Red Tails (2012)

[basicblur]

Thanks for the head up-I just set the DVR-it's 189 on my local Comcast network.

[Carl N. Brown]

Yeah, I last searched the schedule over a week ago and just lately decided to recheck.

[AirForceShooter]

Just saw "Red Tails" .
If you want air to air combat stuff it's ok.
If you want the story of their overcoming racism see the Lawrence Fishburn movie.
Neither is totally true.

AFS

[erictank]

I saw it last week with the wife. We both really enjoyed it. Not that it was a deep, insightful piece of cinematic history - realistically, that's not what George Lucas DOES. But it was an enjoyable film which contained some awesome visual spectacles, especially for military-aviation/warbird fans.

I did think they were maybe a little over the top regarding the destructive power of a handful of .50-cal Brownings.

[Catherine]

Snippet:

US Navy destroyer (DD) 30+ knots.

My late husband was on a WW2 destroyer retrofitted for Vietnam and he was on her when she went all around the world too.

It used to irk him when people would call x, y or z ships - a, b, or c ships too.

Catherine

[Catherine]

Quote by Old Dog:

"What an entirely bogus list of "top 100" ... several of those flicks are not really even "war movies." Clearly Military History isn't recognizing the clear distinction between a military movie and a war movie. And The Great Escape all the way down at #49?

No In Harm's Way or The Enemy Below on the list? Except for Das Boot (one of the best sub movies ever), it looks like a lot of anti-naval battle bias to me. Yet crap like "The Deer Hunter" (which wasn't really a war movie) make the cut?"

~~~~~

I agree with Old Dog when he mentions these movies. Thank you.

Catherine

[Carl N. Brown]

All such lists are pretty spotty and after all they are opinions of film people. And the inclusion of pure fiction makes the list less impressive to me.

The list did not include the most impressive war movie I remember from my childhood: Hell to Eterenity 1960, the story of Guy Gabaldon. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guy_Gabaldon

I also was impressed by 1961's I Bombed Pearl Harbor an edited and dubbed version of the 1960 Japanese Toho production Storm Over the Pacific http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Storm_O..._Pacific_(film)

[Johnny Dollar]

The Military History list has its pluses and minuses, and as Carl says, its just an opinion piece of the mags Editors.

The good part about it ,and the reason I've saved the print edition since it came out in 2007, is that its a good base from which the beginner can start to look for these classics, and the old timers can argue over what does and what doesn't belong.

It awoke some memories of great,older films I'd almost forgotten, and I've been a movie junkie since about 1950.

[KodiakBeer]

In addition to the valid comments about the list, it should also be pointed out how us-centric, or at least English language-centric such lists are.

A quick thumb through my DVD collection comes up with the following:

Korea
Tae Guk Gi (Korean war from their perspective)

China
City of Life and Death (the rape of Nanking)
Red Cliff (SPECTACULAR film about a war during the "warring states" period - one MUST watch the long Chinese version, not the shortened and dumbed-down US version - both available on Netflix)

Italy
El Alamein (the North African fighting from the Italian perspective)

Spain
Alatriste (Spanish/Dutch wars)

Germany
Downfall (the fall of Berlin and life in Hitlers bunker)
The Counterfeiters (concentration camp inmates produce US and British currency - true story)
Stalingrad (Stalingrad...)

France
The Train (French resistance, WWII)

Russia
Our own (Russian peasants swap sides during the German occupation)
Come & See (possibly the best war film ever made, certainly one of the most graphic and poignant)
The Admiral (wonderful new WWI film with great special effects about Russia's naval war in the baltic and subsequently, the civil war between the whites and reds)
Attack on Leningrad (another new film - the siege of Leningrad)

Finland
Talvisota (The classic film on the winter war - again, the long version is the one worth watching )
Ambush (the "continuation war")

Poland
Katyn (the systematic murder of the Polish officer corps. This film will shrivel your soul)

[mort the blunt]

^

For those of you know about the Hitler gets angry and the Fegelein memes, Downfall is the source.

Also, if you want to torture someone with a WW2 film, make them watch The Sacrifice by Andre Tarkovsky. All Tarkovsky films fall under the category of So Bad Its Horrible while being praised for being artistic. If any normal movie was that boring, plotless, and pointless, then it would be considered junk.

I saw Red Tails over the weekend. George Lucas is great at botching great ideas.

[Johnny Dollar]

France
The Train (French resistance, WWII)

Just watched The Train (1964) again last week. Wonderful work by all here, especially Paul Scofield as the German Colonel.

A almost forgotten masterpiece.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0059825/