Looks like a foreign film that will be seeing a limited release here in the states (not anywhere near me, like I have the time anyway!)

The liberation of Italy, Provence, the Alps, the Rhone Valley, the Vosges and Alsace marked vital stages in the Allied victory. And in the place that France was able to take among the Allies following the Armistice. This victorious and bloody march on Germany was carried out by the 1st French Army, recruited in Africa to sidestep the German occupiers and the officials of the Vichy regime: 200,000 men, including 130,000 "natives" comprising 110,000 North Africans and 20,000 Black African. The rest of the force was made up of French North Africans and of young Frenchmen who had fled the Occupation. This is the forgotten story of the so-called "native" soldiers.

So if you don't mind subtitles (or worse a dub) and the almost certainty of a foreign POV on the war... AND its in your area, maybe its worth checking out?  Couldn't find any more useful information.  The Yahoo! page linked below has a link to the trailer.

Link: Days of Glory - Movie Details - Yahoo! Movies

Technorati Tags: war movies, film, days of glory, world war ii, french

Ah context.  Context is everything, especially when you're watching war films of this era.  You've got the Hayes office, the Dept. of War, and in the end, you get propaganda films like 1943's Air Force.

Of course, that's not to say that this is a bad film.  On the contrary, this is actually quite a good movie.  I really wasn't expecting it to be as good as it was.  You actually "get to know" the crew of the Mary-Ann, a B-17 that was (well, in this movie anyway) part of the group that was on its way to Hickham Field on Dec. 7, 1941.  The attachment to this crew you'll develop is pretty impressive.

You'll follow the crew all the way from before Hawaii, all the way to their involvement in the attack on a Japanese fleet on their way to Australia.  It's funny, too, how they make a special point to call out the importance and "secret-ness" of the Norden bomb sights and how they can't fall into enemy hands... during the height of the war in 1943!  Surprised "they" let that pass the censors!

Also impressive are the special effects here, especially considering the time this was made.  You'll find yourself believing most of it.  Sure there are several shots where the models are evident, but there are quite a few that make you wonder.  And the interspersing of the effects shots with actual stock footage is nearly imperceptible.

And, yes, this film is historically *in*accurate.  A lot of the events never took place, or didn't happen as portrayed, sure.  That's not the point.  The point of this film was to get people "on our side" and in that it succeeds wildly.

All of the acting is fair-to-good.  I really can't flaw anyone on their performances here.  Not too much anyway.  And its actually pretty "raw" for a film of its time.

So if you're in the market for a good "Saturday Matinee" style war movie, Air Force is just the ticket.

...

PS: When I saw this on Turner Classic Movies, it was followed by an interesting 1943 propaganda newsreel called 'Plan For Destruction.'  It was a surprisingly long and academic (if overly dramatic) look at Germany's rise to power in the 30's and 40's, and some of the causes for it.  It made a nice bookend for the movie.  Glad to see things like this come "off the shelf" once and a while.  You can just imagine movie audiences watching this movie, jeering the Japs and cheering our boys, and then watching this bit and coming out mad-as-hell!!

Technorati Tags: war movies, film, air force, 1943, world war ii, pacific, pearl harbor, b-17, plan for destruction

So not a lot of good things have been said about Stealth.  Eh, I went into this expecting the worst, and came out feeling a little better about it.  Not much, but a little.  Bottom line is it's not as bad as everyone says.  If you perform a little "suspension of disbelief" black magic, that is.

Presumably taking place sometime in the near future, a group of Navy pilots are flying a trio of ultra-futuristic Firefox-looking fighter-bomber jet spaceship thingies in tests, and magically get themselves stationed on a carrier.  OK, red flag number one goes up here.  One, these planes appear to be just physically improbable that they'd be stationed on a carrier, I mean the wings didn't even fold (that I could tell) for storage?  And two, *there's only three of these things in existence?*  Anyone ever hear of spare parts?  Qualified mechanics and support staff? Hello?  Well, I guess I'll let it slide.  Why not, right?

Then they are introduced to the fourth member of their squadron, a totally new and different model. (See above bits on parts and support crew.)  The kicker is that the plane is the pilot, a 100% AI-controlled thinking brain called EDI, or "Eddie" for short (how nice.)

Long story short, Eddie learns some bad behavior from his squadron commander,  decides that he knows best, and takes off on a mission that until now was only a simulation (WarGames anyone?)  Taking out one of his squadron when they try to stop him and causing another to crash land in North Korea (quite a range on these jets, too I might add)

I could go on but I really won't.  So I'll just skip to the ending.  Boy befriends formerly-psycho AI jet who killed his squad-mate and they go on a rescue mission to the Korean DMZ to get the girl.

Just put your rose-colored glasses on, sit back and enjoy the ride.  We'll put this one in the "Iron Eagle" school of war flicks, I think.  Sure its incredibly hokey and kind of dumb, but its fun.

Technorati Tags: war movies, stealth, ai, navy, dvd, review

December 7, 1941.  A date which will live in infamy.

Well it should anyway, its unfortunate that the Bruckheimer/Bay team got a hold of it and turned it into an unconvincing heart-string-tugging love story with a happy ending.  There, I said it.

OK so maybe I'm being a bit harsh, but there are a lot of ways this film just trips over itself.  From the over-the-top acting and directing, to the Rambo-ish yells of Cuba Gooding Jr. on the AA gun, to Tom Sizemore firing a pump-action shotgun at the dive bombing Zeroes.  And don't forget the airplane "chase" at an average altitude of about 20 ft. through the hangars....

Yikes.  I went into this hoping for more, but came out less-than-impressed.  In essence its a love story wrapped in a war movie.  There's not much else to say than that.  It would have been a lot better (and *shorter*) to just end the thing after the invasion had happened, the love triangle resolved and everyone gone back to business as usual.

But they manage to tack on another lengthy bit after the invasion in an attempt to put our heroes back into action during the ballsy and dangerous Doolittle Raid of April, 1942.  That entire segment is almost a film unto itself.  And probably should have been.

If you're after about three hours of mindless, weepy love story junk told in the context of Pearl Harbor, then sure, why not.  There are much better (and shorter) tellings of this moment in history, and of the Doolittle Raid.  At the very least, much more truthful and accurate versions.

Technorati Tags: war movies, pearl harbor, love story, doolittle raid, dvd

Tora! is the quintessential model for a pseudo-documentary war movie, painstakingly attempting to chronicle the events (on both sides) leading up to the infamous 1941 sneak attack on Pearl Harbor.

Is this an action-packed thriller that will keep you pinned to the edge of your seat, wondering what will happen next?  No.  Absolutely not.  It is however a detailed (and lengthy at 2hrs 25 minutes) look at exactly how something like Pearl Harbor happened. 

From the Japanese Admiralty planning the attack, through the missteps of the US government and the miscommunication which ultimately might have prevented it, we are shown in great detail the mechanics of how not to prevent an invasion.

Sure its easy to say such things in hindsight.  And there's nothing that can be said to diminish the importance of the event in US history, but maybe we can learn a few things from it.  I think that's the goal of Tora!, to show us what happened that might have been different.

Technically this film is an amazing recreation of the period, from the authentic aircraft and facilities on both sides, to the acting and word-for-word dialog where possible.

I recommend setting up an afternoon to watch the Bruckhemier/Bay fiasco "Pearl Harbor" and then watch this one directly after.  See which version of events you think is better told.  (Although "Pearl Harbor" does get into the famous Doolittle raid where this does not....)

Technorati Tags: war movies, pearl harbor, tora! tora! tora!, navy, dvd, review, documentary

New this week is an early classic, and a new classic

All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)

This is an English language film (made in America) adapted from a novel by German author Erich Maria Remarque. The film follows a group of German schoolboys, talked into enlisting at the beginning of World War 1 by their jingoistic teacher. The story is told entirely through the experiences of the young German recruits and highlights the tragedy of war through the eyes of individuals. As the boys witness death and mutilation all around them, any preconceptions about "the enemy" and the "rights and wrongs" of the conflict disappear, leaving them angry and bewildered. This is highlighted in the scene where Paul mortally wounds a French soldier and then weeps bitterly as he fights to save his life while trapped in a shell crater with the body. The film is not about heroism but about drudgery and futility and the gulf between the concept of war and the actuality.

Flags of Our Fathers (2006)

In February, 1945, one of the fiercest battles of the Pacific theater of World War II occurs on the tiny island of Iwo Jima. Thousands of Marines attack the stronghold maintained by thousands of Japanese, and the slaughter on both sides is horrific. Early in the battle, an American flag is raised atop the high point, Mount Suribachi, and a photograph of the raising becomes an American cause celebre. As a powerful inspiration to war-sick Americans, the photo becomes a symbol of the Allied cause. The three surviving flag raisers, Rene Gagnon, John Bradley, and Ira Hayes, are whisked back to civilization to help raise funds for the war effort. But the accolades for heroism heaped upon the three men are at odds with their own personal realizations that thousands of real heroes lie dead on Iwo Jima, and that their own contributions to the fight are only symbolic and not deserving of the singling out they are experiencing. Each of the three must come to terms with the honors, exploitation, and grief that they face simply for being in a photograph.

I have not had the opportunity to see either of these yet, but when I do, you can be sure to read the review here!  I will say that from the previews/trailers for FFoF I think they might've gone overboard with the color work... Did the world really look so OD green in 1945?

Quite possibly the first "hacker" movie of our times, WarGames shows us what can happen when we put our trust in these new-fangled computing machinery thingies, and then give them the power to destroy the planet.

OK, so maybe thats overstating things a bit.  WarGames is still a fun romp through the world of computer-hackery and cold war missile command tension.

The general premise is this:  SAC has turned over launch control of our nations thousands of nuclear ICBMs to a mainframe computer named WOPR (War Operations Plan Response if memory serves) and out of the thinking hands of the launch crews.  WOPR can instantly calculate the outcome of just about any scenario given to it.

Of course its stumbled upon quite accidentally by the young David Lightman, who was war dialing to find some software company's new games.  He and his "little friend" Jennifer (Ally Sheedy) figure out the backdoor password, and begin their relationship with the system known as "Joshua."

They start playing what they think is an innocent game of Global Thermonuclear War, when in actuality they are putting the WOPR into an operational state, sending NORAD into a panic.

Hilarity ensues.  This leads to that etc. and so forth, and "Joshua" keeps playing the game without them, and locking out all control of the missiles.  They track down the author of the system, one Dr. Stephen Falken, and they all wind up back at NORAD to help Joshua figure out that its all quite pointless.

OK, sure as a war movie its a bit of a stretch, I'll admit.  There's lots of ICBM talk, lovely strategic computer displays and lots of angry older guys in blue suits with stars on their epaulets.  But its still fun.  And from the "hacker" standpoint it still holds a lot of truths about computer security and stuff like social engineering and whatnot....  Good for a big bowl of popcorn any time in my book.

Technorati Tags: war movies, wargames, computers, nuclear war, icbm, dvd, review