Memorial Day spurred a marathon of watching war movies at the Kelley manse. Two of my favorites showed up on this bargain Blu-ray that I picked up at Wal-Mart for $7.99: Kelly’s Heros and Where Eagles Dare. Clint Eastwood leads a band of misfits in Kelly’s Heroes. Richard Burton stars in the film adaptation of one of my favorite Alistair MacLean novels, Where Eagles Dare. Burton leads a rescue mission to free a U.S. general from an Alpine fortress. Plenty of thrills in both films! GRADE: A
Good ones. EAGLES is no GUNS OF NAVARONE but the book and movie are both fun.
We went a different way yesterday, finally catching up on Anne Hathaway’s 2008 Oscar-nominated performance in RACHEL GETTING MARRIED.
Loved RACHEL GETTING MARRIED, Jeff! A very underrated movie.
KELLY’S HEROES is my husband’s favorite war movie–although, like MASH, I find the sensibilities somewhat anachronistic. I like the line where Don Rickles urges them to offer part of the gold to the German guarding it: “Who knows? Maybe he’s a Republican.”
Watched a lot of baseball yesterday; no movies.
I caught part of the Celtics vs. Heat game, Deb. It looks like a short series.
This is probably my least favorite genre of movie. I am woefully behind and have never seen either of these. The exception is the Vietnam movies which seem less about valor and cunning than fear and a mistaken mission.
We saw THE BEST EXOTIC MARIGOLD HOTEL yesterday. Wow was it packed. Not a great movie but it has its assets.
I’m not a big fan of war movies, either, Patti. But from time to time I get a hankering to see one (or two). Yes, THE BEST EXOTIC MARIGOLD HOTEL is good, but not great. It’s a crowd-pleaser at a time when the choices are THE AVENGERS or MEN IN BLACK 3.
Yes, good but not great, but in this day and age of TRANSFORMERS and the like, BEST EXOTIC MARIGOLD HOTEL stands out as an adult movie you can enjoy without feeling stupid or dirty afterwards. We saw it on a weekday matiness and there were about 30 people in the theater, all but a few of them “seniors” to Hollywood.
RACHEL GETTING MARRIED was very different. I don’t generally like the hand held camera but Jonathan Demme & his cinematographer made great use of the technique and the casting alone was guaranteed to hold your attention!
We saw THE BEST EXOTIC MARIGOLD HOTEL in Boston, Jeff. Like you, we went to a matinee where there were only 20 people in attendance. RACHEL GETTING MARRIED is intense.
These two films are great fun but definitely inhabit completely different universes despite the shared director and star!
You’re right, Sergio. This is an odd coupling of war movies. But the price was right!
I have this also, and I love Kelly’s Heroes. But I spent Memorial Day watching WW II documentaries on Netflix. The most interesting was a documentary on Audie Murphy.
The History Channel had a feature on Audie Murphy recently, too, Stan.
We watched THE DIRTY DOZEN, which I prefer to KELLY’S HEROES. Then Barbara watched a long documentary on Viet Nam on National Geographic, followed by a three hour (!!) documentary on 9/11 titled Behind 9/11. It was too much for me, I read during all that. I had thought TORO, TORO, TORO! was on TCM, but somehow either missed it or it was on another station.
The ribs, homemade potato salad and deviled eggs were excellent. The cake, pie and ice cream didn’t exist, which was a good thing for me, I went over points as it was.
I love THE DIRTY DOZEN, too, Rick. I think I just bought the Blu-ray version a few weeks ago (all this buying blurs after a while). I find Blu-ray enhances movies in color more than B&W films.
Read the MacLean novel last summer. I found it to be an uneven book, with pedestrian action set-pieces followed by entertaining scenes of dialogue and deception. I recently got a copy of the DVD, and will watch it one of these days.
Kelly’s Heroes is utterly preposterous, and a lot of fun. That theme song by Mike Curb is quite the little earworm.
MacLean’s novels tend to be uneven, Drongo. But once he revs up the action and deception, he’s hard to beat in the thriller genre. You’ll enjoy the movie version. “KELLEY’S HEROES is utterly preposterous, and a lot of fun.” Sounds like this blog!