The Five Best War Movies Ever

Marcks

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Re: 5 favorite war movies

Originally posted by hogdriver
Dr. Strangelove: Slim Pickens riding the H-bomb down to the target, George C. Scott as the oversexed USAF Chief of Staff, a young James Earl Jones as the bomb-nav, and Peter Sellers as the President AND Dr Strangelove AND Group Captain Mandrake. Honorable mention to General Ripper ("I do not avoid women, but I deny them my essence"). One of Kubrick's big scores.
Great movie, indeed, and Peter Sellers outdoes himself.
 
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P-51'S MOVIE

The movie you've been trying to remember is "None but the Brave", directed by none other than Frank Sinatra.

Also I'm glad to see someone else liked "Zulu", because not only is it one of the few movies filmed on the actual ground the real battle was fought on ("Gettysburg" is the only other one I can recall), but it is a personal favorite of director Peter Jackson who incorporated its feel to the Helm's Deep battle sequence in "The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers". Talk about reality affecting popular culture.

Lastly I had forgotten about "Sahara", an OK movie, but cool because the used a real Grant tank in it.
 
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Marcks on "Patton"

I have to agree with you about "Patton". While I did enjoy George C. Scott's portrayal of "Old Blood & Guts" I just couldn't get past The "60's us tank inventory in German markings. I find this a failing in "The Battle of the Bulge" as well. Anyone else have problems with this? I think that's one of the reasons "Saving Private Ryan" & "Band of Brothers" are so universally well received, the German panzers look real.
 
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Movie authenticity

While I'm on my high horse of authenticity I'll just comment briefly about "Braveheart". It's a movie I truly like, but could not put on my list because how can you have a Battle of Stamford Bridge without a bridge?.........
 

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A few weeks ago I got hands on a DVD box set of Combat! . I´m sure all the americans here know the series ;), I only learned about it now ( :sleep: ). I have a question, does anybody know how many parts were shot of this series? [/B]
Hi Marc. Gee, I wonder where you found out about Combat:terms: Quit lurking and register; everybody else has.:banana:

Here's the Combat! web page:

http://www.jodavidsmeyer.com/combat/episodes/episodes.html

It has it's flaws, such as Sergeant Saunders has enough Purple Hearts to open a scrap iron yard, but you got to remember this series ran in 1962, and it's still one of the best war series going.

There's a synopsis there of every episode ever shot, four seasons worth at 30 or so episodes a season. Some are mediocre, and some are excellent.

This is the series every kid of the Vietnam War generation grew up watching. It was unique for it's time in that it portrayed German soldiers as humans, instead of fanatical nazi goons.
 

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Yeah, I watched Combat growing up. It did for war what Rawhide did for westerns -- grounded its portrayal in realism. In fact it was so real to me that I was confused while growing up whether we were still fighting a continuation of WW2 or not.

Movie list:

Paths of Glory (1957)
Patton (1970)
Glory (1989)
Braveheart (1995)
Saving Private Ryan (1998)

Hmm, I haven't seen Paths of Glory, though I've heard of it.
Patton is still way cool to me, and I ignore the tank flap -- G. Scott does an excellent interpretation of Patton.
Glory is great for two things: showing the brutal upclose nature of a firefight in the Civil War and showing the awful assault on Fort Fisher in the end. It would be interesting to show a movie concerning the black units that fought for the Confederacy!
A war movie with an overwhelmingly political message concerning the role of black people during that time period.
Braveheart -- a bunch of ahistorical crap? No evidence for the face painting (much earlier time period for that) and the manufactured romance was absurd.
Saving Private Ryan -- a landmark movie despite its critics in advancing war movies to a new level of realism in terms of authentic depictions of battle and period weapons. They failed on some levels, but succeeded much more brilliantly than many other modern war movies.

My list:
Just because they come to mind, in no particular order:
1.) Das Boot
2.) Zulu
3.) Black Hawk Down
4.) Hamburger Hill
5.) A Bridge Too Far

My list of "baddies":
1.) Enemy at the Gates (read the book and don't bother with
this poor excuse for a movie -- if you must watch it, cut it off after the scene where the Russian troops cross the Volga).
2.) Battle of the Bulge (1965) -- I mean, it was pretty silly, wasn't it? Surely someone could do a better movie about the BOB.
3.) The Lost Command -- ostensibly about the French paras (Foreign Legion) in Algeria. It's a real yawner ... I don't remember much of it.
4.) ... hmm, can't thing of anymore. Even BOB and Lost Command have their merits. Enemy at the Gates -- what a cheat. Made me mad they took one stupid chapter from the book and hung a movie around it, especially considering the sniper story might just be a Russian P.R. tale.
 

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Boar, if ya got cable; ya got Combat. It runs M-F at 1200 EST on the Encore Action channel, uncut and uninterupted. I'm taping them all.
 

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Coming soon to a theater near you

PT-109 Redux starring Johnny Depp as the young Lt. (jg) John F. Kerry, the hero of the Mekong river, who lifted his wounded buddy out of the water with his teeth and towed him to safety.

Susan Sarandon as the young Ketchup heiress who captured his heart and helped him exorcise the demons that compelled him to volunteer to fight an immoral war.

Tim Robbins as his drug addicted war buddy, lost for decades but found again when JFK needed a witness to his heroism to testify during the primaries.

Stay tuned for the sequel, as the JFK for the 21st century, John F Kerry, decorated war hero, rebuilds Camelot with his lovely wife and leads us back into the age of innocence that was the fabulous '60s.
 

11b10

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BOAR-

quote-


"Hmm, I haven't seen Paths of Glory, though I've heard of it."




Whoa dude .....a must see...one of Kubrics better movies..



hint......."grunts get screwed again".
 

Marcks

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Originally posted by Doggie
Hi Marc. Gee, I wonder where you found out about Combat:terms: Quit lurking and register; everybody else has.:banana:
Haha, it was on CC HQ actually, some time back. Got it from Ebay (US) , looking for war movies. I remember a few buddies mentioning the series one time, so I simply bought the box set.

Here's the Combat! web page:

http://www.jodavidsmeyer.com/combat/episodes/episodes.html

It has it's flaws, such as Sergeant Saunders has enough Purple Hearts to open a scrap iron yard, but you got to remember this series ran in 1962, and it's still one of the best war series going.

There's a synopsis there of every episode ever shot, four seasons worth at 30 or so episodes a season. Some are mediocre, and some are excellent.

This is the series every kid of the Vietnam War generation grew up watching. It was unique for it's time in that it portrayed German soldiers as humans, instead of fanatical nazi goons. [/B]
Thanks for the link, very interesting, seems the DVD box set is all mixed up, for example "The gun" is the first episode on DVD 1 :rolleyes: , hmmm. Must be because it´s an asian production. Turning of the "english for asians" subtitles is a blast anyway.

Is there a US made DVD box set, I never found one? Also does anybody know if there is a "The Black Sheeps" DVD set? Gezz, I loved that series.

Combat! is pretty good IMHO, typicall "sunday afternoon" series ;) very entertaining, it has it´s flaws, but I like it.
 

Senior Drill

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Combat! was great! Although fighting for four years in the vicinity of St. Lo got to be a little much. And you would not want to be in Saunder's squad, as usually only the six main charaters made it through an episode. The rest were the second dead guy from the left.

My weekend movie list would be, in no particular order:

  1. The Longest Day
  2. The Seige of Fire Base Gloria
  3. Kelly's Hero's
  4. The Rough Riders
  5. Gettysburg
    [/list=1]
 

Boar

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Can't forget Kelly's Heroes! One of my favs. Another new fav is When Trumpets Fade -- gritty movie. I've never seen Siege of Firebase Gloria (Khe Sanh?).

Where Eagles dare is such great fun -- I can watch it over and over. And then there's always The Guns Of Navaronne.
 

Eric Weider

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Would someone volunteer to compile a list of all the movies mentioned here and we'll post them for easy future reference...probably we print them in the mag too!
 

Hinton6969

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War movies

Bridge too Far
Midway
Saving Private Ryan, the first 25 minutes
Black Hawk Down
Thirty Seconds over Tokyo

Pearl Harbor (kidding)

Anyone here watch "War Stories with Oliver North"?
 

paul mullin

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my top 5

12 o'clock high - They used this film in leadership and management school in the service.

full metal jacket

tora tora tora

a cross of iron

saving private ryan

the five worst would be

platoon- yes anyone can be shot 3,000 times by an ak47 and keep running.

topgun

pearl harbor

appocalypse now- to hippie.

casualties of war

kelly,s heros- it turned the war into a joke.
 

Doggie

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Originally posted by Marcks


Is there a US made DVD box set, I never found one? Also does anybody know if there is a "The Black Sheeps" DVD set? Gezz, I loved that series.

I've seen a few VHS sets at Blockbuster, but that's about it. Are all the episodes on DVD in color? The series started out in black and white and switched to color around '63 or so. Even here next to Fort Bragg, it's a rare thing to see this series on TV. I haven't seen some of them since they originally ran on ABC.

As for Black Sheep Squadron I don't think anybody ever got around to making a box set of that either. Another victim of the "don't expose our precious children to war stories" mentality.


Originally posted by Senior Drill

Combat! was great! Although fighting for four years in the vicinity of St. Lo got to be a little much.
Actually they did progress into the Ardennes later on in the series.
A couple of episodes were set near the Alps:crazy: just so they could put real life Olympic skier Pierre Jalbert (Caje) on skis.

Midway? Can't agree with that one. It was made up of outakes from Tora, Tora Tora left on the cutting room floor.
Heston takes off from Enterprise in an F6F, flies to the target in an SB2C, drops his bomb from a Vindicator, flys back in a TBF, and finally crashes on the deck in an F9F-9 Panther jet.:rolleyes: For an aviation enthusiast, this is just too much to take.

platoon- yes anyone can be shot 3,000 times by an ak47 and keep running.

Believe or not, I actually have met a couple of people who have been shot multiple times with an AK and have lived to tell about, with no ill effects but the scars. One of the problems with both the AK and M-16 is sometimes the full metal jacket high velocity rounds go through and through soft tissue without doing much damage.

Where Eagles Dare? Sorry, the Germans never, ever had Bell 47 helicopters. This is another one of those '60s movies where all the actors looked kewl in their German officer's uniforms.
 

Boar

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Kelly's Heroes, Where Eagles Dare, Dirty Dozen, Catch-22, and Slaughterhouse Five are all part of the same mix of fantasy and/or humor along with the WW2 setting. If you can't take fantasy or humor there's something wrong with you. Still, I'll admit not all the above are to everyone's taste.

Haven't seen anyone mention Soldier of Orange. Early Verhoven effort with almost none of his later excesses -- fairly straightforward realistic portrayal of the Dutch in WW2. Along a similar line Polanski's "The Pianist" was both more and less painful than I thought it'd be. I mean it was watchable -- just barely in places -- for such a painful subject. The most astounding thing to me was the realism was not exaggerated. During the "making of" documentary they showed German war footage which showed some of the scenes depicted in the movie were not at all made up!

Oh, and there's always "Is Paris Burning?" Fascinating book and a good film.
 

11b10

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Boar-


quote-


"Catch-22, and Slaughterhouse Five "



Double plus good movies..






quote-

"The Pianist"

Glad you saw that, remember I recommended it.





quote-


"Is Paris Burning?"


The reason I remember that film is because I saw it in high school when we first skipped school and had some transportation to get to a movie (Ann Arbor).
 
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