There shall be a movie called Iraqi Sniper...

[Viktorthepirate]

I didn't like Korean Old Boy or Spike Lee Old Boy. There's something off about asian movies to me. Its like they want it to seem gripping and dramatic, but their mannerisms and acting is spastic and weird. Its almost like watching some kind of adult swim parody or something. I'm sure if I was born there I would appreciate them more.

The british can makes some great movies too. I'm not denying that. The French, not so much. My parents watch those European crime shows. Some of them are ok, not HBO level or anything, but watchable.

Same thing here, but old boy didn't seem goofy like a lot of Asian movies are.

[Smitty-48]

HBO level is Band of Brothers, case in point; whole new paradigm, Saving Private Ryan The Series, swept everything that came before it aside. Oh, foreign devils, you wanna take this game to TV too? No problemo, sayonara, chumps.

[ssu]

Battle of Algiers is an important movie, politically, it's a great docudrama/art house film, but it's not in a class with Saving Private Ryan, I mean, get serious.

A film about insurgency in an Middle Eastern/North African urban setting it's good. As for the best WW2 films are in another category.

And let's remember that many times Hollywood basically gives the funding and the resources for foreigners to make awesome war films.

One interesting mashup is Tora! Tora! Tora! Back in the 70's Hollywood wanted some realism and the Japanese shooting the Japanese side works well. Hollywood wanted Kurosawa to film the Japanese parts of "Tora! Tora! Tora!", which he simply couldn't do in the timeframe (Kurosawa spent too long filming Zeros taking off and then trying to film a scene in a Shinto temple aboard a Japanese battleship), but his Japanese disciples did a great job afterwards. The Japanese pilots are in the film highly motivated, enthusiastic yet quite Japanese and not some stereotypes that Americans see them.

And of course this old warfilm from 1970 looks now even better with Michael Bay's annoying "Pearl Harbour" from 2001.

[Viktorthepirate]

I'd probably watch an Iraqi sniper movie if they don't cock it up.

There was this awful movie about the haditha massacre I can't remember the name of but they did the Iraqi parts in a way I found pretty interesting.

[Smitty-48]

The foreign devils can make one, maybe two great war movies each, the Australians have Gallipoli and Breaker Morant, the Germans have Stalingrad, the French have Battle of Algiers, the British have Hope and Glory, but the whole rest of the world combined, amounts to like a couple years worth of Hollywood great war movies, Hollywood cranks out dozens of them, scores of them, hundreds of them, and the best of the best, are all Hollywood, it's nolo contendere, on the aggregate.

[ssu]

One great WW2 film is Terrence Malicks "Thin Red Line". A bit poetic yet not too artistic, but still extremely well made and worth seeing.
And a cast of nearly all top male actors in Hollywood.

A great scene about sending men to scout enemy positions in front of you:

[Smitty-48]

And of course this old warfilm from 1970 looks now even better with Michael Bay's annoying "Pearl Harbour" from 2001.

"Pearl Harbor". But cheesy as it is, the production values are off the charts, even when the Americans are not trying, they take things to a level of production which foreign devils can only dream of.

[Smitty-48]

I will say this, the HLPW's are in a rut right now, Post Iraq syndrome hasn't been as great as Post Vietnam syndrome, and the reason is, in Post Vietnam, they went out to make the greatest Anti-War movies ever, but it backfired, they actually turned out to be the greatest pro-war movies ever, the Pentagon couldn't have asked for better recruitment films than Apocalypse Now, Platoon, and Full Metal Jacket.

Kilgore, Barnes, Hartman, they're the heroes of the movies, the troops all loved them, the troops ended up idolizing the supposed "villains".

So with Post Iraq Syndrome, they've tried to lay it on too thick, they've derailed themselves into a ditch, by going over the top with the "wanh-wanh", and so it's turned into total sermonizing at the expense of the movie itself, it's all lecturing and no art, which is why almost all of the "wanh-wanh Iraq" movies have been duds.

At the same time, it's not like the foreign devils have taken advantage of this lull, the foreign devils have all followed suit and layed the wanh-wanh on just as thick, so they haven't made any gains.

[Smitty-48]

I mean, the HLPW's basically said; it has to be all Beta Males naow, we can't have a Kilgore, we can't have a Barnes, we can't have a Hartman, because the troops love them, the troops love an Alpha, so if you have any Alpha's at all, it will be a recruitment film, so it has to be all Beta Male Neckbeard Faggots, and they can only say "wanh-wanh", otherwise, it's not Panty Waist, and it backfires.

Problem being, it's boring as all shit, and it's actually the troops who love the war movies, if you don't make the war movies for the troops, then don't bother, because you're not going to make any money, unless you give them what they want, and they do not want Betas, period, end of story.

Even in American Sniper, even with Clint Eastwood, they Betafied the shit out of that, the American Sniper was a total weenie, Hurt Locker, more Beta, another wanh-wanh Beta douche. Boring, boring, boring, all "wanh-wanh" and no "Charlie don't surf", just makes them shrug and walk away.

Ponderous comtemplative ambigious anti-heroes; Zzzzzzzzz. It's not even true, that's not even the truth of it, that's what the HLPW's think the troops should be like, but that's not really what they're like, so nobody connects with it, Bradley Cooper was nothing like Chris Kyle, Chris Kyle was a Kilgore, he wasn't an anti-hero, he thought he was John Wayne.

They're not going to make any money, until they go back to the Epic Alphas; Kilgore, Barnes, Hartman, or don't waste our motherfuckin' time.

[ssu]

I will say this, the HLPW's are in a rut right now, Post Iraq syndrome hasn't been as great as Post Vietnam syndrome, and the reason is, in Post Vietnam, they went out to make the greatest Anti-War movies ever, but it backfired, they actually turned out to be the greatest pro-war movies ever, the Pentagon could have asked for better recruitment films than Apocalypse Now, Platoon, and Full Metal Jacket.

Anti-war war movies are usually the best ones. Also the best one's typically create some outrage at start also.

I think for the "War on Terror" films, be it Iraq or Afghanistan, the biggest challenge is the sheer volume of videos and documentaries etc. that show the real fighting as basically anybody can film things with their smart phones. With WW2 the actual footage is small and has been quite carefully selected. Movies told the story. Not so much anymore.

Only part of this huge quantity that has been recorded is publicly available. And the sheer length of the wars has made a ton of material about them. I liked the "Bomb Patrol Afghanistan", which basically is a "reality show" on war. It's interesting to see when you compare it to "Hurt Locker".

The documentaries can be good. Actually some like "Restrepo" are a good war films (if you can call them that), but there are just a ton of great documentaries about the wars. And when you compare to Vietnam documentaries, in Vietnam still the journalist between the viewer and the soldiers. Now, many times the movie makers just follow the troops and in the end edit a lot. Now one might argue that it's scripted, there told to fire and that the movie makers have a list of what kind of scenes they want. Sometimes perhaps, but usually not. And it's still reality. I mean, how do you rate real war? Too boring?

Clip from Restrepo:


Nowdays documentaries can give you glimpses that rarely warfilms have shown. Just to give one example, something that you seldom see in a war film or documentary is the utter confusion of an Army in retreat. One showing this is "Ambushed in South Sudan" showing how officers run away from their men, except the lone officer trained in Britain who is left on the battlefield by his men and picked up By the reporters. Good depiction of war in Africa, when the training and command structure is not up to the NATO standard.