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Post by paulmuaddib on May 3, 2021 22:18:08 GMT
I'm surprized Zulu isn't getting more love on this thread. Rorke's Drift is, after all, a true story. 150 soldiers, half of them in the infirmary, holding off 3 or 4 thousand Zulus fresh from a massacre of 4,000 British regulars at Isandlwana that same morning. I’ve never seen it. Guess I’m going to have to watch. Have seen it highly recommended in other places.
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Post by RufusScorpius on May 3, 2021 23:32:31 GMT
I'm surprized Zulu isn't getting more love on this thread. Rorke's Drift is, after all, a true story. 150 soldiers, half of them in the infirmary, holding off 3 or 4 thousand Zulus fresh from a massacre of 4,000 British regulars at Isandlwana that same morning. I’ve never seen it. Guess I’m going to have to watch. Have seen it highly recommended in other places. Da fuq you say? Stop what you are doing and watch it immediately.
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Post by Deleted on May 4, 2021 4:52:46 GMT
All the above are on my list.. here ten not listed yet... - Casablanca - The Siege at Jadotville - Danger Close: The Battle of Long Tan - The Outpost - In Harms Way - The Bridge on the River Kwai - All Quiet on the Western Front - Cross of Iron - Master and Commander The Far Side of the World - Dr. Strangelove - You saw Siege At Jadotville as well? I saw that movie for the first time in 2019. That was another good one. That actually happened. Those Irish, my people, held off all of those Congolese soldiers and French mercenaries and lost no one yet the Congolese forces lost hundreds. What angered me was that Ireland refused to acknowledge the heroism of those Irish soldiers because they surrendered. Well the Irish soldiers did run out of food, water and ammunition. There was literally nothing else that they could do. However, in 2002, I think it was, those Irish soldiers did get the rightful recognition that they earned.
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Post by Deleted on May 4, 2021 4:56:52 GMT
Through boot camp Full Metal Jacket was pretty riveting. RIP Ermey. Yeah, the boot camp sequence somehow manages to be hilarious and horrifying at the same time. When my da watched Full Metal Jacket he had flashbacks to when he was in United States Marine Corps boot camp. He loved Gunnery Sergeant R. Lee Ermy's performance. Of course, the gunny had worked as an actual Marine drill instructor so all he had to do was be himself.
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Post by Deleted on May 4, 2021 4:59:04 GMT
All the above are on my list.. here ten not listed yet... - Casablanca - The Siege at Jadotville - Danger Close: The Battle of Long Tan - The Outpost - In Harms Way - The Bridge on the River Kwai - All Quiet on the Western Front - Cross of Iron - Master and Commander The Far Side of the World - Dr. Strangelove - If allowed a longer list, Casablanca, In Harms Way, and Dr. Strangelove would be on mine as well, along with Zulu, Beneath Hill 60, and Breaker Morant.Yeah. In hindsight, maybe limiting it to just ten was not such a good idea. My bad. Open season on war films. Any era, even future (science fiction and fantasy as well).
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Post by Strider on May 4, 2021 11:39:35 GMT
Zulu is one of my favourites, some others:
- Master and Commander - The Hurt Locker - The Last of the Mohicans - Lone Survivor
One other that isn't a movie but part of a tv series: Stargate SG-1: Heroes Part 1&2
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Post by RufusScorpius on May 4, 2021 11:55:31 GMT
The Siege at Jadotville almost made my list. Excellent movie and a must-see.
The Outpost is an excellent modern era movie based on true events. That battle netted 2 medal of honors.
Blue Max and All Quiet on the Western Front were top contenders for my list.
Also "WINGS", 1927. The first movie to win a Best Picture Oscar. It's a 3 hour silent film, but epic in every way an epic can be.
I'm also surprised that nobody as mentioned Enemy at the Gates.
Seriously though, go watch "Sea Without Exit". It's a modern Japanese film about an aspiring athlete who was drafted in WWII for the suicide sub program.
Honorable mentions:
Sands of Iwo Jima Starship Troopers Hart's War The Flying Tigers Siege of Fire Base Gloria The Great Escape
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Post by AndiTheBarvarian on May 4, 2021 12:14:57 GMT
Star Wars? May the 4th be with you!
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Post by treeslicer on May 4, 2021 12:59:01 GMT
I'd initially concentrated on realistic and historically accurate portrayals of modern (20th. Century) warfare, explaining the absence of most John Wayne movies, Kelly's Heroes, Bridge on the River Kwai, Braveheart, The Patriot, Last of the Mohicans, Zulu, etc., as they all fail one or both tests, and I only had 10 slots.
With the limit extended, the first movies I'll add are:
Beneath Hill 60
Zulu
Breaker Morant
Gettysburg Waterloo
The Charge of the Light Brigade (1968 version) Casablanca Never So Few
In Harm's Way
Dr. Strangelove
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Post by treeslicer on May 4, 2021 14:23:09 GMT
The Siege at Jadotville almost made my list. Excellent movie and a must-see. The Outpost is an excellent modern era movie based on true events. That battle netted 2 medal of honors. Blue Max and All Quiet on the Western Front were top contenders for my list. Also "WINGS", 1927. The first movie to win a Best Picture Oscar. It's a 3 hour silent film, but epic in every way an epic can be. I'm also surprised that nobody as mentioned Enemy at the Gates. Seriously though, go watch "Sea Without Exit". It's a modern Japanese film about an aspiring athlete who was drafted in WWII for the suicide sub program. Honorable mentions: Sands of Iwo Jima Starship Troopers Hart's War The Flying Tigers Siege of Fire Base Gloria The Great Escape I haven't seen either The Siege at Jadotville or The Outpost yet, but they seem to meet my criteria as well, so I'll look up copies.
What was done to Starship Troopers by Hollywood keeps it off my list, and similar concerns account for most of my other omissions.
I get particularly annoyed by Bridge on the River Kwai, which has had a few mentions. The original novel was written by the same French clown who gave us Planet of the Apes, and the portrayal of the lives and behavior of POW's forced to work on the Burma railway is both inaccurate and slanderous. When pressed about it, Boulle admitted that he had projected the behavior of French officers who collaborated with the Japanese in Indochina onto British personnel (who historically committed sabotage as often as they could get away with it). Of course, defaming the British (or anyone else who isn't French, for that matter} has never much troubled French authors. Star Wars? May the 4th be with you! Oh crap!! Well, I guess somebody had to............
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Post by RufusScorpius on May 4, 2021 15:04:50 GMT
Taken on it's own merits as a stand alone movie, Starship Troopers caught me as a compelling "coming of age" movie as we follow the main characters from their patriotic idealism as soon to graduate High Schoolers, through their military training and battlefield experience to become jaded, fatalistic, and detached veterans. I can relate to these characters wholesale as their arcs closely mimic my own.
Also in this growth arc is the move "When Trumpets Fade", only in reverse. We see the main character go from a detached slacker and loner to leading a suicide mission to save his fellow soldiers.
So yea, I get that fans of Heinlein's novel are less than happy with Starship the movie, but for me it works as a character study.
Hollywood seldom gets anything right. But "Welcome to Sarajevo" and "The Outpost" are probably the closest to actual 100% real events that you can find in a movie.
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Post by Murffy on May 4, 2021 15:19:13 GMT
I saw Starship Troopers as satire, a parody of Heinlein's book, and poking fun at its militaristic view. Others agree, it seems. A quick Google search brought up this Atlantic article.
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seth
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Post by seth on May 4, 2021 15:54:18 GMT
I saw Starship Troopers as satire, a parody of Heinlein's book, and poking fun at its militaristic view. Others agree, it seems. A quick Google search brought up this Atlantic article.Heinlein was a master at exploring different futuristic social/political structures in a realistic way by explaining how such a system came to be. Starship Troopers was his vision of a militaristic society and it certainly makes sense in the context of the world he created though I don't think Heinlein agreed that society was preferable over any other. I think the movie went another direction with the satire because making the movie true to the book would have been too subtle.
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seth
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Post by seth on May 4, 2021 16:07:25 GMT
There are many great ones, but I will echo others and add a few:
The Outpost -- can be found on Netflix Zulu Gettysburg Band of Brothers (a really long movie) Memphis Belle The Light Horsemen Enemy at the Gates Master and Commander 13 Hours Henry V (Kenneth Branagh)
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Post by wlewisiii on May 4, 2021 18:45:05 GMT
Star Wars? May the 4th be with you! Rogue One is a damn good war movie.
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Post by wlewisiii on May 4, 2021 18:47:17 GMT
I saw Starship Troopers as satire, a parody of Heinlein's book, and poking fun at its militaristic view. Others agree, it seems. A quick Google search brought up this Atlantic article.That's what the director claimed he was doing. Yet so many of his movies are the same kind of "parody" that I have always felt the gentleman doth protest too much and that deep inside loves the violence and fascism he portrays in his movies.
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Post by treeslicer on May 4, 2021 19:28:10 GMT
I saw Starship Troopers as satire, a parody of Heinlein's book, and poking fun at its militaristic view. Others agree, it seems. A quick Google search brought up this Atlantic article.That's what the director claimed he was doing. Yet so many of his movies are the same kind of "parody" that I have always felt the gentleman doth protest too much and that deep inside loves the violence and fascism he portrays in his movies. He's Dutch. They've always had a certain political ambivalence, that formerly showed plainly in their colonial policies (e.g., their brutality during the conquest of Bali). Something which IMHO deserves a great novel, with blockbuster movie to follow, would be the savage and extrajudicial vengeance they took on their Japanese POW's after the war, in contrast to the other Allied powers. I wonder if Verhoeven would care to direct it?
In all fairness, I'll note that during his childhood, he was exposed to war in the raw, because his family lived close to a German V1/V2 base that got repeatedly bombed. This seems to have seriously influenced his attitudes.
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Post by howler on May 4, 2021 20:21:03 GMT
Gallipoli & The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly (at least it was set during the Civil War). Suppose good movies like The Duelist could be mentioned as they were also set during war. but we could be stretching it (oh, what the hell).
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Post by treeslicer on May 4, 2021 20:48:01 GMT
I'm adding one very powerful Vorhoeven directed film to my list, that I saw on its original release, and just remembered. It's an adaptation of a Dutch novel, and gives a realistic and brutal account of the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands. It also shows what he can do when he plays the story straight, instead of baiting the audience.
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Post by RufusScorpius on May 4, 2021 21:38:14 GMT
Gallipoli & The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly (at least it was set during the Civil War). Suppose good movies like The Duelist could be mentioned as they were also set during war. but we could be stretching it (oh, what the hell). I thought it was understood that the GBU was the ultimate movie of all time and therefore so far above everything else that it was automatically excluded from "best of" lists because it wouldn't be fair to have all other movies fight for second place.
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