Urwumpe said:
The best war movies are IMHO still "Saving Private Ryan" and "Letters from Iwo Jima".
I haven't seen Letters, yet, and I though SPR was okay. The ending was very Spielberg/Hollywood popcorn, though. The way he portrays German soldiers just didn't look right to me. The ones on the beech seemed realistic (weren't they mostly non-Germans in real life?), but the ones at the end lined up like ducks in a shooting gallery, and the ending with the tank on the bridge was way too Hollywood. The first 20 minutes were the most amazing combat scene ever filmed, though.
My favorite war movie might be Full Metal Jacket, but to me it's not really a war movie per se; it's a Kubrick exploration of human nature in a war setting. A lot of people have told me that they didn't understand why it looks like two different movies, the boot camp half and the Vietnam half, and that they only like the boot camp half. But that's the whole point of the movie. Kubrick is explaining the two side of man. Every character had a duality, as explained by Joker in the hilarious scene with the obnoxious colonel. Gunnery Sgt. Hartman was a fearless drill instructor who lost his nerve when Pyle had the rifle in the toilet. Pyle was a dumb, harmless kid who turned into a psycho. Cowboy was a loyal friend squad leader who was going to abandon his two men when the sniper attacked. Animal-Mother was a racist jerk who risked everything and charged in to rescue his black friend. And in the end, even Joker had a duality. He went from happy-go-lucky Joker to a cold-blooded killer.
Plus the surreal madness of the Battle of Hue City, with the Surfin' Bird music whiel the tanks shell the town, and the insane helicopter door gunner. Great movie.
BTW, does anyone else find it funny that Adam Baldwin seems to play the exact same character in Firefly as he did in Full Metal Jacket 15 years earlier?
Warning: foul language!
