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Great movies I can't get through Inspired by Breathless

#41 User is online   Winstonm 

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Posted 2018-January-20, 14:25

Fences - just too slow moving.
"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." Black Lives Matter. / "I need ammunition, not a ride." Zelensky
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#42 User is offline   rmnka447 

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Posted 2018-January-25, 16:01

Some of the worst movies for me are the brainless action movies that seem to be more about how much computer generated mayhem they can stick into the allotted time than anything else.

OTOH, a recent movie I very much enjoyed was "Darkest Hour" which basically covers about the first three week period of Winston Churchill's term as Prime Minister of Great Britain during WWII. Easy peasy, right. Churchill takes over as everyone's choice to lead a united country through the war and stand against the Nazis. Umm...No. The film shows us that the after-the-fact idealized view of history that we have is often far from the reality actually faced at the time. Nothing was as clear cut as we take for granted now. The film fairly faithfully covers this short, but very crucial period in British and World history. It shows that history is made by imperfect people that have flaws and foibles yet overcome them to prevail.

The film has some humor (mostly plays on Churchill's foibles), romance, and compelling drama about events in momentous times. Gary Oldman is superb as Winston Churchill. Kristin Scott Thomas also is very good as Winston's wife, Clementine. There are a few sops to Hollywood. One is an unexpected visit by the King to Winston. The other is a subsequent underground (subway) ride by Winston to consult with common people. They probably never happened, but are dramatic devices to provide necessary information that would otherwise been available to him but been hard to portray on film. I'm also not sure that Winston had as much input into formulating the rescue at Dunkirk as shown in the film.

One other thing to keep in mind is that the outcome of the Dunkirk operation is in the future and unknown to those in this film. For all they knew, the whole British army might be lost there.

I recommended this film to some progressive friends. One indicated that he had seen it over Christmas and also thought it was a terrific film. He did point out that Churchill was known to disappear from time to time during his time as Prime Minister, so the underground trip might not be far off the mark. A third friend went to see the film on our recommendation and very much enjoyd it.
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#43 User is offline   kenberg 

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Posted 2018-January-25, 16:37

By coincidence I was at lunch today with two guys and Darkest Hour came up. They had seen it, I haven't yet. One of them mentioned the subway scene with the :common people" and both said they seriously doubted that this happened. But who knows? I guess I'll have to get my act together and go see it, although their is a college run foreign film festival that has had a history of bringing in things that I have liked.

And I completely agree about (most) of these heavy action movies. Often it seems that it's what they do when they can't think of an actual story line. Sometime back we were visiting friends who wanted us to all watch Total Recall, the first one with Arnold. Somewhere around the middle I needed to go to the bathroom and I said they should not bother to pause it, just let me know when I got back who had been killed while I was gone. But of course they paused it, can't have me missing anything important. I just didn't get it. I did like True Lies but that was, obviously, a comedy movie not an action movie.
Ken
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