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Post by caucasoididiot on May 31, 2012 15:17:39 GMT -5
(i also was a little disappointed i didn't get in trouble for harshin' on "Enemy at the Gates," which i really liked a LOT less the second time i saw it...) Sorry to disappoint, but I too was underwhelmed by it. It's kind of an odd genesis, Zaitsev was a real person, and apparently so is Chernova, the woman sniper he has the relationship with. However the German colonel is a totally fictitious creation of wartime Soviet propagandists (I mean, it's just too perfect, even though Craig's book did present it as fact). In a sense it might have worked as modern mythology, but for me, just didn't. Ha. I know I'm in the minority that didn't like the series, so I enjoy complaining about it whenever I get the chance. It's cathartic. I'm like that with a lot of stuff myself. (^_^) Strictly speaking, though, we are drifting from documentaries.
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Post by caucasoididiot on Jul 1, 2012 20:18:38 GMT -5
The Fighting Lady (1944)This is a technicolor documentary following CV-10, the second USS Yorktown, from her commissioning to the Battle of The Philippine Sea. While it does have a bit of that "buy a bond today" feel that's inescapable in anything of wartime make, it's still a well dome picture of the ship at war, from the pilots to the cooks and bakers. For that and for seeing how the war was presented to the folks at home at the time, I found it worthwhile. Even has a voiceover cameo by Harry Morgan. The uploader, airboyd.tv, has over 2000 videos. In the past I've found them generally for air enthusiasts only (pilot fams of the P-61, say), but they're high quality and there are likely more like this.
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Post by Crowfan on Aug 19, 2012 18:47:32 GMT -5
The Good Soldier. This documentary has the story of veterans from WW2, VietNam, the Gulf War of 1991, and the Iraq War. This is a fascinating look at what the men are trained to do and what they have experienced. These guys lay it on the line. This is actually an anti-war film, although it doesn't overtly push this agenda; indeed it's the men who have gone through war and find it hard to turn off their ability to kill that makes this a fascinating watch. thegoodsoldier.com/
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Post by BJ on Jul 16, 2013 23:48:17 GMT -5
The Battle of ChernobylThis isn't technically a war documentary, but I don't think we have a generic documentary thread, and it's kind of like a war. Anyway, I'm a big fan of the show River Monsters, and in the recent season finale, he was able to fish in the cooling pond of reactor 4 at Chernobyl. It was an incredible show, and it got me thinking that I barely knew anything about the disaster. So, I poked around online and this documentary came up a few times. I watched it, and was in awe of what actually happened in 1986. The story starts with the accident, and the mile long stream of rainbow colored particles that flew into the sky. An eyewitness, almost ashamed of himself, describes how beautiful this was. From there, it's a tale of confusion, discovery, misinformation, lies, and most of all, an heroic effort from thousands of Soviets to save all of Europe from another explosion. While there are a few reenactments, the show is full of actual footage as the events occurred, as well as many interviews with people involved in the operation (including Mikhail Gorbachev and Hans Blix). Like I said, this was a subject I knew almost nothing about, so the documentary was as enlightening as it was terrifying.
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