12 Monkeys is more or less a remake of the short film La Jetée. I consider La Jetée to be one of the greatest films of all time. I’m not the only one. It’s rated highly in the 2012 and 2022 Sight and Sound polls of the greatest films of all time. I first saw 12 Monkeys at a showing about a week before it opened everywhere at a movie theater near me where it was sponsored by a local group that did showings of movies before they opened everywhere and where they brought in someone associated with the movie to talk before and after the film. In this case, they got Terry Gilliam to talk. In the question time after the talk, I said to Gilliam that although I thought 12 Monkeys was very good, I didn’t think it was as good as La Jetée. He said that he had never seen La Jetée. Other people wrote the script for 12 Monkeys and he didn’t bother to see La Jetée.
Saving Private Ryan, since today is D-Day. I haven’t seen it since seeing it on opening day (with lots of veterans in the audience). It is more impactful to me now, since I know how it’s going to end, plus the stories of the few remaining survivors on the news-- how many more there might have been. When it was released, I was in awe of the battle scenes and brutality, but this time it was the human stories that are more interesting to me.
Yeah, me, too. I saw La Jetee when our local library showed movies in the public meeting room. I was in high school. I thought it was better than 12 Monkeys (and I’m a big Terry Gilliam fan), but mainly because I felt the affect was weakened by the longer length. It’s like Flowers For Algernon had so much more impact as a short story than as the overly padded Charly.
The Imitation Game 2014
Free on Amazon Prime. Alan Turing was a very complex and unlikeable guy. Brillant but had personality disorders. I wondered if he’s autistic?
Being closeted shut him off socially to a certain extent. But it doesn’t explain his superior attitude and contempt for people he worked and associated with.
The best parts of the movie focus on breaking Germany’s code. Turing’s work was crucial during the Battle of Britain. His own life was a tragedy.
I’m glad that it didn’t cost anything to watch. It was ok. I probably won’t watch it again.
I need to clarify the acting and production is superb. Benedict Cumberbatch did an amazing job portraying Turing’s difficulty in relating to people and understanding how to make social connections.
It is a good movie. But as a story it’s not something I’d watch several times. There are many movies like that.
I’d like to see a movie about Joan Clarke. Her difficulties being a brillant mathematician in a time that women couldn’t get an appropriate job. Her parents tried making her leave the Enigma project and go home because she was 25 and unmarried. WTH. That’s beyond stupid.
Unfortunately I think much of her work was never officially documented. Turing had to quietly include Clarke in the Enigma Project. (that’s from the movie).
The Imitation Game wasn’t very accurate:
I thought there was no way that Turing could be so socially inept that his team members physically attacked him.
They depicted burning files after the war. No one will know all the day to day details of the Enigma project.
The guilt of deciding when to use secret information to save lives had to be overwhelming. Imagine knowing you could save tens of thousands from a single attack. But keeping the secret that the code was cracked was vital to winning the war.
That would weigh even more heavily on someone acfter the war.
I wonder how long it would take my old Pentium 233 mhz to replicate the code breaking that Enigma achieved?
I never expect that films based on historic characters or events to be accurate.
I don’t expect total accuracy in historical movies. They should get the broad brush strokes correct.
The Enigma project has been researched for many years. There’s several important books on Amazon. Some are only interesting to mathematicians
Personal details get made up to create interesting characters for a movie. Film makers have to connect historical information in an entertaining way and craft a narrative.
Downfall (2004)
Recommended
German-Austrian production entirely in German. A very straightforward look at the activities in and around Hitler’s bunker in the last 10 days of the war.
I have no authority to speak to the historical accuracy, but it seemed very well done and used lots of captured materials, diaries, letters, and interviews as sources. The acting was superb; the actor portraying Hitler nailed it.
Read the webpage that I linked to. Read some Wikipedia entries about the various events that it talks about. Read some books about those events. There was a lot of important inaccuracy in the movie. If you talk to someone who has only seen the movie about these events, they will give you a history of the time that is inaccurate in many ways. Because they can’t be bothered to read a book or even a Wikipedia entry, they will have a very inaccurate history of those times. This doesn’t mean that it was a terrible movie. It was O.K. If you don’t care about having a clear view of those times, that’s O.K., but if you think that it’s in any way accurate, you should do more reading.
Bruno Ganz, who passed away in 2019. I loved him so much in Wings of Desire.
Ahhhh, yes, I remember fondly the days of Downfall video memes… even made one myself:
Raised in an orphanage by monks, stud Georges Marchal is recruited for “art photos” by the masterfully manipulative Madame Alice (Arletty, one of the greatest French actresses) and later serves as a gigolo. Hoping to restore his “purity,” he falls in love with a naïve girl, complicating his professional and personal relationship with Alice (which does not include sex) before a regrettably melodramatic finish. Unusual story touching on human frailties was well-told and refreshingly adult compared to most Hollywood films of the period and in ensuing decades.
I fully concur. Very convincingly realistic and very well acted. I don’t know if anyone ever had the audacity to produce a dubbed version in English, but that should be avoided at all costs! The original German is the only way to watch this (and, incidentally, the same with Das Boot).
Here are a couple of pics of the actual bunker, with self-explanatory captions, taken when US soldiers entered the bunker shortly after they entered Berlin. They were originally published in LIFE magazine shortly after the war. The second one is the couch on which Hitler shot himself.
I’ve never seen those pictures. Especially the second one with Hitler’s blood on the couch.
What happened to that furniture, I wonder?
Last night I saw Hit Man on Netflix. Very good movie directed by Richard Linklater and starring (and co-written by) Glen Powell. The movie received really good reviews, scoring 97% on Rotten Tomatoes, though that prompted the A.V. Club to wonder why none of the traditional studios bought the film for theatrical release.
I’m thinking of watching Hit Man tonight? What makes it good?
It’s in Harlan Crow’s living room.
Oh, this is so up my alley.
Definitely adding that.