Like many others, I like to bring out the war movies during the Memorial Day weekend. While other's are spending their weekends enjoying a six pack...or twelve on the beach. I am enjoying my thousandth viewing of HBO's Band of Brothers....with a beer or two. Without further ado...here's my top 10 list.
1. Band of Brothers and The Pacific --> It's a tie!
BoB set the precedent for war movies for my generation. It focused not just on the cool special effects, but the actual lives of men who lived and fought in Europe. The Pacific, on the other hand dug even deeper into the lives of marines in the Pacific Theatre. Some said they were unimpressed because there weren't that many action scenes. That is because you got to experience what the soldiers got to experience. Some days were full of action and others were full of sitting around lost in their own emotional struggles.
Spielberg's 1997 Award winner is most remembered for the opening sequence as the Allied force invaded Normandy. I have walked the beaches in Normandy and have spoken with men who survived the invasion, and Spielberg used what he learned to apply it to making a credible movie that could authentically depict June 1944. Plus, you get to see a young Matt Damon.
3. Letters from Iwo Jima (Japanese)
Clint Eastwood made this film and Flags of our Fathers back to back. Though I loved Flags of our Fathers, you get to experience a side that many films do not depict: the Japanese. Though the movie is filmed in Japanese with English subtitles, the experience is one you will never forget.
4. Der Untergang (German)
Another foreign film. This one tells the story of Hitler's bunker in the final days of the war told mostly through the eyes of Hitler's young secretary, Traudl Jung.
5. Joyeux Noel (French)
Though this is not a WWII film, it is another foreign film. It is Christmas in the trenches during World War I and the three sides: German, French, and Scottish decide to lay down their weapons for 24 hours and celebrate with one another.
6. Stalag 17
Life in a POW camp in Germany. Men barter with the German guards for things they need or leniency for the guards to look the other way as many are involved with racketeering. A murder occurs and tensions rise between the POWs and the Germans.
Steve McQueen at his finest. A group of POWs plan to escape from the camp that they are being held prisoner in an inescapable prison. Hijinx ensue as the men put up a facade for the Germans as they secretly dig a tunnel underneath their barracks that would lead out of the camp.
Though not exactly factual, definitely entertaining. Who doesn't like to see Nazis getting scalped or prized extremities shot off? Or better yet, see the psychotic Jew-hating Colonel Landa be outsmarted? Plus, Brad Pitt and Christoph Waltz both give excellent and entertaining performances.
The 1930 version, not the 1979 version. Though there are little special effects, the movie is just how author Erich Maria Remarque would have wanted it.
Though this a war movie, I picked it because of the epic cinematography. Every film teacher I ever had raved about it. In fact, THE UNTOUCHABLES parodied one of the most famous scenes from the movie in the Union Station scene with Andy Garcia and Kevin Costner.
Honorable Mention:
The American side of battle of Iwo Jima.
The story of the 5 Sullivan brothers from Waterloo, Iowa. Seeing as I spent part of my childhood in Waterloo this movie is near and dear to my heart. I've interned at the museum that focuses on the Sullivan brother's plight. An uplifting heroic tale of the lives of the boys that would all go down with the USS Juneau in November 1942.
Super heroes AND World War II? Is there any more reason needed?!
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