Sam Mendes' World War I movie, 1917, got very good reviews.
https://www.cinemablend.com/news/2485528/sam-mendes-real-time-wwi-film-1917-has-screened-here-are-the-intense-early-reactions
Have to admit that this sounds too accurate to be enjoyable. World War One was called The Great Slaughter in New England because of all the families that lost members.
Glad to see a WWI movie. Long neglected subject.
Critics consensus on Rotten Tomatoes is 91%. But the critics hated the latest Midway which was excellent.
I've been looking forward to seeing this for a while. But like Bes said, not sure if I would be able to say I enjoyed it the same way I have enjoyed other movies. Like Saving Private Ryan or Schindler's List, it looks to be an excellent movie but I will enjoy it in a different way, if you know what I mean.
After seeing Peter Jackson's WWI documentary, I am looking forward to this.
How is Jackson's doc? I need to watch that soon.
Quote from: Gusington on November 27, 2019, 02:24:55 PM
How is Jackson's doc? I need to watch that soon.
A must see! There is an grogheads thread about it somewhere. I think it might be free now on one of the streaming services.
Quote from: airboy on November 27, 2019, 10:55:30 AM
Critics consensus on Rotten Tomatoes is 91%. But the critics hated the latest Midway which was excellent.
Well, lets not go too overboard :timeout:
Quote from: Gusington on November 27, 2019, 02:24:55 PM
How is Jackson's doc? I need to watch that soon.
It's wonderful. Proud to say my Son was the one who brought up going to see it (as they were covering that approximate period of time in history at that point) and we got to geek out over history together.
I contend that rather than killing Hitler if you could go back in time, Gavrilo Princip might be a better target.
^There has to be more than a few books and papers weighing the benefits and detrimentals of each.
1917 is a must see for me, and will finally watch the a Jackson doc this weekend...I've waited too long already.
Quote from: Dammit Carl! on December 06, 2019, 07:13:45 AM
Quote from: Gusington on November 27, 2019, 02:24:55 PM
How is Jackson's doc? I need to watch that soon.
It's wonderful. Proud to say my Son was the one who brought up going to see it (as they were covering that approximate period of time in history at that point) and we got to geek out over history together.
I contend that rather than killing Hitler if you could go back in time, Gavrilo Princip might be a better target.
My 30 something daughter wanted to see this. She has become quite the history buff. My chest swells with pride..... :bd:
We saw both the documentary itself and a "how it was made" video that was just about as good as the documentary. The "before" and "after" state of the films used as source material is incredible.
Is the 'How It's Made' available when you watch the feature? Either before or after?
Quote from: Gusington on December 06, 2019, 12:55:55 PM
Is the 'How It's Made' available when you watch the feature? Either before or after?
It was after and it immediately followed the doc at the theater we were at.
Look at Dr. Fancypants and his 'theater.' I'll be watching it on Amazon. I hope the making of is included.
Oh, please.......
Fancypants would be at a "Theatre", old chap. With one pinky in the air......
Agreed that the "How it was made" part was also excellent. I went with a movie buff buddy and he was enthralled. I found it very interesting, and I'm not a movie buff.
Quote from: Gusington on December 06, 2019, 01:01:22 PM
Look at Dr. Fancypants and his 'theater.' I'll be watching it on Amazon. I hope the making of is included.
Dr. Quest: Please remember that Gus lives in a small town that retains "must be this tall to see any movies not G rated." He gets angry when he thinks about going to "theaters." ;)
Well, I don't have an Amazon Prime account so we're sort of even. O0
And I grew up in a small town. I understand the cultural and artistic challenges. :'(
^HA!!
Has anyone seen this yet?
I'm seeing it tomorrow.
Love to hear your thoughts about the movie.
On my way into Manhattan right now! 130 showtime.
The short of it: one of the top 20 war movies I have ever seen. Right up there with Platoon, Full Metal Jacket, Apocalypse Now, Saving Private Ryan, Tora Tora Tora and countless others. The story is simple and easy to follow and has been done many times before. It's the technical aspects of 1917 that really make it special, as well as the acting. The final scene of a British Army unit going over the top is unlike anything I have ever seen. It captures the chaos and fear and hopelessness of the First World War awesomely. I don't think anyone here will be disappointed if they see it. Also recommend seeing it on as big a screen as possible. It will be beautiful and awe inspiring. Definitely a movie I will watch many times in the future.
Looking forward to seeing it, but doesn't come out in our area until 2nd week of January.....
Yeah it's release is sporadic and limited right now. The theater I saw it in was sold out. Everyone was silent throughout most of the movie. There was some laughter at the beginning that I thought was a little inappropriate but I may just be getting older and ornery. There were a few audible 'ewws' from some scenes early on too but after that everyone STFU. Many people applauded at the end.
Thanks for the review. We plan to see it in January.
+1
You're welcome. It will be worth your time I think.
Just watched Peter Jackson's They Shall Not Grow Old...also excellent and haunting.
On my list when it comes out in my neck of the woods for sure.
I really want to see this.
Excellent movie, although part of me thinks it is a movie set during war as opposed to a war movie.
My take:
https://canadiansoldierscom.blogspot.com/2020/01/what-1917-gets-right-no-spoilers.html
tl;dr: it was good, and not as far-fetched as some grogs have been claiming in various groups.
I saw the movie over the weekend and I liked it.
It definitely is a good movie but I would only buy the DVD if it was on sale for one dollar. Don't get me wrong. Like I said it is a good movie just not one that you absolutely must have in your video collection.
We saw it this afternoon. It was very well done. I'm glad I saw it and would encourage anyone interested in WW1 to see it.
That being said, I don't think I ever need to see it again.
Thanks for the feedback, guys. I'm going to see if I can drag my dad to come watch this one with me (while there's still time); I think he'd enjoy it as well.
Watched it this evening with a buddy who was in the infantry for 23 years. The two of us were snickering and groaning for most of it due to the ridiculous tactics displayed on screen and the absurd nature of mission. Very disappointed in it in terms of history as well as story-telling. From a technical aspect, the way it was filmed was pretty cool. My recommendation is to watch Gallipoli instead of this one.
The wife and I saw it over the weekend and I really liked it. A bit implausible at times but the WWI sets were excellent and the action didn't overwhelm the film, these are 2 young soldiers in war, not superheroes fighting their way to Berlin. Overall very compelling to watch. O0
I saw it on Saturday.
It is a good movie for sure O0 but don't expect a Grogheads Grog war movie.
It is not Saving Privat Ryan or Band of Brothers in WW I. Its more comparable to a slow Apocalypse Now Redux (the extended Version) in WW I, capturing the absurdity of war and those absurd twisted and often cruel moments that define a persons war experience.
Be warned Nr 1: the film want to be an art movie. scenes or still shots of them are often like a painting (reminds me on Almodovar's art work) and the director strongly wanted to create an 'iconic picture' (a still life) or a short 'iconic sequence' (a clip) - unique and defining the film 1917, wich he accomplished very well. but its art into your face, you can feeeel his intention when you see those scenes and that breaks the magic of true art, where that would comes naturally, and often in a retrospective, not in-situ.
Be warned Nr 2: the film is shot with camera in a kind of permanent "ego"-perspective (like a drone that it lassoed with a 5m rubber band fixed to the head of the protagonist and always pointed at him, but free to circle around in the plane defined by height level of the protagonist head) and without any visible cuts. feels like watching another persons video game - over-the-shoulder-look with very limited movement-cone of the cam. (see above)
first that is great, you are really there! like a companion in arms running around with those two chaps. but after some time (like 30 min ) it gets more and more and more super strenuous and you wish for a counter-cut and a long shot or a establishing shot. its good to be always on the same height level and close but at one moment you realize that you (the watcher) never looks around. your eyebeam is always glued to the head of the protagonist, Period! .....like watching your self in a nightmare or under anesthesia out-of-body-experiences, that some people report they had it, or after they had gone through a reanimation.
Now were the kind reader of my review is prepared. i recommend watching it as a piece of contemporary movie art with war as a theme
Made me think of Thin Red Line. Very nice cinematography but it felt like the director was more concerned with the look and style of the film than he was about the story.
Quote from: MikeGER on January 20, 2020, 05:17:19 AM
I saw it on Saturday.
It is a good movie for sure O0 but don't expect a Grogheads Grog war movie.
It is not Saving Privat Ryan or Band of Brothers in WW I. Its more comparable to a slow Apocalypse Now Redux (the extended Version) in WW I, capturing the absurdity of war and those absurd twisted and often cruel moments that define a persons war experience.
Be warned Nr 1: the film want to be an art movie. scenes or still shots of them are often like a painting (reminds me on Almodovar's art work) and the director strongly wanted to create an 'iconic picture' (a still life) or a short 'iconic sequence' (a clip) - unique and defining the film 1917, wich he accomplished very well. but its art into your face, you can feeeel his intention when you see those scenes and that breaks the magic of true art, where that would comes naturally, and often in a retrospective, not in-situ.
Be warned Nr 2: the film is shot with camera in a kind of permanent "ego"-perspective (like a drone that it lassoed with a 5m rubber band fixed to the head of the protagonist and always pointed at him, but free to circle around in the plane defined by height level of the protagonist head) and without any visible cuts. feels like watching another persons video game - over-the-shoulder-look with very limited movement-cone of the cam. (see above)
first that is great, you are really there! like a companion in arms running around with those two chaps. but after some time (like 30 min ) it gets more and more and more super strenuous and you wish for a counter-cut and a long shot or a establishing shot. its good to be always on the same height level and close but at one moment you realize that you (the watcher) never looks around. your eyebeam is always glued to the head of the protagonist, Period! .....like watching your self in a nightmare or under anesthesia out-of-body-experiences, that some people report they had it, or after they had gone through a reanimation.
Now were the kind reader of my review is prepared. i recommend watching it as a piece of contemporary movie art with war as a theme
I'm not an artsy-fartsy film guy so this sort of review is beyond me. But this review is spot on.
That was a really good review, MikeGER.
@MikeGER, nice and engaging review.
I'll wait until '1917' comes up on streaming to see it. And I might then consider watching both '1917' and 'Journey's End' (one of the best war movies in recent years.) back to back. It could be interesting to compare the two movies, even if they are entirely different stories.
Groggy
By far and away the most impressive aspect of the film was the extensive sets and the hundreds of live extras used, I didn't see a single CGI soldier in the whole film nor the same soldier used twice. The way the camera followed the characters made this part far more effective. Like being part of an actual army in the field. Somebody clearly used a whole bunch of guys and dug-up a whole lot countryside to make this movie. :clap:
I may get the Blu just for the extras showing the groundwork of the film.
I saw the film with Bro back on Saturday; the only correction I have to MikeGER's review, is that every once in a while the camera does 'look around' instead of being droned to the two protagonists. It doesn't happen often, but it does happen -- the most memorable example being the musical solo before the climax (no spoilers) where the camera unmoors and walks around for a couple of minutes.
The only CGI figures I (thought I) spotted were 'puppets' of one or the other protag taking a jump somewhere a couple of times.
After a while it does seem like the plot advances time in the film by some significant degrees, particularly late in the film before the climax -- I don't mean the one protracted time jump but after that, we go from full dark outside to bright morning in thirty minutes. Even allowing for the 'camera' eye being fooled by lighting contrasts at the start of that sequence into thinking the night is darker than it is, that janked me out of the film over that period of time.
I liked how Sam Mendes made the film as a personal honorariam to a WW1 vet relative of his who used to tell stories. O0
At several points in the film I couldn't help but draw direct comparisons to Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. This also amused me. (It helps and/or doesn't help that one of the main protagonists looks a lot like a more hobbity version of Elijah Wood in the film trilogy, and sounds somewhat like him, too, in vocal timber and cadences, though not in accent.)
I was watching the film for a while thinking, hm, doesn't really look like a Sam Mendes film, I guess that's a good job doing a stylistic stretch there? -- then the night-time sequence kicked in, and AH THERE IT IS, THERE'S THE SAMMENDENESS! :D ;D
Around the same time, and partly for the same reason, I leaned over to Bro and muttered, "and from here on out we're supposed to wonder if this is an Owl Creek Bridge thing, right?" Surprisingly this turns out not to be true! -- which I realize is partly a spoiler, but it was so janky that a particular super-important event, also super-important to the plot, is treated like a Big-Lipped Alligator Moment (i.e. and let us never speak of this again). X happens so that plot and super-Mendy stylism can happen, but X itself is never referenced or explained again. You could practically meme it with a Monty Python paraphrase! ....pause, so, moving along then.
Eh, I've had worse; YOU LIE!!! ::)
Everyone has seen the film should know what I'm talking about, but I'll add a brief spoiler cut here:
[spoiler]Protagonist gets shot in the chest point-blank by a rifle, hard enough to blast him backwards down a flight of stairs like he was hit with a shotgun. Afterward, a trippy nightmarish dreamlike sequence starts. Mundane reality slots back in eventually, with a lot of exhausting action following the chest shot. No damage to the protagonist however, except a bump on the head from landing on the stair landing. Nope, not an Owl Creek Bridge thing, he isn't lying dead in the house after all, not the slightest explanation is given about why he doesn't have a giant sucking chest wound much less a hole in his back. Those Brit WW1 troops sure wear a lot of clothes, I guess! There's not even a visual reference to the event later, so far as I could see, and I was watching for it! This is after someone gets stabbed with a knife resulting in realistic damage, if not overly realistic.[/spoiler]
You mentioned Tolkien - you of all people probably know this but there are some great books out there on how WWI influenced him and The Lord of the Rings.
I thought the same thing as Jason, "I wonder what Tolkien would think about this movie". :o That's right about the time compression thing, especially the dark-to-daylight scene, and I also noticed some of the enemy bullets hitting near the soldier could NOT have come from where it was supposed to come from and... the German trenches had sandbags stacked on top of each other. Somebody correct me if I'm wrong but weren't sandbags stacked obliquely like bricks in a building for more stability? :hide: These are still all minor issues for me-- the movie was entertaining for me.
The German trenches confused me a bit, when the protags arrived; they should have looked rather better than the British ones, but they didn't until the protags went inside one of the barracks (to be impressed by its size and arrangements).
The rats were certainly healthier. :o
Bit of trivia.
Rats like nice, warm quarters.
The soldiers didn't poison the rats in the trenches, because rats go home to die.
Quote from: Sir Slash on January 22, 2020, 07:24:54 PM
The rats were certainly healthier. :o
"Blimey! Even their
rats are bigger!"
Incidentally, regarding the first appearance of rats (not in the barracks if I recall correctly), Bro and I leaned over to each other and I muttered, "yeah,
that's coming off later," "yep, mm-hm". Despite the setup this doesn't happen, somehow. There's no indication it will ever happen later either. Stress must be a great disinfectant; who knew?!
Screen Rant's content can vary in quality a lot, but this mini-doc shows a lot of behind the scenes as incidental footage (and isn't a bad mini-doc).
Saw it over the weekend with the wife. She liked it a lot, and she usually doesn't like war movies. I did as well. Sure I could quibble with the plot, some of the action and details, but the movie did a great job of suspending reality for me...I really enjoyed it.
WAPO article says 1917 is "favored" for best picture win.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2020/02/04/oscars-are-this-weekend-heres-which-movies-watch-first-how-watch-them/ (https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2020/02/04/oscars-are-this-weekend-heres-which-movies-watch-first-how-watch-them/)
I hope it wins. Just because it would be really great to see a WWI movie take best picture. When is the last time that has happened? I am no Oscar historian, but I think it was 1931, "All Quiet on the Western Front." (technically 1963, "Lawrence of Arabia" should count, but there is not a trench in sight).
A solid WWI movie win...might lead to greenlighting other WWI pics, or so I hope....
IIRC the first Oscar winner ever was Wings in 1928.