Posted on 02/27/2014 6:38:27 AM PST by C19fan
A handful of soldiers, beleaguered by a Nazi host in a wrecked city apartment building, prepare to sell their lives dearly on celluloid. Does the scenario sound familiar? It should. For 70 years, the British and Americans have been making heroic movies about World War II, some of which are etched in our culture. But now for something different: Russian film-makers have got in on the act. They have created a 3D epic set for the film Stalingrad, about the most famous battle in their history, and the movie has become one of the biggest domestic box office hits of all time. Now, British audiences can see for themselves this amazingly noisy, bloody, cliche-laden, rubble-making version of the war.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
What pisses me off are the infiltrator cold war relic type of trolls who have hit forums making Russians look bad.
Its a different Russia now a days.
Russia has....been there..done that. They dumped socialism
Americans are not acting hard enough to refuse socialism AND Islamic invasion.
Russians are earning respect, America has lost it.
I loved the Sochii games, all I saw for two weeks was complaints and whiners on many forums. Russians did dam good, all around, period. They did not cheat, nor did they whine.
“Who is going to see a movie about Nazis versus Communists?”
Teachable moment.
The takeaway from Stalingrad and every great battle is one of humanity rather than politics. The only thing those two ideologies were good for at Stalingrad was heightening the intensity of battle, its duration and its cost while assuring their soldiers they’d be shot if they retreated. Somewhere in there is a strong lesson about the treatment of humanity in the hands of socialist ideologies.
‘7 hours masterpiece “War and Peace”.’
Yeah, I didn’t see the movie, but I did go and see the off-Broadway production of, ‘War, What Is It Good For?’.
I agree, Band of Brothers did a fine job of showing realistic conditions. There's a German-made file about Stalingrad (early 1990s, IIRC) that is also exceptional in terms of gritty realism. Talvisota, the 1989 foreign film about the Winter War in Finland does well in that regard, too.
***I watched “Battle of the Bulge” (that awful 60s movie with Henry Fonda)***
I saw that back in the 1960s. A good FICTIONAL film, with parts cut out, definitely not the real BATTLE OF THE BULGE. In the end titles they even say they “synthesized” events for that film.
The movie version I saw was chopped up with important parts missing. It took me 50 years to see the uncut version on TCM which was better and could have used a different title.
You would be surprised how many good films we saw were cut down before showing to the great “Unwashed”, only to be re released to DVD in their full versions.
I liked the movie but what drove me nuts was no German tanks. They could have thrown plywood or thick card stock over the sides and turret to kind of look like tigers or panthers. It bugged me as a kid and it still bugs me today.
They ended up wasting that Nazi in the end when he was recaptured. He was executed by the kid that watched his friend lose a knife fight to him, was too scared to do anything about it. The Nazi left the coward behind and went back to the battle.
The coward recognized him at the end, went up to him, and shot him.
It took me a couple of times before I understood that the guy he shot was the same Nazi they captured and let go.
Not sure what Spielberg was advocating there, but . . .
Cornelius Ryan wrote 3 WW2 books. The one about Berlin describe some of the brutality.
The Longest Day: 6 June 1944 D-Day
The Last Battle <— Battle for Berlin
A Bridge Too Far
I have both of those and the recent Japanese production, 'Yamato' and the Russian film 'Ninth Company'.
You'll appreciate a movie coming out this year, then. 'Fury' with Brad Pitt. The villain is Bovington's Tiger 131, the only running Tiger I left, to my knowledge.
“It lost me when I saw Ted Danson the paratrooper.”
Whatever you think of him, and I don’t have much use for him, he played the part straight.
But he was a tad old for the part. I didn't much care for the scene he first appeared in either - more like a scene from Die Hard than anything else.
Watching it is a strange experience, both empathizing with the characters and rooting for the 'bad guys' at the same time.
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