Films you've watched recently.

[Ricey]

Is this film just called Gallipoli? I've not heard of it.

My wife is the joint custodian of a VC awarded to her great great grandfather in WWI for his actions at Gallipoli (as a Private, which is unusual for people awarded a VC).


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Kenealy

Johnson Beharry was the most recent Private at the time to be awarded the VC. I’ve read his book he is an absolute hero and is suffering the affects of his heroics everyday.

 

[united we stand]

Have there been many pro war films recently then?

Agree with you. Great film, even with the trenches looking at bit to clean physically and politically.

And yes it is a very similar story to Gallipoli minus the anti British stance.

Most are neither hence the comment
( can’t believe I’m agreeing/ defending

The Andromeda Strain (1971)
Sci-fi thriller based on a Michael Crichton novel about a US satellite returning to earth with a deadly organism attached which wipes out a New Mexico town. A team of crack scientists are assembled and whisked off to a top-secret underground germ warfare research centre to try and work out wha' gwa'an. Incredible production design, even by the standards of the time when great looking big budget thrillers were 10 a penny. Great use of split-screen too. It's a bit geeky but I loved it. 8/10

havent watched that in years, agree a very good film

 

[united we stand]

From another point of view..

Speaking to Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune in 1973, Francois Truffaut made an observation that’s cast a shadow over war movies ever since, even those seemingly opposed to war. Asked why there’s little killing in his films, Truffaut replied, “I find that violence is very ambiguous in movies. For example, some films claim to be antiwar, but I don’t think I’ve really seen an antiwar film. Every film about war ends up being pro-war.” The evidence often bears him out. In Anthony Swofford’s Gulf War memoir Jarhead, Swofford recalls joining fellow recruits in getting pumped up while watching Apocalypse Now and Full Metal Jacket, two of the most famous films about the horrors of war. (On the occasion of the death of R. Lee Ermey, the real-life drill instructor who played the same in Full Metal Jacket, Swofford offered a remembrance in the New York Times with the headline “Full Metal Jacket Seduced My Generation and Sent Us to War.”)

Is it true that movies glamorize whatever they touch, no matter how horrific? And if a war movie isn’t to sound a warning against war, what purpose does it serve? Even if Truffaut’s wrong — and it’s hard to see his observation applying to at least some of the movies on this list — it might be best to remove the burden of making the world a better place from war movies. It’s a lot to ask, especially since war seems to be baked into human existence.
So, like other inescapable elements of the human experience, we tell stories about war, stories that reflect our attitudes toward it, and how they shift over time. War movies reflect the artistic impulses of their creators, but they also reflect the attitudes of the times and places in which they were created. A World War II film made in the midst of the war, for instance, might serve a propagandist purpose than one made after the war ends, when there’s more room for nuance and complexity, but it also might not.
Maybe the ultimate purpose of a war movie is to let others hear the force of these stories. Another director, Sam Fuller, once offered a quote that doesn’t necessarily contradict Truffaut’s observation but better explains the impulse to make war movies: “A war film’s objective, no matter how personal or emotional, is to make a viewer feel war.”

I would be very surprised if someone watched Gallipoli or Stalingrad and maybe even platoon (going out on a limb on that one) and it made them more likely to want to join the army. I don’t think FMJ was a great example of even Apocalypse now. Platoon and the deep hunter ( similar ages/ideas) would have been better examples.
anyway lots of digressing, all of the above are very good films in my opinion

 

[Supernaut]

havent watched that in years, agree a very good film

I'd seen it once before, when it was on Moviedrome so probably 25+ years ago. Enjoyed it then, but much more so now.

 

[MK Shrimper]

Two bags of ****e yesterday:

Chicken Little - dreadful and frankly bizarre Disney animation. 3/10
The Prodigy - rubbish horror where her from OITNB has a baby with the reborn soul of a serial killer. 4/10 Available on Netflix but seriously don't bother.

 

[Swiss Tony]

Two great Anti war films worth watching imo, All quiet on the western front and The red badge of courage,the futility of war at it's best.

 

[Tangled up in Blue]

Two great Anti war films worth watching imo, All quiet on the western front and The red badge of courage,the futility of war at it's best.

Certainly agree about the former.Not too sure about Audie Murphey in RBOC.

 

[Tangled up in Blue]

Another vote for Bait which I saw on DVD last night.It's a small buget b/W Cornish film about the impact of second home ownership on local communities in Cornwall.The Dual (DVD+Blu- Ray) package +extras +excellent liner notes from the BFI is also great value for money.

 

[rigsby]

Certainly one of the recent Churchill films was (Gathering Storm?).Also arguably,Dunkirk.

Agree about the trenches looking rather clean in 1917.Ironic when SamMendes's grandfather was contiually washing his hands during SM's childhood becaiuse he could never get them clean in the trenches,apparently.

LOL Tangled. You mean the one with Albert Finney and Ronnie Barker as his butler. That was about the 1930's and the rise of Hitler. It ended with his return to government at the start of the war and had the usual lefty sneers for the crime of being 110% on the right side of History

Next you'll be claiming Porridge glamourises crime.

 

[Tangled up in Blue]

No In fact I think it was Darkest Hour with Gary Oldman.The one where where Winston goes on the tube to chat with all the loverlee Londoners about how the war was going.Risible.

Never was a fan of Porridge though I did quite like The Two Ronnies.

 

[rigsby]

No In fact I think it was Darkest Hour with Gary Oldman.The one where where Winston goes on the tube to chat with all the loverlee Londoners about how the war was going.Risible.

Never was a fan of Porridge though I did quite like The Two Ronnies.

Whilst there is no proof he ever did that on a tube, Churchill was known for slipping his bodyguard and going off to chat with the 'commoners'

On one occasion he was found sitting on a pile of bricks chatting to all the workers from the building site.

That aside i guess Darkest Hour doesn't pass the Tangled test because it involves Churchill. so the most important period of the 20th century is dismissed. Even though it change the course of the world.

 

[Benfleet A1]

Whilst there is no proof he ever did that on a tube, Churchill was known for slipping his bodyguard and going off to chat with the 'commoners'

On one occasion he was found sitting on a pile of bricks chatting to all the workers from the building site.

That aside i guess Darkest Hour doesn't pass the Tangled test because it involves Churchill. so the most important period of the 20th century is dismissed. Even though it change the course of the world.

If Darkest Hour proved one thing it was showing the Yanks up for the money grabbing profiteering scumbags they were before Pearl Harbour.

 

[Massimo Giovanni]

If Darkest Hour proved one thing it was showing the Yanks up for the money grabbing profiteering scumbags they were before Pearl Harbour.

I believe the Septics carried on making huge profits long after Pearl Harbour, VE and VJ days. They still have the areas "swapped" by the UK for old destroyers and IIRC the loans to enable the UK to fight on were only paid off (with interest!) not that many years ago.
The UK may have some shame to it's name with parts of our colonising/Empire history but it pales in comparison to that of France, Belgium, Spain, USA, USSR etc.

 

[rigsby]

If Darkest Hour proved one thing it was showing the Yanks up for the money grabbing profiteering scumbags they were before Pearl Harbour.

Indeed, they learnt how to after making fortunes from WW1.

One of the worst was Prescott Bush, grandfather of George W. He funded the nazi party in the 1930's and had assets siezed for 'trading with enemy' because he continued to do so even during WW2

 

[united we stand]

I believe the Septics carried on making huge profits long after Pearl Harbour, VE and VJ days. They still have the areas "swapped" by the UK for old destroyers and IIRC the loans to enable the UK to fight on were only paid off (with interest!) not that many years ago.
The UK may have some shame to it's name with parts of our colonising/Empire history but it pales in comparison to that of France, Belgium, Spain, USA, USSR etc.

Yes, the Last repayment was at the end of 2006. Thankfully the int rate was fixed at 2%
as an aside re Rigsby”s post, there was a serioes , I think on the history channel on Churchill”s bodyguard who IIRC kept a very interesting diary of his time with winston.

 

[Tangled up in Blue]

Whilst there is no proof he ever did that on a tube, Churchill was known for slipping his bodyguard and going off to chat with the 'commoners'

On one occasion he was found sitting on a pile of bricks chatting to all the workers from the building site.

That aside i guess Darkest Hour doesn't pass the Tangled test because it involves Churchill. so the most important period of the 20th century is dismissed. Even though it change the course of the world.

I've got nothing against Churchill as a WW2 leader though other periods of his long career are certainly questionable to say the least.

Another scene which I also found risible in the film was when his pretty young female secretary taught him how to flick a V sign.In my experience most Harrow public schooldboys (and I used to work as an unqualified Social Worker just down the road from the school) know full well how to do this.

 

[Napster]

Politics!!!

 

[Massimo Giovanni]

Politics!!!

History, bit like politics as it changes depending on when written and by whom.
Truths in politics tend to become more apparent as they merge into history.

 

[Napster]

History, bit like politics as it changes depending on when written and by whom.
Truths in politics tend to become more apparent as they merge into history.

this is a thread about films! not arguing about war or truth in politics!

 

[MK Shrimper]

this is a thread about films! not arguing about war or truth in politics!

It's like we need some sort of sub-forum to discuss politic......oh.