World War II – Homeschool Mom Movie Mavin – Type "AUDIO" into the search box for AUDIO version. And remember…EDUCATION DOESN'T HAVE TO ALWAYS COME FROM A BOOK

MIDWAY GOES ALL THE WAY

SHORT TAKE:

Inspiring reenactment of the days before and of the watershed Battle of Midway during World War II, highlighting the selfless heroism and courageous dedication of men who committed EVERYTHING they had to fighting what seemed to be a losing struggle with the Japanese Empire.

WHO SHOULD GO:

Mid teens and up as the violence is necessarily graphic and brutal. No sexuality but the language is occasionally rough and appropriate to the men and circumstances.

LONG TAKE:

SPOILERS!

Romans 5:7: “Indeed, only with difficulty does one die for a just man, though perhaps for a good man one might even find courage to die.”

We all love action heroes who put their lives on the line in extreme moments to save family or friends in desperate situations: Bruce Willis’ John McLane in the Die Hard series, Tony Stark in Endgame. Even the disaster “B” movies like Skyscraper and The Poseidon Adventure can be guilty pleasures, admiring (pretend) courage in the face of the (manufactured) crisis.

Now imagine HUNDREDS of these types of everymen, volunteers or drafted, trained certainly but no superheroes. But this was real. These men had real families and lives. The pain, the terror, the disfiguring injuries and sudden young deaths, the gut wrenching grief left behind, HAPPENED to people your grandparents knew – or TO your grandparents. Your own family histories, photos, private letters, and stories told at family gatherings are probably rife with tales of loss and sacrifice of young men who left everything behind, including their youth and many their lives, to protect their country and families.

The story of Midway begins on a warm December in Hawaii, where people planning outdoor church services and picnics with their families, are suddenly faced with split-second life changing and life losing decisions when, without warning, planes tore out of the sky shooting at friends and crewmates, ripping them to pieces. Few would have blamed any who froze or ran, but hundreds of these men seized the nearest weapon to shoot back, some hopelessly trying to simply buy time for others to reach safety, while the vessel they were on broke, sank or burned in brutish apocalyptic Hellscapes of screaming and smoke and explosions, with no possibility of escape.

That was Pearl Harbor and the movie Midway examines the fallout from this cataclysmic event and the eponymous Battle for our lives that followed in Pearl’s wake. The Battle of Midway was the determiner whether the war would continue to be fought out in the ocean and around Japan and Europe or whether it would make its way to the shores of continental USA and be prolonged, possibly for decades.

Midway tells the story of the men who, at Pearl and during the Midway Battle, followed Christ’s example, willingly offering up their lives for their fellow countrymen regardless of who they were, knowing only that they were in desperate danger.

All of the acting choices were inspired, the indigenous accents of the people being portrayed understated and realistic.

Woody Harrelson (2012, Zombieland, The Glass Castle) is the perfect Charles W. Nimitz, bringing his familiar wary self confidence to this real life seasoned soldier, agonizingly cognizant he is in the fight of his country’s life.

Dennis Quaid (Frequency, A Dog’s Purpose, The Alamo) is the growly fire hydrant shaped tough guy William “Bull” Halsey who leads from the front.

Patrick Wilson, (The Alamo, Phantom of the Opera) whose talents have been grotesquely underused in the fright flick Conjuring franchise, comes into his own as the intelligence officer Edwin Layton, whose warnings leading up to Pearl had been ignored and who now was determined to put everything on the line to be sure his country was never under-prepared again.

Ed Skrein (Alita: Battle Angel, Deadpool) is the fighter pilot Dick Best, who put his country’s freedom and his fellow patriots before any consideration for his own personal safety.

Aaron Eckhart (Batman: Dark Knight, White House Down) is Jimmy Doolittle who led the potential suicide mission into the never-before attacked Tokyo to strike a morale blow for America.

Nick Jonas (Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle) is Bruno Gaido, whose calmly philosophical personality and selfless heroism are brought to light on the screen.

Luke Evans (Hobbit trilogy, steam punk Three Musketeers, live action Beauty and the Beast) portrays Wade McClusky, decorated air group commander whose reasoned instincts and willingness to think outside the box became critical elements in the outcome of the Midway Battle.

All these actors brought to life real heroes, instilling their performances with the respect and dignity those historic military fighters deserve.

There are no last-minute saves or inevitable wins, no cliched characters though some cast members portray composites of real people, no politically correct soft pedaling, no feminist agenda. This is historically based on the raw courage of the men who went toe to toe with a ruthless aggressor Empire, with only a handful of planes and the few patched up aircraft carriers which survived the Pearl Harbor sneak attack. These are the men who truly were the Thin Line between the west coast of America and conflagration by the Japanese Empire. The soldiers at Midway were the only thing standing between us and a brutal autocracy for whom the Geneva Convention meant nothing, and which slaughtered a quarter of a million Chinese as retribution for the aid given by a few dozen Chinese to a single American Squadron.

These men, many young and barely out of their teens, stood like the Spartans at Thermopalaye, with their homes almost in sight against an overwhelming Imperial military which would have shown no quarter, no mercy, no diplomacy and no compromise for anything west of the Rocky Mountains. Had the Japanese won at Midway there was a distinct possibility that everything from Seattle to San Diego would have burned, the citizens butchered or enslaved by the merciless occupying Japanese force, as they had done in China. As such, these desperate and disparate courageous men threw themselves against this juggernaut, with photos of their families tucked into the control panel, in planes technologically years behind the Japanese, flying missions which were often tantamount to suicide, with little regard for their own personal safety.

Writer Wes Tooke and director Roland Emmerich (Independence Day, The Patriot) show the stark savagery with which America was confronted, bringing to unvarnished relief the raw dauntless valor required of these American heroes. Robbie Baumgartner’s (Argo, Hunger Games) cinematography puts you in the flying seats with the pilots as they dive bomb in and out of the sky, challenging the limits of human endurance against incredible G-forces to survive the onslaught of anti-aircraft coming from the Japanese ships. The soundtrack by Harold Kloser and Thomas Wander (Independence Day, 2012) is inspirationally stirring and evocative not only of the selfless patriotism of the country behind this effort but evocative of the very plane propellers and stuttering guns which flew like under-weaponed knights against this massive Japanese dragon.

So go see this tribute to great American soldiers who stood between us and a sadistic pitiless foe, who risked and gave their lives, not only for the just, or the good, but following Christ’s example, for every man, woman and child in America. Go see it, if for no other reason, than we owe it to their memory.

OPERATION FINALE – DOING THEIR PART TO HELP THE WORLD “NEVER FORGET”

SHORT TAKE:

Film about the search for, capture and trial of one of Hitler's most notorious henchmen and architect of the Final Solution, Adolph Eichmann, by an Israeli group of special forces not long after World War II.

WHO SHOULD GO:

Older teens and adults for language and difficult content.

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LONG TAKE:

The list of top 20 movies that I would want, were I stranded on a desert island, would include My Favorite Year. It is a loose autobiographical event in the life of Mel Brooks, incarnated as the character Benji, when he was working on Sid Caesar's Show of Shows and Errol Flynn was a guest host. The movie is delightful and comedic and full of extremely memorable lines. One of them is spoken by Alan Swann played by the brilliant Peter O'Toole who, used to declaiming before the relatively small venue of crew and cast members on a movie set, when confronted with the realization that he would be performing on live TV before an audience of hundreds and broadcast out to millions, has a panic attack. Preparing to run out the building, he pronounces to Benji, as though incredulous that they had not understood this before: "I'm not an actor! I'm a movie star!" meaning that he believes himself to be all flash and dazzle and not an artist.

My husband and I have used Swann's pronouncement to distinguish amongst performers. While there are many movie stars, there are only a handful of actors. Some actors of distinction include Dustin Hoffman, Charlize Theron, and Meryl Streep, all of whom display an exceptional craft along with an unhesitating commitment, which includes not minding making themselves look ugly, should the roll require it.

SPOILERS BUT ONLY TO THOSE WHO ARE UNFAMILIAR WITH THE BASICS OF THE HISTORY

Ben Kingsley falls into this category. Kinglsey is a versatile and mesmerizing actor. From the titular historic Ghandi to the ridiculous Mandarin in Iron Man 3, from the wise and genlle Itzhak Stern, Schindler's Jewish accountant, in Schindler's List, to the brutal gangster Don Logan in Sexy Beast, Kingsley displays a repertoire which few could master.

Now, adding to the many suits in Kingsley's closet, is the portrayal of Adolph Eichmann, the focus of Operation Finale. Kingsley, whose mother's family was Jewish, brilliantly crafts a chillingly normal portrait of a man who superficially appears like anyone else but on closer examination reveals a hollowness to his soul which he filled with a prosaic ambition to advance a career which only happened to require the systematic murder of millions of innocent people. The morality of his actions did not seem to matter to him one way or the other.

Directed by Chris Weitz, whose family members were Holocaust survivors, (previously known for writing or directing far lighter material such as Nutty Professor II, Twilight Saga: New Moon, Rogue One, and Antz), Operation Finale is a film about the location, identification, capture, and trial of one of Hitler's most notorious henchmen, the architect of The Final Solution, the genocidal slaughterer of millions of Jewish families, Adolph Eichmann. Eichmann is the person about whom the expression "the banality of evil" Hannah Arendt, reporting on Eichmann's trial, referred. Arendt recognized these horrific deeds were performed not out of sadism or any evil intent, but by a merely bureaucratic routine functionary going through motions which he thought would advance his career, without any thought or care for the consequences of his actions. To my mind, this is perhaps more horrifying than a serial killer who gets his jollies from inflicting pain and suffering. A serial killer can be temporarily satiated. A Nazi bureaucrat could continue daily for decades without a thought or need to slow.

Forget Regan in The Exorcist or Heath Ledger's Joker or Michael Myers' Halloween killer – the frightening matter-of-factness about Kingsley's Eichmann is as close to an accurate portrayal of the demonic as I hope to ever see.

Oscar Isaac portrays the real life Peter Malkin, a member of the Mossad and survivor of the Nazi genocide, instrumental to this historic Israeli organized clandestine operation. Presented as historic drama, Operation Finale begins with one of Malkin's failures and proceeds primarily through his point of view as ephemerally loose threads are found and woven into the net which unearths this man who committed some of the most evil acts in all of mankind's history – which, given mankind's propensity for evil acts is saying something.

Also supporting Isaacs' Malkin are Jewish performers: Melanie Laurent (of both Sephardi and Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry) as Hannah, Nick Kroll (raised in a Conservative Jewish family) as Rafi, Michael Aronov as Zvi, Lior Raz (born in Jerusalem) as Isser, head of the operation, and Ohad Knoller (born Tel Aviv) as Ephraim. Obviously a construct of love and respect for the memories of those slaughtered at the hands of unthinking, unfeeling functionaries, these men and women bear testament to the horrors committed in the name of arrogant totalitarianism, in particular, Nazism.

The film is a re-enactment of the heroic events by the men and women who risked capture, torture and death themselves in Argentina, a country which happily welcomed notorious high ranking Nazis and was still rife with open anti-Semitism.

During the course of Eichmann's captivity, as the group awaited delayed extraction, it became necessary for Eichmann to agree in writing to be a willing accomplice to his own extradition. The task evolves from a snatch and grab Mission Impossible adventure to a mental game of cat and mouse. As time begins to run out and the increasingly frustrated and tightly strung agents, some last remaining members of their families, endure proximity to their former tormentor, now prisoner, Malkin takes it upon himself to get inside of Eichmann's head. We, and they, start to wonder if one side or the other – Eichmann or the Mossad members – is succumbing to what would later be known as Stockholm Syndrome.

This opportunity to get inside the rationalizations of one of the world's most notorious people is one of the most valuable aspects of Operation Finale – to remind ourselves that the deeply fundamentally wicked often presents itself as the common and mundane, much like the feral hunters who camouflage themselves in order to get close to their prey. Ted Bundy seemed ordinary, charming and intelligent. Jeffrey Dahmer had a pleasant forgettable face, nothing you'd associate with a serial killer and cannibal. Rarely do those who perform dramatically horrifying actions wear a sign around their neck proclaiming themselves to be masters of evil. Eichmann, as dramatized by Kingsley's amazing presentation, is no exception.

There is a wise saying by George Santayana in his Reason in Common Sense: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." Operation Finale does justice to this moment in history with a film that seeks to help us avoid this perilous omission.

DARKEST HOUR – BRILLIANT AND INTIMATE PORTRAIT OF CHURCHILL ON THE BRINK OF WORLD WAR II

SHORT TAKE:

Gary Oldman is positively brilliant in Darkest Hour as Winston Churchill from the days leading up to his election over the Hitler-mollifier Chamberlain, through his creation and initiation of Operation Dynamo for the miraculous rescue of the British army from the beaches of Dunkirk.

LONG TAKE:

Have you ever gone back stage of a Shakespearean play? It is fascinating to watch how the cast and crew plan and execute a thousand little decisions which serve to bring to life a play with the grandeur and majesty of a brilliant and noble concept.

Similarly, Darkest Hour brings you behind the scenes as Churchill is chosen to replace the cowardly appeaser Neville Chamberlain as Prime Minister of England. It follows, often through the eyes of his newly hired transcriptionist, (Lily James – Branagh’s Cinderella) or his wife Clemmie (Kristin Scott Thomas) as he wrestles with the moral and practical prospects of how to face the terrifying Nazi juggernaut plowing through Europe and looming over England.

Everyone around him – both his friends and his allies – urge him to sue for peace. But Churchill, the historian, knows the desperate and fatal folly of this kind of naivete.

And Gary Oldman (Immortal Beloved, Dark Knight, Harry Potter) portrays this man who had the face and stature of a garden gnome, the personality and charisma of a Notre Dame coach, the wit and pragmatic humor of Benjamin Franklin, the instinct for military strategy of General Patton, and the courage of a lion. Not portray – Oldman, for just those two hours and five minutes – IS Churchill in one of the finest performances I have ever witnessed. Oldman brings both the brass and nuanced, the private and public, the overbearingly confident and the heartbreakingly doubtful Churchill before us to contemplate, sympathize with and witness intimately.

Edmund Burke, a member of British Parliament once said: "A representative owes the People not only his industry, but his judgment, and he betrays them if he sacrifices it to their opinion." Churchill had to stand his ground while politically he was ultterly alone against opponents and allies alike who would have had him "negotiate" peace with Hitler, a peace which would have brought it under the heel of the Nazi Regime and possibly allowed Hitler a foothold in the world from which we could be struggling against to this day.

Winston Churchill, statesman, accomplished amateur painter, army officer, historian, and Prime Minister of the United Kingdom during the entirety of World War II, thankfully truly understood history. His writings include a six-volume memoir aptly titled The Second World War and another massive four-volume set of tomes covering the period from Caesar's invasions of Britain 55 years before the Birth of Christ through to the beginning of the First World War. Much like Churchill, himself, the title of this latter set – A History of the English Speaking Peoples – is both humble in its simplicity and breathtakingly presumptuous in its implied scope.

On the one hand, Churchill was indeed a humble man – frank about his own shortcomings, unafraid to tell the unvarnished truth and as full of plain spoken witty quips as Benjamin Franklin. And yet he dared, his entire life, to prepare to become Prime Minister of one of the greatest countries in the world. And as God places men in the positions they must be in at the time they must be in them no matter their humble beginnings – King David, Joseph, Moses – so He, in His Mighty wisdom, placed Winston Churchill at the helm of the country which stood in the front lines against one of the greatest evils the world has ever known.

King George (Ben Mendelsohn), Churchill and England

boldly confronted the Nazi juggernaut before America could be persuaded to launch into the fray and despite the fact that Europe appeared to have been lost under the heel of the Gestapo and the Luftwaffe bombings. Churchill stood at the forefront of England against the tide of so-called leaders like Chamberlain, who would have had England knuckle under to terror and tyranny. Churchill put it succinctly in the film: "You cannot reason with a tiger when your head is in its mouth!"

The writer of Darkest Hour, Anthony McCarter (The Theory of Everything) gives us both the big historical picture and the intimate portrait of the man as Churchill crafted speeches, and formed opinions with and around his secretary, his devoted wife, his closest confidants and his King.

And despite the fact we, as the audience, KNOW the outcome of this all, we are masterfully presented with the story in such a way that it is intensely suspenseful – as though we are seeing this all for the first time and, more, that we are participants in this world on the brink of conflagration.

To aid this sense of intimacy and first hand experience, the director Joe Wright (Atonement, Pride and Prejudice) does some amazing things with the camera work and framing. For example, there is a moment when Churchill is contemplating the disastrous situation for the vast majority of the British army trapped across the Channel at Dunkirk against the approaching German army. The camera focuses on Churchill as a dark door in a shadowed room slowly shuts leaving a small window in the door as a frame around Churchill and the only light left coming from the next room. This highlights not only the isolation Churchill must have felt but brilliantly visualizes the fact that Churchill WAS the lamp that would light England and ultimately Europe and the world out of the darkness that Nazi Germany’s shadow had cast over the civilized world.

There is also a filmatic motiff that plays frequently throughout the film. The focus goes from a close shot of a single individual straight up to present a panorama of the surrounding countryside wherein the individual is lost OR starts from above and closes quickly down upon a single individual. This imagery served to link the plight of each individual player in this drama to the massive worldwide stage drama being historically played out. It also, in reverse, helped remind the audience that behind the grand machinations of famous and encyclopedia worthy heads of state was the suffering and sacrifice by every day ordinary nameless soldiers and citizens. Each individual is important, yes, but often the hard tough decisions MUST be made with a blind eye to that in order to save a greater number of people, a country or even just an ideal. Both of these ideas are presented hand in hand seamlessly like the entwining of the fingers of newlyweds in an intimate moment.

The director conjures the interweaving of the big and small moments which make up history. For example, in one scene we see Churchill striding through his house with entourage in tow strategizing but then immediately coming up short and dismissing everyone in short order to have a charming and adorably intimate conversation with his wife Clemmie when she chides him about the household finances.

We are shown Churchill the man as well as the statesman, just as while we see England the country we also hear from the individual citizens that make up the population as Churchill does a Henry V-type walkabout amongst the people he is trying to lead.

Churchill once said: "Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts." Churchill rallied his nation, inspired his countrymen and helped lead the world to victory against Hitler. And he did it by the simple expediency of never giving up – an important and inspiring example for us all.

BTW – I would LOVE to see Darkest Hour shown on a double bill with Dunkirk.

MEMORIAL DAY MEMORIES AND MOVIES

SHORT TAKE:

While contemplating my favorite Memorial Day weekend appropriate movies I thought of: my Dad, some movies I didn’t see on anyone else’s list, and some classic favorites, in that order.MEMORIAL DAY – MY DAD, THE PATRIOT

When contemplating Memorial Day and patriotism I do so, unabashedly, through my father’s eyes. Billy Ashton Weisfeld was a radarman on the destroyer Breckenridge during World War II back in the day when radar was so top secret just talking about it outside of their classrooms could land them in Portsmouth Naval Prison. He was very proud of his service and I have always been proud of him. And I see patriotism through the filter of his definitions. He was the one who risked his life for four years. He earned that right.

He taught me to stand during the pledge of allegiance and during the Star Spangled Banner. I remember, sometime during junior high we had a choir teacher who refused to instruct us to stand while we practiced the Star Spangled Banner. I remember being very upset about this and making an impassioned plea on behalf of the men and women who were currently fighting and dying in Vietnam. My arguments fell on deaf eras. (Ironic for a choir teacher.) However, when I approached my parents with my dilemma my Dad took me for an appointment with the principal. I made my case and thereafter we stood for the Star Spangled Banner – whether in performance or practice.

On a more humorous note my Dad and I went to see Poltergeist at the theater in 1982. I don’t know if any of you will remember this but it starts with the TV actually “signing off” for the day as stations were wont to do back then. The end of the programming day was heralded with – The Star Spangled Banner. Not even realizing it was the beginning of the movie – not that it would have made much difference – when the Anthem began, my Dad immediately stood up and I stood with him —– by ourselves —– because it was just the beginning of the movie. I can’t help but chuckle to this day. But, funny as that was, I was and am so proud of him for that. It is one of my favorite memories.

Now, while my Dad, thankfully, did not lose his life during the war – obviously, given these recollections from events which took place in the early ’60’s and ’80’s – he did lose his hearing. His radar station was beneath the big guns which classically blast out during every sea based World War II movie, booming noises rattling your seats even before Extreme Digital was a thing. Though he was fully entitled to disability from the government he refused to apply, saying that his service had been a privilege. Again, I was very proud of my father for his attitude.

I know Memorial Day is to honor those who died fighting for our country and her ideals. My father would have been the first to shy from comparing his efforts to those who never got a chance to offer decades to America, but much like the white martyrs of the Catholic church, my Dad gave his entire life in the service of the ideals of his country by the way he lived and by inculcating those ideals to his children. In return I and my siblings and our spouses have tried to pay it forward to our children.

MOVIES – THE UNSUNG HEROES

There are a plethora of really good patriotic movies. There are a handful on my list which I did not find on anyone else’s.

Now an advisory. There are some well done movies about war which do not deserve to be placed on this list. They are movies which I admit are creative, artistic, fascinating, even literary masterpieces. But they do not deserve a place with these better brethren because they do not respect America, her ideals or the reasons for which we went to war. America fights not to conquer but to free. We are the only major power who has not colonized as victors. Instead of taking Kuwait as a territory we freed it. Instead of laying claim to the areas we won during World War II we asked only, as General Powell notably said, for enough ground to bury our dead. America protects the innocent, feeds the hungry, heals the broken, adopts the homeless, and helps our enemies to get back on their own feet. This philosophy was even immortalized in an affectionate jab of political satire called The Mouse That Roared wherein a small destitute country attacks America just to be defeated so she can receive much needed aid. The movies that do not recognize or respect that distinctly American tradition and morality do not deserve a place with this group any more than does the coward who Patton famously slapped belonged in the military hospital, demoralizing the wounded soldiers. So —- I won’t mention them here, but I suspect you know the ones to which I refer.

This first group of Memorial Day-worthy movies are ones which I did not find on many, if any, prominent list, because of political correctness, age of the film, or plain old quirkiness.

The Green Berets – A classic old John Wayne movie about the Vietnam War – likely the ONLY movie which extolled the virtues of why we went there in the first place, made at a time when we were told the plan was to win. Liberal reporter David Janssen and patriot John Wayne as Green Beret Colonel Kirby face off in an in-country expedition to explore our original mission: to defeat the cancerous brutal totalitarian political structure of Communism then creeping into Southeast Asia, and to provide humanitarian aid to Communism’s indigenous victims.

The Scarlet and the Black – Based on the actual account of Msgr. Hugh O’Flaherty, Gregory (To Kill a Mockingbird) Peck portrays this brave priest at the Vatican during World War II who aids in the sequestration and rescue of thousands of Jews under the nose of the reigning Nazis who surround it and infest Italy.

Victory – another based on a true story – starring Sylvester Stallone, Michael Caine and real life soccer legend Pele, the story is about the soccer game between an international group of POWs and German soldiers. The intent, much like the 1936 Berlin Olympics, was to prove German “superiority” by publicly humiliating the non-German losers. Needless to say, like their Olympic failure to Jesse Owens, it backfired spectacularly.

The Russians are Coming, the Russians are Coming – comedy this time. At the height of the Cold War, a Russian submarine Captain, (Theodore Bikel, who later became known as the Klingon Worf’s adoptive human father from Star Trek: The Next Generation) runs aground off Gloucester Island. The Captain just wanted to get a look at America to satisfy his own completely non-political curiosity and got a little…too…close. Stuck on a sandbar, the Captain and his crew faced American imprisonment as spies on one hand and lethal Russian retribution if suspected of trying to defect on the other. So to prevent an international incident, not to mention his own capture, extradition and likely execution, he sends a team out headed by Alan Arkin as Lt. Rozanov, to find a way to pull the sub free before the submarine is discovered. This hilarious, and warm-hearted comedy also stars Brian Keith, Jonathan Winters and Carl Reiner, along with a plethora of familiar funny faces. I picked this one because it is a demonstration, albeit done in an affectionate parody, of how average American citizen-patriot/soldiers, willing to die to protect America and her ideals, are also willing to extend friendship, show common ground, and offer protection to the helpless when the opportunity arises, even to our enemies.

1776 – A musical – WAIT! THAT MAKES THIS ONE LITERALLY A SUNG HERO – or, at least singING ones – if you can believe it, about the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Paraphrasing the last sentence of the Declaration, these 56 men, with hope in the protection of Divine Providence, pledged to support that Declaration with their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor. Many saw their homes burned, their families abused, their children vanished. Some died in poverty or from wounds or torture. Some lost sons on the battlefield. Thomas Nelson, Jr., (who does not feature in this movie but whose sacrifice deserves mention) just as an example, discovering Cornwallis had encamped in his palatial home, fired the cannon to destroy it himself – and died a bankrupt. 1776 concerns who these Founding Fathers were and why they came together to so devote themselves – only they do it in song. 1776 mostly focuses on John Adams (William Daniels), Thomas Jefferson (Ken Howard) and Benjamin Franklin’s (Howard DeSilva) efforts to acquire unanimous consent on breaking with the British Empire. One of the most charming aspects of this little known film is the conversations the otherwise “obnoxious and disliked” John has with his wife Abigail (Virginia Vestoff). Lifted from the pages of the letters between the real John and Abigail, these interchanges manifest themselves in bittersweet duets wherein they engage in playful banter and loving longing, unable to touch because they are really only conversing by written exchange.

Kelly’s Heroes – OK I hesitated to include this movie, because it rides right up to the line of being one of those anti-war films, BUT I do not think crosses that line. This is one of my favorite movies. A comedy-drama starring Clint (directs everything & cut his teeth on about a million spaghetti westerns) Eastwood, Donald (Hunger Games) Sutherland in one of the quirkiest roles you will ever see him in, Carroll O’Conner, and Don Rickles, about a group of exhausted soldiers near the end of World War II who find out about an enormous cache of German gold in a bank deep behind enemy lines. They plan to steal the gold the Germans have stolen. In the process, a general, played by Carroll O’Conner believing they are a gung-ho troop, decides to honor their apparent courage and follow them right into the heart of the offensive, breaking the German front line.

MOVIE STANDARDS

The ones in this next group are, and deserve to be, on just about everyone’s list of movies that exemplify the best of American courage and ideals in battle.

Patton – Brilliant portrayal by the unequalled George C. Scott of the ultimate patriot and complexity that was American General George S. Patton during the pinnacle achievement of his battlefield career. The movie follows Patton’s astonishing and irreplaceable contribution to winning the European theater during World War II for the Allies as well as the egotism which was almost his undoing. Brilliant military strategist and tank commander, inexhaustible commander who led from the front, never asking his men to go where he would not. Known as Old Blood and Guts he unabashedly prayed and wept openly for wounded soldiers, stood in open battle, fiercely loved and fought for America – he was probably our greatest American soldier.

The Longest Day – an ensemble accounting of D-Day starting with the preceding days waiting desperately for a break in the weather – with a cast which included some of the biggest stars of the time, including Sean (James Bond) Connery, Red Buttons, Henry Fonda, Richard (West Side Story) Beymer, George Segall, (THE) John Wayne, Kenneth More, Jeffrey (Captain Pike from the first Star Trek pilot) Hunter, Robert Wagner, Rod Stieger and Richard Burton!!! and more! If the names don’t ring a bell, look them up in us.imdb.com and if you are at ALL a classic movie afficionado I guarantee you will recognize at least one of the movies in which they have featured. The movie covers beach landings and straffings, the French resistence, parachute drops, hand to hand combat, a battle inside the town of Sainte-Mère-Église, the Normandy advance. It combines beautiful individual moments as well as grand sweeping action about the turning point of the European portion of the war.

Guns of Navarone – very loosed inspired by the real Battle of Leros during World War II and starring David Niven and (again) Gregory Peck, the story revolves around a covert Allied mission to sabotage massive German battleship-killer guns on the Greek Island of Navarone. Classic heroism.

Battle of the Bulge – based very loosely on the Counteroffensive of Ardennes, it condenses months of preparation and campaigning into a few days. Starring Henry Fonda, Robert (Jaws) Shaw, Telly Savalas & Charles Bronson, it is another classic.

Schindler’s List – Heart breaking, and deeply moving drama about Oscar Schindler, an opportunist, Nazi collaborator and war profiteer who, in one brief shining Divinely inspired period of his life decides to risk his life, manipulate his Nazi connections and spend his life’s fortune saving over 3,000 Jews destined for the gas chamber. While neither American nor a soldier, Schindler risked everything for same ideals for which our American soldiers risk, as well as sabotaged his own military’s bombs, which in turn protected our soldiers.

American Sniper – directed by Clint (Kelly’s Heroes) Eastwood, tells the story of the military career of Chris Kyle, the decorated and deadliest American sniper in military history, and his heroic commitment to his fellow soldiers during the Iraqi War. A stand out, not only for telling Kyle’s story, but for the astonishing performance by Bradley (voice of Rocket from Guardians of the Galaxy) Cooper. Cooper transforms himself from a nerdy accountant physique with a hyperactive personality in A-Team to looking like Dwayne Johnson’s little brother with the “gentle giant” demeanor to go with the size. He did, I think, Navy Seal Kyle proud.

The Great Escape – one of the best war movies ever made. Starring, among others: Steve McQueen, James Coburn, Richard (Jurassic Park) Attenborough, and Charles Bronson. The screenplay is based on the book about the biggest mass escape from any German POW camp ever – Stalag Luft II in Sagan, Poland during World War II. The Germans made the critical mistake of putting the most ingenious serial escapees in a single prison, reasoning they could keep them all more closely guarded. What they did not consider was that together they made a formidable escape army. 600 men planned the tunnel escape of 200 men, none expecting to acquire permanent freedom but primarily to cause confusion and chaos behind enemy lines. These men succeeded in creating the most time expensive, personnel consuming recapture plans the Nazis ever required. This movie is a distinguished and honorable tribute to these internationally mixed heroes.

The Hunt for Red October – Cold War era defector Sean Connery sneaks a game changing silent submarine out of Communist Russia. Although not an American soldier, he and his men risked their lives to protect our country, as well as the world, from the brutality of Communist Russia.

There are many more, but let me leave you with the names of others which should definitely be on your bucket list:

Black Hawk Down
Monuments Men
13 Hours
Sole Survivor
Hacksaw Ridge
We Were Soldiers
The Alamo
The Patriot

If you can’t find a really good inspiring movie highlighting patriotism and the American spirit to watch this week – then you’re not really trying.

Patton!

SHORT TAKE:

One of, if not THE most, brilliant portrayals of a historic figure (OK Oldman's Churchill makes this a two way tie) ever filmed. General George S. Patton, U.S. military genius, Commander of the 3rd Army, without whom we might easily have been defeated by the Nazis. George C Scott, U.S. acting genius, winner of two Academy Awards and numerous other awards, without whom this movie might easily have been reduced to a forgettable biography.

WHO SHOULD SEE IT:

Everyone, at least every American, eventually, should see this masterpiece. I saw it when I was twelve and despite the language and violence, it facilitated my unadulterated respect, appreciation, and love for our American Military. BUT – because OF the language and scenes of violence and war time brutality, (not nearly as unfiltered as Saving Private Ryan or Lone Survivor though), parents would be well advised to see it themselves to accomodate to their individual child's temperament and sensibilities.

LONG TAKE:

Patton. Some movies are an education unto themselves. No secret messages. No particular underlying themes. Just something to learn from watching. In 1970 I fell in love with both George C. Scott and General George S. Patton at the same time. Both men, geniuses in their given fields of endeavors. Scott's portrayal of this iconic World War II figure is a stunning example of acting ability. He IS Patton – probably more Patton than Patton himself. This movie inspired an interest in the General that I continued for years. I am proud that General George S. Patton was OUR General. America's hero. Possibly the best American General in our history (possibly equaled by sheer nerve and determination only by George Washington). Every battle Patton undertook he won. Every plan he pursued was brilliant.

But the man himself, as portrayed in this movie and backed up by the research I did on him in the years after, showed George S. Patton to be a complex man of ridiculously proportioned contradictions. Devoutly religious but verbally profane, he believed "give it to them loud and dirty and they'll remember it". Fought with his men on the front lines but almost courtly in his manner and dress. Reverent of life but in love with death, he wanted to die "by the last bullet fired in the last battle of the last war." Fiercely loyal to his men but intolerant of weakness as potentially lethal to the soldier and those around him Fiercely patrioticbut admiring of Rommel, his counterpart in the German Army tank division. Devoted student of the Christian Bible but believed in reincarnation. As a matter of fact he believed he had been a participant – often a humble one – in battles dating back thousands of years to the Roman military legions. He even wrote a poem about it, "Through a Glass, Darkly", a poem about reincarnation which harkens (in typical inherent contradiction) to a Biblical quote from 1Corinthians 13:12:

So as through a glass, and darkly
The age long strife I see
Where I fought in many guises,
Many names, but always me.

And I see not in my blindness
What the objects were I wrought,
But as God rules o'er our bickerings
It was through His will I fought.

So forever in the future,
Shall I battle as of yore,
Dying to be born a fighter,
But to die again, once more. (General George S. Patton)

Patton recounts brilliantly the most important slice of life of this larger than life man during his involvement in the latter part of World War Two to its European end. In the process of this recounting, the movie examines not just the man but his strategies, the view the German military intelligence had of Patton, and the horrors of war through the eyes of this man who was both appalled and enamored of it.

There are some people born for (or made by – sometimes hard to tell the difference) the challenge of the time with which they are struggling: Gandhi, Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan, Harry Truman, Winston Churchill, William Marshall, Pope John Paul II. Patton was one of those people.

Watching this movie is a history lesson and a biography.

But be warned – the language is ROUGH. No "f" bombs or any language directly relating to inappropriate sexual encounters. But there is a bucket load of damns, hells, and a few son of a b****, s***, and G-d***. There is NO sex in it whatsoever. His interactions with women are limited to PR talks with tittering elderly British tea drinkers. He was as devoutly faithful to his wife as he was to his country. But if the language offends you or you are concerned for your children then either limit this movie to your older kids or catch it when it is shown on TV. While current TV sports FAR worse language, the TV versions of this movie were edited at a time when auditory sensibilities were more attuned to a gentler culture. In other words – they cut out more profanity than they would today.

Patton is a, straight up, history lesson and presented in one of the finest performances by, in my estimation, the premiere American actor of his time. The finest American General during one of the finest hours of American history portrayed by the finest American actor of his generation. Can't get much better than that.

5-31-15