Favourite/least Favourite Movie

This thread is for saying what your favourite/least favourite WW2 films?

Best: Band of Brothers or The Longest Day

Worst: Pearl Harbour or 633 Mosquito Squadron

 

Best: Band of Brothers or A bridge too far

Worst: Windtalkers

 

Favorites: Battle of Britain, Saving Private Ryan, Band of Brothers. Least favorites: Pearl Harbor, Battle of the Bulge, Bridge at Remagen.

 

My favourite WWII movie is "Fires Were Started". Although a fictional story, which takes place during the London blitz, the cast were real members of the Auxilliary Fire Brigade, it was made during WWII and it was directed by Humphrey Jennings, an outstanding documentary film maker of his time.

It is considerably better than similar movie, "The Bells Go Down", also made during WWII, which used professional actors, including James Mason and Tommy Trinder.

Needless to say, it is hardly ever shown.

My next favourite is a "what if", also made during WWII, called "Went the Day Well?". You can see the origins of "The Eagle Has Landed" in this one, but much better than the later version.

Of more recent films, I admire SPR for the special effects and attempts at realism, but it does lack a lot of historical accuracy when you get out the microscope.

The worst? A whole batch of bad ones made in the late 1960s/1970s: Kelly's Heroes, Hannibal Brooks, a stupid Roger Moore film based on a Greek island and a POW film based on England's 1966 World Cup team plus Pele. More recent, Pearl Harbor, Thin Red Line and the Hollywood version of capturing an Enigma.


.........oh yes, and I don't care for The Sound of Music either.

 

Hollywood's version of cpturing the enigma was U-571 (or something like that), gave the Americans credit for capturing it when it was the British

 

I like the 60s/70s films. Much more enjoyable than the sentimental moralising cr*p you get now. Yes the modern films have the right uniforms, insignia, weapons, tanks, haircuts etc but most of them are rubbish. 'The Thin Red Line' has to be the worst war film ever made. Certainly the only war film I've switched off after 30 minutes and that was 20 minutes more than it deserved. Even the good modern films like 'Saving Private Ryan' & its TV cousin 'Band of Brothers' have their Spielberg schmaltzy moments than annoy rather than entertain.

Best: Bridge on The River Kwai
Worst: The Thin Red Line

Cheers

Adam

 

Originally posted by Gnomey@Nov 30 2004, 02:17 PM
Hollywood's version of cpturing the enigma was U-571 (or something like that), gave the Americans credit for capturing it when it was the British
[post=29756]Quoted post[/post]
Yes, that's the name of the movie. The real sub was U-570. The British did capture U-570, but people will only remember the Hollywood version -- if at all. It came and went real fast. I never saw it.

 

Added a poll to see peoples views.
I like both old and new films, old ones for the lack of propaganda and new ones for the accuracy and the enjoyment of laughing at the mistakes they have made

 

Tough choice...new pictures often do battle scenes better, but the older films are often better about giving credit...you don't get disservices to history like U-571 and Pearl Harbor. Pearl Harbor's Star Wars battle over Hawaii was embarrassing. U-571 trashed the entire Royal Navy, Royal Australian Navy, Royal Canadian Navy, and Royal New Zealand Navy.

 

My favourites have to be Where Eagles Dare with Richard Burton and Clint Eastwood and Band of Brothers.

Have to agree with you Brownaq The Thin Red Line is one of the worst films I've ever seen and I was forced to turn it off after about 30 minutes as well.

 

Best WWII films:
- Das Boot, The Director's Cut (watch with subtitles, not dubbed)
- The Great Dictator (Chaplin)
- Force Ten From Navarone (Robert Shaw & a baby-faced Harrison Ford)
- Bridge on the River Kwai (Alec Guiness)
- Patton (George C at his best)
- From Here to Eternity (ole blue eyes could act!)

Most overrated WWII film:
- Saving Private Ryan (c'mon, after the beach scene it's bollocks!--the Americans weren't alone in Normandy!)

Worst WWII film:
- 1941 (the Blues Brothers go ballistic)

Most disastrously ignored propaganda film:
- Triumph of the Will (the signs were all there in 1934!)

Best Holocaust film:
- Shoah (Claude Lanzmann - 7 hours long, every minute of it gripping)

 

Best (ie in my opinion the one's I'll watch the most): Kelly's Heroes, Battleground, A Midnight Clear,Das Boot, Stalingrad, A Bridge too Far, Band of Brothers (can this really be classified as a movie?), Saving Private Ryan, When Trumpets Fade.

Worst (most of the "cheesy ones" especially "Battle of the Bulge"): Loads of 'em , especially my pet hate "Enemy at the Gates" - what a bag of crap!!!!


Dave.

 

Originally posted by webbhead@Dec 2 2004, 03:32 PM
the Americans weren't alone in Normandy!)




Quite true. But in the American Sector they were!!!(Give or take the odd unit).

Come on, this is like complaining that the Yanks aren't represented enough in the film "Zulu" !!!!!

Dave.

 

Hi all. My first post here.

Favorite: Saving Private Ryan, or Hell is for Heroes

Least Fave: Thin Red Line or Pearl Harbor


Cheers to All

 

Band of Brothers is good, and it does have its schmaltzy moments but the need to tell the true story often overrides this. Unlike Saving Private Ryan which after the landing on the beaches is a pile of cliched horse manure.

 

Best Films:

Stalingrad
Cross of Iron
Das Boot
Bridge too Far
Band of Brothers
Dambusters
Battle of Britain


Worst:

Enemy at the Gates (Just for Jude Laws English-Russian Accent. I didnt realise they spoke with a south English twang in Southern Russia!!!!)

Private Ryan - Yes the Beach scene is great and no I dont have a problem with it being all american (that is a stupid argument anyway) but the final scene just smacked too much of the heroic few holding out tenaciously against the baddies. Anyway the Germans wouold never have attacked up a street liike that. RThey might have gone into the houses for example

Pearl Harbour - Oh God!! How bad can a film be? The Makers of Tora Tora Tora can rest easy, theirs is the better film, by far.

Thin red Line - An attempt to make the "Apocaypse Now" of the WWII Genre that backfires badly. I dont want to see 25 minutes of Green Grass Billowing in the Breeze, thanks very much. I can turn on Discovery for that!!!

 

Favorite WW2 movies

1. Pianist and Schindler's List
2. Band of Brothers
3. Thin Red Line, this is a great movie and portrays vividly the anxiety, chaos and brutality of war.
4. Saving Private Ryan, this movie more than any gives you a feel visually of what it must of looked like.
5. The Longest Day
6. A Bridge Too Far
7. The Guns of Navarone

Worst

1. Pearl harbor

 

Favorites:

- The Longest Day
- Saving Private Ryan - I know a lot here don't agree but I thought it was pretty good
- Band of Brothers

Guilty Pleasures

- 1941 - Inaccurate and all, but pretty funny
- Kelly's Heroes
- Great Dictator
- The Final Countdown

Worst

- Pearl Harbor - Total bollocks. Some of the attack scenes were realistic, but the story line was garbage. My wife liked it, but then again she has zero interest in World War II.

 

I have to say I prefer the older WWII movies by far, however the point about better special effects in the newer ones is a good one.

Favorites:
Band Of Brothers
Tora! Tora! Tora! (the movie I tell fans of "Pearl Harbor" to watch)
Midway
Mr. Roberts
The Great Escape

Not so good:
Pearl Harbor
Hart's War

 

Seems most of wide screen recent WW2 movies are ,... junks.,
U571, Pearl harbor, and one haunted US Subs,..(forgot the movies,.. left after the 1st 15minutes)

Favourite: Longest Day, Tora Tora!, Eagle has landed, Battle of britain, Patton,
dislike: Pearl harbour , U571