Recomend me War Movies.
 

Some i am looking for some War Movies for me to buy. I got a lot of money and i need to use them. I need War movies, Vietnam War ones Preferably.
I got:

Full Metal Jacket.
My favorite Vietnam War movie.

Platoon.
Hated it. But i still watch some parts to make fun of the cheesy glory.

Hamburger Hill.
Liked it.

Dead Presidents.
Liked it, but it's not exactly a war film.

So recommend away.

The Big Red One, early eighties WWII film with Lee Marvin. Black Hawk Down - Mogadishu.

I'll take Platoon over Full Metal Jacket. About all the characters in the film are based off real people Oliver Stone knew.

And most of Full Metal Jacket was Michael Herr and Gustav Hasford retelling their experiences. There were also no silly redneck accents and the theme song playing every time there isn't any dialogue. I have Black Hawk down also. Really liked it. I will look into the Big red One.

Ah okay you were listing just the Vietnam films you had. The Big Red One is no big budget Saving Private Ryan, but the director Sam Fuller was a WWII veteran and so was Marvin. I have the reconstruction version, with some extended scenes.

The thing that annoyed me on Full Metal Jacket was when the sniper takes another shot at one of the wounded guys, Kubrick puts it in slow motion when they're groaning out ever time. Got old. What I did like about it was the urban landscape instead of the jungle. I'm from the south so I have a silly redneck accent, didn't bother me. Jason Isaacs (Steele) and Eric Bana (Hoot) attempt of a southern accent was embarrassing in Black Hawk Down though.

Your redneck accent is not silly, i bet. It's realistic. Black Hawk Down's redneck accents were also silly. And i agree with the slow motion in Full Metal Jacket. Of course the awesome dialogue makes up for it.

Saving Private Ryan is a good one.

Black Hawk Down.

Letters from Iwo Jima is a recent favorite of mine since it tells the Japanese perspective on WWII.

I watched Letters from Iwo Jima too. It made me cry. Happy tears though.

I also got Saving Private Ryan too. Great Movie.

Enemy at the Gates is an excellent film about Vassili Zeitsev, a Russian sniper during WWII. The story is strayed quite heavily from actual history, but the sniper battles are cool.

The Thin Red Line was a good WWII movie, and had a massive cast of well known actors.

And the sister film to Letters from Iwo Jima is Flags of our Fathers, which was a good depiction from the American's view.

Sands of Iwo Jima is a good one with John Wayne, and I own the VHS converted to color, so I don't have the inconveniance of B&W. Had the macho vibe his movies tend to have, but it was good.

As for Platoon, I have mixed feelings. The first time I watched it, I was very driven by the contreversial characters, but as I rewatched it, it lost its luster and felt like any other preachy war film. BTW, is it possible for John C. McGinley to play a rule where he isn't a complete douche?

And I love Full Metal Jacket. Lots of gun errors and continuity mistakes though, which bugs me still. And how dumb was it for Hartman to scream at and insult a deranged man with a loaded rifle?

There were a lot continuity mistakes on Platoon too. Especially on the things the Soldiers had on their helmets.

Another thing, all the silly redneck accents piss me off. Great Oliver Stone, all your evil characters are from the Southren United States. How fucking Original. And he gave all the Redneck Characters to guys from New York and the like. But at least it's not as bad as Billy Jack.

McGinley was a little bastard in that movie, and he had a city accent. If that helps. :D

He was a coward and a ass kisser to Berenger, but not a war criminal. Now, Berenger's got a redneck accent, Kevin Dillon's got a redneck accent, truck loads of extras had redneck accents. Hell, even this guy here had a redneck accent:

http://img227.exs.cx/img227/9697/ace7nf.jpg

"Goddaum righ he does!"

Does he have "Mutherfucker" written on his helmet brim? lol

ACE HIGH!

His name is Ace by the way. Nobody ever calls him by his name on the film also.

When i join the Army, i'm going to put a ace of Spades card in my helmet band. And write something cheesy on the right side like ACE HIGH.

What is Ace High supposed to mean?

I hope you're kidding. I AM in the army, and anyone who does stupid shit like that gets laughed at by their peers and shit on by their superiors.

Hey man, the point IS to be funny.

War ain't funny. ;)

You know how all the Grunts in Full Metal Jacket and Generation Kill joked even at the worst moment? They do that because they gotta take their minds of the Horror that they see in the Battlefield. And because after some time in the shit, everything becomes mudane.

You develop a "sense of humor", where you can joke about dead bodies and horrific events. Don't worry, I've read plenty of first hand Vietnam war accounts. Just saying, the lines been drawn significantly since Vietnam. And you have to understand some of those shows are humored up for creative liscense. It'd be boring as shit if everyone was a hardass throughout the whole show or movie.

Except the Fact that Generation Kill was based on a book which had the same scenes as the Mini-series? And shit, most Grunts that are in the shit acted like that since Korea. It is no different.

Marines, Generation Kill was about Marines. Don't confuse army grunts to Jarheads

Grunt is a term to refer to any infantryman. Last time i checked Marines are infantryman.

They'd rather be called Jarheads than Grunts.

or Devil dogs. That's what they call each other. Grunts are what we call the lowly infantryman. Marines are not lowly infantrymen.

Well, i didn't know that. Army soldiers are almost the same in terms of humor. I read so much non-fiction books about the US army and the US Marines that they are almost the same. It just happens that the Marines seem to be The United States second Army.

The Marines are a semi-autonomous organization that technically is a branch of the US Navy. They are a very large almost special forces unit with harder training and higher expectations.

No amount of books read or movies seen allows one to fully understand or express what a soldier goes through, relative to death, coping, or their sense of humor. I myself am not a military man like some on here, or some I know, but I understand the basic principle that there is a difference in simulated experience, and practical, or real world experience, and that everything is fairly relative.

For example, my friends like to write stories from time to time, most of which are about mercenaries. They described the mercenaries taking apart their guns to clean them. A lot of those who read it were impressed because they liked that the author knew that guns were taken apart for cleaning. I wasn't, because I do it all the time, and having done it for real, I saw the passage as ambiguous and vague to the point where it was uninspired and bland.

You also fail to account for human distinction. It might not be hard for a soldier to kill someone, or to joke about what they do. All you have to go on is media depiction, which is more or less bullshit, or secondhand opinions, which belong to someone else. But until you as your own person experience it for yourself, you shouldn't take what you or anyone says about warfare and copy paste it as your own belief, opinion, or interpretation. You can try and understand it with everything you can get, but don't get hard set on it, because most of what you "know" is still, more or less, bullshit, or someone else's opinion.

I don't say this to shit on the real military men or their experiences, quite the contrary. They know themselves and know what they have seen, and they understand their own firsthand opinion, and that's exactly what I'm talking about. None of the civilians know shit, and as soon as we realize that, we can start being more intelligible about this, and everything.

I've been in the army for 3 years. I have worked extensively with the Americans, I have worked with the Brits, and in a month and half I'm going to be posting from Kandahar. And I can tell you that the military is not like in the movies and the media. It's a job, we are professionals, and we act like it.

My roomate in the shacks is a 17 year old kid who just graduated high school and seems incapable of distinguishing between fantasy (movies, books, tv shows), and reality. Needless to say, he's not very popular.

Yournamehere, thank you for a great post. You get it. And by the way, I've never had to pull the trigger myself, but I know plenty who have and none of them are particularly happy about it. And that includes the guy who currently holds the world record for the longest sniper kill.

Is Band of Brothers (the book) fiction? Is Dispatches fiction? is If I Die in a Combat Zone fiction? is Black Hawk Down fiction?

Also, just because they kid around doesn't mean they aren't professionals. They actually seem really professional even with silly shit written on their helmets.

But there's a difference in reading what happened and experiencing it

Glad someone is on my perceptive level, Nyles. What branch are you?

I know. But you can know a lot about what happens in the Battlefield if you research. Also, nobody is happy about killing people. Does that mean they can't joke about? No.

Suffice to say I have a job you don't talk about on the internet.

Fair enough.

And just so no one gets the wrong idea, I'm not trying to imply I'm in the special forces. I've got a few buddies who wear the tan beret, but it's not for me.

Didn't ask, don't have to tell.

Well, there's alot of assholes out there who like to make big claims online, just want to make it clear. I've got too much respect for those guys to impersonate them.

It's not any of our business to know anyway. Ignorance is bliss most of the time.

Isn't that the military's policy on homosexuality? :confused: :D

Why do you ask? Something you want to tell us?