The Classic War movie thread - Page 2

No Mans Land definitely deserves a place on this list, but I'm shocked that nobody has mentioned Ice-Cold In Alex!

I watched Kelly's Heroes last night. I hadn't seen it since I was a young teen about fifteen years ago. It's got some great set-pieces, a cool cast and a fun story but the running time just kills it. There's absolutely no reason for this film to be 144 minutes. Almost every scene goes on for too long and the characters, especially Terry Savalas' keep repeating themselves.

Sutherland as a WWII head would have been funnier and less annoying in small doses. I also didn't like the wink-wink spaghetti-western finale.

The Hank Williams Junior song sticks out like a sore thumb. I would've prefered more music from Lalo Schiffrin.

Clint Eastwood is cool, so was Terry Savalas and it's always fun to see Don Rickles.

It's worth a look but it would have been a classic if it had been cut to 120 minutes or less.

Check out Beach Red and see if it doesn't remind you of The Thin Red Line in more ways than one.

"Content is currently unavailable" for me. Probably because I'm in Canada. Is it good?

It's dated and weird, and it feels very much like Malick saw it. Here's the trailer.

I liked Sutherland, and a few moments in it, but overall it left me a little cold.

I know a lot of hydraulic noises sound the same ,but I'm sure the German tank turret sound was stolen from this movie to make the loader sounds from Aliens. The whole finally that's all I could think of.

I just watched Sands of Iwo Jima.

Yeesh. Maybe it just doesn't work in a post-SPR/BoB world, but overall almost everything that didn't have to deal directly with combat came across as fucking ludicrous.

I am starting to develop this personal thesis that after dismissing John Wayne on GP, I made a grievous error regarding his westerns; as for his WW II movies, he's 0-fer-2 so far (neither The Longest Day (which, to be fair to Wayne, is a cast of thousands failing to move me) nor SoIJ did much for me).

The Steel Helmet is one that I really remember. My Dad loves old war movies, so I've seen quite a few. Anzio is another great flick. Mitchum owns.

I have Anzio on DVD, but I still need to get The Steel Helmet.

Night Of The Generals is a great psycho thriller set during World War II. That one needs a proper DVD release.

...and unintentionally funny, the acting is bloody awful. Really, the only thing it has in common with Malick's The Thin Red Line is the use of the inner voices/narration of the soldiers. One of my favourites being "my eyes have gotten a lot worse, when i get home i''m going to get some new glasses, that is...IF I get home". Terry Malick, eat your heart out.

It's clearly the work of a director doing the best he can with a miniscule budget, during the battle sequences, he uses plenty of stock footage from two different sources, none of it matches up. There's some unusual cuts and heavy use of the zoom-in button, one soldier is remembering his wife and it cuts to a POV shot of him banging his wife, another soldier yearns to be with a woman so we get extreme zoom-ins and outs on some pin-ups.

Others are more succesful,the transition from the opening credits which consists of war paintings to the soldiers awaiting a a battle is very clever. Memories and flashbacks are often shown through snapshots, a soldier under fire thinks back to a soldier crushing a cockroach(close in, close out...and repeat) or when a japanese soldier is killed, we're shown a collection of family moments before his last breath, it's heavy handed but works.

It's one of most bizarre war films I've seen.

Those were the kinds of moments that reminded me of Malick's film. Certainly a clumsier execution, but it's also been 12 years since I've seen Thin Red Line so maybe it's not as similar as I recall.

I happened to catch Battle of the Bulge in 70mm this weekend on a curved screen in Bradford. The setup was awesome, the music was good, Robert Shaw was a badass... that's it, though.

The story's unfocused and just kind of... ends. Telly Savalas seems like he's auditioning to be the fifth member of the Rat Pack. The curve was unforgiving, it made the rear projection and model tanks stick out like a sore thumb.

Watch 'They Were Expendable'. One of the great WWII films, but relatively little-seen, surprising considering the combo of Wayne, John Ford, and Robert Montgomery.

It is a source of endless amusement to me that TBS/TNT, in order to honor our brave soldiers on Memorial Day, show The Dirty Dozen and Kelly's Heroes.

My favorite war movie is Battleground.