Category Archives: Trailer

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Ben Stiller’s Tropic Thunder (2008) Hilarious or Bad Taste?

Before I knew what  Tropic Thunder was all about I saw it mentioned a few times on people’s Top 10 Favourite war movies lists. Aha?  And then I saw several really angry and infuriated reviews. Definitely a movie that polarizes. Those who love it think it’s genius, those who hate it think it is hateful, despicable, in bad taste and politically incorrect.

I actually think it is extremely funny. It’s a huge piss take and quite multilayered. Yes, it is vulgar and there is a lot of foul language and swearing but it has to be like that. That is part of the parody. There is a lot of swearing in some war movies, especially in the boot camp parts, so that had to be a theme.

Tropic Thunder foremost makes fun of the US Vietnam war movies (I guess there aren’t many others anyway), of the macho type gung-ho flicks à la Rambo as well as of the great movies like Platoon. These movies, as good as some of them are, live to a certain extent of stereotypes and stereotypes are great material for parodies.

The most important part in the movie however is the acting. The actors are absolutely outstanding. Ben Stiller playing a retard, Jack Black a dumb-ass comedy star, Nick Nolte as Vietnam vet gone writer, Robert Downey Jr as black Sgt and Tom Cruise as Jewish businessman who wants to make money, money, money.

There is nothing sacred in  this movie. Not the death scene from Platoon, nor the Vietnam vets who write books, nor the poor little Vietcong, black soldiers, handicapped people, you name it…

But despite all the piss taking and fun it has a story to offer.

In the middle of the Vietnamese forest a film crew tries to shoot the memoirs of a Vietnam vet. The shooting and acting isn’t going well and finally the vet suggests that the actors should be left on their own in the middle of the forest where they would have to fight for their survival. Unfortunately they land on the territory of a Vietnamese drug gang and things turn very nasty.

Tropic Thunder is a parody of the Vietnam war movie subgenre but also of film business in general.  Every element that is part of a Vietnam war movie, including the drugs, the swearing and the 60s music are made fun of.

Many people loved it for its special effects and an equal amount of people hated it for the special effects.

All in all its an exaggeration, a caricature, a parody and in outrageously bad taste but really funny.

If you don’t want to watch the whole movie, watch at least Tom Cruise dancing.

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Saints and Soldiers (2003) War Movie With A Religious Theme

Saints and Soldiers is loosely based on a true story, the Malmedy massacre. During The Battle of the Bulge, in 1944, a group of American soldiers got captured and subsequently massacred by Germans near Malmédy. The movie starts with the massacre and follows four of the men who manage to escape and are now deep behind enemy lines.

It’s a group of four very different men, one of them very religious. On their way back to their lines they save a British pilot who says that he has important information for the high command.

It is the middle of winter, the snow is high, the forest swarming with German troops and they are constantly in great danger. One of them, Deacon, the religious one, cannot sleep anymore. He has accidentally killed civilians, women and children and cannot forgive himself. He will have plenty of possibilities to atone, don’t worry, or the movie wouldn’t be called Saints and Soldiers.

Now if there is one thing that needs to be handled with care it is the blending of war and religion or let’s say war and Christian faith. There are religious or rather very spiritual undertones in The Thin Red Line but they are not Christian. Platoon got away with it but let’s face it, Platoon is one of a kind. A Midnight Clear, that is very similar to Saints and Soldiers, overdid it and this movie overdid it too.

Something I found insufferable was the pseudo-Brit. They really couldn’t find a British actor for that role? They had to take an American one who is supposedly good at accents? Well, he is not, he sucks.

This is too bad because from a purely cinematographic point of view this movie is beautiful. There are a few haunting images of the snow-covered forest and the story had, despite many clichés (a beautiful and helpful French woman, a German who is good although they are all monsters, some Germans that are monsters, many more Germans who are monsters) a lot of potential. I have a special interest in the Battle of the Bulge and the Battle of Bastogne (brilliantly shown in Band of Brothers) but we don’t see much of this. This is really only the adventurous story of a few men who had to cross enemy territory and find back to their line.

Despite all this I think it does deserve 3/5.

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Movies on the War in Algeria: A List

The War in Algeria, or the war that was officially no war, is a particularly dark spot on French history. For all the parties invloved, the French and the Algerians alike. Some of the movies on this list have been prohibited in France for a long time. I have only seen and reviewed Intimate enemies aka L’ennemi intime which is a very good movie but I know that a few of the others on the list, first of all La battaglia di Algeri aka Battle of Algiers and Chronique des années de braise are very good movies as well. I got L’honneur d’un Capitaine which, like some of the others, is only available in French. Lost Command has quite an interesting cast but I have my doubts whether the movie is any good and the first one on the list is decidedly a B-Movie.

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John Rabe aka City of War: The Story of John Rabe (2009) The Good German of Nanjing or The Nanjing Massacre

Based on The Good German of Nanking: The Diaries of John Rabe the movie City of War: The Story of John Rabe tells the true story of the German businessman John Rabe who saved the lives of 200’000 Chinese.

Rabe had been in Nanjing for 27 years when in 1937 Siemens told him that he was promoted and to return to Berlin immediately. What he didn’t know was that they had planned to close down the factory and stop building the giant dam that would have brought water to a huge number of Chinese people. Rabe realized that they were doing nothing less than destroying his life’s work.

The replacement they sent from Germany, Fleiss, a Nazi through and through, is an obnoxious and condescending idiot. During the evening before the Rabes are to go back to Berlin, the Japanese fly an air raid over Nanjing and open fire on the factory as well. Rabe opens the doors and lets the people find shelter inside the compound. The giant Nazi flag he was reluctant to put up, is fetched and hung above the inner yard to show the Japanese that they are flying over the territory of their ally.

A French schoolmistress, British diplomats and an American doctor (Steve Buscemi) manage to talk Rabe out of his plans to return to Germany and convince him to stay with them in Nanjing. They want to open a safety zone for the civilians and need him as their head. He accepts the deed and stays with them while his wife returns on her own.

Rabe  (very well-played by Ulrich Tukur) is a courageous man. The movie tells this atrocious story of the rape of Nanking in gruesome details. There is no Japanese act that isn’t horrible, as a matter of fact there is only one Japanese character that was a bit likable. This seems extremely biased. I have never seen a recent movie demonizing a whole people like this. The Nanjing massacre was an atrocity that is barely known today but that doesn’t make a whole nation evil.

I think you already got it, I have huge reservations regarding this movie. Another one stems from the fact that it won best picture. The movie interweaves original footage and movie material quite artfully and the picture is stunning. Glossy and very beautiful but that does a huge disservice to the topic. How can you show scenes of people being beheaded in such eerily beautiful colors, intense, shiny, fresh, esthetic? It’s really odd. Besides I didn’t really like Rabe. The way he treated his people was condescending, obedience was all that counted. He did change eventually but still I found that off-putting. “The Chinese are like small children?” he said at one point.

Rabe’s life ended very tragically. After having helped such a lot of people he went back to Germany in 1938 and, after the war, wasn’t denazified but lived isolated and impoverished until he died.

John Rabe is a German/French/Chinese co-production but there is also a Chinese movie with a similar title (City of Life and Death: Nanjing, Nanjing) about the same events. I think that is the movie I should have watched.

This was too esthetic for the topic and without the original footage it would have had no depth whatsoever. I think it’s unfair to use this type of original footage (really gruesome) to try to give meaning to an otherwise shallow picture.

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71-Into the Fire aka Pohwasogeuro (2010) DVD Giveaway

Following yesterday’s announcement this is the official giveaway for the South Korean movie 71-Into the Fire. Here’s what it’s all about.

On August 11th, 1950, 71 boy soldiers of the South Korean army singlehandedly held back the elite North Korean 766 Commando Brigade for a full 11 hours. Most were still in their school uniforms and had only fired a single bullet in training!

Their astonishing bravery under fire enabled allied forces to hold a strategic bridgehead at the Nakdong River and gain a tactical advantage that would help turn the tide of the entire war. Nothing less than the freedom of their nation was at stake. Their ingenuity, tenacity and brotherhood helped them to achieve the impossible.

This is their remarkable true story…

As I said yesterday this giveaway is courtesy of the distributor cine-asia. I’m giving away 2 DVD’s (region 2) of the movie 71-Into the fire.  To enter, simply leave a comment with your e-mail address and let me know why you would like to have this DVD.  Should there be a lot of interested people the first one to leave a comment will get one, the second will be drawn from the remaining names. The giveaway finishes Thursday 31 March. The winners will be announced on April 1st.

THE DVD IS REGION 2 CODED