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OT: "Band of Brothers" is on History Channel


jon_j_rambo

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Hi WarGamingFriends,

"Band of Brothers" is on "The History Channel", it's a must see. I know this is old news to the majority of you WW-2 junkies, but to those who didn't have HBO (original broadcast 2-years ago) & haven't seen it, this is an opportunity to freely (guess you pay for cable) watch possibly the best war movie series of all time.

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You may very well be right, watching an episode tonight I have to admit I forgot how good it was.

"Your only hope is to accept the fact that you're already dead ... "

Yup, anyone in any branch who doubts that needs only to touch his or her dog tags.

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Foo !! What an outrage ! At least complete the word !! :D

I like Band better, there are a few things in Ryan I wasn't screwy about -- a little too philosophical for my tastes, but most of the battle scenes were outstanding. I particularly liked the praying sharpshooter.

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Platoon is also along the line of war movies I like, the ones that don't have John Wayne cracking skulls and grinning over it. I prefer the ones taking their que from the old movie, All Quiet on the Western Front, where guys crapped in their pants during bayonet fights.

The next one from there I liked was A Walk in the Sun, a 1945 flick about the Salerno landing where a multi-decorated veteran top sergeant, with nothing at all going on, starts digging a foxhole with his bayonet and crying and nothing will snap him out of it. Yeah, show battle fatigue and shell shock. There's heroism, but show the rest of it along the way.

Saving Private Ryan -- so I didn't give the wrong impression from before, is also a favorite of mine.

[ April 13, 2004, 11:48 PM: Message edited by: JerseyJohn ]

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Saving Private Ryan was good, but not better. BOB is a series, tells the story well, great battle scenes (so does SPR). But the unique thing about BOB is the interviews with the real soldiers.

I'll rewatch these:

1) Deer Hunter

2) Bridge Too Far

3) Patton

4) Platoon

5) Full Metal Jacket

6) Rambo

7) Great Escape

8) Bridge On the River Kwai

9) Stalag 17

10) Enemy At the Gates

...you get the idea smile.gif

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Rambo, yes great stuff. I rented the DVD's, then bought them for my Father-in-law at Christmas so I could borrow them and watch them again.

SomeGod - I think Das Boot is the best German war movie. That is a great movie.

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Oh ya that Rambo in Afganistan is such a great movie- lol. What about Cross of Iron? Also missing are The Longest Day and A Bridge Too Far.

For me Platoon is my favorite war movie of all time. I just missed being old enough to go there and later became an Army officer. It explained alot of stuff to me.

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Ah - some of those movies are OK I guess but the trouble with living in the US is that you donsee much of the movies made in the rest of the world. For me, the best war movie is the Light Horsemen, the story of the charge at Beersheba in 1917 - the last succesful cavalry charge! It was of course the Australian Light Horse and an Aussie movie

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Longest Day, generally a great movie. I didn't much care for John Wayne in that period, couldn't stand the scene where he goes into a town where they fighting has only stopped seconds earlier and sneers "Cut those men down!" Well, sure, it wasn't as though they didn't want to do it before, but bullets were flying. Anyhow, I don't care for sneering schmucks ... just a personal flaw, sorry. Meanwhile there was a lot of other good stuff in there.

A Bridge Too Far, based on another Cornelius Ryan book, is also a good choice. An underappreciated movie.

I find it hard to believe anyone can thumb their nose at Rambo in Afghanistan! Why, I like him almost as much as I like John Wayne.* :D

*There are many John Wayne roles I did like, but not the ones where he's full of himself. Stallone, I really like the first two Rocky movies and a few others.

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The best films i have seen is the ones about

the Finnish war. "the winter war" and "unknow soldier"

Private Ryan. 3parts. first third of the movie.

OUTSTANDING !! One of the best i ever seen. The middle average.

The last part, defending the Bridge. Oboy what it sucks. Back to the old hollywood movies.

A platoon keeping a whole battalion, supported by tanks, and elit troops as well, at bay. For god sake give me a brake.

We actually watch the longest day on the Military academy when we trained for beach defens. (Rommels doctrine still valid...)

John Wayne.... Even Steven Segal is a better actor.......

BoB very good. I wont say its the best but its very good.

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Well I really like SPR as a narrative, but it kind of is lacking on a historical basis (for reasons previously mentioned). EatG was also pretty good, and had more complicated characters. I hate straight hero stories...so disinteresting. Flawed heros are much better. I also liked a thin red line as it took the time to show things from the Japanese perspective in a few parts. I guess that is my biggest complaint about american war movies, you never get the perception that the people the heros are fighting are fighting for exactly the same reason the americans are.

Some of the German's killed in SPR without a second of sentimentality were school teachers too, or pediatricians, or really wonderful people...Its always been my impression that most of the older people who were past young adulthood in germany in 33 were relatively decent people.

[ April 16, 2004, 01:53 AM: Message edited by: Becephalus ]

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