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FBG Movie Club: We're Getting the Band Back Together: Metallica vs Nina Simone Movie Docs (4 Viewers)
- Thread starter Ilov80s
- Start date
Ilov80s
Footballguy
I think one of the consistent things about the movies is that they lean into the camaraderie and hide the real misery of POW situations.
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Don Quixote
Footballguy
Yeah, I thought while watching Stalag 17 too. The collegiality with the Nazis was also a bit striking. In real life, would a Nazi hand over his weapon to a POW to join in their volleyball game? I don’t think so, but I guess I wasn’t there.
Ilov80s
Footballguy
I’ve heard lots of stories of congenitally between sides in WW1 but not WW2. That said, I don’t think every movie has to be ultra serious and provide a realistic portrayal of the war.
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Ilov80s
Footballguy
wikkidpissah
Footballguy
I'll never forget the first time they showed The Great Escape on TV - they broke it up into two 2hr chunks. IIRC they showed it on consecutive Sundays and, at the end of Part 1, they teased the motorcycle jumps. Now, it was cool enough that television was showing what was then considered "adult" fare but, after we saw the tease, that was probably the best-behaved 12 & 13yo boys ever were because NObody took a chance of getting their TV privileges revoked that week. Matter of fact, when my memory flashes on the scene, i always consider the jumps to have been successful from all the fantasizing i did about just such a conclusion during that week.
Ilov80s
Footballguy
I remember first seeing this movie and being shocked at how the final 1/3 plays out
Osaurus
Footballguy
Man of Constant Sorrow
Footballguy
wikkidpissah
Footballguy
IIRC, they always had a nice, bouncy stemHe rode a Triumph fer dat, iirc.
Man of Constant Sorrow
Footballguy
I din't fully apprehend the significance of yer point at first.
Btw: did ya adjust the springs b4 yer ride... Or did ya go with the flow?
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wikkidpissah
Footballguy
not a bike guy. owned a '68 Suzuki 250 that had been dumped more than an Irish divorcee for like 3 wks (i actually stole it, but left money, to take a hottie somewheres - long story) and bought a 305 Dream i couldnt get on the road. i just remember friends' Triumphs being a lot less stiff than most "street" bikes
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Man of Constant Sorrow
Footballguy
Hmmm...maybe I'm remembering something that din't happen.
My potential confabulation relates to a conjugal relation a-yers on the back of a Triumph - sitting still - eh - cept the spring action.
Man of Constant Sorrow
Footballguy
prosopis
Arizona Chupacabra
I finished the great escape. It kind of brought me back to childhood. This is one of those movies that made war look like fun to me and all my friends back in the 70s. I remember playing war quite a bit at the end of the dirt road and this flick is exactly the kind of stuff we were thinking of while we played.
I think it is a little easy to make fun of these older movies as we now have so much more. Having said that, what the hell was that move that James Garner puts on the German soldier before stealing the plane. I couldn't stop laughing when I saw it and this is the first time I noticed how bad it was. It was also a little strange to see people get shot with no bullet holes or blood.
Fun movie but to long.
I think it is a little easy to make fun of these older movies as we now have so much more. Having said that, what the hell was that move that James Garner puts on the German soldier before stealing the plane. I couldn't stop laughing when I saw it and this is the first time I noticed how bad it was. It was also a little strange to see people get shot with no bullet holes or blood.
Fun movie but to long.
Don Quixote
Footballguy
prosopis
Arizona Chupacabra
Ilov80s
Footballguy
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Don Quixote
Footballguy
KarmaPolice
Footballguy
Not sure I'm gonna get these watched. 
wikkidpissah
Footballguy
just watched S17 . not at all how i remember itNot sure I'm gonna get these watched.
Ilov80s
Footballguy
wikkidpissah
Footballguy
just so hacky & hammy. time does that to a lot of comedies, esp if the theme has been reworked alot in subsequent projects
Ilov80s
Footballguy
Don Quixote
Footballguy
Ilov80s
Footballguy
It is a hacky and hammy, but I think it's funnier than MASH. The line connecting the 2 movies is pretty clear but I find MASH to be just plain mean where Stalag is a bit too nice. Two different takes on male military hijinks but I think like Wilder's POV and wit more than Altman and Co.wikkidpissah said:
Ilov80s
Footballguy
Why not? Was it too silly and sophomoric?
Any improved opinion after finishing?
Osaurus
Footballguy
It got old for me after about 10 minutes. The comedy felt forced and there was basically no plot except for Peter Graves. Meh. I did like Animal in small doses.
Don Quixote
Footballguy
I ended up giving a generous 4 (probably more of a 3.5). Second half better than the first half of the movie, as the drama/tension got realized. I generally prefer more low-key humor to how heavy-handed it was.
I gave The Great Escape a 5. Still holds up great -- enjoyable all-around with great cast, script, action, score, etc.
wikkidpissah
Footballguy
Nostalgia ain't what it used to be....
I generally dont like war movies. Real heroism dont need any pimpin' and pimpin' heroism is most of what war movies do. That and my eternal quibble with movie murder logic. This made these two flix safe haven when i was a kid. I got what was good about war pix without the bad. So i probably shoudnt have revisited them.
Stalag-17 really suffers from playitis. I have to believe Wilder was restricted in what he was allowed to do with it. He once again relied on hackeyed early narration instead of doing a movie thing like bringing us in thru a new prisoners eyes or sumn and there was just way too many set pieces in the first half. Even allowing for those hubba-hubba times, the broadness of the gags were hard to take. The story was actually better than Great Escape, but i was already tired of it before it got good.
Great Escape is actually closer to Bridge on the River Kwai than its other prison-camp predecessor. It's a mission picture all the way thru, set the model for what few war pix i liked (Dirty Dozen, Where Eagles Dare) because of the caper aspect. Two things take it down from my early enjoyment of it. First, the crisp, clean storytelling collapsed worse than a hand-dug tunnel when they added the two weakass story elements of Pleasance's blindness & Bronson's claustrophobia. And the entire escape sequence has multiple re-writes written all over it. Got a feeling there was a lot of jockeying over who gets it and who doesnt and McQueen's capture is just entirely unsatisfying and only explainable if baseball-in-the cooler is the only ending everyone agreed upon. I still gave them both positive ratings (3 & 4) but they've each lost luster in my memory
I generally dont like war movies. Real heroism dont need any pimpin' and pimpin' heroism is most of what war movies do. That and my eternal quibble with movie murder logic. This made these two flix safe haven when i was a kid. I got what was good about war pix without the bad. So i probably shoudnt have revisited them.
Stalag-17 really suffers from playitis. I have to believe Wilder was restricted in what he was allowed to do with it. He once again relied on hackeyed early narration instead of doing a movie thing like bringing us in thru a new prisoners eyes or sumn and there was just way too many set pieces in the first half. Even allowing for those hubba-hubba times, the broadness of the gags were hard to take. The story was actually better than Great Escape, but i was already tired of it before it got good.
Great Escape is actually closer to Bridge on the River Kwai than its other prison-camp predecessor. It's a mission picture all the way thru, set the model for what few war pix i liked (Dirty Dozen, Where Eagles Dare) because of the caper aspect. Two things take it down from my early enjoyment of it. First, the crisp, clean storytelling collapsed worse than a hand-dug tunnel when they added the two weakass story elements of Pleasance's blindness & Bronson's claustrophobia. And the entire escape sequence has multiple re-writes written all over it. Got a feeling there was a lot of jockeying over who gets it and who doesnt and McQueen's capture is just entirely unsatisfying and only explainable if baseball-in-the cooler is the only ending everyone agreed upon. I still gave them both positive ratings (3 & 4) but they've each lost luster in my memory
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Eephus
Footballguy
I love old movies but neither of these have aged well at all. Maybe I'm just too exhausted by 2020 to properly appreciate the resilience of the human spirit but I had a hard time getting into either film.
Of the two, I think The Great Escape was more entertaining. It was structured like a caper film with the first 1 hr. 45 min. spent assembling the group and building the plan, a tight 20 minutes on the escape itself and the final 45 minutes following the escapees to their end. The scale of the enterprise required the introduction of many characters which I thought hurt the pacing the of the first half. I did think the script managed this well in scenes that also served to define the physical space of the camp. It took too long to develop for this impatient geezer from the future wich made the last part feel rushed. The constant plucky Boys Life attitudes also wore on me after a while but I cared enough about the characters to get invested in them.
Stalag 17 is one of those movies that's best the first time. I hadn't seen it in decades but if you already know the villain is, it changes your experience with it. This time I could never get past the peculiar mix of melodrama and lowbrow comedy. It wasn't enough to have Strauss and Lembeck's characters so they threw in a visiting flyer who does impressions. Schultz had a line that summed up my position "Everybody is a clown! How do you expect to win a war with an army of clowns?".
The tight aspect ratio of Stalag made the interiors look more confining than The Great Escape's Panavision. Stalag 17 had some beautiful deep focus work that accentuated the shape of the barracks. The scene where the bad guy is revealed while Animal sings When Johnny Comes Marching Home was a particular standout.
Of the two, I think The Great Escape was more entertaining. It was structured like a caper film with the first 1 hr. 45 min. spent assembling the group and building the plan, a tight 20 minutes on the escape itself and the final 45 minutes following the escapees to their end. The scale of the enterprise required the introduction of many characters which I thought hurt the pacing the of the first half. I did think the script managed this well in scenes that also served to define the physical space of the camp. It took too long to develop for this impatient geezer from the future wich made the last part feel rushed. The constant plucky Boys Life attitudes also wore on me after a while but I cared enough about the characters to get invested in them.
Stalag 17 is one of those movies that's best the first time. I hadn't seen it in decades but if you already know the villain is, it changes your experience with it. This time I could never get past the peculiar mix of melodrama and lowbrow comedy. It wasn't enough to have Strauss and Lembeck's characters so they threw in a visiting flyer who does impressions. Schultz had a line that summed up my position "Everybody is a clown! How do you expect to win a war with an army of clowns?".
The tight aspect ratio of Stalag made the interiors look more confining than The Great Escape's Panavision. Stalag 17 had some beautiful deep focus work that accentuated the shape of the barracks. The scene where the bad guy is revealed while Animal sings When Johnny Comes Marching Home was a particular standout.
Ilov80s
Footballguy
I could see Lancaster and Clift canceling each other out. I definitely think Cliff gave the best performance of the 3.
Don Quixote
Footballguy
Eephus
Footballguy
There's a Great Escape II: The Untold Story available on Amazon Prime. It's a 1988 made-for-TV movie with Christopher Reeve, Judd Hirsch and Donald Pleasance as a bad guy. The plot appears to be Spielberg's Munich with survivors of the escape taking vengeance on the Germans after the war.
The trailer looks terrible ("you've murdered the best men I've ever known, that CAN'T go unanswered") and possibly entertaining in a so bad it's good way. I'd be down for it if it wasn't longer than the original
The trailer looks terrible ("you've murdered the best men I've ever known, that CAN'T go unanswered") and possibly entertaining in a so bad it's good way. I'd be down for it if it wasn't longer than the original
Eephus
Footballguy
From Here to Eternity was on TCM this morning and is available to subscribers until June 22. Haven't watched it in years but I remember it being good but overwrought.
Don Quixote
Footballguy
I will say that both movies put in the mood to watch Chicken Run. But it looks like it is only streaming free on Hulu.
Don Quixote
Footballguy
I watched it on TCM a year or two ago. I’d agree with that take on it. Good, but not as great as its reputation makes it to be.
Looking at the list nominated that year, I think Shane has held up the best of all of them.
Ilov80s
Footballguy
One of my favorite books and movies. The acting in From Here to Eternity is stellar. It’s certainly of a film of the 50s which dates it but I’m a big fan.
popeye
Footballguy
Eephus
Footballguy
Don Quixote
Footballguy
I was reading about William Holden’s death (I don’t think I’ve been down that Wiki hole before). That is one of the more bizarre celebrity deaths I’ve read. Definitely tragic what alcohol did to him. Tripping over a throw rug in a drunken stupor and then bleeding out with a phone in reach. Sad at the end, but I guess if you have to go some way, there are more painful ways to go, at least.
Eephus
Footballguy
Robert Strauss was incapacitated during the final years of his life from the effects of electroshock therapy to treat depression
Eephus
Footballguy
I was in the mood for something dumb last night and the Great Escape II was too long so I found an episode of Hogan's Heroes on Dailymotion. I vaguely remember one of the local stations showing late night reruns when I was in college but I didn't recall how terribly unfunny it was.
Bob Crane's Hogan character has some similarities to Sefton and the Germans are more cartoonish versions of the German antagonists in Stalag 17. I'm amazed that the creators of Hogan's Heroes were able to milk the lame setup for six seasons of stories. The show ran on CBS for almost as long as the real World War II.
Bob Crane's Hogan character has some similarities to Sefton and the Germans are more cartoonish versions of the German antagonists in Stalag 17. I'm amazed that the creators of Hogan's Heroes were able to milk the lame setup for six seasons of stories. The show ran on CBS for almost as long as the real World War II.
