
1. 'a matter of life and death' sorry, but like 'the red shoes' leaves me cold
2.'platoon' (crap)
3. M*A*S*H the series and the film. hippy shit of the highest order
PPS 'Paths of Glory' which i forgot to mention is kubrick's finest hour. this shouldn't be in this section.
Jarhead
The futility and boredom of modern warfare, plus the best ever use of Naked Jake Gyllenhaal in a film.