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Hamburger Hill (1987)
Unduly overlooked, if not forgotten
Other reviewers have noted how this film got lost in the slipstream of Platoon and Full Metal Jacket, unfairly. I fully endorse this view. It is gritty, honest and superbly well acted. It circumvents war movie cliché; no metaphorical arrows pointing at heads saying "he's dead meat". No "star power" to guarantee survival in the final frame. No sugar coating relations between the black soldiers and the white guys. The combat is nasty, brutal and honest. And - hooray - officers, especially junior officers, are not portrayed as out-of-touch and incompetent. As a former soldier myself, the bookending of the film with radio calls is very telling. Especially at the end. Hisssss.... I'm British, but knew a veteran of the real battle, a librarian conscripted. He said he could not watch it without tears in his eyes in places.
Corvette K-225 (1943)
Surprised how good it was, considering...
Having tried to track this down for years, by virtue of partner's late father having served in Royal Navy corvettes in WW2 - and having visited the last surviving Flower-class, HMCS Sackville, in Halifax NS last autumn, this film's presentation in the National Film Theatre's 2011 Howard Hawks season was a chance not to be missed. It ran wildly over budget for a routine flag waver; in places, if Randolph Scott's acting had been any more wooden, they could have made a table out of him. Clichés abound; punches are pulled ("Where's Number One?" "He's dead, sir"), the model work is creaky (as is the script in places) even for the time. But the action footage, shot on real convoys, is of genuine interest and atmosphere and as others have said, it captures the awful, cramped, sodden hell of it all we heard about. "The Cruel Sea" it certainly is not; we don't know if my partner's Dad ever saw this film, but I'm sure he would have approved.
The Dish (2000)
A profound affection for this film
As well as a cinema buff, I devour books on the US manned spaceflight programme before the Shuttle. I fondly remember sitting on my grandfather's knee in the UK hearing Apollo 8 talking to us from the Moon at Christmas 1968. So, not an utterly objective source; I read several academic books on the part of Australia supporting Apollo. This film (aside a credit at the end) sadly overlooks the part of Honeysuckle Creek. Yet... it would be a hardened heart - film buff or space historian - who could not embrace this truly lovely film. Funny, poignant, balanced, an eye for detail. Sets up stereotypes, but gives them life. The stuffed shirt NASA man - who comes to admire his Aussie colleagues. The Army cadet - the subtle anti-Vietnam subtext - who is basically decent and wins the girl. The American Ambassador who laughs at 'Hawaii 5-0'. An Australian Ealing Comedy, with heart, laughs - but care for the truth (i.e. with the characters, not at them), beautifully made and played by a perfect cast. I defy you not to leave this film smiling. (I drove from Sydney to Parkes on the back of it and smiled all the way back).
The Kid Stays in the Picture (2002)
And a good job, too!
Tremendously enjoyable; my only misgiving about this is that I wouldn't take a non-film buff date to it. Evans' honesty about his foibles and failings is refreshing, but the breakneck pace of this film puts that in less focus than the book. A pity this got overlooked by the Academy, but Evans probably still has sufficient enemies.. Innovatively shot (bringing stills to life) and never less than entertaining, it is naturally rather more compressed than the book, but if you've read it, it does it justice. If you haven't, watch this AND buy the book! The man's certainly a survivor. Oh, and don't get up and rush out when the credits roll - there's a treat awaiting.
The Big Money (1956)
The star didn't like it..
I've just attended 'Ian Carmichael in Conversation' at the National Film Theatre in London (8 Dec 02). He was very wary of discussing this film, describing it as 'a mistake'. He said that he and Bryan Forbes had attempted to rewrite the script, but this was discarded. According to Mr Carmichael, the film was put away as unreleasable for five years, when another director thought that he could salvage footage of a race meeting at Ascot for insertion into a Norman Wisdom picture. He told Rank that with a bit of work, he could make it releasable - and there it is.
Battle of Britain (1969)
Has there been a revised print for TV?
Watching the umpteenth rerun on UK TV, it strikes me that the TV print has been tweaked in recent years. Now, we have subtitles for nearly all the German language inserts and, for the first time in my memory, the Polish parts (they can be detected with a different type face and are yellow, as opposed to the white of the release print) Also some risible transcribing - e.g. 'Tomato Heinz..Tomato Heinz..' AND, over the end credits you get ALL of Sir William Walton's 'Battle of Britain March', not a brief segue to Ron Goodwin's. Tell me someone else has noticed this! Please!
U-571 (2000)
Historians/Purists, Beware. Be VERY ware
For all the opprobrium loaded on this in the UK (not entirely unjustified) I went open-minded, hoping for a well-researched good yarn. Sadly, the hoary old cliche 'don't let the facts get in the way of a good story' plays true. Things go wrong for villains, but not for the good guys. A seriously weakened and damaged submarine holds together for the good guys when it needs to. Depth charges seem to know when it is the good guys, as their explosive power is mitigated. And phew, what a powerful torpedo.
U-571 should have been destroyed several times over, but hey. we're the good guys. For all they hype, little above the war comics we of my generation used to read.
Plot full of inconsistencies, holes and the odd implausibility. A disappointment.
Mosquito Squadron (1969)
What a ghastly hotch-potch of stock footage!
This must rank as one of the worst of the 60s war movies.. Seemingly stitched together from stock footage of '633 Squadron' and 'Operation Crossbow', a poor attempt to cash in on the former's success. Unconvincing, hackneyed script - appallingly acted by actors who should have known better. Even the music attempts to 'ape' 'Battle of Britain'.. David Mc Callum is even allowed to keep his 'Ilya Kuryakin' haircut... fine for 1969, but not 1944! Its one saving grace; some original flying shots of that most beautiful aircraft, the De Haviland Mosquito.