How many GUYS like war movies?

[Marauder]

Band of Brothers was an amazing series--it's definitely worth watching, even though it's so long. Black Hawk Down was very entertaining also. One of the best soundtracks I've ever heard.

[shellie]

(My brother-in-law is good friends with one of the actual "Black hawk Down" soldiers who lived to tell the tale. Very scary stuff.)


I guess I have watched a lot of old b/w John Wayne cavalry movies... does that count?

[Baakay]

Whee!! John Wayne ALWAYS counts.

Hey, that was quite the normal little conversation Cloud was having on the last page, wasn't it? I do believe our loquacious bot is getting more and more socially "ept" as time goes on.



Will anyone suffer permanent damage if I say that my favorite war movie of all time was The Battle of Britain? ??

[Cloud]

Do you mean your name is John?

[Baakay]

Do you mean your name is John?

No dear, my name is Kay. But the guy I almost married was named John... (wow. I can't believe I'm having this conversation with a forum bot.).

[Blackmegabyte]

I've found some of the best war movies were not made by Americans

Kurosawa anyone?
Japanese Shakespearen movies like Ran and Throne of Blood

Then there were 4 German movies that are simply------- shockingly amazing in their own right.....
Das Boot
The Pianist
Downfall
Stalingrad
If you havent seen these and like war movies--- SEE THEM.

Also an Italian film called Life Is Beautiful
A Bosnian film No Man's Land
Ancient Russian classic Battleship Potyomkin
Three British movies Lawrence of Arabia and The Killing Fields and Henry V

So yeah I also love War movies like, Glory
Courage Under Fire, Apocalypse Now, Saving Private Ryan, Braveheart etc

[blueheaven]

I liked FMJ, especially the novel(The Short Timers) it was based on. My dad always said that R. Lee Ermey's drill sergeant was the most accurate portrayal of a DI that he had ever seen. It helps when you hire a guy who was actually a DI.

Also enjoyed Glory. Very good civil war epic with great casting.

Big fan of John Wayne classis Allegheny Uprising, a pre Revolutionary War tale about Jim Smith and his black boys.

[transmet]

I liked FMJ, especially the novel(The Short Timers) it was based on. My dad always said that R. Lee Ermey's drill sergeant was the most accurate portrayal of a DI that he had ever seen. It helps when you hire a guy who was actually a DI.

R. Lee Ermey is the best! And I agree, Kubrick nailed just how disillusioning modern warfare has become. I tend to gravitate towards war movies like these. Another one of my favorites is, of course, Catch 22. Joseph Heller forever changed how I perceived why wars are fought. That movie, and especially the book, should be mandatory for any young person thinking of joining the military (probably should see Dr. Strangelove, as well). Then there's The Big Red One (Sam Fuller is the man), and Apocalypse Now, a movie that so disturbed me as a child that I still have nightmares about leaving the boat.

I also think Jarhead looks promising. It'll depend on how close they kept the script to the book (but then, doesn't it always? )

[Blackmegabyte]

Jarhead was good! But despite its great casting and direction I still found it dissapointing. (spoiler free)
It's a war movie w/o the war (though there are a coupla explosions). Ok, maybe thats what happened during the first Iraq war but why should the audience suffer as the jarheads did, always waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting for the action to happen but it never does....

It's a cool idea but we've seen one too many things in Jarhead already:
-Every form of creative swear word imagineable
-Macho soldier bonding and pranks
-the boot camp scene is lifted straight outa Full Metal Jacket (and this DI sounds like his voice just broke! Totally unintimidating!)
-instead of soldiers being driven mad by their surroundings, like in Apocalypse Now, the soldiers in Jarhead are drive mad- by- their.... surroundings?
- Someone has to say "We'll be outta here in no time." like in Black Hawk Down.

Okay, now on to spoilers:

As an audience we do not see a single shot fired onscreen until the war and nearly the entire movie is over. Even though this movie contains footage of soldiers viewing The Deer Hunter and Apocalypse Now, it has no political message itself. To be fair the soldiers are more accurately dirven mad by their isolation and inactivity---- the desert is so damn hot, you can feel the heat coming off the screen- and at +120 its no wonder many were driven mad!

Otherwise 2 things are what make Jarhead great and watchable:
the dark comedy is very well handled! I loved it! Lots of laughs!
And the acting is quite good, hands down. The editor also did Apocalypse Now------- I feel this movie isnt as good as Sam Mendes previous two movies but it is good as a very differnt kind of war movie.

[Ronin]

It certainly sounds like an interesting route to take the film and I'd defo like to see it sometime, so I think I'll have to pick up a copy of it when I can.

[monkeyboy]

I agree with Blackmegabytes list.

I like old war movies. Most John Wayne flix are ok, and films like Lawrence of Arabia, Bridge on the River Kwai, Apocalypse Now, Stalag 17, Shindler's List and Das Boot are excellent. Also Gallipoli.
Japanese movies Ran, Seven Samurai you know-most Kurosawa war films you can't go wrong.

[GuyvarIII]

Some, not yet mentioned, great war films:

Pretty Village, Pretty Flame
Prisoner of the Mountain
The Dirty Dozen
Empire of the Sun
Hell in the Pacific
The Sand Pebbles
Zulu

And who doesn’t like the 1960s TV series “Combat!”?

[In_Gabriel_We_Trust]

Three Kings keeps popping up on my list.