this one will rock your world http://whatreallyhappened.com/IMAGES/SMALL_falseslagthemovie.jpg

I couldn't buy Saving Private Ryan. Great first scene, terrible rest of the movie. They ought to have painted halos on Hanks' squad in post-production.

but to be honest not technically a war movie, it is more how wars are started than how they are waged.

Saving Private Ryan is a repulsive and sadistic apology for shooting prisoners of war. It's the kind of silly propaganda one would expect to have seen in the 1940s.

surprised no one mentioned:

Das Boot
Stalingrad (1993)
Slaughterhouse 5 (okay not really a war movie)

Enemy at the Gate was a great book, but the movie sucked pretty hard. It was based on a few paragraphs out of the book. The movie was mostly fiction.

There is an upcoming Russian movie on Stalingrad but I have no idea about quality of it.

putin, really? for fucks sake.

@blankflag, have I mentioned the benefits of routine antipsychotic medications? I might do you good.

(oh speaker did mention Das Boot)

Yes, really.

I don't recall Saving Private Ryan at any point explaining the joys and rationalizations behind killing people putting their hands up.

It simply showed it without comment.

Putin, are you one of those people who need a disclaimer read to you whenever you see something that is not ethically pristine?

"I couldn't buy Saving Private Ryan. Great first scene, terrible rest of the movie. They ought to have painted halos on Hanks' squad in post-production."

I completely get what you're saying, but sometimes it's nice to have a team you can feel good about rooting for instead of something more realistic. SPR was a work of fiction, after all. And anyhoo, it sells tickets - moviegoers don't generally like to watch morally ambiguous protagonists.

Okay, so maybe it showed people arguing about it. And maybe it showed the german dude kill ppl after he was let go. But, whatever.

"I don't recall Saving Private Ryan at any point explaining the joys and rationalizations behind killing people putting their hands up."

If you watch the movie closely, the German prisoner they let go after taking the machine gun nest in the middle of the movie is the one who shoots Tom Hanks at the end during the battle at the bridge. The suggestion is that if they'd executed him instead of letting him go (with "orders" to surrender to the first America patrol he comes across), Tom Hanks would've survived.

"Putin, are you one of those people who need a disclaimer read to you whenever you see something that is not ethically pristine?"

No, I'm someone who recognizes that when the sole person who objects to shooting the surrendering POWs is depicted as a coward crying during a firefight, you're deliberately associating the objection to this behavior with cowardice.

Yeah, dirge, "whatever".

@Tolstoy

Of course I recognize that a nuanced depiction of actual human beings rather than a cartoon will be box office poison. Just because the same people who have made Michael Bay a kajillionaire like a movie doesn't mean I have to, though.

@putin, its a fictional drama and as such, used conflict between characters to drive plot. If you prefer to only watch "issue movies" perhaps you should be more selective in your viewing habits.

Just saying.

Can't we just talk about f-ing movies without it degenerating into Tea Party versus Obamacare?

Does talking about movies mean having to like all the ones you like? Then no.

i have grown up, so i do not spend time listening to/reading/watching stories. even if they were based on real people, what do i care about other peoples lives. but when i was a child i liked apocalypse now which is kind of a war movie.

that said, false flag: the movie looks like it will blow the rest out of the water and strafe any lifeboats trying to escape the sinking ship

The big red 1

"The Cross of Iron" Sam Peckinpah's brilliant Eastern Front film.
"The Lighthorsemen" A little known Australian movie about the charge of the 12th Lighthorse Regiment that captured Beersheba
"Zulu Dawn" tells the story of the catastrophe at Isandlawana.
"The Red Badge of Courage" with Audie Murphy
"Sink the Bismarck"
"Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World"

On the fringe of war movies, probably war dramas
The Wind and the Lion
Lawrence of Arabia

"Apocalypse Now" the remake of Conrad's "Heart of Darkness"

"I love the smell of napalm in the morning. It smells like victory."

Isandlwana's only a catastrophe if you're pulling for the Empire.

"Isandlwana's only a catastrophe if you're pulling for the Empire."

The subject peoples of the Zulu Empire might have disagreed with you.

In other words, they were pulling for the Empire. Big oops on their part.

Bob, it's pretty obvious you don't know much about the Anglo-Zulu War. The British lost 1,800 men at Isandlwana under Lord Chelmsford. It was a catastrophe for the British at the time, and total catastrophe for the Zulu because the battle convinced Lord Chelmsford the only way he could recoup his reputation was to crush the Zulu nation quickly before his replacement arrived from Great Britain. Chelmsford crushed the Zulus at the battle of Ulundi five months after Islandlwana and the Zulu nation was subjugated and the dynasty of Shaka extinguished.

Eh, the Zulus were getting crushed regardless. That's what happened when you weren't a white Protestant and the British started covetously eyeing your territory. Isandlwana at least gave the Zulus a little bit of martial pride before the deluge.

Saving Private Putin.