I give it much credit for not making significant alterations to history for the sake of “drama.” I finally watched “The Darkest Hour” the other night and, despite Oldman’s wonderful performance, was sorry I did for just that reason.
And true to Ryan’s book. It’s better than The Longest Day, by Far. A Bridge to Far.
I like 1941. I would have liked it better if it had just been about Belushi’s character.
Not to cast aspersions on the dead, but Ebert actually rated “Pearl Harbor” a better movie than “Tora! Tora! Tora!.” For that reason alone, he has no credibility when it comes to historical war movies.
+1
He was always better when a Siskel was around to call him on his nonsense. He had a unrelenting personal animus against “star studded flicks” and an irrational crush on any “Auteur”.
That’s patently false, idiotic bullshit.
It’s an observation.You can debate, and I’m eager to do so, but there is no need to get personally insulting.
I didn’t call you idiotic. I called the too-easy characterization of a guy’s body of work that you threw out there idiotic. It simply doesn’t stand up to any scrutiny or assessment of Ebert’s body of work.
The great thing about Roger Ebert is that he could happily put Star Wars, Groundhog Day, and Ghostbusters in as 4 star movies…and then turn right around and give Secrets and Lies a 4-star review too. Which told a whole lot of the movie public “Don’t be intimidated by Bergman. He’s on the same shelf as Harold Ramis and Bill Murray.”
The guiding star in so many Ebert reviews is his enthusiastic willingness to buy whatever any movie is trying to sell him. His reviews read like a guy who wants to like the movie he’s watching, whatever it is…and if he’s disappointed, he’s going to express it with equal force to match the enthusiasm he had for movies he liked.
See I agree here. But he specifically had an aversion to, and stated it, to any film that billed itself (or that he thought billed itself) as a star studded epic.It may harken back a younger disdain for the 50s and 60s epics, I don’t know. Maybe a bias against anything in his opinion that smacked of “Old Hollywood”?
My Grandpa movie today:
I am expecting turgid “Mail it in” performances in a cash cow for hard drinking Brits, but maybe I’ll be impressed? I haven’t “seen” this since I was 7 or 8, so its pretty much a first viewing.
Couldn’t finish it. It was pretty bad…turgid and bland.
Tonight’s viewing was the fascinating uncensored version of the 1933 movie Baby Face, starring Barbara Stanwyck and George Brent…as well as a bit part for a fresh-faced John Wayne.
A surprisingly salacious film, this was apparently one of the films that induced the imposition of the Production Code. There is plenty of selling of sexual favors for advancement (and, later on, straight-up trading of sex for apartments and furs and cash) by Stanwyck’s character. It all ends in tragedy, of course, and then a rather silly happy ending that may have been imposed by the studio.
Not quite Trouble In Paradise, maybe, but still an excellent example of pre-Code Hollywood movies.
Also, Nietzsche!
Really great film; I think I saw it on TCM with an introduction and discussion 2-3 years ago. Wayne is easily unsettled. :)
@TranquilityBase Have you seen this one? Really great Fuller work with an outstanding performance by Vincent Price.
A fun one, but it was striking how, for want of a better word, simple, it is. If it had been made now, or arguably even in the 70s, everyone would be trying to kill him and it would be full of double-crosses and reveals. As it is, apart from the Nazis themselves and I suppose the boat crew, everyone is remarkably helpful. Any potential backstabbing is all in Graham’s head.
I don’t recall why, but i was looking at Cotton’s credits literally a day or two ago, saw this and realized I hadn’t seen it. Where did you view it?
On DVD.
I just rewatched this the other day. I think it may be on some “Top 100” list in my brain, and I was eager to share it, but I knew it was going up on the 20:20, so I had to bite my tongue. It certainly is amongst the best thrillers I have ever seen.
When I watched this the other day I was struck at how Zinnemann was influenced by Jean-Pierre Melville and Costa-Gavras. And The Battle of Algiers. This guy directs High Noon and 17 years later, after influencing them, absorbs lessons from Italian Neo-Realists and the French New Wave? Wow.
@Jason_Levine picked it on the first frame. Jason, I know you are a stickler for historicity in your films (when they deal with historic events). He pretty much gets all the grit and detail of the OAS and the historical situation to a “t” as well, doesn’t he?
Yes, he does, although that may have been because the source material got it right. Forsyth is definitely quite good at that.