elgordo15
Joined Jan 2010
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elgordo15's rating
As the film opened I was stunned to instantly recognize the location setting for the scene, it was the building now housing the Holocaust Research Center in Nuremberg. It also houses the Museum of the Holocaust there. It was the unfinished Coliseum the Nazis were to have built in Nuremberg on the opposite side of a lake from the infamous Zeppelin Field where many of the massive Nuremberg Rallies took place. Both buildings still exist and are of the few that the Third Reich built that are still in existence. I visited both in 2018.
That, of course set my level of interest in the film, but moreso my interest was piqued by the fact that I remember seeing Marceau on many of the variety shows when I was a kid growing up in the 50s and 60s. The film was well written and well cast with great performances from all of the actors. After reading up on the actual history it was no surprised that much of the script was highly fictionalized but that takes nothing from the characterization of Marceau and his contributions to saving so many lives during the Nazi occupation of France during the war.
That, of course set my level of interest in the film, but moreso my interest was piqued by the fact that I remember seeing Marceau on many of the variety shows when I was a kid growing up in the 50s and 60s. The film was well written and well cast with great performances from all of the actors. After reading up on the actual history it was no surprised that much of the script was highly fictionalized but that takes nothing from the characterization of Marceau and his contributions to saving so many lives during the Nazi occupation of France during the war.
This movie seems to trade right-wing sentimentality and propaganda for World War II Pacific Theater history, and there's nothing wrong with that if that is your goal. This movie claims to portray the raid "based on true events", and yet it loses its authenticity in its zeal to emphasize Japanese brutality and American virtue. The Japanese WERE brutal, of that there is no question. It does not need to be pounded into us by making the Japanese secret police commander into a T-2, virtually indestructible in addition to being completely evil. That's not history or drama, it's just stereotype.
Among the Americans there is no one who presents a compelling character to focus on, everyone is a cliché from countless war flicks that have gone before. The obligatory "dead meat" characters are quickly identified and dismissed as inevitably doomed. The non- historical love connection between the historical Margaret Utinsky and the non-historical composite character of Major Gibson added nothing to the story, functioning only as a distraction from the drama and the actual history of Utinsky's contributions. Probably the most irritating supposed historical assertion in the movie, the claim that it "remains the most successful rescue in US Military history", might be argued with by any one who participated in the raid a month later on the prison compound at Los Banos where over 2100 people were rescued in a massive raid by Army Airborne troops and Filipino Guerillas. I'm sure that hairs could be split over which was "more successful", but the raid at Cabanatuan was hardly even unique to the times. There was heroism aplenty and enough glory to go around.
If you're looking for right-wing validation of "American values" irrespective of actual history then this flick is for you, watch it and have a ball. If you're looking for insight into a little known episode of history well told, keep looking and pass this one up.
Among the Americans there is no one who presents a compelling character to focus on, everyone is a cliché from countless war flicks that have gone before. The obligatory "dead meat" characters are quickly identified and dismissed as inevitably doomed. The non- historical love connection between the historical Margaret Utinsky and the non-historical composite character of Major Gibson added nothing to the story, functioning only as a distraction from the drama and the actual history of Utinsky's contributions. Probably the most irritating supposed historical assertion in the movie, the claim that it "remains the most successful rescue in US Military history", might be argued with by any one who participated in the raid a month later on the prison compound at Los Banos where over 2100 people were rescued in a massive raid by Army Airborne troops and Filipino Guerillas. I'm sure that hairs could be split over which was "more successful", but the raid at Cabanatuan was hardly even unique to the times. There was heroism aplenty and enough glory to go around.
If you're looking for right-wing validation of "American values" irrespective of actual history then this flick is for you, watch it and have a ball. If you're looking for insight into a little known episode of history well told, keep looking and pass this one up.
I love music. It might be the 45 years of performing it on one level or another or it might be that I just appreciate well-produced music, but the music in "Joyful Noise" is superb.
I wish that I could praise this movie even more, but I've seen it too many times already. There are shades of so many films past in here, the ones that come most to mind are "Brassed off" about a coal mining town in England fallen on hard times and their superb brass band who wins the national competition despite the town's reluctance to continue financially supporting it (sound familiar yet to anyone who has seen "Noise"?) and "The Preacher's Wife" with Whitney Houston and Denzel Washington about upheavals in the local church's choir. BTW, another big role in that movie, the Preacher, was played by Courtney B. Vance, who played (wait for it..) THE PREACHER in "Noise"! Didn't Vance at some point think to himself "Hey! I've done this before!". Maybe he did, I don't know, maybe he didn't care. I expected more from a movie fronted by such lights as Dolly Parton, Queen Latifa and Kris Kristopherson.
If you want to hear some roaring good music though, rent the DVD, crank up the bass, sit back and enjoy. Look past the movie and take the music for what it is, superb!
I wish that I could praise this movie even more, but I've seen it too many times already. There are shades of so many films past in here, the ones that come most to mind are "Brassed off" about a coal mining town in England fallen on hard times and their superb brass band who wins the national competition despite the town's reluctance to continue financially supporting it (sound familiar yet to anyone who has seen "Noise"?) and "The Preacher's Wife" with Whitney Houston and Denzel Washington about upheavals in the local church's choir. BTW, another big role in that movie, the Preacher, was played by Courtney B. Vance, who played (wait for it..) THE PREACHER in "Noise"! Didn't Vance at some point think to himself "Hey! I've done this before!". Maybe he did, I don't know, maybe he didn't care. I expected more from a movie fronted by such lights as Dolly Parton, Queen Latifa and Kris Kristopherson.
If you want to hear some roaring good music though, rent the DVD, crank up the bass, sit back and enjoy. Look past the movie and take the music for what it is, superb!