Ash Ketchum

Have you seen the first film in Ford's Cavalry trilogy, FORT APACHE (1948)? That's a thinly veiled reworking of the Custer story, with Henry Fonda as the Custer-type character and Wayne as his protesting second-in-command. One of Ford's finest, if you ask me. Miguel Inclan (Mexican actor from Luis Bunuel's LOS OLVIDADOS) plays Cochise. (Yes, it's about 900 miles south of Little Big Horn.)

Glad you finally saw THE SEARCHERS. What took you?

BobO'Link

Yes, I watched Fort Apache in the *2011*(!?!) Historical Challenge. It's part of a John Wayne/John Ford collection I purchased in December 09. I've been *slowly* working through it and finally finished all the films with the challenge this year. I enjoyed Fort Apache so much that I picked up a copy of Rio Grande, the third film of the trilogy. I really don't understand why *it* wasn't included in that set instead of one of the other titles.
Growing up, John Wayne films were seemingly a dime-a-dozen and I didn't consider myself much of a fan. I usually avoided his films and by my late teens had mostly given up westerns (although when younger watched lots of westerns - maybe I burned myself out - but I don't know for sure as I have no distinct memory of why/when I stopped watching them). It's only been in the past 10-15 years I've re-embraced the genre and have been catching up on some classics I missed over the years.

JOE29

Off of my list this year the best movie that I watched was
Pork Chop Hill- 1953. I didin't have any Korean War movies until I bought this one recently. It's Black & White and dark. And it's all war. I was pleasantly surprised that I liked it so much.
Runner Ups-
To Hell and Back- Always enjoyed the Audie Murphy story.
Fort Apache- My favorite John Wayne movie.

I wanted to get in some Eastwood or a good long movie like The Longest Day, Red Cliff etc. But I just didn't have time.
Plus cutting things short didn't help either.
But I enjoyed the Historical Challenge like I have every year and I look forward to it again next year.

shadokitty

Glad you enjoyed it. I think my favorite new view was an HBO documentary called Baghdad ER, about a combat support hospital over in Iraq.

omike

I also had a good time with this years challenge and was able to fit in just enough B-westerns to last me for a while. I particularly liked Tim Holt in the two westerns I saw him in, even though I didn't care for one of the films all that much. He's probably best know for playing one of the three prospectors in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre . I was pleasantly surprised by singing cowboy Jimmy Wakely who I also saw in two movies. He was an unknown to me except for the fact that he had a short DC comics series in the late 40's and early 50's. He had a wooden acting style but I liked his singing and the films had enough action for any ten year old.

The best things I saw were the four episodes of Planet Earth that I watched (especially Caves which was full of strange creatures) and Tora! Tora! Tora! which I hadn't seen before. I liked the docudrama approach the film took and also had a chance to watch a couple of the special feature documentaries.

Finally my biggest disappointment was that a few of the movies the the Mill Creek set I have were listed as color but were in murky black and white on the DVDs. Still at least one of them, High Lonesome, was pretty good and I later found it in color on YouTube.

Thanks to shadokitty for keeping this challenge going despite what I know must have been a difficult time.

shadokitty

I'm glad I was able to keep it going for others, even if life problems kept me from enjoy it as much as I normally do. I had Planet Earth on tap myself, but never got around to revisiting it.

davidh777

I wanted to grab an HBO series for vacation, and Rome was more convenient than Band of Brothers or Deadwood. I finished the first 10 episodes and am enjoying it, kinda like a poor man's Game of Thrones with its violence, nudity, and political intrigue (but without the level of characters and plotting). My knowledge of the history is mostly limited to Shakespeare so I'm interested in what's happening, and it doesn't hurt that I've been playing Ryse: Son of Rome as well.

I'll probably finish at least season 1 without "credit" then see when I want to tackle season 2.

shadokitty

I'm still not done with the challenge. When I'm not watching sports today, I plan to watch aviation documentaries and movies, as I'm getting excited about my upcoming vacation to Oshkosh, an annual pilgrimage.

shadokitty

I just want to know if I'm the only one still working unofficially on the challenge. I'm still watching documentaries, and considering true story movies too.

Trevor

Check your calendar.