BIG BATTLE MOVIES!!!!

[dclare4]

Cross of Iron and most anything by that great forerunner of Tarantino, Woo and Rodriguez, Sam Peckinpah is worth watching. The Wild Bunch, Cross of Iron,

Das Boot, Stalingrad and All Quiet on the Western Front are all incredible movies. I totally agree with the chap here who said something about non-jingoistic, truthful films. The nationalism can come out but please not the jingoism. War is terrible enough as it is without clouding the issues with bigotry.

I think I saw that Partisan Airforce thing when I was very, very young. They called it 'the battle of the Eagles' over here. Is that the one where they start out with biplanes and later graduate to Yaks or something? The first shot is a biplane taking on a 109 and the last one is the three heroes are walking down a runway with 'modern' fighters lined up on both sides?

Most Aussie war movies are wonderful. Lighthorsemen, Breaker Morant, Gallipoli.

Longest Day I think tried to do too much and there were many innaccuracies that Zanuck perpetuated for the sake of high drama. Still its a must see. Though nothing ever to my mind beats that first 30 minutes of Saving Private Ryan.

Gilbert de Clare

[Rosacrux]

Best battle scenes? Oh, I think both Kurosava films - Ran and especially Kagemusha - are brilliant. There was this film about a battle in India, with Hindus-led-by-hindus on theone side and hindus-le-by-brits on the other side, which had a quite good and rather realistic battle scene. Also some older Eizenstein films have some marvelous 50.000-men battle scenes.

As for films about war... well,I'd have to go with dclare4:
Cross of Iron, Das Boot, Stalingrad, All Quiet on the Western Front. Magnificent, brilliant, unique, original, intelligent films all of them.

The thin red line, Johny got his gun, apocalypse now, Gallipoli, Full Metal Jacket (even though the latter is not much of anti-war but anti-totalitarian and... uh, too big of a subject to discuss here) would be my next choices.

[candidgamera]

Quote Originally posted by dclare4:


I think I saw that Partisan Airforce thing when I was very, very young. They called it 'the battle of the Eagles' over here. Is that the one where they start out with biplanes and later graduate to Yaks or something? The first shot is a biplane taking on a 109 and the last one is the three heroes are walking down a runway with 'modern' fighters lined up on both sides?

Most Aussie war movies are wonderful. Lighthorsemen, Breaker Morant, Gallipoli.

[/QUOTE]

battle of eagles - that's the one I've got - thanks for the clarification.

Those Aussie ones are great:
cavalry charge portrayal in Lighthorsemen seemed very realistic, and from other reading historically accurate.

Breaker Morant: one of my favorite all-time movies in any category. great lines in that one: "we caught them and we shot them using rule .303!", "slice off a cut loaf won't be missed" examples.

What's very ironic is that Bryon Brown plays an Australian attorney trying a case in exact role reversal from BM in "Prisoners of the Sun" - the Christian Japanese officer prisoner from Nagasaki gets executed for following orders, and the general who ordered it goes free because he's important to post war Japan - Americans muscled in on the trial.

Dealt with executions of Allied fliers on Ambon - am to understand it was historically based.

[dclare4]

Hey thats one I should check out - Prisoners of the Sun. Is it recent? I wouldn't think so...

Yup, can't beat that line...

"QUITE LIKE THIS? No sir it wasn't quite like this! No sir, it wasn't quite so handsome... And as for rules, we didn't carry milit'ry manuals about, we were out on the veldt fighting the Boer, the way he fought us! I'll tell you what rule we applied, SIR! We applied rule 303. We caught them, and we shot them under rule 3-0-3!"

BANG!!

Wonderful stuff. Bruce Beresford directed that one... he did that other one about those ladies forming a choir in a Jap prison camp too I think, Paradise Road? One of Cate Blanchett's breakout movies if I'm not mistaken.

About the late great Akira K... no matter how many special effects you put into a movie you just CANNOT BEAT the heartbeat that pulsates in every one of his films. And Toshiro Mifune... incredible, legendary, unspeakably wonderful. Ditto for the two other guys who became his stars - the guy who played the leader, Kambei, in Seven Samurai was also a major star of his - he was the hero in this film, Ikiru (to Live) w/c though not a war film, is no less powerful and incredibly uplifting. See it if ever you feel like jumping out a window! Same thing with the hero of Kagemusha and Ran - forgot his name, he was Shingen Takeda and the double in the first one and Hidetora the Great Lord in the second one. He played the young samurai with the pistol vs Toshiro Mifune in Yojimbo (the bodyguard).

One simple way to show how great A.K's movies are is to look at the remakes that Hollywood has done - Yojimbo became Fist full of Dollars (Clint Eastwood) and later was the basis for Last Man Standing (Bruce Willis). Rashomon's structure can be found in Courage Under Fire (Meg Ryan, Denzel Washington), Seven Samurai became of course, Magnificent Seven (come to Marlboro country) and shades of the townspeople hiring lone guns can be seen in the 1993 Academy Award winner Unforgiven (Clint changes it to a whorehouse looking for protectors).

Gilbert de Clare

[candidgamera]

Quote Originally posted by dclare4:
Hey thats one I should check out - Prisoners of the Sun. Is it recent? I wouldn't think so...

Yup, can't beat that line...

"QUITE LIKE THIS? No sir it wasn't quite like this! No sir, it wasn't quite so handsome... And as for rules, we didn't carry milit'ry manuals about, we were out on the veldt fighting the Boer, the way he fought us! I'll tell you what rule we applied, SIR! We applied rule 303. We caught them, and we shot them under rule 3-0-3!"

BANG!!

Wonderful stuff. Bruce Beresford directed that one... he did that other one about those ladies forming a choir in a Jap prison camp too I think, Paradise Road? One of Cate Blanchett's breakout movies if I'm not mistaken.

Gilbert de Clare

[/QUOTE]

Prisoners of the Sun, don't know if this will help or not, its a 1990 film - George Taekai (Sulu from Star Trek) plays the general that gets off: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/AS...029052-1536155

Breaker Morant: really liked the guy playing the Breaker. His poems in the film were great, the one about "crossing the stream to the great beyond" and of course the final one as they are executed. Another line too: "Every life ends in a dreadful execution George" "Prisoners" BTW shows the execution as well.

I digress but: ever see the Australian remake of On The Beach? Beautifully made film, but one of the saddest films I've ever seen in my life. Sad because of the brilliant cinematography contrasts so much with the tragedy of what's coming: you get a real personal sense of what they are all going to lose. Three cast members from Morant in that one: Major Boulton, the Court Martial chair, and Bryon Brown. Also had the guy that played the Colonel in Gallipoli that liked Opera - been in every major Aussie film, I've ever seen. This is way better than the original.

Paradise Road: didn't realize Cate Blanchett in it - one of my favorite actresses - she should have gotten the A. award for Elizabeth.

[Xer0]

Can someone tell me whats the message is about? The story you know.

[Aucassin]

Quote Originally posted by dclare4:
...Ditto for the two other guys who became his stars - the guy who played the leader, Kambei, in Seven Samurai was also a major star of his - he was the hero in this film, Ikiru (to Live) w/c though not a war film, is no less powerful and incredibly uplifting. See it if ever you feel like jumping out a window! Same thing with the hero of Kagemusha and Ran - forgot his name, he was Shingen Takeda and the double in the first one and Hidetora the Great Lord in the second one. He played the young samurai with the pistol vs Toshiro Mifune in Yojimbo (the bodyguard...[/QUOTE]

The actors you're referring to are Takashi Shimura and Tatsuya Nakadai, respectively.
I never noticed that Tasuya Nakadai was in Yojimbo until a few weeks when I watched it again.

[candidgamera]

Quote Originally posted by Xer0:
Can someone tell me whats the message is about? The story you know.[/QUOTE]

Vilken?

[Xer0]

Its a movie called the message

[Forward Observer]

Does anyone know the name of a movie that I think takes place during the hundred years war? I think that it may have starred Rutger Hauer as the leader of a small band of mercenaries who take over a castle. I can vaguely remember him carrying one of those huge two handed swords.

They evemtually get seiged by a relative of the castle occupants. There weren't a lot of big battle scenes, but I do remember the costumes and armor looking correct. There was some pretty gory stuff that involved the black plague. First time I remember seeing a deseased animal flung over the castle walls by a catapult.

I also seem to remember a fairly well known actress (now) getting naked in a castle hot tub with Rutger.

Guess I can do a Google search and find it.

Cheers



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Artillery adds dignity to what would otherwise be a vulgar brawl.

[Spino]

"Das Boot" is the greatest war movie of all time. Excellent in every way and without a shred of political correctness.

"Apocalypse Now: Redux"?

RANT ON

"Apocalypse Now: Redux" is a crime against the art of filmmaking. Despite his already impressive wealth Coppola has become a bona fide whore to the almighty dollar. Everyone seems to forget that the original release of AN was a 'director's cut' because Coppola had complete control over the film from start to finish. Rent the documentary "Hearts of Darkness; the Making of Apocalypse Now" and you will actually see Coppola utter a few critical words and storm off the set in the middle of filming the dinner scene in the French plantation. He knew plantation scenes didn't work within the context of the film so he cut them out before they finished shooting them! Why bring back those godawful scenes in a re-release version? In that same documentary you will also see how close that movie came to being one of the greatest train wrecks in the history of filmmaking; at many points the production teetered on the edge of disaster.

You see after astounding box office sucesses of Godfather I & II Coppola became the golden boy of Hollywood. When it came time to make Apocalypse Now he was given a vast budget and complete control over the making of the film. Coppola was never handcuffed or 'oppressed' by the suits over in Hollyweird to make a populist piece of drivel. They trusted him to make another Godfatheresque success. The only pressure the suits applied to Coppola was to stick to a sensible shooting schedule. For reasons partially beyond Coppola's control AN took nearly two years to make. The suits were justfied in riding his case when the shooting schedule kept getting longer and longer and Coppola kept asking for more and more money.

Prior to the Redux release AN was in my all time top 5, now it's not even in the top 20 anymore. Those 30 minutes of extra scenes (especially the ones on the French plantation) are positively horrendous and were better off left on the cutting room floor.

[stilicho]

forward observer: flesh and blood. saw it in french when i was around ten for the first and only time. when i think of late medieval times i always think of that movie.

i think apocalypse now was a great movie. either version, although i find redux more similar to catch-22 in tone. another movie i like.

[theforce]

How about "We were soldiers"?
The movie was quite good and realistic.

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I cannot return l presume so l will keep my name among those who are dead by bows!
http://www.dedicatedgaming.com/~angelsofdarkness

[Emperor Theodoripiklos IV]

Uhm no We where Soldiers was not good.
It was just like all other kliche Vietnam movies.
God ,country ,Family etc
Now a real good war movie is "Nothing new on the Westfront" (Im westen nichts neues)
I like both new and old versions.
I just went to see "Four feathers" and they did have a historicly nearly acurate battle scene where the Brits form a square when faced with the hords of Sudan...and even more historicly acurate , they get their backlips whooped

[candidgamera]

Quote Originally posted by Xer0:
Its a movie called the message[/QUOTE]

If you are referring to "The Messenger" deals with life of Joan of Arc.

Curious as to how people think of "The Name of the Rose"? Certainly topical to medieval.

Thought it really showed how squalid the peasants lived and touched on some "big picture" ideas in general. Can't say I know it was all accurate - seemed well done though.

[candidgamera]

Quote Originally posted by Emperor Theodoripiklos IV:
I just went to see "Four feathers" and they did have a historicly nearly acurate battle scene where the Brits form a square when faced with the hords of Sudan...and even more historicly acurate , they get their backlips whooped [/QUOTE]

Just saw this too, and have seen the original 1938(?) one as well - significant changes to the story. Really liked the way Wes Bentley acted his role - seemed very period, just his manner and speaking. Kate Hudson looked a lot like the 1938 Ethne too.

Mixed feelings about the film - my immediate question after the battle scene was how any survived getting overun like that at all - that looked like the end of all them.

[Xer0]

No I ment this movie: http://www.discshop.se/LIVE/shop/ds_...ang=&id=31079&

The best movie is Unknown soldier I think its about finnish soldiers during ww2 that are fighting against russians.

[candidgamera]

Sorry about that, know sometimes the titles get changed between languages.

The Russo-Finish one you mean this:
http://www.warshows.com/Detail.bok?s...otal=7&no=7739

Have heard real good things about that one.

Of course there's always Alexander Nevsky. Ironic, first time I saw this was when living in your country x. about 20 years ago, living in Visby the old Hanseatic port city - it was in Russian with Swedish subtitles.


[This message has been edited by candidgamera (edited 09-29-2002).]

[Xer0]

But you live in USA now right?

And that is not the movie I ment. The one I am talking about is a old black-and white movie called Unknow soldier.

[candidgamera]

Quote Originally posted by Xer0:
But you live in USA now right?

And that is not the movie I ment. The one I am talking about is a old black-and white movie called Unknow soldier. [/QUOTE]

Yes, American, lived there as exchange student for a year, 79-80: Folkomrostningen om Karnkraft, Bengt Ost om TV2, They were just starting to talk about the JAS-39 Grifen: Jakt Attack och Spaning.

Not familiar with the b&w your talking about.

Was only in Goteborg once while there.

[Boromir0101]

We were Soldiers could be considered anti-French
Vietnam should have been France's fight, why was the U.S involved, some bs about "stopping communism

also "Hamburger Hill"
very gory but true to life in ways but most veterans (like my father) cant watch it

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"Long has my father the steward of gondor kept the forces of mordor at bay, by the blood of our people are your lands kept safe" Boromir

[dclare4]

Its interesting to see how Tatsuda Nakadai is in both films, as the young Westernized samurai in Yojimbo and later as the powerful lord in Ran - and of course as the double of himself in Kagemusha.

One of the movies you should check out if you go for WW2 history and such is Roger Spottiswoode's HIROSHIMA. Its a docu-dramatization of the events leading up to the A-bomb. Lots of archival footage but more importantly stellar performances by a cast that uncannily captures the spirit of the characters that they portray - Truman, Churchill, Hirohito, Anami, Szilard, Oppenheimer, etc. Spottiswoode directed the Bond flick Tommorow Never Dies w/c was way better than Apted's The World Is Not Enough in my book - tons better! For a flick its really quite watchable. Anyways, its a great and moving picture - really makes you sad to see how humanity moves to the brink of armageddon.

Another movie - one of the most powerful, depressing ones of all time is the Japanese animated movie Tombstone for Fireflies. Its about a brother and a sister who are orphaned in the closing days of WW2. Bring two boxes of tissues (if you're the weepy type).

Hmmm... as for medieval type movies - anyone remember the movie that 'introduced' Michelle Pfeffer to the world, Ladyhawke? It starred Rutger Hauer and Matthew Broderick against the arch-evil Bishop of Aquilla. It had the weirdest techno soundtrack - I think Alan Parsons did the music. But the story's still cool - Charmed ripped off the plotline in an episode I saw recently - and its got John Wood doing these really cool lines as the satanic bishop like, "I believe in miracles Marquess... it's part of my job."

Think I'll watch it again today.

Cheerio,
Gilbert de Clare

[dclare4]

At the very least though... I mean Pearl Harbor isn't great at all and for whatever its worth, SPRyan does give you a feel for the war. The big problem with Tora!Tora!Tora! and Longest Day is that their storyline was too confusing for the average viewer to sit through in a few hours - I think. Anyways, thats the feedback I got when I asked around about it. Personally I do prefer T!T!T! to PH though I wish they had the former had the camera work and SFX of the latter!!

Gilbert de Clare

[Cyricist]

Tora! Tora! Tora! was messed up by 20th century fox, that is what caused the confusion. It was not even Kurosawa's project anymore when it was released. I don't usually count this movie when thinking of Kurosawa as a director, since he simply didn't make it. Some American piece of @#&$%SH*T did.

I know it's a pretty modern movie, but since Saving Private Ryan was mentioned..

How about Platoon? In my opinion it's one of the better Vietnam war movies. It scared the bejesus out of me the first time I saw the storming of the firebase and the NVA opened up with machineguns.. (I still turn the sound down.. even now that I'm used to SPR, which is LOUD by any standard.. Subwoofer makes the house shake with every bang )
The only one that could rival Platoon in a strange and uncoherent way would be Full Metal Jacket. But then again, the first doesn't really compare to the latter.

[dclare4]

His name was Larry Forrester (the American piece of ...) and he wrote among other things battle of the April storm about the battle between HMS Glowworm and DKM Hipper. I was modding the game DESTROYER COMMAND for a while and I got to talking with one of the relatives of the Glowworm survivors. A real gent. He sent me stories of all the extant survivors of that gallant ship and also let me in on a bit of Mr.Forrester's history. Apparently he borrowed some things from one of the survivors and was intending to make a movie about Glowworm but when the deal fell through he never returned the things too the poor trusting old man. He went on to make Tora!Tora!Tora! after I believe. Now how's that for a piece of....

Weird... Kurosawa could have made it so much better in that he would have been honest I believe (all his movies are very powerful anti-war) and presented both sides with intelligence and feeling. Just look at what he did with RAN with its grand cast of characters, its sweeping vistas and yet its heartfelt attention to detail.

BTW an interesting thing... I noticed when perusing the pages of the Imperial Japanese Navy site www.combinedfleet.com that one of the Japanese destroyer commanders of WW2 was a guy named Toshio Mifune... any relation to the great actor? Was HE the great actor?

I wonder...
Gilbert de Clare

P.S.
Platoon rocks, hands down. Full Metal Jacket's crazy but then again most Kubrick films are. I love it.

P.P.S.
Anyone got to read the script for Kubrick's never-done most cherished project, Napoleon? Its really sad that SK died just when the technology for making his movie without the cast of thousands of extras came about (with Braveheart etc and CGI)

[Forward Observer]

Quote Originally posted by dclare4:
His name was Larry Forrester (the American piece of ...) and he wrote among other things battle of the April storm about the battle between HMS Glowworm and DKM Hipper. I was modding the game DESTROYER COMMAND for a while and I got to talking with one of the relatives of the Glowworm survivors. A real gent. He sent me stories of all the extant survivors of that gallant ship and also let me in on a bit of Mr.Forrester's history. Apparently he borrowed some things from one of the survivors and was intending to make a movie about Glowworm but when the deal fell through he never returned the things too the poor trusting old man. He went on to make Tora!Tora!Tora! after I believe. Now how's that for a piece of....

Weird... Kurosawa could have made it so much better in that he would have been honest----[/QUOTE]

Actually, Larry Forrester was one of three screen writers for T!T!T! and not a director

The other two writers were Hidio Oguni and yuzo Kikushima.


This film was to be a cooperative effort between Fox studios and Kurosawa Productions. For many reasons the Japanese production did not go well under Kurosawa, so he and Fox parted company. They claim that he repeatedly missed production dates, hired good friends just to get them on the payroll, and failed to produce one bit of usable footage. Granted, he was a great director, but this project was just not suited to his creative cup of tea.

In the end the lead director for the American sequences was Richard Fleischer, while the Japanese sequences were directed by Tosho Masuda and Kinji Fukasaku. The latter two directors did quite a good job. Fleicher went on to direct such schlock films as Fantastic Voyage and Amityville 3D.

Usually these big cooperative ventures in filmmaking like Tora3 or The Longest Day lack film continuity for the obvious reason that they ARE complicated, huge international joint projects. It's a wonder that they get the these movies put together in the first place. Still, both movies are pretty entertaining, and if nothing more, fairly good examples of quite accurate historical story telling.

Cheers


P.S. I own tapes of both movies, and will evenually get the DVD's in letter box.

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Artillery adds dignity to what would otherwise be a vulgar brawl.



[This message has been edited by Forward Observer (edited 10-05-2002).]

[Forward Observer]

Here is an additional interesting bit of trivia about the movie Tora, Tora, Tora.

Jason Robards, who plays the Army's General Short in the movie, served in the US Navy during WW II, and was eventually awarded the Navy Cross.

The most interesting part is that he was acually serving at Pearl Harbor when the real attack took place.

Cheers

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Artillery adds dignity to what would otherwise be a vulgar brawl.

[candidgamera]

FO:

Interesting about Jason Robards. Curious where he got his Navy Cross?

The portrayal of the Japanese is lot of why I continue to like TTT. The big staffs you see are part of why they had huge tall bridges on their battleships I've been told - like a latter day STW Hatamoto or retinue.

TTT also seems to avoid a lot of the pitfalls of war movies made about that time - 70's versions of what makes PH irritating - current pop culture sensibilities creeping into a historical film. I'm thinking of Midway and Battle of the Bulge in particular.

Zulu's good at avoiding that too I think - one of my all time favorites.

"Colour Sergeant Bourne!"

[Forward Observer]

Candidgamera:

The History channel did one of those history verus Hollywood shows about Tora, Tora, Tora around the same time that the new Pearl Harbor movie came out. They had one show on the making of T,T,T, and this is where I first heard about Kurosawa's part in the movie. Later I read a trivia fact at the Fox movie site about Robards.

I did a search on Robards, who was actually a Jr. (his father was an actor too), and found a short biography which mentioned his service, the Navy Cross, and the fact that he was at Pearl. It did not go into any more detail than that, although it implied that the award and his presence at Pearl were not connected.

I wasn't even aware that he died of cancer in 2000. He was 78 years old if I remember correctly. This would have made him about 19 years old at the time of Pearl.

Jeeze, I can remember all of this useless stuff, and just day before yesterday I ran out of gas on the way to work because I forgot to put gas in my truck.

Then yesterday, I got to work and realized that I had worn one Black shoe and one Brown shoe. (Both true)

Of course I told everybody that I had another pair just like them at home. LOL

Cheers


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Artillery adds dignity to what would otherwise be a vulgar brawl.



[This message has been edited by Forward Observer (edited 10-06-2002).]

[candidgamera]

I was aware he'd died of cancer. What's poignant is that one of his last roles was to play someone dying of cancer in "Magnolia" trying to reconcile with his son - probably dying for real as he played the role. Pretty dark film all around.

Always liked him in the movies he played in, especially playing the grandad.

The other: sounds like some dumb stuff I do all the time .