Posted on 01/19/2018 6:48:05 AM PST by Dr. Scarpetta
I plan to see it a third time.
The other day I went to see DARKEST HOUR, the movie about Winston Churchill’s heroics in the spring of 1940 in steeling the British upper classes to resist Hitler and to relieve Dunkirk by sending off a civilian armada to rescue the British army from the Nazis. The hour was very dark indeed.
Aware as you might be of my aversion to movies, allow me to astound you further. This was not the first time I went to see Darkest Hour. It was the second time! I might see it again.
The cinematography was stupendous. Parliament, Churchill’s war rooms, Buckingham Palace, and Chartwell — the Churchill home, also billows of cigar smoke, tumblers of scotch, and snatches of the great man’s oratory.
Not one actor or actress in the movie was a dud. As a matter of fact, everyone was exceptional. It was as though the British movie industry summoned its very best talent to prove to the Yanks how inferior they really are at the thespian art.
Of all the actors the one playing Winston Churchill, Gary Oldman, was the best. He might have surpassed even the real Winston.
Lily James who played Churchill’s typists Elizabeth Layton was marvelous, as was Stephen Dillane who played the loathsome Lord Halifax. But when I get started naming names I feel the impulse to add another and another and before you know it I will have named the entire cast.
Suffice to say, I have not seen a movie that lavished so much talent on screen perhaps ever. Possibly I shall have to end my boycott.
(Excerpt) Read more at spectator.org ...
Poland and half of Europe.
“If you look at the events of WWII and their aftermath objectively, Churchill did his country no favors. Britain went from controlling vast swaths of the globe, to controlling a handful of islands today. Now their own capital city is run by Muslims. If a Londoner from 1942 were to time travel to today’s London they’d be convinced Britain lost the war.”
...and Churchill did this how?
Any of Matthew Vaughn’s movies will prove that out. It wasn’t until they allowed Americans in to do Golden Circle that you saw how bad we really are.
Underwear model guy especially, and the red head. They were horrible.
I liked the Netflix movie about churchill, Walking with Destiny much better.
I liked the Netflix movie about churchill, Walking with Destiny much better.
Will check that out...
“If you look at the events of WWII and their aftermath objectively, Churchill did his country no favors. ... To save Poland from the Germans? ...”
Objectively? C’mon.
Britain, France, the United States, and other western allied nations were put at great disadvantage in the 1920s and 1930s by the pacifist movements, other antiwar activists, and the America Firsters. Quite aside from the odious moral condescension that is the core of isolationism, standing aloof was never a realistic possibility.
“What ifs” are always problematic, but it’s quite arguable that if the Allies had responded forcefully to the Nazi “reoccupation” of the Rhineland, World War Two could have been averted.
If anyone deserves blame on the Allied side, it’s the
self-righteous, self-involved, self-congratulatory types who chose to believe the “city on a hill” nonsense. The USA was founded as a trading nation, and as such could never have avoided becoming involved.
Very good film. I had not read the previews or spoilers, so I went in thinking it would have set during the German Blitz of the islands. Still, it was interesting look at the 1940 crisis in Parliament and how close the upper crust of the UK came to capitulating to Hitler. Anyone interested in WW2 History should definitely check this one out.
The cinematography and acting may have been extraordinary, but the content of the moving was as if CNN produced it. Churchill was portrayed as weak and waffling. They took aspects of his life out of context (taking naps, consuming alcohol, money, his relationship with his wife, etc) and emphasized them in such a manner to redefine the type of person he really was. Churchill wasn’t perfect, but I don’t see how anyone who has previously studied his life would think this is a good movie.
I’ve got 3/2 odds running that Operation Sealion fails.
We all sat in the movie to watch and read through the entire credits.
I would have cheered, if I didn’t know my history of Churchill and Rosevelt in Malta, giving Eastern Europe to Stalin and then the U.K., satisfied their lives are again secured from Nazi tyranny, rushing headlong into the Socialist cesspool it is today!
“So people who put “America First” are odious, and people who sacrifice American soldiers for foreign countries and the monetary interests of the American elite are virtuous?”
Isolationists are not odious. They are merely mistaken. Foolish, possibly - the longer they cling to ideologies that have come unmoored from reality.
Anyone believing that the United States could have survived a victory of the Central Powers in World War One, or a victory of the Axis in World War Two, is being unrealistic. Defeated “foreign countries” - also known as Allies - don’t trade. Without trade, we’d have been finished.
Anyone who still believes that “financial interests” and “merchants of death” tricked and maneuvered any Allied nation into either war is singularly ignorant of the historical record. Try not to carry the water for Sen Gerald Nye too much longer. He died in 1971 and is beyond helping.
Virtue is of no use if we are defeated. Get your priorities straight: win the war first, then be as virtuous as you like. You cannot have both.
The “Darkest Two Hours”. Sort of reminded me of “Downfall” (2004), where Hitler’s inner circle was turned out of the sun for the last weeks of WWII.
Semi-interesting I guess. But one viewing was enough.
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