Well besides Alec Guinness there's Hugh Grant, for one, who are British actors who made it big in US films often requiring their British accent. I'm sure I could take the time and cite more. I don't think it's a matter of it's someone's money so they have the right to excluding British characters. There are lots of American films with British characters including WWII movies. It's nationalism and the market that does prompt the more overt exclusions but I don't find it in the storyline of "Saving Private Ryan." This could be nitpicked to death and like everything where politics is brought into the fray, people will be blinded by their biases and come up with all sorts of sinister profiles of filmmakers in particular.
Stanley Kubrick's films were mostly made in a British studio. He cast James Mason, a British import, in "Lolita," but the cast of "Eyes Wide Shut" was American considering it was suppose to take place in NYC. There were at least two British actors prominant in "Barry Lyndon," but the lead was an American actor. Peter Sellers, a British actor, was the lead in "Dr. Strangelove."
Frankly I think the whole arguement is rapidly getting dull and deadheaded.
Yes, I was only quoting an Eddie Izzard sketch in the first place! Anyhoo shall we post a new topic? Best War film ever? Contenders: Guns of Navarone, Longest Day, Where Eagles Dare, A Bridge Too far, Bridge Over the River Kwai... oh and Saving Private Ryan. It was a great film, even if there wasn't enough Germans in it. First one they meet is quoting Mickey Mouse. Hee hee.
Is there an argument here? Yikes. I missed it. I'm assuming that J.B.'s initial question was whether or no WWII movies will be made to get Americans et.al. gung ho for the war in Iraq.
Hey, Scot, welcome to A2K. Trying to remember who was in The Hasty Heart. I know that my sister had a huge crush on him.
Incidentally, this is my way of bookmarking
My god, your sister fancied Ronald Reagan!? Or do you mean the TV series?
Nope, imp. <smile> This was a movie about a Scotsman who was dying. I'll look it up. Richard Todd?
Upon my word. Ronald Reagan was in it. No wonder I only remembered Richard Todd.
Eddie Izzard was funny when he delivered it and I think there was more in the way of a punch line being he's an executive transvestite. Sorry, I misunderstood your motive.
The topic is rather tricky -- diverting attention to WWII as if the current conflict has anything to do with it would be something some conservative filmmaker might do to draw a comparison. Trouble is, there are no good conservative filmmakers but Mel Gibson and he's squandered it on a Christian horror fest on one hand and a TV sitcom about unruly teenage boys starring him as a smary cop. And how was that treatment of the British in "Braveheart?" They were apparantly the executive transvestites of the era.
I don't believe Hollywood will make any more WWII movies that they normally do. Incidentally, "Band of Brothers" on HBO did have British soldiers in it so I hope that means Spielberg redeemed himself (although that series was about an American group of friends in the war). If anything, it fortified that that war had an intelligent moral ground (not a helter-skelter ideological pipe dream) that Pat Buchanan couldn't even torpedo.
I think you can look for a general trend of movies that glorify war and death in war....Hollywood has been purchased by bushinc as well as any other big business....
Now where do you get that impression? You aren't descending into polar paranoia, now are you? I really haven't seen a movie in late years that glorifies war. There isn't one in the movies in production for the next two years that I can find. I don't think the Hollywood I lived in has changed much -- it is a liberal town and very prone to making anti-war movies. Even if someone wanted to finance the production of such a movie, who's going to direct it? Even Mel Gibson has proclaimed his distate for this war. Since WWII I can't remember a pro-war movie except "Green Berets." "The Steel Helmet" about the Korean war was darkly anti-war. The only thing in our future depeding on how this adventure ultimately works out for Mr. B is more of the same. A general of the reserves today announced they were up against a wall with very poor results in recruiting campaigns.
how about all these epic war pictures about Alexander the Great...Troy....Lord of the Rings for that matter...every damn thing's about glorifying war...
There's an 'Falluj-wood' number on the way with Harrison Ford in a lead role.
Quote:In "No True Glory" he would play Maj. Gen. James Mattis, the U.S. Marine commander ordered to lead an assault on the Iraqi city of Falluja, an insurgent stronghold west of Baghdad, after four Americans contractors were killed and mutilated there by a mob in March 2004.
The offensive was halted the following month, and the Marines were withdrawn until U.S. forces renewed their assault on the Sunni Muslim city following the American presidential election in November.
And a new version of 'Tour of Duty'..
Quote:Meanwhile, several Iraq war projects are being developed for TV, including a pilot series from "NYPD Blue" co-creator Steven Bochco titled "Over There" for the FX cable channel.
And one that didn't quite make it....
Quote:PRAGUE, Czech Republic -- Plans to make a pornographic film at a former World War II concentration camp site in the Czech Republic have led to a ban on video cameras.
Newspaper reports have said that Robert Rosenberg, a Czech actor and producer of pornographic movies, intends to shoot a film at Theresienstadt.
Amazing! Somewhat lacking in taste, no? But how else could you get what must be the most mind-boggling quote ever????
Quote:"We went to Auschwitz, too, and the people there seemed much more helpful."
"No True Glory" is in development, not yet in production and Variety outlines that it will be very similar to "Blackhawk Down," hardly a war is glory movie. TV projects for a FX? Not major motion picture material and we'll have to wait to see if any of these make it out of development and into actual production. Considering the hundreds of films made each years in the U.S., this is a mosquito on an elephant.
"Troy" and "Alexander the Great" did very poor box office in the states (Alex bombed big time) and I wouldn't call a fantasy like LOTR a war movie -- the battles were less than an hour of the total twelve hour movie. The discussion is WWII movies, anyway. Can anyone stay on subject here?
BTW, what does "Alexander the Great" really have to say about war? Fight 'em, win 'em and then watch the resulting empire melt away into history. Seems like an anti-war, anti-imperalistic message to me.
I'm bringing them up because it is more likely to be films with the villians being of Middle-Eastern appearance or origin for a while. That will be good news for those olive-skinned extras who have been 'black hats' as:
-Mexicans
-Cubans
-South American narco-terrorists
-Russians
-Arab traders in Africa somewhere
-Spanish
-American Indians
-Iranians
-assorted Muslims (Indian/Pakistani)
-rampaging natives after white women (could be anywhere, as long as they're brown and have funny clothes - the natives, not the white women)
-Mongolians*
*even The Duke did one.
The Middle-Eastern villian is hardly new. I'd have to go back and check out just some of the terrorist action flicks over the past ten or twenty years but if memory serves me, the Middle East was represented very well. If anything, I think they will more likely steer away from Muslem terrorist image with films like "The Sum of All Fears." Whether it's actually politically correct or not. These aren't strickly war movies except for this administrations characterization of "the war on terror." There's also a war on drunk drivers, a war on gangs, a war on child molesters -- everything seems to be a war. But is it all desensitizing rather than riling up the citizenry? Would WWII movies really convince people they should be for this current war in Iraq?
