WWII movies

I saw it last week. A marvellous film. As @redrum said, it immerses you in the experience of two soldiers. I was absolutely hooked.

@Private:

Here is a different take that resonates for me:

I have seen it argued that both Germany and Japan* were strategically weak. Both lacked natural resources and needed access to those from elsewhere to maintain their war machines.

In the case of Japan that required secure supply lines from the East Indies, which their naval losses and strategic myopia denied them.

Germany needed to conquer territories that would secure those resources.

By contrast the allies were resource rich. Command of the seas gave access to resources from across the globe. Japan challenged US command of the Pacific for only a very short time frame. German U Boats did cause the Allies difficulties in the Atlantic for a longer period of course, but denying global resources to the UK is not the same as denying them to the USA, let alone gaining them for Germany.

Axis supremacy needed victory after victory in the face superior Allied production and manpower. The Allies only needed to deny them a sufficient proportion of those victories.

Of course, those that faced the Axis onslaught did not perceive any such “inevitable” Allied victory. And for a time those victories did keep coming …

*I include Japan in this answer because one of the reasons why Germany lost WW2 is that Japan never diverted enough allied resources away from the European theatre.

I agree with this, but that may not even fully capture all the reasons Germany lost.  In terms of just pure industrial production capacity Germany could not compete against the US, especially with the latter protected by its isolation from bombing.  I recently read an interesting book, Death Ride, that made much of Germany’s failure to develop long-range bombers, and with much of the USSR’s industry moved well East of Moscow Germany could not bomb it.  Göring apparently preferred lots of little short-range bombers to fewer and larger long-range bombers.  It also made much of the Germans’ decision to divert part of its Eastern Front ground forces to Italy leaving them under-supplied and outnumbered in Operation Citadel.  The near-impossibility of maintaining distant supply lines, despite Göring’s assurances that he could make up for it, have been discussed to death.

All-in-all, I think the reasons are so many that in retrospect it would have taken a near-miraculous perfect storm of events for Gemany to have emerged victorious.

Nice story.

I didn’t want to read any comments on Into Darkness for fear of getting any spoiler tidbit. Let me just say I was stunned (not in a good way) by the third act. I could forgive the plot holes and shortcuts but the shameless recycling was unforgivable. Not looking forward to the most obvious sequel of the last 20 years.

Another overlooked category…

Best Movie Short:  I am voting for Bambi Meets Godzilla, the classic 1969 short :-)

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3634309875781837645

Yes its on my top 5 movie list post!

This was broadcast on Soviet television in the late 70’s and the effort spared no expense for extras because they used actual Soviet soldiers and the budget was basically unlimited. The portrayal all the Germans and Soviets is extremely good. The sets are very realistic and the battles consist of perhaps 10,000 or more soldiers, plus hundreds of tanks ( the germans are mostly tiger 1’s and some decent mockups of elephant and panther).

all the battlefield combat scenes are panoramic which is IMO the only way to film a war movie. You can literally see the 10,000 soldiers.

5 movies were presented

Stalingrad ( 2 parts)
Kursk
Operation Bagration
Assault of Berlin

however no english subtitles of this exist. My girlfriend has to translate for me ( shes from Odessa). You wont find any copies of this with english either. I have tried for many years to do this but to no avail. I own all these movies and they are amoung my favorite of all time.

It will cost you at least 100 bucks for the set of movies, unless you rent them from a russian video store and make copies.

Best of the 20th Century

Ronald Reagan - inspirational leader, made americans proud, killed the USSR and Warsaw Pact threat, brought America back from the economic misery of the late 1960’s and 1970’s Dwight D. Eisenhower - a brilliant man who got things done FDR (War Years) - a leader when leadership was needed Richard Nixon - resignation overshadows the fact he was a good president Teddy Roosevelt - conservationist, expanded US influence in the world

Worst of the 20th Century

LBJ - Corrupt, Stupid, and Foolish…many Americans died for no reason under his leadership, the ‘Great Society’ was a complete failure. JFK - Corrupted by the Mob, Bay of Pigs failure, all flash no substance FDR (Depression Era) - Depression dragged on because of his inept policies Jimmy Carter - Wimp, Apologist, and Poor leader Herbert Hoover - Couldn’t breech the floodgates of the Depression

Whoever the “Jimmy Carter” fan is, is a complete moron. I don’t even have to explain the reasons why he was perhaps the least effective leader this country has ever had.

THe part where it showed the video, and you see an alien for the first time, I jumped. But over all the aliens were not that scary. I mean you can trap them with a pantry door, and beat them to death with a bat.

They are fast and strong, but they didn’t seem to use those qualities in combat, only in movement. Given a super soaker or an assault rifle you could probably take out a dozen of the aliens.