Topic: The Movie Thread

It wasn’t my intent to write a full-on review of the movie, but that’s what ended up happening, so apologies to anyone passing by and feel free to skip if you wish. Otherwise, here’s my experience with They Shall Not Grow Old —

I am a bit of a history buff, and particularly interested in war history. World War I has often been overshadowed in the public consciousness by its bigger sibling WWII, (at least over here in North America) so I found this a really unique look into the lives of the frontline men who experienced trench warfare during the conflict of 1914-1918.

For those unaware, this documentary style movie is produced and directed by Peter Jackson (of Lord of the Rings fame) and is made up almost entirely of actual archived video footage and audio recordings of the soldiers who fought. There is no extra narrator, only a series of recorded quotes from the actual enlisted men who share their thoughts and impressions of their service from the time they volunteered to the time they came back home after the war ended. The video snippets are then pieced together to coincide with what they are talking about, so that, for example, footage of training camp correlates with what they say about it. The editing and flow is impressive and it’s amazing work that Jackson and his crew have done. It must have taken hundreds of hours to get film footage and the audio interview footage lined up and calibrated in the cohesive manner in which it is presented. It’s a surprisingly thorough chronicle into life as a WWI soldier, from an era when there was scarcely little video or audio recording being done. The footage is rare indeed, and much of it never before seen by the public.

The layout doesn’t necessarily set this film apart — other documentaries have been produced in this raw style of presenting their subject without third party commentary; but what actually elevates this documentary is that the footage has all been restored and updated with modern computer aided technology. The results are fantastic. The original video is obviously black and white, has no sound, and is in that “Charlie Chaplin” strange sped up jerky motion that limits video recordings of that time period. In They Shall Not Grow Old you get to watch this video footage in a way that displays it with normal timing, color, and sound effects, such that it looks just like you’re watching a modern day recording. It’s amazing stuff.

The stories the veterans tell are piercing and unrestrained, and at times surprisingly casual sounding. They describe moments like watching their mates bodies gets marred by ammo or explosions right next to them, dealing with rats and lice, and how the troops dealt with defecating (replete with video of them using the outdoor latrine 😅). Stories range from commanders ordering a young soldier to be shot when he starting crying out and wailing in fear and anticipation of their imminent offensive across No Man’s Land, to their trips to brothels in France.

It’s a fascinating look into the real calamity of war, yet the men telling these stories seem to approach them with an amazing amount of energy and spirit, almost like recounting their adventures while on vacation. Perhaps one of the most remarkable aspects to me was their retelling of the return home, where the world seemed to have gone on without them and had no particular appreciation for their sacrifice. Life changing events tend to have this effect, but in the era of no social media and very limited news exposure, the civilian world completely lacked any interest or realization of what war really was or what these men had gone through.

TL;DR — They Shall Not Grow Old is not a comprehensive recounting of every aspect of the war and all the different political objectives and strategies, rather these are the personal stories of experiences of WWI soldiers, which in my opinion is what ultimately makes the study of history come alive. And that enlightenment is made easier with the excellent film and audio restoration. I recommend a watch if you have interest in the subject matter.

Also watched X-Men: Days of Future Past over the weekend.

Overall pretty solid, though not as good as First Class (and from what I understand, outside of the spinoffs like Deadpool, it's all downward from here). Nice seeing the old cast too, even if they didn't do much with them.

@Jimmer-jammer It must have been great to see on the big screen. I know it won some awards and was nominated for best documentary at the Oscars, but it did pass by relatively unnoticed by the general public. I’ve been telling all my mates about it. 😄

@RogerRoger I do hope you like it. It does require being in a certain mood, but if you like documentaries you can’t go wrong with giving it a try. I watched it streaming on HBOMax but I might want to pick up a disc version too for the collection.

I watched They Shall Not Grow Old when it first hit theaters years back. The way they restored truly ancient footage of WW1 was nothing short of incredible. Probably the most fully unique documentary I've ever seen.

@Th3solution My dad like you is history buff with stuff like this, so will see where we can watch it in the UK for home viewing. Thanks for the review, as this would have most likely past me by otherwise.

I watched the Bounty this morning. The crew of an English trade ship, the titular "Bounty", after experiencing a veritable paradise in Tahiti followed by the increasing demands of their overbearing captain decide to mutiny.

It's much more of a slow burn than I typically watch (different thematically as well), but I thought was pretty interesting (and based on the end film text wall, based on a true story?). More of a character drama and features a young Mel Gibson & Liam Neeson. Also, even given the era's more lax ratings, I have no idea how this got away with a straight PG rating (I don't think I've ever seen so many boobs in a film), not that it's a bad thing.

Currently free on Tubi & Pluto TV.

On second viewing, it was easier to appreciate Doctor Strange 2 for what it was, rather than what it didn’t do. While it’s still a bit annoying that the MCU is treading narrative water and that it didn’t really follow up on the first film at all, it does function as an interesting and unique take on a superhero movie. Sam Raimi and Danny Elfman do help, of course. Even if the zooms are a bit silly after the millionth time.

Alien 3 is as just as much fun as Aliens. I’ve always thought that, but after watching them both in the last 24 hours I have reaffirmed my opinion.

Theatrical version by the way, I’ve actually not seen the other version(s?). Same goes for any Alien and Aliens, actually.

@ThereThere The main problem is that the motivations and Scarlet Witch’s plan don’t really make all that much sense if you think about it for more than 5 seconds. While it was all a bit contrived, the bits with Scarlet Witch essentially being a Terminator did work brilliantly. Probably down to Raimi’s previous horror work. Yeah, it was definitely naff, but I think it had to be. If you try and sell a lot of these characters too poe-faced and serious then it comes across looking even sillier. DC can attest to that. At the end of the day, he’s a wizard wearing a cape with ridiculous facial hair. Making it a camp schlocky horror movie totally makes sense imo. A lot of Marvel’s characters like Blade and the Helstroms and such all made their debuts in their pulp comics after all.

@ThereThere At least it’s better than Eternals 😂

@LN78 I dunno. Blood flying everywhere. Pretty fun.

@LN78 Some people find The Human Centipede fun to be fair! I’m not a big horror fan so it’s not something I find fun but I have mates who really genuinely find gory horror films fun. I don’t like rollercoasters though so maybe it’s the whole adrenaline thing.

@LN78 hey, I had fun watching it!

@LN78 30 years will do that to a movie sometimes

@LN78 yeah I think that’s a pretty fun movie too.

@LN78 nice music and scenery, some cool scenes but far from the landmark movie it tried to be. Still, enjoyed it enough to see it a few times and I’ll be watching it again after Resurrection.

@ThereThere Thanks, man. For fans of the genre or subject matter, it’s an easy recommendation. 🫡

Just got back from watching Lightyear in 3D.

I actually enjoyed myself. I could maybe see this as a bit boring for really young kids (in fact the family seated in front of us left during the climax as their kids started getting restless & jumping around on the seats), as it's more of a played straight action sci-fi film that happens to be family friendly (with some humor), rather than a kid's sci-fi film. If you like deep space sci-fi (like I do) it's definitely worth a watch.

However, there was probably no reason to make this a "Buzz Lightyear" movie (it practically has no ties to Toy Story, other than an opening blurb mentioning this as Andy's favorite movie of 1995, and one or two catch phrases), they don't even bother to make it feel retro (in a 90's sense) in any capacity, and it's a modern film through & through. So yeah, if you're wanting to watch this as a Toy Story fan, that's probably not the right mindset to go in with (and probably why the film isn't playing well).

As for the 3D experience I thought it was fantastic. Maybe not quite as trippy as Multiverse of Madness, but the effect was used strongly throughout, and was certainly a better 3D experience than Jurassic World Dominion.

I watched Apollo 13 this morning. It starred Tom Hanks, Kevin Bacon, & Bill Paxton as the astronauts involved in the Apollo 13 mission & how through ingenious ingenuity (& with help from those on the ground within NASA) they miraculously managed to safely make their way back to Earth after an oxygen leak in their craft.

I thought it was excellent. Some of the CGI effects near the beginning of the film were starting to show their age (like the shots of the surrounding area around the rocket), but it was much more of a character drama & everything within the capsule was believable & edge of your seat tense.