ORIGINAL: rhondabrwn
Sure, I got the humour of the announcements, the Morman colony getting wiped out etc etc, but that wasn't enough of the movie to make this a "brillian" satire. It was a mild political diatribe against militaristic, fascist societies, but that was in line with Heinlein's original novel.
Must be me but I thought Starship Troopers one of the funniest war movies made. I guess it is a case of each to their own but I thought the movie was a comedy and had me laughing through the whole thing.
Here we go again...Thin Red Line is my favorite war movie. Different strokes, I guess. BTW, for those of you who liked Thin Red Line, the director (Terrence Malick) has a new movie out about the British colony at Jamestown. Looking forward to seeing it.
I agree with most of the choises made, with the exception of The Thin Red Line. Poor casting and not as good as the original,but not bad over all.
The worst that comes to my mind, would be Gods and Generals!
Salute
Very good point - Gods and Generals is really terrible und utterly boring.
While I think that you might be able to "enjoy" most of the bad movies in this list to a certain extend, if you are able not to take them serious and watch them for the eye-candy and/or loud explosions, Gods and Generals will not even allow you to do that. I imagine that if the very strong religious theme is not for you, you'll have one of the longest 230 minutes in your life ...
Have you ever seen Beach Red? It is a Cornell Wilde film released in 1967. If you liked Thin Red Line you should really enjoy this movie! Both movies are based on the same book. There are many similarities between the two. For me, Beach Red is the better of the two, though I enjoyed both.
Two oddball ones I've seen on late night tv recently are completely dreadful but I can't remember what they're called. Both are very old.
The first is about a US soldier who has plastic surgery to look Japanese so as to infiltrate a POW camp and rescue his buddies (or something). Except to simulate that they painted up the actor with bad makeup and had him squint and grimace in every scene. The racist stereotyping of the Japanese has to be seen to be believed (mind you, their prison guards were a pack of low-life scumbags). The star dies heroically to ensure that the others get away because as he explains "I can't get back to America with this hideous Jap face" (or words to that effect).
The other was English and I reckon it was made in the winter of 39/40 because it features a WW1 veteran who has joined up again and is sent to France. It is ludicrous propaganda with a few supposedly hillarious scenes of the old guy trying to come to grips with the new mechanised equipment. Anyhoo, the upshot is that he uses his experience to capture a bunch of incompetent Jerries and apparently the war is going just fine. Except that in real life, in a few months he'd be lucky if he was hauled out of the water onto a fishing trawler at Dunkirk, covered in oil and missing lots of his mates.
Many of the actual wartime war movies were pretty outrageous. I find it hard to believe that even in their day they weren't considered so by combatants on leave etc... Good fun now though.
" Very good point - Gods and Generals is really terrible und utterly boring.
While I think that you might be able to "enjoy" most of the bad movies in this list to a certain extend, if you are able not to take them serious and watch them for the eye-candy and/or loud explosions, Gods and Generals will not even allow you to do that. I imagine that if the very strong religious theme is not for you, you'll have one of the longest 230 minutes in your life ...
Chuck"
Except for this guy who grew up in tidewater Virginia. When I watch it I feel comforted by the Virginia accents. They actually did a pretty good job there...
Propaganda movies are still very real. Many war-movies today are made in corporation with the military (which is economically great since they get very good access to equipment and cheap labor). However, they demand the right to censor the manuscript which basically makes it propaganda. And many many claim all these movies are just plain bad (the censorchip makes them singleminded and bad). What do you think? Films like Apocalypse Now was certainly not a product of US military. I guess Pearl Harbour and U-571 was? [:)] What about Blackhawk down?
My opinion is slightly divided. Sometimes I like some braindead action which shows the newest and latest in weapon tech., and a good feeling to "bash the evil bastards", but for most parts I just find these films pathetic. For example justifying changing historical facts (like U-571) with vage economical reasonings I find unethical and sad.
JT
BTW: I got Sniper and Sniper 3. Have anyone seen Sniper 2? Is it to recommend? I found Sniper 3 to be better that feared..
Blackhawk Down was made in very close cooperation with the US Army. On the small screen, the now-defunct TV show JAG was also very close to the military.
It makes sense for the US military to maintain friendly relations with Hollywood. Great recruiting tool...
Have you ever seen Beach Red? It is a Cornell Wilde film released in 1967. If you liked Thin Red Line you should really enjoy this movie! Both movies are based on the same book. There are many similarities between the two. For me, Beach Red is the better of the two, though I enjoyed both.
No, I haven't. I also have NO idea how I'd be able to see it. I'm pretty sure it's not available in video stores in Estonia [;)]
Perhaps I'm lucky and they'll show it on TCM and I'll stumble upon it?
My 2 cents on BlackHack Down. Thumbs down. Had I been a typical viewer I assume I may have thought it worth while. Unfortunately I had done some studying on the case BEFORE the movie came out. Thus I could not help but take notice how many things were edited and changed. Yes the US amry was made to look smarter than they had been (even though it is aparent they had thier moments of confusion). I heard people claim the movie was not biased between the two sides... well this has me quite confused. In the end, it is Hollywood so any educated man knows ahead of time what he is in for. With all its changes from the norm, at least it wasn't a repeat of u-571.
Oh, BTW if anyone wonders about the begining of the movie where the soldier fell off the helicopter and was the first casualty... Yes, he was the first casualty. What the movie changed was that in real life he just, FELL off the helicopter. Of course they had to spice it up, so the actual scene you see is a RPG flying towards the helicopter (never happened)... and due to quick reaction by our super alert american pilots, the helicopter was instantly maneuvered and.... maybe it was a 1000 to 1 shot but it worked, the rpg missed colliding with the Heli. Unfortuantly the solder lost his balance during the maneuvr and fell.
I guess realism doesnt sell enough for the american audience, or the US Forces didn't want any of their men to look TOO foolish. A viewer has to take these movies with a grain of sault.
Nelson stood on deck and observed as the last of the Spanish fleets sank below the waves…
Blackhawk Down one of the worst…??? I wonder if there are any movies that meet your high standards. For me Blackhawk Down is one of my top five. They may not get every detail correct, but the positives far out weigh the negatives. Very few films do a better job of showing soldiers as individuals instead of stereo types.