Okay, I got lazy for awhile there. I have watched a few others since my last post, but can't remember now which ones, but I promise the jump in the total is legit - especially as I'm doing this for me, not you. :) We also had another 9 best picture nominees from the 2011 class. I saw most of them in the theater and finally caught up with the rest on DVD. But on to Battleground!
This is a very solid war movie that creates a cast of flawed and uncertain soldiers who find themselves surrounded during the Battle of the Bulge. I found it startlingly realistic for coming out just five years after the war. Though maybe that's the time when we can be the most honest sometimes. The film doesn't strive to turn them into larger than life heroes, but portrays them as real men who would rather be back home.
No big name stars, but the cast does include Ricardo Montalban (Khan!) and James Whitmore who is best known (to me anyway) as Brooks, the elderly librarian in The Shawshank Redemption.
As a piece of storytelling, it’s a bit clunky, with no real
arc or any particular protagonist to follow. It does, however, work as a feel-good, but not
sappy, piece of post WWII Americana.
51 to go...
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