I am watching Wajda’s trilogy backwards, for some reason, but I don’t think it matters. I don’t how much of an actual “trilogy” it is; I think it’s likely an imposition by film critics because all three films are about Warsaw in WWII. Anyway, this is film two of three of this theoretical trilogy; it’s …
Tag: War
Idi i smotri [Come and See] (1985, Elem Klimov)
This is a vivid, gorgeously shot Soviet war film that often feels like a horror film. It’s certainly a unique experience and its third act is pretty hard to watch.
War and Peace [Voyna I Mir] (1965, Sergey Bondarchuk)
This is an epic, 7 and a half hour adaptation of War and Peace, sort of on the scale of The Human Condition, but not nearly as long and far more ambitious. Apparently made in response to the Hollywood version, this film (or series of films) mostly realizes the promise of Peak TV decades earlier …
Die Fälschung aka Circle of Deceit (1981, Volker Schlöndorff)
This is an extraordinary movie, a little like a more cynical Killing Fields, or a less plot-driven Quiet American. A German journalist with marital problems is sent to cover the war in Lebanon. The film was shot primarily in Beirut, during the civil war, and the location shooting does a ton of the work.
The War of the Worlds (1898) by H.G. Wells
This is a landmark novel which manages to still be pretty entertaining but has dated in a few ways which make it kind of hard to appreciate how important it probably was when it came out.
1917 (2019, Sam Mendes)
This is an extremely well made film – a bit of a feat really – that uses a perhaps a too silly conceit to create a thriller cum war film that goes to pretty great lengths to remind us all of the horrors of World War I. (This is an under-filmed war compared to WWII.) …
LikeWar (2018) by PW Singer and Emerson T. Brooking
This is a terrifying and depressing book about the weaponization of the internet, and social media in particular, by countries and other actors, in order to alter what the average person thinks is “true” or “factual”. The good news is that this isn’t necessarily the most rigorous analysis, meaning that some of their most dire …
Command and Control (2016, Robert Kenner)
“I couldn’t calm down. I was on fire.”
Canopy (2013, Aaron Wilson)
This is a film that seeks to tell a realistic story of what it would have been like to get shot down in the jungle during World War II. It is mostly silent and so it at least somewhat reminds me of that legendary failed Coen Brothers project, To the White Sea. Though obviously not for …
The Vietnam War (2017, Ken Burns, Lynn Novick)
This mammoth, 17+ hour documentary about The United States’ war in Vietnam is not perfect; it is a flawed film in at least two ways. But it is essential viewing for anyone alive today who hopes to understand the United States, its role in the world and its continued (seemingly endless) foreign policy mistakes, which …
Dunkirk (2017, Christopher Nolan)
Hype is a terrible thing. So, no, I did not love Dunkirk. SPOILERS (if there can be spoilers for a movie based on a historical event).
Behind Enemy Lines (2001, John Moore)
A while ago I read something (perhaps at AV Club) that said this movie was underrated. I decided to “give it another chance,” wrongly thinking I had seen it already.
Ashes and Diamonds (1958, Andrzej Wajda)
This is the first Polish Realism film I have seen and I must say I’m very impressed. It shares many characteristics with the great French and Italian realist/neo-realist films of the decade prior but, unlike (most of) those movies, it was made in a Communist country, and therefore feels like even more of a miracle …
Blood Diamond (2006, Edward Zwick)
This is film feels like an attempt to cross an adventure movie with a war movie with a Hollywood message movie. At times it succeeds rather well but at other times it’s borderline terrible.
War of Lies (2014, Mathias Bittner)
Let’s get this out of the way: This is a student film. The director freely admitted last night that he made this as his graduation “project” for film school. When he said that before the movie, my expectations lowered considerably. I am always wary of first time directors. And there are definitely signs that this …
Forces speciales (2011, Stephane Rybojad)
This film was brought to you by the Armed Forces of France.
Fight Like Soldiers, Die Like Children (2012, Patrick Reed)
First off, I have not seen Shake Hands with the Devil, but I feel as though I should have.
Treason is what you make it
I am a regular viewer of the Amazing Race, the only “reality” show I can handle which isn’t cooking-related. I am aware that the show is not exactly what it seems, as I am aware that it is edited and that the crew manipulate the results. I don’t care. I enjoy the “race” aspect of …
Cross of Iron (1977, Sam Peckinpah)
It’s because of movies like Cross of Iron that, when I find a director I think is interesting, I try to watch all his movies, even those that don’t have good reputations. In the CD player: Wheels of Fire by Cream…listening to the live part. The first two tracks are great, the second two suck. …