Movies: What did You Watch Last Night?

[Yodaking]

BBC America made a series called Our War that is based on letters written home to England from WWI. I found it on Netflix a few months ago and watched it. It is only 3 (1 hour) episodes long and the characters change so it is more like watching 3, 1 hour movies. The first one takes place at the very beginning of the war right when the fighting breaks out. The second one takes place in the middle of the war. Then the last one takes place at the very end of the war and follows a Tank crew during one of the last big battles. I enjoyed them.

As for WWI movies, Beneath Hill 60 (also on Netflix) was pretty good. A movie about the battle that took place below the battlefield in tunnels both sides dug. I'm sure you have seen Flyboys, but that was a good WWI movie about the first flying aces.

If you just want to see some WWI Trench Warfare, the young Indiana Jones tv show has an episode where he is a soldier fighting on the front lines that is really enjoyable. He later gets taken prisoner and has to break out of a old castle he is being held at. Tip for watching that show again is to start at the end of season 1 when he becomes a teenager and runs away from home, then skip every other episode going forward through season 2. They seemed to generally alternate the episodes between action adventure and slower paced mystery or love story. I seem to recall their was also a flying aces of WWI episode too but I don't recall how good it was. Most of season 2 takes place during WWI.

[Hahma]

Good stuff YK

The Great War channel on Youtube is awesome. Currently it's up to 101 episodes that each generally are less than 10 minutes. If you watch them in chronological order, they start from the beginning of the war and each episode is based on what happened during this week 100 years ago. So it is going to run for 4 years. Though they through in a lot of extra little videos as well to focus on certain things. I'm only on episode 54 and it's just at the point of the end of February 1915, so I have a ways to go before catching up, but they go by pretty quick since they are so short.

There is a lot of great footage and you learn a whole lot about so many things going on at the time.

[Yodaking]

I'll have to check that out.

[chas]

Although I could give you other suggestions if you are interested in a particular aspect, the classic WWI movie is All Quiet On The Western Front.

[Tornado]

Thanks for the suggestions gentlemen. I have seen Beneath Hill 60 and enjoyed it.
Anyone ever heard of the bright light that appeared over battlefields in WWI and caused the soldiers to stop fighting? It was covered in an episode of One Step Beyond.

From Miracle of WWI:
On November 14, 1915 at 22:30 hours, a massive paranormal event occurred over European WW! Theatre. It was witnessed by thousands of soldiers in many different locations. Following is the story of four soldiers, Sergeant Vy, Private Marsee, Private Lacoste, and Private Mollene who faced execution for abandonment of post.

These four French soldiers were on a mission to destroy a German mortar site in 1915. At about 10:30pm, they started to see a light in the sky that they thought at first was a flare on a parachute, until they realized that it was motionless. The soldiers watched for awhile and then three of them put down their rifles and returned to their own lines.

It was this light over the whole battlefield theatre that caused everyone to just stop fighting, many simply walked off the battlefield—unharmed. They didn’t run and they were not fired upon. The French placed calls to their enemy to stay their enemy’s execution of soldiers who were affected by the light.

[chas]

Wow--that's interesting. Just when you think you know it all. Of course, that's the fun of staying on for the ride!

[Yodaking]

Never heard about that but now I want to know more.

[Hahma]

That's interesting stuff for sure. I did know about the Christmas truce in 1914 where the enemy soldiers took a break from trying to kill each other and exchanged gifts (whatever they had) and play a soccer match. But never heard of the lights in the sky phenomenon.

[Tornado]

Here is a link to the OSB episode on IMDb.

You can watch it here. Or here on Hulu.

One Step Beyond is a great series. Sort of like the Twilight Zone but based on 'true' stories.

Another good link on the subject.

[aquamaniac27]

Yesterday we played some Cthulhu's Vault and Arkham Horror here on vacation, and are about to stream Herbert West: Re-animator and The Dunwich Horror. While not totally true to HPL, they are quite amusing campy films.

[NecroBlade]

Watched Only Lovers Left Alive the other night. Interesting movie. Vampires, but a completely different take from the typical fight-the-werewolves stuff. Philosophical and with a message. I really enjoyed it.

Of course, then thinking about unusual vampire movies, we had to watch What We Do in the Shadows again. That is one funny movie.

[Agent Minivann]

Went to see Ant-Man for the first time last night with my daughter. I really, really enjoyed it. I really only had one beef with it:

Spoiler Alert!

I think it would have been better if he used the shrinky shuriken weapon on Yellowjacket when he was small to make him go subatomic.

Also, how is there not an Ant-Man episode of How It Should Have Ended?