War Films

[gunnar hendershow]

I would have to say Platoon is my personal favorite.

[VerbalPuke]

"Apocalypse Now: Redux" and "Cross Of Iron" top my list. "Redux" was an amazing experience in the movie theaters, and "Cross Of Iron" gets the nod for being one of the rarer films that explores the war from the German POV. Yeah, there have been recent movies that have done that as well, but they were more like dramas rather than war movies ("Downfall" is an AMAZING film however, heartily recommended for its potrayal of the last days of Berlin)

Although "Die Brüche" is a good film as well, however I don't think that it has survived the test of time that well. Very few war movies of the era have, in my opinion.

My folks just bought this Downfall flick, so with so many people endorsing it, I'll definitely give it a whirl. That Cross of Iron sounds pretty cool as well.

[Clawson]

I finally got around to picking up Platoon today. It's one of those movies that I can just pop in for 10 minutes before doing something else.

[apsham]

Band Of Brothers is for certain one of the greatest things to ever grace a television screen, and in all seriousness, I wish that we saw way more of David Schwimmer's character.

[Kwanzabot]

I echo the sentiments on the topic of Band of Brothers. Kick ass series, watched it about 5 months ago now.

I also say that 300 is probably the best movie I've watched for battles. Absolutely fantastic in every meaning of the term.

[Skummy]

I bought Samurai Commando Mission 1549 yesterday, actually. It's fucking ABSURD, I love it. It's utter B-Movie shite, and really not very good, but it's just so much fun. I love how little build-up or explanation there is too...it's like, three minutes into the film, and someone's already gone back in time. Five minutes of character building, two minutes of technobabble, and there's some more time travel. Every time someone gets hit with an arrow it's hilarious.

[CQI13]

Started watching "To End All Wars" the other night, about a group of Allied forces captured and forced to work on the railroads for the Japanese. It was late, and I can't deal with accents (without the subtitles) late at night, so I'll have to watch it again. My sister and her husband had rented it, and they both raved about it afterward.

[Skummy]

Empire Of The Sun; how fucking brilliant is that? I picked it up on DVD after going on a JG Ballard reading spree over the past few weeks, and it's fantastic, and I normally can't stand Spielberg - one of the more faithful book-to-film adaptations I've ever seen, and thus one of the best war movies I've ever seen. Obviously not a war movie in the sense that Platoon et al are war movies, closer to Downfall in that it's looking at a different side of war than the obvious battlefield aspect, as it follows the young Jamie's experiences in a Shanghai prison camp, essentially...and it features a fourteen year old Christian Bale giving one of the best performances of his life, and that's saying something.

Not to mention a bizarre list of cameos and small parts; JG Ballard himself, a pre-anyone-really-caring Ben Stiller and JOHN FUCKING NETTLES.

[Plankton]

Band of Brothers really is ridiculously good, but extremely depressing about the time they get to the medic episode. But then again, I can't think of any war films that are uplifting. I guess Black Book wasn't a downer, but that was more of a World War II era film than a war film. I don't think they showed any battles.

I just watched and bought Seven Samurai this year and was really surprised with how well the entire movie held up. It's not as if older movies can't still be enjoyable, but when you're watching a mid-50's film and you forget that fact at some point, that's pretty awesome no matter what the era. I would say it's so well-done it will hold up at any point in history.

[Skummy]

The only problem with Seven Samurai is that a lot of it can come across as clichéd watching it today - until you realise that, at the time, it wasn't cliché in the slightest. You kind of have to watch it out of the context of everything that followed.