Lt. Colfax
Posted on 05/30/2015 11:22:38 PM PDT by Michael.SF.
This list is in no particular order, and comes in various categories. Going back to the Civil War:
GLORY
GETTYSBURG
For the World Wars:
THE BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI.
DAS BOOT.
PATTON.
THE GREAT ESCAPE.
SCHINDLER’S LIST.
THE DIRTY DOZEN.
Vietnam War:
FULL METAL JACKET
(Excerpt) Read more at entertainmentnutz.com ...
“A Very Long Engagement.” Not a war movie per-se, but an outstanding film about the ridiculousness of war. It was a runaway best seller book in France, too.
Tells the story of a young woman’s relentless search for her fiancé, who has disappeared from the trenches of the Somme during World War One. In January 1917, five wounded French soldiers, their hands bound behind them, are brought to the front at Picardy by their own troops, forced into the no-man’s land between the French and German armies, and left to die in the cross fire. Their brutal punishment has been hushed up for more than two years when Mathilde Donnay, unable to walk since childhood, begins a relentless quest to find out whether her fiancé, officially “killed in the line of duty,” might still be alive. Tipped off by a letter from a dying soldier, the shrewd, sardonic, and wonderfully imaginative Mathilde scours the country for information about the men. As she carries her search to its end, an elaborate web of deception and coincidence emerges, and Mathilde comes to an understanding of the horrors, and the acts of kindness, brought about by war.
Here’s sleeper, “Attack”
Yes, I can get over my anti-Russian bias, knowing they took it from the Poles in ‘39, but yes, The Brest Fortress is one of the best war movies, ever.
Here’s sleeper, “Attack”
Lt. Colfax
Hm. I forgot Blackhawk Down. That was a pretty impressive movie.
Funny...didn’t view Master and Commander as a war movie, but...it sure is, and one of my favorites! Certainly one of the best movies (if not the best) about sail ever made.
Many others you mentioned as well.
Very strange about “Patton”. The more I read about Patton, the less I liked the movie, because I had always thought very highly of it.
But when I began reading books about Patton, it made me realize just what a complicated man he was, brilliant and flawed, icy cold and heatedly emotional.
After reading several books about him, I went back to watch the movie again, and it seemed nearly cartoonish to me. It seemed like an unfair portrayal.
Of course, it wasn’t unfair. It was simply less dimensional, which is the reality of making a movie. And it was me who changed, not the movie. But it left me thinking “No wonder people in general have this one-dimensional view of George S. Patton...that is all they know, and he was so much more than what they portrayed in the movie.”
My favorite movie of all time. Superb in every respect.
Don’t see ‘A Bridge Too Far’ on the list.
A Town Like Alice is also not on there.
“In Harm’s Way” is a movie that I did not see until recently, because I heard from people that it sucked.
I finally watched it, and I loved it. I thought it was a good story, but interestingly for me, the opening scenes really left an impression on me.
Having grown up a Navy brat and served as well, the first scene on December 6th, 1941 where there was a party in dress whites at the Officer’s Club at Pearl Harbor really took me back in a nostalgic way...my parents went to a lot of parties like that, and there was something that completely rang true, including the behavior of some of the characters, someone sleeping with someone else’s spouse while he is at sea, etc.
For a recent effort, I thought that “Fury” was pretty good.
They could not have cast that movie any better. It was perfect...
Of course, after seeing it, I had to read the books, which I never had any exposure to, and loved all of them!
I read where the advisor for the movie was upset about the way it was made, in the way that it drew a moral equivalence (in his view) between GI's like him and the Waffen SS.
He did not agree with the portrayal, and was peeved about it. He said he never saw Americans doing in general, what the SS did as a rule. (I suspect he may have seen individual Americans do those things, but it wasn't done as a matter of policy and expected behavior...)
I’ll probably see it when it comes out on Netflix...
I watch Heartbreak Ridge to be entertained, not educated. It is great entertainment. I can understand that your proximity to the real thing might not make it your cup of tea.
I’m not under any illusions about the pinpoint historicity of it. So thanks for commenting on it, and thanks for serving. I was Army myself.
Thanks Yeah, Bedford was quite the study. Poor little Wally Cox, he was strung out, huh? Good role for Poitie, too, and whoever that German U-Boat guy was, too; nicely done.
It hasn’t been on in a while, AFAIK. Used to run across it occasionally.
Me, too.
In fact, last night I saw them all on the shelf and thought about reading them again. One of these days I will.
he's wrong. it was done by both sides. for much of the war, it was a matter of policy in the Pacific for US forces not to take Japanese prisoners. part of this was anger and a desire for revenge for atrocities Japanese soldiers had committed, and part of it was fear that taking prisoners exposed US troops to danger from surprise attacks by their prisoners.
on the Eastern Front, German and Russian forces committed countless atrocities against each other.
on the Western Front, SS units formerly in action on the Eastern Front engaged in similar behaviors against Allied forces and civilians in occupied territories. Allied forces retaliated (e.g. IIRC, in Normandy it was unofficial policy to not take any prisoners of the 12th SS PzDiv "Hitlerjugend" in retaliation for what some Hitlerjugend soldiers had done to Canadian prisoners at Ardenne Abbey). there is no moral highground here... during war, civilized and humane behavior goes out the window. soldiers fight and kill and there's not much room for sympathy for the enemy. a lot of Germans were killed while prisoners of Allied forces, both before and after Germany surrendered.
here's a photo of German troops/guards being executed by US troops at Dachau. as you can see, quite a lot of captured troops (not necessarily camp guards) spent their final moments lined up against that wall. did they deserve their fate? i don't know. that's for historians to debate. but it's disingenuous to argue that one side's soldiers held the high moral ground over the other side's soldiers during a long and bitterly fought world war. this of course doesn't excuse the political/ethnic genocide carried out by the Third Reich, which generally didn't include the involvement of Waffen SS or Wehrmacht soldiers, but was instead carried out by special units that answered to their own chain of command. 
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