BobO'Link

I pushed The Pacific off until today as I saw History Channel was rerunning their new 6 part documentary series The World Wars last night. I'd wanted to watch it last weekend but things just kept getting in the way so I started with it last night since it was easily available.

I'd read some reviews indicating there were *lots* of inacuracies in the series. Other than some anachronisms I really didn't see or hear any major issues. I was on the look out for some of those I'd read about but when they happened I really felt the reviewer wasn't paying attention to the program because I didn't hear what they heard, or interpreted it differently. Don't get me wrong as it's not a "great" series but *does* have some interesting information and condenses the two World Wars fairly well, of course at the expense of some major events and people being left out. Even so, it could be full of inaccurate information and I might not know as I've not studied those wars to the point that I know every battle, equipment, strategy or concession made.

My grandson watched some of it with me and was *full* of questions. For me, that spoke volumes. He was astounded that Hitler and his cronies would attack their *own* race in a effort to take over the country. When I tried to explain he kept saying "But it's their *own* people!"

Overall, it was entertaining and I felt I'd learned a couple of things when it was over. I'd never known Hitler almost died *twice* in WWI with one of those moments being the one that defined his look.

ntnon

With the new HBO-on-Amazon-Prime deal, I'm torn between Rome, Deadwood, Band of Brothers, Boardwalk Empire and John Adams... hmm....

Ash Ketchum

THE CARPETBAGGERS (1964), based on Harold Robbins' novel, starred George Peppard as a thinly-disguised version of Howard Hughes. Carroll Baker plays a thinly-disguised version of Jean Harlow and later played Harlow herself in...HARLOW! I think it's one of Peppard's best movies and it's also Alan Ladd's last movie. He plays cowboy star Nevada Smith. After Ladd's death, Steve McQueen starred in a prequel, NEVADA SMITH (1966). I forget who Smith was supposed to have been based on. Compare THE CARPETBAGGERS to DiCaprio and Scorsese's version of Hughes in THE AVIATOR: more historically accurate, maybe, but nowhere near as entertaining.

Another Peppard movie that qualifies is the WWII thriller, OPERATION CROSSBOW (1965), which has a superb English and Euro cast in it surrounding Peppard: Sophia Loren, Lilli Palmer, Trevor Howard, John Mills, Anthony Quayle, Richard Todd, Tom Courtenay, Richard Johnson. It's about the Brits' undercover mission to wipe out the factory making the V-2 rockets that were bombing London. Great stuff.

I saw both of these movies in theaters.

BobO'Link

I own, have watched, and highly recommend Band of Brothers, Deadwood, and Rome in that order (best to least best). I've not seen the other two.

bacigalup

Started off the challenge watching the WWI film from 1930 The Dawn Patrol, which dealt with the stress & guilt of the flight commander(Neil Hamilton) receives in only getting raw recruits from high command to fly against the Germans, which pretty much leads them to their deaths much to the ire of the squadron leader(Richard Barthelmess) who wants more seasoned vets. The table is turned however when the squadron leader assumes the commander's position & everything that comes with it.

Pretty good story, and the aeriel combat scenes came off quite well.
Also co-starred Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. and, believe it or not, James Finleyson of Laurel & Hardy fame!

A Farewell To Arms (1932) is a love story set against a backdrop of WWI Italy, with Gary Cooper playing an American ambulance driver, a lieutenant in the Italian army who falls in love with a British war nurse played by Helen Hayes. They separate & reunite in Milan, but when they separate again they lose contact with each other. Unbeknowing to the nurse, her letters sent to the lieutenant never get to him, for they are confiscated & stamped "return to sender" by his good friend Major Rinaldi (Adolph Menjou), who feels that he should not romantically involved with her(some friend!). The nurse goes to Switzerland to have his baby, while the lieutenant, risking desertion, goes back to Milan for her.

Very effective soaper; Cooper & Hayes are very charismatic together on screen.

Who wrote Menjou's lines? Seems like whenever he talks to Cooper every other word comes out BABY! Is that how Hemingway wrote the character in the book? It reminded me of Dick Shawn in IAMMMMW!

By the way both movies were remade. The Dawn Patrol was remade in the late 30's under the same name, but the original was renamed Flight Commander to avoid confusion.
A Farewell To Arms was remade a couple of times, though the one I remember was the one made in the 50's with Rock Hudson.

Doc Moonlight

One of the films I've championed in previous years, the Polish national epic "Knights of the Black Cross" (aka "Knights of the Teutonic Order") is available for free streaming in it's proper aspect ratio and with English subtitles here:

http://en.gloria.tv/?media=311438

Picture is fuzzy, but the aspect ratio is correct and the film is complete (241 minutes).

JOE29

Hopefully get in two more tonight. Going to put on the Anzio dvd in a few minutes. Then if i'm still awake! go on to one of my Asian war flicks, Warlords or Genghis Khan.

Who is getting Lone Survivor on Tuesday? I'm looking at it very closely. If the price is right I sure will pick it up.

LJG765

Finally watched my first. "Gigantic (A Tale of Two Johns)" and no, it's not about the porn industry. It's about the band, They Might Be Giants. I recently discovered the title in the OOP thread and since it was under $10 shipped, decided to grab it before it went up in price.

While a bit dated, made in 2002, it was a good history of the band. While I love their music, I knew very little about the band itself. A bit quirky, they actually had a lot of firsts. First alternative band on MTV. First band to sell a complete album electronically only...they've done a bunch of theme songs for shows (not just "Malcom in the Middle's.") I only found out about them because a cousin liked them-never realized how popular they really were or how wide spread they were in mainstream.

While the movie did not cover this being 12 years old, they are still very active as a band; a new CD was just released in the last week and have been a band for over 30 years.

mrcellophane

RE: No Country for Old Men as neo-western
Thanks! I'm interested in revisiting the film (which I last saw when it was first released) and vaguely recalled that it is set up like a western and uses motifs and tropes from that genre.

I got off to a good start yesterday. I started with Christopher and His Kind (2011), a biopic of Christopher Isherwood. Matt Smith (and his hair) plays Isherwood, a gay British author who lived in Germany during the rise of the Nazi party and whose works became the basis of the musical Cabaret. Toby Jones shows up as a writer/marketeer, and Imogen Poots plays the basis of Sally Bowles.

Next, I watched Gate of Hell (1953), a Japanese film about Moritoh a warrior samurai who falls in love with Kesa a lady-in-waiting who masquerades as the emperor's sister during a rebellion. Due to his valor in breaking the rebellion, Moritoh is granted a wish and asks for Kesa who is already married. Despite this, he becomes obsessed with her, and things get scary. I wasn't prepared for the intensity of the film, nor just how complicated and unheroic the main character would be.

ntnon

Thanks! Should work out well - I've half-heartedly, tentatively and subject to whim decided to go for them in historical order: Rome first. So, things should even improve if I get beyond the one show..!

Ash Ketchum

I'm assuming you watched the Criterion DVD? It looks just beautiful.

For decades I'd labored under the belief that GATE OF HELL was Japan's first color feature. But about five years ago I learned of CARMEN COMES HOME (1951), which really was Japan's first color feature, and I managed to order an English-subbed DVD of it from a Hong Kong company. Man, is it beautiful. GATE OF HELL would count as the first Japanese color feature to be distributed overseas. (It won an Honorary Oscar for Best Foreign Language feature.)

CARMEN COMES HOME:


GATE OF HELL:

JOE29

Caught a documentary on the NFL Network about the beginning of the American Football League starting in 1960. Some great highlights from the first two seasons in the league. Mostly B&W then, with the introduction of the color TV, obviously, they went to color. Great stuff.

bacigalup

Had finished Wing And A Prayer, a 1944 WWII drama starring Don Ameche & Dana Andrews, but the Mets game on TV has distracted me enough to put off anymore movie watching for tonight.

Tomorrow, the 1950 war comedy When Willie Comes Marching Home, directed by John Ford.

mrcellophane

I did watch the Criterion DVD which I was fortunate enough to find at Hastings for $5.00+tax. I agree that the film is beautiful. The colors are very vibrant, especially the costumes. The Criterion cover features a drawing of Lady Kesa in the same orange and green robes in the photo you provided. I feel that if the film were more widely known, this costume would be iconic.

I'll have to keep my eye out for Carmen Comes Home. I read the description, and it sounds very interesting.

Travis McClain

You need bourbon.

If you have a specific example, you can run it by the rest of the group, but my policy is that I'm not going to micromanage what anyone takes a chance on watching. If you feel that the information you have about it seems to be in the spirit of the challenge, go for it. If there are any red flags that it's too fantastic, I'd advise you to defer it for another, more appropriate challenge.

I am. It's part of my charm.

BobO'Link

I've been watching The Pacific and finding it to be less compelling than Band of Brothers. Mind you, it's *not* "bad" but it's frequently rather slow and often plays much like a soap opera or romantic drama type program rather than a war document as we see far more "shore leave" time than you might expect. I guess I expected to see *lots* more action than is presented with detailed accounts of what it's like to hunt down the Japanese soldiers in the island jungles. There *is* some of that but for every minute of action/battle footage there's 10 minutes of watching people eat/talk/sleep/date/walk/sit around/etc. There's not the immediacy that was there with Band of Brothers.

The series open with the battle on Guadalcanal was rather truncated and didn't show much other than setting up the hero, John Basilone, who we then follow on his US tour to sell war bonds and witness his dissatisfaction with a non-combative existence. The portions of the series that follows two other Marines is more often a character study of how soldiers turn into something other than the men who enlisted than what happened in battle.

I think part of the issue I'm having is we don't follow a group of soldiers, like is done with Band of Brothers, but rather get a series of somewhat disjointed events based on the experiences of the primary three men involved. Where Band of Brothers was a continuing narrative built from the memories of several men in a squad this is three different views of the War in the Pacific. It's a very different type of narrative and actually causes you to think more about the individual and how war affects a person.

Does that mean i don't like the series? No... I actually *do* like what I've seen so far but it's absolutely *not* what I was expecting.

I have 2 episodes left in the series and so far my most major complaint is they take up *7* of the ~50 minute episode run times with open and closing credits!

JennandTheCats

So far I've only watched three but they've all been documentaries. Maybe that's my theme!

Travis McClain

Get on with your bad, doc-watching self! :P

mrcellophane

Yesterday, I decided to check out The Buccaneers (1995), a BBC miniseries based on Edith Wharton's final and unfinished novel. This was adapted by a Wharton scholar who used the notes and outline the author left to flesh out and finish the story. At the time, it created a stir due to the addition of "modern" and "sensational" aspects to the story such as homosexuality and marital rape. I don't have a strong understanding of Wharton's work; I've only read a couple collections of short stories, The Age of Innocence, and The House of Mirth. However, these additions worked for me (and believe me, I was skeptical) and helped really establish that the world Wharton is exploring is horribly oppressive to most individuals. Basically, the story follows American women from "new money" families, who journey to Britain in order to find husbands. Unfortunately, a lot of drama and shattered illusions ensue. It's a criticism of the society that beats these women down and often puts them in perilous positions.

I would definitely recommend the miniseries to anyone interested in those sprawling epics. It's worth seeing and available on Netflix.

JOE29

Managed to get in a few this weekend ( when I was home that is ) but work is kicking in a bit. May not be able to do much for the rest of the week. Maybe one a day, if i'm lucky.

shadokitty

Yesterday I revisited one of my favorite movie of all time, Tora! Tora! Tora!, as I had it in my Netflix queue.

BobO'Link

I finished The Pacific last night. Those last two episodes were intense with some heart-wrenching moments. While I feel it's not a "instant classic" like Band of Brothers it's quite good. I also think it's one that needs more than a single viewing to fully appreciate everything that occurs. I still wish a couple of the romantic interludes were shorter or gone as they don't truly have anything to do with final outcomes. The one that annoyed me most was with Robert Leckie on leave in Australia where he meets Stella. They break it off before he ships out but, because of the length and detail in that section, I fully expected him to try and get her to America once the war ended.

I discovered right before watching those last two episodes that *each* episode has a "historical perspective" introduction that you can only see by selecting the individual episodes to play and playing from a special start menu item rather than the default selection. I tend to breeze through menus and had totally missed that selection on the other discs. Those on the last two episodes added depth to the episodes. When I re watch this one I'll be sure to include those before skipping the *three minute* opening credits (which look to be exactly the same on every episode).

The Pacific was fairly draining and I need a pick-me-up of sorts... I think I'm going to get in a few westerns or perhaps start on a BBC documentary set I picked up a few months back. It has Life, Ganges, Wild China, Galapagos, and Life in Cold Blood. I've seen Life but the others will be new. I also have a copy of Frozen Planet to watch.

shadokitty

Wild China is good. I watched it last month. I also have Galapagos, Frozen Planet, Yellowstone, as well as some others.

I may or may not have net access for a day or so tomorrow. Due to an unexpected bill, our phone bill payment was returned, and declined. It was partially our phone company's fault for not taking it out for days after it was due though.

bacigalup

Watched 2 great movies today in Guadalcanal Diary & Sergeant York. Tonight's viewing will be The Battle of the Bulge.

Giles

I'm all for binge watching, but watching all of 'The Pacific' roughly in two days times does sound draining. It's supposed to be seen over the course of several nights - I'm starting it tonight.

saw the fantastic D-Day: Normandy 1944 (3D) (IMAX):