Slightly off topic - New Midway movie

[jomni]

Maybe we should forget about Western movies.
Anyone watched this?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yamato_(film)

[The Gnome]

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

Wow, back-to-back usages of the actual name of The Movie that Shall Not Be Named.

Hey, boys, there's a reason that movie shall not be named. Now you've gone and ruined the digestive systems of 98.57% of the good people that use this forum.

Repent, or you shall be forced to watch the following movies in sequence: Dances with Wolves, Cold Mountain, Patriot, and Kelly's Heroes.

P.S. If anybody feels like defending any of these movies, just hold your tongue, go get a big glass of milk, and look at yourself in the mirror tomorrow morning.

Do not EVER knock Kelly's Heroes, enough with the negative waves.

[Canoerebel]

Steaming pile of poo from an overheated jungle bat that ate some slimy overripe mangos.

[USSAmerica]

Yeah, maybe, but fun anyway.  [:)]

[Mynok]

At least we didn't see Bronson get it on with Borgnine in that one. [:'(]

[witpqs]

ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58

"Master and Commander"... limped in and out of theaters.

And a most excellent movie too. A shame.

...with no women in the cast, you lose half the audience...

Dream sequences! Oh God, this concept is going downhill fast...

[Mynok]

Inception in the Pacific. [:D]

[Bullwinkle58]

ORIGINAL: jomni

Good point.  My wife appreciated Pearl Harbor's love aspect.  The movie has substance for her. We watched it together.
Not like Black Hawk Down, which I kinda liked. Another war movie that we watched together. At least it had some good looking guys like Orlando Bloom.
She never accompnied me while I watched BOB and The Pacific. But she kinda appreciated the fact that The Pacific had several love scenes.

You mentioned "Avatar"... Wouldn't a WW2 movie in 3D be cool!

Cool? Maybe not the word I'd use.[:)]

The thing is, a work of art--any art--has to be judged against the intent of the artist. "Pearl Harbor" was terrible history, no question. But it didn't set out to be a documentary. "Tora Tora Tora" was better, on purpose, but still not a documentary. "Pearl Harbor" should be judged against what it wanted to be, and on that it was a C- at best. It was an historical romance, not a movie about history. That said, it had some redeemig features. Any movie that tries to show an American audience even a little of Dorie Miller's story is a good thing.

Modern war movies, say, 1970 onward, have to be about characters, and not simply events, to get made. "Saving Private Ryan" wasn't about D-Day. D-Day was the canvas, but that story structure would have worked in a Civil War setting, or a Crimean War setting. The twin Iwo Jima movies of late were about the men, not the battle. (The US one was about the home front mostly. The Iwo scenes were pretty minor.)

Even classic war movies pre-1970 told micro-stories against the big canvas of war. "From Here to Eternity" was about love and hate (and a bunch of other stuff.) "Lawrence of Arabia" wasn't a war movie, it was a movie with a war. "In Harm's Way", ditto, with at least two love story arcs (and a rape.) Even the granddaddy war movie of the 1960s, "The Longest Day", while on the surface being a "hard" history of the battle, was really just a loosely-strung series of vignettes, often played for humor. It was a cameo-fest ("Look, there's Red Buttons!"), not a tightly woven plot narrative.

Movies are about people and what happens to them under stress and crisis, more or less. Fiction. Ficiton requires conflict, and humans most like to see conflict with other humans, or, sometimes nature or God. But a movie about ships maneuvering and firing at each other, like a "pure" Leyte movie, not only wouldn't get made, it wouldn't be very interesting as fiction.

[Bullwinkle58]

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

Wow, back-to-back usages of the actual name of The Movie that Shall Not Be Named.

Hey, boys, there's a reason that movie shall not be named. Now you've gone and ruined the digestive systems of 98.57% of the good people that use this forum.

Repent, or you shall be forced to watch the following movies in sequence: Dances with Wolves, Cold Mountain, Patriot, and Kelly's Heroes.

P.S. If anybody feels like defending any of these movies, just hold your tongue, go get a big glass of milk, and look at yourself in the mirror tomorrow morning.

I like each and every one of those movies, in order of 4, 3, 1, 2. They all did an excellent job at what they set out to do--be a good movie. Not a history survey course.

I suppose you don't like M*A*S*H either?

[Bullwinkle58]

ORIGINAL: The Gnome

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

Wow, back-to-back usages of the actual name of The Movie that Shall Not Be Named.

Hey, boys, there's a reason that movie shall not be named. Now you've gone and ruined the digestive systems of 98.57% of the good people that use this forum.

Repent, or you shall be forced to watch the following movies in sequence: Dances with Wolves, Cold Mountain, Patriot, and Kelly's Heroes.

P.S. If anybody feels like defending any of these movies, just hold your tongue, go get a big glass of milk, and look at yourself in the mirror tomorrow morning.

Do not EVER knock Kelly's Heroes, enough with the negative waves.

Exaclty. And Don Rickles. Don't forget Don Rickles.

[Bullwinkle58]

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

Steaming pile of poo from an overheated jungle bat that ate some slimy overripe mangos.

I'm guessing you're too young to remember the 60s?

[Canoerebel]

I was born in 1960. My dad is a World War II vet. My feelings about KH are mild compared to his.

[Bullwinkle58]

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

I was born in 1960. My dad is a World War II vet. My feelings about KH are mild compared to his.

My Dad is a Korean War vet. When he watches M*A*S*H he laughs so hard snot comes out his nose.

KH was a movie about the 60s, set in the 40s. M*A*S*H was a movie about Vietnam, set in Korea.

So it goes.

[vettim89]

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

I was born in 1960. My dad is a World War II vet. My feelings about KH are mild compared to his.

Ah Dan,

Why don't you knock it off with them negative waves? Why don't you dig how beautiful it is out here? Why don't you say something righteous and hopeful for a change?

and

To a Southerner (New Yorker) like you, a hero is some type of weird sandwich, not some nut who takes on three tigers

Its not a war movie. Its a comedy set in WWII. Its supposed to be campy and weird. Which, BTW, is why it is such a great movie. I watch it just for Sutherland. One of his best roles but you want a good Sutherland WWII movie: The Eye of the Needle. Now that was a very good film

[USSAmerica]

I need to dig up and re-watch The Eye of the Needle.  I read the book when I was around 14 or 15 and saw the movie soon after.  That's been way too long for me to remember well.  [:D]

In high school, I played several different role playing games, including one called Top Secret.  It was a spy-themed game, and I modeled my character after Sutherland's in the movie.  [:)]

[witpqs]

ORIGINAL: vettim89

The Eye of the Needle. Now that was a very good film

Portending doom: "You're not in your Spitfire now!"

[The Gnome]

Eye of the Needle was a great movie and a really good book. I remember seeing the book in high school rotting in a box in the basement, then I saw the movie, and was so intrigued the book was hunted down and read.

Back on point, I have no trouble separating movies, books, and shows ABOUT an historical subject from entertainment pieces that just happen to have a particular historical backdrop.

I can be equally happy watching BBC/HBO's Rome as I am when watching A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. I don't expect the latter to pay much attention to history - I do expect it, however, to make me laugh my rear-end off.

It's the same reason I can watch Kelly's Heroes, The Dirty Dozen, The Guns of Navarone, and a host of other shows that have almost NOTHING to do with history, other than the fact that they use a piece of history as a backdrop, and enjoy them, but then get irritated by a movie like Midway (even though I still watch it).

I guess I'm not looking for anything out of a show like Hogan's Heroes other than to laugh. It's just simple, fun brain candy.

[John 3rd]

"WOOF-WOOF"----"That's my other dog imitation!"

[noguaranteeofsanity]

To perhaps make things worse or even more gimmicky, it is going to be 3d as well, so as an animator with a bit of experience in this sort of thing, I'd expect lots of dive bombers dodging AAA and explosions, as that would really show off the 3d aspect.  I would also think a lot of it is going to be done with visual effects and be animated, rather than live action, as it is much easier to do 3d this way and I doubt even the USN would let them borrow several aircraft carriers that would be needed to film it.  The script is being written by Bruce McKenna who produced and wrote "The Pacific" mini-series, so is some hope there and certainly would have to be better than another upcoming movie called Battleship, which is somehow based on the game with the same name, yet about a naval fleet defeating alien invaders.

[witpqs]

The quality (realistic look) of what is possible with animation is getting better all the time. Of course the best stuff costs more money. The real issue is what they decide to do with it. They could spend a billion on a high technical quality crappy (in an historical sense) movie.

Heh, maybe they'll do a great job.