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Just watched a couple of really good ones.. '' The Imitation Game '' and ''Mr Turner''. Both were excellent and well worth a watch IMO. Any faves or recommendations?
'To Live' (1994) is an epic historical drama following the lives of an impoverished family from the Chinese Civil War in the 1940s to the impact of Mao's mad schemes during the 1960s. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0110081/
Air hostess clique
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Historical Films. on 13:46 - Dec 7 with 1378 views
Aguirre Wrath of God is fantastic. So is Fitzcarraldo. Same insane director, same insane actor, different insane quest. There's also a film of the making of Fitztcarraldo which is almost as good as the film. Kinski threatens to kill Hertzog.
Strong and stable my arse.
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Historical Films. on 14:52 - Dec 7 with 1359 views
Aguirre Wrath of God is fantastic. So is Fitzcarraldo. Same insane director, same insane actor, different insane quest. There's also a film of the making of Fitztcarraldo which is almost as good as the film. Kinski threatens to kill Hertzog.
If I remember correctly, Herzog also pulls a gun on Kinski to stop him leaving the set. Herzog was on a roll then, Stroszek and The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser are also really good. Aguirre has the eerie feel of The Man Who Would Be King, if people liked that.
Another vote for To Live, if that's the one with the crazy scene where the village are trying to make steel by melting down all their pots into a big grey lump.
Colonel Redl is another favourite of mine, with the great Klaus Maria Brandauer as a gay Habsburg officer blackmailed into spying.
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Historical Films. on 16:16 - Dec 7 with 1328 views
"The disastrous charge at The Nek that took place on August 7, 1915 was actually authorized by an Australian officer, not a British one, as depicted in the film. This is a decision that Peter Weir now regrets as he acknowledges that the British made just as valiant a contribution to the campaign as the Australians did."
One mate told me he came out of the cinema "looking for a pom to punch", such were the anti-British feelings generated by this film.
Similarly, I remember seeing Breaker Morant in the company of several Aussies, (on a Pacific island as it so happened). They were decidedly sombre in the bar after the film and gave us Poms looks similar to those of your mate! Spooky
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Historical Films. on 18:15 - Dec 7 with 1297 views
Aguirre Wrath of God is fantastic. So is Fitzcarraldo. Same insane director, same insane actor, different insane quest. There's also a film of the making of Fitztcarraldo which is almost as good as the film. Kinski threatens to kill Hertzog.
I still think that Aguirre last gasp winner should have been saved.
"The disastrous charge at The Nek that took place on August 7, 1915 was actually authorized by an Australian officer, not a British one, as depicted in the film. This is a decision that Peter Weir now regrets as he acknowledges that the British made just as valiant a contribution to the campaign as the Australians did."
One mate told me he came out of the cinema "looking for a pom to punch", such were the anti-British feelings generated by this film.
British casualties at Gallipoli: 21,255 dead, 52,230 wounded. Australians: 8,709 dead, 19,441 wounded.
The Lancashire Fusiliers famously won 6 VCs "before breakfast" when losing 700 killed and wounded out of a battalion of 1,000 in one day landing on the beach.
You'd never know there were any Brits there from that film, let alone that they bore the brunt of the fighting. (There's a very good Australian folk song about Gallipoli, "The Band Played Waltzing Matilda" by Eric Bogle - covered by the Pogues, though the June Tabor version is better. It has a line about "the hell that they called Suvla Bay." No Australians fought at Suvla, it was entirely British.)
The problem started with Rupert Murdoch's dad, who deliberately denigrated British troops to make Australians looked better. That lying g*bshite Rupert had the nerve to stand in the British parliament and say how proud he was of his dad for breaking the truth of that story, a truth that consisted of vilifying brave British soldiers who had died in their thousands, because he knew that the Australian public would buy more newspapers if they read about how much better Aussies were than poms.
None of which is to decry the heroism of the ANZAC troops, nor the significance of Gallipoli in the development of Australian identity. It just gets on my tits that it has to be at the cost of British people forgetting our own dead, because we have all been fed the idea that Gallipoli was an Australian battle.
Oddly, Australians seem equally ignorant that the decisive offensive on the Western Front, the 100 Days of 1918, was heavily dependent on Aussies and Canadians, often referred to as "British," i.e. British Empire, in reference books. But for some reason we have all decided to remember the screw-ups of WW1 (quite rightly) but forget the Allied victory (not so rightly.)
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Historical Films. on 23:04 - Dec 7 with 1244 views
Oh, and on Breaker Morant, IIRC the definitive work the Boer War by Thomas Pakenham (Irish author) denies that Morant was fitted up. Reckons that Kitchener was p*ssed off with routine atrocities carried out by his troops and decided that the next bloke to step out of line by shooting PoWs would be made an example of, and as luck had it the next bloke who did was Australian.
My recommendation would be Michael Caine in The Last Valley.
"Hour of the Pig" is quite fun with a young Colin Firth as counsel for the defence of a pig, on a murder trial, in 15th century France. Also quite large dollops of sauce.
Oh, that reminds me: Name of the Rose (Sean Connery) is triffic.
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Historical Films. on 01:27 - Dec 8 with 1228 views
British casualties at Gallipoli: 21,255 dead, 52,230 wounded. Australians: 8,709 dead, 19,441 wounded.
The Lancashire Fusiliers famously won 6 VCs "before breakfast" when losing 700 killed and wounded out of a battalion of 1,000 in one day landing on the beach.
You'd never know there were any Brits there from that film, let alone that they bore the brunt of the fighting. (There's a very good Australian folk song about Gallipoli, "The Band Played Waltzing Matilda" by Eric Bogle - covered by the Pogues, though the June Tabor version is better. It has a line about "the hell that they called Suvla Bay." No Australians fought at Suvla, it was entirely British.)
The problem started with Rupert Murdoch's dad, who deliberately denigrated British troops to make Australians looked better. That lying g*bshite Rupert had the nerve to stand in the British parliament and say how proud he was of his dad for breaking the truth of that story, a truth that consisted of vilifying brave British soldiers who had died in their thousands, because he knew that the Australian public would buy more newspapers if they read about how much better Aussies were than poms.
None of which is to decry the heroism of the ANZAC troops, nor the significance of Gallipoli in the development of Australian identity. It just gets on my tits that it has to be at the cost of British people forgetting our own dead, because we have all been fed the idea that Gallipoli was an Australian battle.
Oddly, Australians seem equally ignorant that the decisive offensive on the Western Front, the 100 Days of 1918, was heavily dependent on Aussies and Canadians, often referred to as "British," i.e. British Empire, in reference books. But for some reason we have all decided to remember the screw-ups of WW1 (quite rightly) but forget the Allied victory (not so rightly.)
Not entirely ignorant. Monash is rightly prized as an excellent general, noted not just as a winning commander but also as a master tactician who promoted a combined arms approach to battle.
I did see an Australian doco once that said it was the Australian forces that provided the decisive breakthrough, smashing the German resistance and effectively winning the war for the Allies. I don't think it would have aired anywhere else.
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