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Last movie watched...

Started by SmallBlueThing, 04 February, 2011, 12:40:44 PM

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von Boom

Quote from: milstar on 01 July, 2021, 12:59:52 PM
U-571

Blatant historical inaccuracies aside, this turned to be quite gripping submarine thriller. And Matthew McConaughey, in one of his earlier roles, is excellent lead. This was quite a treat. One thing that always skips me, is where the hell is Bon Jovi? I watched this film numerous times, but could never identify him.
Complete rubbish historically but I love films about submarines and this is one of the better ones.

IAMTHESYSTEM

When Eight Bells Toll.

Film4: Sir Anthony Hopkins, no less, starred in this early 1970s flick as a blue-collar James Bond, tracking bullion robbers along an isolated Scottish coast. Not bad special effects for its time though the strain on the budget showed towards the end, as the final battle in the villain's underground lair is clearly filmed on a stage. Various British actors dot the scenery, Robert Morley as Sir Anthony's unhappy Boss and Peter Arne as Villain No2 wearing a coat that looked too big for him. You can see the Producers logic concerning a move away from the James Bond mould of suave International Agent to a more down to earth character, and you wonder if Sir Anthony would have returned to the role. Unfortunately, W.E.B.T did poor box office, so the possible franchise was shot down by the Cinema going public. I'll certainly check out some more Alistair McClean novels, that's for sure and might invest in a DVD of this forgotten action film.
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milstar

Quote from: von Boom on 01 July, 2021, 08:06:52 PM
Quote from: milstar on 01 July, 2021, 12:59:52 PM
U-571

Blatant historical inaccuracies aside, this turned to be quite gripping submarine thriller. And Matthew McConaughey, in one of his earlier roles, is excellent lead. This was quite a treat. One thing that always skips me, is where the hell is Bon Jovi? I watched this film numerous times, but could never identify him.
Complete rubbish historically but I love films about submarines and this is one of the better ones.

This I remember talking about with my Dad after we watched the movie,  and as I suggested how Americans catched the Enigma and solved ww2, my Dad went nuts:"Oi! Don't ever talk like that!" But I was a dumb kid then.
Reyt, you lot. Shut up, belt up, 'n if ye can't see t' bloody exit, ye must be bloody blind.

PsychoGoatee

#15873
I just got into the 70s Three Musketeers movies, with Christopher Lee and whatnot. Pretty damn cool, lotta fun.

And been revisiting The Fast & Furious saga, I am a fan. Bromance perfected.

A few other gems I dug lately, watching a lot of 80s stuff: Into the Night, Cutter's Way, and The Wind in the Willows (83 stop motion one). Also, Hobo With A Shotgun.

(Also just gotta say, since he came up last page, I love Tom Green. He's a hero. Not that movie in particular, but he's just a cool funny guy. Love all his podcasts, webovision talk shows, and his standup comedy too. I even got to see him live and got called on in his crowd work.  :D Such a good dude.)

Hawkmumbler

BLADE

It's absolute gubbins isn't it. Absolute nonsense of the highest order. But goddamn I wish more blockbusters where still this goddamn trim and slick and fun. There's a sense of self awareness in the first two Blade movies and the Raimi Spidermans that has morphed into self-deprecation of late in the MCU and honestly all the knowing winks and 'lol so zanney' moments can't make up for a single well choreographed ode to the Five Venoms.

CalHab

I remember that film from the controversy at the time.

It struck me that there's an awful lot of British war movies that erase the contributions of allies. Getting our knickers in a twist over Hollywood doing what Hollywood seems a bit of a waste of time. Still, I guess crap like that sells papers.

The Enigmatic Dr X

Quote from: CalHab on 02 July, 2021, 11:06:13 AM
I remember that film from the controversy at the time.

It struck me that there's an awful lot of British war movies that erase the contributions of allies. Getting our knickers in a twist over Hollywood doing what Hollywood seems a bit of a waste of time. Still, I guess crap like that sells papers.

What film? (U-571 I guess, and not Venom?).

There was a similar fuss over the one where Ben Affleck wins the Battle of Britain.
Lock up your spoons!

milstar

No sweat, people. We all know that history taught in the books is much less accurate than history shown in the movies. Har!
Reyt, you lot. Shut up, belt up, 'n if ye can't see t' bloody exit, ye must be bloody blind.

Hawkmumbler

Certainly a few absolute ponces who shall remain unnamed lost their shit over a Sikh soldier appearing for ten minutes in 1917 (a perfectly serviceable if overly lauded film on the whole) that really speaks about just how white washed the private school understanding of the wars has become always been.

milstar

Well, ww1 and ww2 campaigns were much less ethnically diverse than campaigns fought today. That goes for all parties involved, but it also depends on the front in question.
Reyt, you lot. Shut up, belt up, 'n if ye can't see t' bloody exit, ye must be bloody blind.

Jim_Campbell

Quote from: milstar on 02 July, 2021, 12:45:34 PM
Well, ww1 and ww2 campaigns were much less ethnically diverse than campaigns fought today.

I suspect, for the British Army, at least, that may not be true. According to the current stats, the British Army is about 90% white and tends not to undertake joint operations with Commonwealth armed forces as a matter of course, so depiction of a current military operation would legitimately be pretty darned white.

However, the remarkable numbers of troops committed to both world wars by Commonwealth/Empire nations mean that there would have been non-white faces all over the place during those conflicts, and it's not unreasonable to expect even fictional or fictionalised accounts of those wars to acknowledge that.
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CalHab

Quote from: milstar on 02 July, 2021, 12:45:34 PM
Well, ww1 and ww2 campaigns were much less ethnically diverse than campaigns fought today. That goes for all parties involved, but it also depends on the front in question.

That's certainly not true of the Commonwealth contribution. The Indian Army and African divisions in particular  seem to get airbrushed out of many accounts of the war.

Funt Solo

There was the story recently about non-white troops not being afforded the same burial honors as whites: Commonwealth war graves: PM 'deeply troubled' over racism.

And this article discusses some of the non-white troops present at Dunkirk.

There is a tendency to whitewash war movies. I'm sure I read that there were black troops who were told to f*ck off when it came to filming the liberation of Paris. I'm paraphrasing, and I should really hunt down my source on that for clarity, but there it is.
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milstar

When I said less ethnically diverse, I meant in both world wars and on European soil. I mean, it wasn't very likely that you'd be along British forces somewhere in the trenches of Europe and easily spot a non-white soldier among your ranks. Sadly, seem that many people, historians today, are more inclined to historical revision on many accounts, not just ethnical stats. I've seen Dunkirk and a black guy was there and he was among French troops. But the thing is, those wars here in Europe have been fought largely by indigenous population and really largely. No any "deviation from the rule" can change that. If you watch Omaha landing, for instance, like in Saving Private Ryan, you couldn't spot a non-white person. With the influx of massive post ww2 immigration, ofcourse the military got diversified. In Britain, in France, possibly Germany (during ww2, Germans employed Africans for their battles, but strictly in Africa).
I'll add this. Telling a story about such historical event like ww1 or ww2 depends on the nature of the story you want to tell. Not everyone deserve their place there in any imaginable context. I became aware of Flora Sandes. Flora Sandes...well, I have a Serbian mate who was telling me about her etc., but Flora was possibly the first female soldier in the history of modern combat. Denied entry in the British army, she somehow got the chance to fight along Serbians when the latter retreat to Greece and came back to reclaim their homeland. If you make a feature film about Flora Sandes, do it on personal, individual level. Not on larger scope of where she is obviously not a main participant.
Reyt, you lot. Shut up, belt up, 'n if ye can't see t' bloody exit, ye must be bloody blind.

Hawkmumbler

You're making the acute inability to distinct between an Arab Sikh and a British Born Sikh of Arab Descent, which in the case of 1917 was very much the later instance and was undeniably not entirely uncommon in European battlegrounds in real life.

And thats only an example.