Movies for Veterans' Day

[JAL]

Agree with Kut...Glory is excellent...The only problem with To Hell and Back is Audie Murphy looked too young and baby faced to be playing Audie Murphy...

This one is good as well...

[video=youtube;WbK4WTQFf9U]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WbK4WTQFf9U[/video]

Yes . . . Glory (1989) is a glaring omission. Along that same vein, John Huston's The Red Badge of Courage (1951) is also missing. I did not know about Max Manus: Man of War (2008). The Audie Murphy film is OK (I've seen it) and it certainly celebrates his heroism, but IMO not a standout compared to many others. Audie Murphy struggled immensely with PTSD before there was much of any successful effort to treat it. For those that want to know his story, To Hell and Back is the definitive movie based on his autobiography.

John

 

[indiucky]

Is that US military uniforms thru the years?
I see WW1, WW2 and Vietnam era uniforms.

Yes sir...From Revolutionary War on through Vietnam....I had to scramble to get the guys I was able to get together...That's me representing one of George Rogers Clark's men...Our town is named for him and he founded our town after the Revolution.....His younger brother William Clark was co captain of the Lewis and Clark Expedition...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Rogers_Clark

He was successful due to help from our French Allies in Vincennes... I had an ancestor that served with him on my mother's side in a later campaign...

Illinois campaign[edit]

Main article: Illinois campaign
In 1777, the Revolutionary War intensified in Kentucky. British lieutenant governor Henry Hamilton armed his Indian allies from his headquarters at Fort Detroit, encouraging them to wage war on the Kentucky settlers in hopes of reclaiming the region as their hunting ground. The Continental Army could spare no men for an invasion in the northwest or for the defense of Kentucky, which was left entirely to the local population.[SUP][17][/SUP] Clark spent several months defending settlements against the Indian raiders as a leader in the Kentucky County militia, while developing his plan for a long-distance strike against the British. His strategy involved seizing British outposts north of the Ohio River to destroy British influence among their Indian allies.[SUP][12][/SUP][SUP][18][/SUP]
In December 1777, Clark presented his plan to Virginia's Governor Patrick Henry, and he asked for permission to lead a secret expedition to capture the British-held villages at Kaskaskia, Cahokia, and Vincennes in the Illinois country. Governor Henry commissioned him as a lieutenant colonel in the Virginia militia and authorized him to raise troops for the expedition.[SUP][12][/SUP][SUP][19][/SUP]Clark and his officers recruited volunteers from Pennsylvania, Virginia, and North Carolina. The men gathered in early May near the Falls of the Ohio, south of Fort Pitt. The regiment spent about a month along the Ohio River preparing for its secret mission.[SUP][12][/SUP]Patrick Henry had been a leading land speculator before the Revolution in lands west of the Appalachians where Virginians had sought control from the Indians, including George Washington and Thomas Jefferson.[SUP][20][/SUP]
In July 1778, Clark and about 175 men crossed the Ohio River at Fort Massac and marched to Kaskaskia, capturing it on the night of July 4 without firing their weapons.[SUP][21][/SUP] The next day, Captain Joseph Bowman and his company captured Cahokia in a similar fashion without firing a shot. The garrison at Vincennes along the Wabash River surrendered to Clark in August.[SUP][12][/SUP] Several other villages and British forts were subsequently captured, after most of the French-speaking and Indian inhabitants refused to take up arms on behalf of the British. To counter Clark's advance, Hamilton recaptured the garrison at Vincennes, which the British called Fort Sackville, with a small force in December 1778.[SUP][22][/SUP][SUP][23][/SUP]
Prior to initiating a march on Fort Detroit, Clark used his own resources and borrowed from his friends to continue his campaign after the initial appropriation had been depleted from the Virginia legislature. He re-enlisted some of his troops and recruited additional men to join him. Hamilton waited for spring to begin a campaign to retake the forts at Kaskaskia and Cahokia, but Clark planned another surprise attack on Fork Sackville at Vincennes.[SUP][12][/SUP] He left Kaskaskia on February 6, 1779 with about 170 men, beginning an arduous overland trek, encountering melting snow, ice, and cold rain along the journey. They arrived at Vincennes on February 23 and launched a surprise attack on Fort Sackville. Hamilton surrendered the garrison on February 25 and was captured in the process. The winter expedition was Clark's most significant military achievement and became the basis of his reputation as an early American military hero.[SUP][24][/SUP][SUP][25][/SUP]
News of Clark's victory reached General George Washington, and his success was celebrated and was used to encourage the alliance with France. General Washington recognized that Clark's achievement had been gained without support from the regular army in men or funds.[SUP][26][/SUP] Virginia also capitalized on Clark's success, laying claim to the Old Northwest by calling it Illinois County, Virginia.[SUP][27][/SUP]

 

[JAL]

Our town did a special event for Veterans Sunday.......

Is that US military uniforms thru the years?
I see WW1, WW2 and Vietnam era uniforms.

Yes . . . third one back with the medic arm band looks like Spanish-American War and Boxer Rebellion era. The WWI (4th one back) should also cover the Mexican Expedition. Second one back is Civil War as he's holding a kepi. War of 1812 is missing.

As a piece of trivia regarding the US Army blue uniform . . .
The reason all but flag officers have sky blue trousers and dark blue coats dates to the original blue uniforms circa Civil War and slightly earlier. The trousers were worn at all times, but for fatigue duty and in hot weather, particularly in the southwest, they removed the coats. The trousers would fade considerably in the sun compared to the coats, which remained much darker, resulting in a two-tone uniform. For that same reason, general officers wear coats and trousers of the same dark blue color (the trousers also have a pair of narrow gold stripes down each side instead of a single broad one).

John

 

[indiucky]

War of 1812 is missing.

Yeah we had a no show....I figured I could have ditched the hat and covered both lol....

And no Kirk I am not wearing a breech cloth...I have breeches on......

 

[JAL]

The Battle of Algiers is a great movie too.

Superb film . . . related to French Algeria on the eve of the Algerian Plebiscite for its independence and source of considerable political turmoil and violence in France at the time. Many lessons to be learned there regarding an insurgency and how winning the battle can lose the war. The style is documentary which fits the subject material perfectly. I believe another of Pontecorvo's films, Kapò, about a Kapo in a concentration camp, is on the list in the third section. Debated about the Benigni film, but it's superb and in a similar class as Schindler's List, Boy in the Striped Pajamas, and Kapò regarding the concentration camps. Benigni is an Italian comedian and Life is Beautiful is a real shift from his normal work. He took some grief over his treatment of the war, concentration camps and concentration camp prisoners, but IMHO he struck an incredible balance. The movie won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film.

On the political end . . . for the third grouping . . . those who have never seen Charlie Chaplin's The Great Dictator (1940) should do so. It is a masterpiece. Allegedly, Hitler was utterly livid about it. The Three Stooges had already taken a swipe at Hitler in a comedy short, and Fritz Lang's 1933 The Testament of Dr. Mabuse (a sequel to his 1922 silent Dr. Mabuse, the Gambler) had some indirect allusions to Hitler and the Nazis that resulted in it being banned in Germany just as it was to be released. Lang ultimately fled Germany along with others and eventually made his way to Hollywood.

John

 

[Sylvain]

I don't know why Schindler's List (1993) was left off. It should have been in the third group. Along the same vein is the The Pianist (2002). Another French film I forgot to include in the third grouping is Jean-Pierre Jeunet's A Very Long Engagement (2004) about a woman who searches for her fiancé who went missing during WWI. Renoir's The Rules of the Game (1939) is about complacency regarding the rise of Nazi Germany among the wealthy French upper-classes. It is a companion to his La Grande Illusion (1937). They are considered among the best films ever made. I was pleasantly surprised to find Jean Renoir was son of the famous Impressionist painter, Pierre-Auguste Renoir. I didn't inlcude "Rules" as its relationship to WWI and WWII was very indirect unless someone were familiar with the film and French society of the era.

Two notable films made in Europe during the middle of WWII . . .
A film that doesn't touch on war or military itself, but is significant as it was made during the occupation is Marcel Carné's "The Children of Paradise". That this 3:10 epic length film (in two parts) ever got made in occupied France from 1943-1945 is nothing short of miraculous. In Germany during the middle of WWII, it's nothing short of a miracle Josef von Báky (Hungarian) was able to make Münchhausen (1943). The movie celebrated UFA's 25th anniversary of film making and was shot using Agfa's new Agfacolor film. Set in 18th Century Europe, it's completely devoid of any political symbolism or themes, which is astounding given the extreme control the Nazi Propaganda Ministry (Joseph Goebbels) exerted over all art forms. Terry Gilliam made his own version of Munchausen (1988, spelled with one "h"), and it's good, but IMHO the 1943 produced by UFA is the definitive one. (Two others: a 1911 French silent by Méliès, and the 1961 Czech one by Karel Zemen.)

Regarding French Cinema . . .
About 5% of my (very large) film library is French (about 20% of it is non-English from other than the US, UK, Canada, Australia or New Zealand). Martin Scorcese's Hugo (2011) celebrates the silents made by Georges Méliès' prior to WWI, most of which are lost now (not by war). A student of general cinema must study Francois Truffaut, both his criticisms and his films (Day for Night, aka La Nuit américaine, 1973 is one of my favorites). A student of Comedy cannot ignore Jacques Tati (his "Holiday" and "Oncle" are my two favorites). Likewise, one cannot study Film-noir and ignore films by Clouzot, Bresson, or Truffaut, and especially Jules Dassin, Jean-Luc Godard and Jean-Pierre Melville. Hollywood didn't have a lock on Film-noir, which has its roots in German Impressionist Cinema during the inter-bellum Weimar Republic. The French carried the sub-genre from the 1950's into the 1960's and 1970's. Anyone who has seen William Friedkin's Sorcerer (1977) should see the original, Clouzot's Wages of Fear (1953). Among the more contemporary films, Luc Besson and Jean-Pierre Jeunet have been most impressive, along with the rise of French animations with The Triplets of Belleville, Persepolis, A Cat in Paris, April and the Extraordinary World, Long Way North, Phantom Boy, and The Red Turtle. Anyone into Steam Punk would love the production design in "Extraordinary World". Finally, anyone who likes animated Science Fiction should see Fantastic Planet (1977). Those into silents that have seen the original Fritz Lang Metropolis (1927) and its Bauhaus production design would also like Marcel L'Herbier's 1924 L'Inumaine with its Art Deco production design.

As that paragraph drifts off of the thread I should, perhaps, put together some recommendations regarding non-Anglo films. There's a wealth of excellent and compelling movies. They require a willingness to watch subtitles (with rare exception, English dubbing does very poorly). These are films you'll never see in a theater unless you live very near an Art House that specializes in them. Mainstream theater audiences in the US won't tolerate subtitles. Today I've been watching Werner Herzog's The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser (1974; auf Deutsch: Jeder für sich und Gott gegen alle; lit. Each for Himself and God Against All), a German period film set in the early 19th Century telling the well-known story (among Germans) about the foundling, Kaspar Hauser. Werner Herzog, along with Fritz Lang, Francois Truffaut, Luis Buñuel, Federico Fellini, Ingmar Bergman, Andrei Tarkovsky, and Akira Kurosawa are among the greatest of non-Anglo film makers that immediately come to mind.

John

I know most of the French movies and directors you named but it looks like you could teach me a thing or two about French cinema.
I can't stand dubbed movie and used to watch all American movies dubbed in French when I was younger.
That's my love for American cinema (and TV shows) that helped me learn English to the point where I became fluent enough to watch them all in English without subtitles.
Besides the language itself you lose many cultural references and puns when you watch a dubbed movie.
Over the years I have re-discovered many classic movies by watching them in English for the first time in decades.
Speaking of Luc Besson not all his movies are in French, actually many are in English featuring US or British actors.
So you can still enjoy French cinema even if you don't speak/understand French.
I bet many Americans don't know that The Fifth Element is a French movie.Leon the professional is another great Besson movie filmed entirely in English with US actor (well expect for Jean Reno).
Same for Taken, Lucy, The Messenger and many other Besson movies.

Speaking of French animation I recently saw Despicable and The Minions.It's a US film but the director is French.You get some hints of Frenchness when you watch it, uncluding some of the minions speaking a bit of French mixed up with made-up language.

 

[JAL]

Yeah we had a no show....I figured I could have ditched the hat and covered both lol....

And no Kirk I am not wearing a breech cloth...I have breeches on......

Some of us noted that.

Great that you had a War of 1812 planned, even if missing for this. Is there anyone for the Mexican War? Those two plus the Spanish American can be tough to pull together with decent accuracy. There's usually a gap from Civil War to WWI in a display like this. It's great to see this with folks that can talk about the different aspects of the uniforms and equipment they have, and how they were used.

John

 

[JAL]

I know most of the French movies and directors you named but it looks like you could teach me a thing or two about French cinema.
I can't stand dubbed movie and used to watch all American movies dubbed in French when I was younger.
That's my love for American cinema (and TV shows) that helped me learn English to the point where I became fluent enough to watch them all in English without subtitles.
Besides the language itself you lose many cultural references and puns when you watch a dubbed movie.
Over the years I have re-discovered many classic movies by watching them in English for the first time in decades.
Speaking of Luc Besson not all his movies are in French, actually many are in English featuring US or British actors.
So you can still enjoy French cinema even if you don't speak/understand French.
I bet many Americans don't know that The Fifth Element is a French movie.Leon the professional is another great Besson movie filmed entirely in English with US actor (well expect for Jean Reno).
Same for Taken, Lucy, The Messenger and many other Besson movies.

Speaking of French animation I recently saw Despicable and The Minions.It's a US film but the director is French.You get some hints of Frenchness when you watch it, uncluding some of the minions speaking a bit of French mixed up with made-up language.

The Despicable Me villain, Gru, has some elements of the French gangsters, especially with the code of conduct.

Luc Besson is one of the more recent cross-overs. I've seen a number of his films including The Fifth Element, Taken, and Lucy. La Femme Nikita and Leon the Professional are in the pile to watch and was thinking all this time that Leon was in French . The Messenger is on the acquisition list.

Jules Dassin crossed over in the opposite direction in exile. After doing a number of magnificent Film-noir in Hollywood he was black-listed during the McCarthy HUAC hearings. Moving to France, the US Government tried its best to keep him unemployed there, leaning on various governments diplomatically to dump him from film projects. He eventually directed Rififi (1955) which was originally to be done by Jean-Pierre Melville, the master of French gangster "heist" Film-noir. Dassin's movie is most noted for a quarter of the film containing the heist itself without any dialog whatsoever. That was followed by films in France, Italy, a number of them in Greece, and another in Turkey (Topkapi). He eventually returned to the U.S. but his major contribution to French cinema was Rififi and how he transformed a nearly impossible novel into a successful film with very little budget. Francois Truffaut remarked: "Out of the worst crime novels I ever read, Jules Dassin has made the best crime film I've ever seen." The U.S. lost one of its best Film-noir directors in his prime.

Also on my acquisition list is the 1937 Pépé le Moko, an early Poetic Realism predecessor to Film-noir. That's another thread I should probably put together. I call it a sub-genre of principally crime dramas, there's legitimate debate about that. Whereas most genre and sub-genre are driven by type type of story being told, classic Film-noir is a combination of script, dialog, cinematography and mise en scene with the production design. Invariably the classic noir are black & white. The Maltese Falcon is perhaps the quintessential example. There is a strong connection between Film-noir in the U.S. and WWII. As all the men were being conscripted into the military, adaptation of pot-boiler detective crime novels into that type of movie was simpler and faster, and their dark mood fit the war footing the U.S. was moving into. Those made during the war are sometimes called War-noir. Contemporary Neo-noir are now (nearly all) in color while maintaining much of the other structure (L.A. Confidential, Pulp Fiction, Body Heat, Blood Simple, Dark City, and Fargo all immediately come to mind as does Reservoir Dogs).

John

 

[SSGSAD]

One glaring omission to an otherwise excellent list, Glory (1989), and this, IMO, should also be included: To Hell and Back -Audie Murphy story(1955),

THAT is what I was thinking ..... Thank You !!!!!

 

[JAL]

This one is good as well...

[video=youtube;WbK4WTQFf9U]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WbK4WTQFf9U[/video]

Just ordered this based on the trailer and the synopses on IMDb and RT plus its rating 80%/82% (I look at both and read some; the critics aren't always on target). Yet another one that got under my radar until you mentioned it. Thanks! I've been around some Norwegians before. The spoken language had some strong similarities to German . . . that was my sense of it at the time and I'll see if that still holds . . . the written version was another matter as I wasn't familiar with their alphabet and its phonetics.

Still looking for something regarding the Winter War in Finland . . . that has English subtitles.

John
[the pile of films to watch never dwindles]

John

 

[Sylvain]

Luc Besson is one of the more recent cross-overs. I've seen a number of his films including The Fifth Element, Taken, and Lucy. La Femme Nikita and Leon the Professional are in the pile to watch and was thinking all this time that Leon was in French . The Messenger is on the acquisition list.

Leon (The French title is just "Leon") takes places in NYC and everybody speaks English (Gary Oldman is in it too, just like in the 5th Element.Great as usual).
You need to move it to the "watched" pile quick!
Only the character of Leon (Jean Reno) has a strong French accent but he speaks English.
Nikita is in French and takes place in Paris.

With some of the French actors that Besson uses in his movies it's hard for me to remember in which language they shot the movie since they are usually multilingual.
If they shot a movie in French they will do their own dubbing in English and vice-versa so it's hard to know what language they actually spoke on set unless you look it up.

 

[Brad69]

Pork Chop Hill

317th Section
A vivid movie!

Bridges over Toko-Ri

Brothers in war

Charlie Company

Firebase Mary

 

[JAL]

Leon (The French title is just "Leon") takes places in NYC and everybody speaks English (Gary Oldman is in it too, just like in the 5th Element.Great as usual).
You need to move it to the "watched" pile quick!
Only the character of Leon (Jean Reno) has a strong French accent but he speaks English.
Nikita is in French and takes place in Paris.

With some of the French actors that Besson uses in his movies it's hard for me to remember in which language they shot the movie since they are usually multilingual.
If they shot a movie in French they will do their own dubbing in English and vice-versa so it's hard to know what language they actually spoke on set unless you look it up.

I've got over 400 in the pile to watch . . . spanning mid-1920's to 2016 and 40% is non-Anglo, and most of those are Japanese, French and German, with a smattering of other languages. Got an all-region Blu-ray and DVD player a few years ago. Getting discs for Region 1 DVD and Region A Blu-ray for some films was impossible. I've got quite a few Australian and UK releases now for films that have yet to get a North American release (Canada or U.S.). Some of the Blu-ray are region free, but others are locked to Region B (Europe and Oceania). That player solves the problem. An example of one I just watched is the 2005 French thriller, Caché (US title: Hidden). Only available on a UK release Blu-ray. There was a US DVD but if I can get a Blu-ray with English subtitles I will. OTOH, the 2016 Ma Vie de Courgette (My Life as a Zucchini), a super stop motion animation was finally released in North America on Blu-ray. As an animation it had decent English dubbed dialog, but I turned on the English subtitles for the French dialog and that was interesting to see the difference . . . it conveys more meaning to me seeing and hearing two different translations at the same time. Recently watched Jeunet's 2001 Amélie which had been in the pile for a while. Absolutely superb; I've got his other films; Delicatessen is excellent.

If you haven't seen Stanley Kubrick's 1957 Paths of Glory I strongly recommend it. Set in WWI, its plot is loosely adapted from an incident with four French Army soldiers during the early years of the war.

John

 

[indiucky]

Just ordered this based on the trailer and the synopses on IMDb and RT plus its rating 80%/82% (I look at both and read some; the critics aren't always on target). Yet another one that got under my radar until you mentioned it. Thanks! I've been around some Norwegians before. The spoken language had some strong similarities to German . . . that was my sense of it at the time and I'll see if that still holds . . . the written version was another matter as I wasn't familiar with their alphabet and its phonetics.

Still looking for something regarding the Winter War in Finland . . . that has English subtitles.

John
[the pile of films to watch never dwindles]

John

This is going to seem like a weird tie in but have you seen Kon Tiki? I ask because the guy who served with Max Manus as a Partisan (two actually) were part of the crew of the Kon Tiki expedition.....There is a moment on the raft where one of them shares a story about the activities that took place in Max Manus with the American member of the crew....A very good film...

[video=youtube;0VdQUc1C1Fs]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0VdQUc1C1Fs[/video]

 

[JAL]

Pork Chop Hill

317th Section
A vivid movie!

Bridges over Toko-Ri

Brothers in war

Charlie Company

Firebase Mary

Thanks Brad

John

 

[actaeon277]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defiance_(2008_film)
I thought Defiance was pretty good.

 

[Brad69]

Does any movie exist about the war of 1812 ?

 

[indiucky]

Does any movie exist about the war of 1812 ?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Buccaneer_(1958_film)

 

[Sylvain]

I've got over 400 in the pile to watch . . . spanning mid-1920's to 2016 and 40% is non-Anglo, and most of those are Japanese, French and German, with a smattering of other languages. Got an all-region Blu-ray and DVD player a few years ago. Getting discs for Region 1 DVD and Region A Blu-ray for some films was impossible. I've got quite a few Australian and UK releases now for films that have yet to get a North American release (Canada or U.S.). Some of the Blu-ray are region free, but others are locked to Region B (Europe and Oceania). That player solves the problem. An example of one I just watched is the 2005 French thriller, Caché (US title: Hidden). Only available on a UK release Blu-ray. There was a US DVD but if I can get a Blu-ray with English subtitles I will. OTOH, the 2016 Ma Vie de Courgette (My Life as a Zucchini), a super stop motion animation was finally released in North America on Blu-ray. As an animation it had decent English dubbed dialog, but I turned on the English subtitles for the French dialog and that was interesting to see the difference . . . it conveys more meaning to me seeing and hearing two different translations at the same time. Recently watched Jeunet's 2001 Amélie which had been in the pile for a while. Absolutely superb; I've got his other films; Delicatessen is excellent.

If you haven't seen Stanley Kubrick's 1957 Paths of Glory I strongly recommend it. Set in WWI, its plot is loosely adapted from an incident with four French Army soldiers during the early years of the war.

John

Amelie is great (Le fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain in French, I can see why they got a shorter title in English).

I haven't seen Paths of glory, I will check it out.I love Kubrick's war movies (or rather anti-war) like Dr.Strangelove.
"Gentlemen! You can't fight in here.This is the war room!" is one of my favorite lines of any movie.

[video=youtube;UAeqVGP-GPM]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAeqVGP-GPM[/video]

Another great war movie to add to the list.Still very relevant with today's nuclear tensions.

 

[Kutnupe14]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Buccaneer_(1958_film)

Ha! That's what immediately came to mind too.