Best film about Vietnam (or its aftermath)?

[NightTrain]

Unfortunately, I could only fit 10 film titles into this poll, so if I left out one of your favorites, feel free to write it in!

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

1. Hearts and Minds

Academy award winning documentary.

[livetohike]

9. This was a powerful documentary!

It should be shown on TV, imo.

[denverbill]

25. I'll ditto Hearts and Minds.

[southpaw]

2. Jacob's Ladder

...just because I like it.

[Fenris]

3. Apocalypse Now.

"This is Charlie's beach, Sir!"

"Charlie don't surf!"

[robertpaulsen]

19. Which Apocalypse do you prefer - Redux or original?

[Fenris]

37. Either, really. The added scenes neither add to or subtract from "AN"

[VOX]

22. Agreed. It captures all the confusion, ambivalence and weirdness...

Captain Willard's (Martin Sheen) narration was written by Michael Herr, who wrote "Dispatches," one of the best Vietnam War books.

http://journalweb.journalism.fas.nyu.edu/portfolio/books/book230.html
Herr brought the Vietnam War back home in all its uncensored, unadulterated reality in Dispatches. Proclaimed as the greatest book written not only on the Vietnam War, but also on any war, Dispatches only made it into print as a book ten years after Herr went to Vietnam as a correspondent for Esquire.
<snip>

[Westegg]

45. Herr's book is shattering. Great shit. I'm reading it now...

For all the insanity surrounding the "Apocalypse" shoot (well documented), Coppola ended up with a great, great film. When I first saw it, at the age of 16, I was shocked into silence for the rest of the night. I'm sure I've watched it two dozen times since then. It never gets old. Seeing the "Redux" version was a weird experience. I enjoyed all that was added, but I think my "Apocalypse"-fanatic friends and I agree that a good part of the new stuff was wisely left out initially.

I'm pleased to have both versions on DVD.

[HEyHEY]

4. Forrest Gump

Or "The war at home" - cheeesy but accurate

[DrWeird]

5. Didn't Forrest Gump get spit on in that movie?

And get called a babykiller and beat up by a wife beating hippie at a Black Panther Party?

Yeah, that's accurate.

:evilgrin:

[HEyHEY]

13. Hey man, YOU WEREN'T there maaaan

;-)

EDIT: Didn't mention in the first post I was actually kidding on the gump suggestion

[geniph]

30. Sure, it's accurate, if they hadn't left out the following scene

you know, the one where the soldier who was spit on and abused beat the living shit out of the hippie that spit on him? That's what my husband says would have happened to most of the spitters if most of the spitting tales were true; there would have been an awful lot of stories about hippies getting their jaws busted by pissed-off servicemen.

[ForrestGump]

38. No spit

And, yes, some people returning from Vietnam did get called 'baby-killers'and did get spat on.

[livetohike]

6. The Deer Hunter

Portions of it were filmed in my home town (Pittsburgh) and this made the movie intensely personal to me. However, it still makes me laugh at the hunting scene since there aren't mountains like that anywhere near enough to Pittsburgh to drive to in one day.

Otherwise, the movie was a realistic portrait of Pittsburgh and the young men and women of those times.

[qwertyMike]

7. The Thin Red Line

[Calico Jack Rackham]

10. That was

WW2

[mistertrickster]

8. You can't beat that scene in Full Metal Jacket where the soldiers

get picked off one by one by a sniper in building and when they finally nail the sniper, it's a 17 year old girl.

That's Iraq, folks. Hopelessly out-gunned and futile resistance that will nevertheless win, just like it always does.

[belladonna]

11. Hamburger Hill, without a doubt the best

I've lost track of how many times I've watched it and I still cry everytime Doc dies. :shrug:

As long as we're on the subject, I rented We Were Soldiers and When Trumpets fade the other day, but haven't had time to watch them yet. Who here has watched them and am I wasting my time watching a movie with Mel Gibson in it?

[texas1928]

21. No

We Were Soldiers, is a very good movie. It made me choke up in places, and feel anger in others.

[Hand]

26. When Trumpets Fade is a good one, too...

It's about the battle of the Huertgen Forest, which took place in late 1944 when no one wanted to be the last to die and both sides were scraping the bottom of the barrel for troops. It gives what I think must be an accurate picture of war when it's fought by a combination of half-trained recruits and cynical veterans, both of whom truly don't want to be there but still more or less give it their best shot. Basic message: War sucks. Which is true.

[geniph]

31. We Were Soldiers is excellent

they had the sense to keep Hal Moore (author of the book, and the CO of the company the story's about) involved throughout. My husband found it very accurate, and very moving. Gibson, notwithstanding his personal politics, does a very good job portraying the extremely humane and decent Moore.

Watch the DVD extras, too. There's a film clip of the actual post-battle interview with Moore where he breaks down and cries. Incredibly moving.

[m-jean03]

33. That movie broke my heart.

It was the first Vietnam War movie I ever saw. I was up all night thinking about it.

[Commendatori]

34. I agree

I've seen every Vietnam movie that i've ever heard of, and "Hamburger Hill" was easily the best.

[robertpaulsen]

12. Born on the Fourth of July

Damn, that was a tough choice! I'm a huge fan of Apocalypse Now and Full Metal Jacket and I was going back and forth between those two for a while. In the end, I had to give extra points to Born on the Fourth of July because it emcompassed the true story of an individual and the country's attitude before, during and after Vietnam. Spectacular filmmaking and the best performance Tom Cruise will ever give. But Apocalypse and Jacket tie for second.

[Misunderestimator]

24. I'm with you there... same dilemma and same choice. n/t

[TacticalPeek]

14. M*A*S*H

It ain't about Korea.

[mainer]

15. Casualties of War

Maybe not the best film of the lot, but a heartrending look at one innocent Vietnamese victim.

[11 Bravo]

16. Hasn't been made yet, but it is on the way.

An author and friend of mine named Jim Webb (former Secretary of the Navy) has completed the screenplay for his novel "Fields of Fire" which I (and many others) believe is best novel ever written about Vietnam. Jim has been working on the screenplay and financing for years, but things are finally coming together. If you haven't read "Fields" yet, you owe it to yourself to pick up a copy.

[JVS]

17. If I wanted to see more nam aftermath I'd have gone to more cub scout...

meetings. Those den leaders had some issues. Good guys, but boy had a number been done on them.

[devilgrrl]

18. The Quiet American

A good film about America's early involvement in Vietnam of the 1950's

[UTUSN]

42. The Quiet American - See It! n/t

[Guaranteed]

43. Ohhh..Michael Caine and Brendan Frasier?

EXCELLENT movie, folks....very, very good. Not very well known, but see it.

[IADEMO2004]

20. Full Metal Jacket

JOKER
I wanted to see exotic
Vietnam, the jewel of

Southeast Asia. I wanted to meet interesting

and stimulating people of an ancient culture
and ... kill them.

[Samurai_Writer]

23. The War at Home

Directed by Emilio Estevez and starring Emilio, Martin Sheen, and Kathy Bates. VERY POWERFUL.

[ROC]

27. Go Tell The Spartans

We Were Soldiers was great, but Go Tell the Spartans was beter.

[geniph]

28. My husband's a Vietnam combat veteran

and he says the ONLY one that got it right was We Were Soldiers (which is not even remotely jingoistic, by the way).

Apocalypse Now is just adding Vietnam gloss to a story set in the Congo. The Deer Hunter is severely flawed by pacing and by them showing the Cascade Mountains of Washington state in a movie supposedly set in Pennsylvania. Full Metal Jacket is too surrealistic in the second half, although parts of it are genius (and John also says it's one of the more accurate depictions of Marine Corps boot camp). Platoon came close, but it's Stone's experience of Vietnam, which was very different than others' experience.

[Misunderestimator]

29. What's his opinion of Born on the Fourth of July? n/t

[geniph]

32. I've never been able to talk him into seeing it

but I thought Ron Kovic's book was excellent, and I'm an Oliver Stone fan, so I'll probably like it. I haven't seen it myself, just read the book.

It takes a lot of pre-preparation before he'll watch a Vietnam movie. He doesn't want to dwell on it, but there are some scenes that are very hard for him to watch, so he has to be ready before he'll watch them. Other war movies can be tough for him, too - the first time we saw Saving Private Ryan, he almost had to leave the theatre during the opening beach scene. It was the sound of the bullets ricocheting off metal that got him; he said they got that sound precisely right. Too right.

One of the things he liked about We Were Soldiers is that it's one of the few that didn't present the North Vietnamese regulars as some kind of caricature.

[LuLu550]

35. Born on the Fourth of July

is the movie I use when I talk to high schoolers about Viet Nam. It is about a real person, who by the way attended my high school, and the scenes of the Bronx VA hospital were WAY too true....I went there, it was gut wrenching.

[hippiechick]

36. Dead Presidents

from amazon.com

Twin brother codirectors Albert and Alan Hughes planned their first film, the 1991 ghetto crime drama Menace II Society as a response to John Singleton's Boyz N the Hood, which they considered wimpy and moralistic. They set their sights on The Deer Hunter in this ambitious follow-up, and they just about pull it off. Larenz Tate (from Why Do Fools Fall in Love) plays Anthony Curtis, an open-hearted African American teenager who gets shipped out to Vietnam with several of his pals, witnesses unspeakable horrors, and then struggles to readjust to civilian life.

The evolving textures of life in a declining inner-city neighborhood over a period of a decade are seamlessly evoked, and there's enough nuanced character development and personal interaction for a seven-hour miniseries. Still in their early 20s, the Hughes brothers are already poised and masterful moviemakers; they cover an enormous amount of historical and emotional ground, and every twist and turn is crystal clear. They betray their inexperience only at the very end, in an elaborately staged heist sequence that, while stunningly executed, feels a bit desperate, as if they were reaching blindly for a big payoff. Chris Tucker (Rush Hour) has a startling supporting role as a kid who becomes junkie during the war, and never quite recovers. --David Chute



:hippie:

[ConcernedCanuk]

39. Not a movie, but it's a source some might find interesting

.
.
.

CBC does tend to get right into the nitty gritty

I never heard of "Operation Babylift" or what happened, here's an excerpt:

The Fall of Saigon
Twenty five years ago, American helicopters, Canadian cargo planes, in fact most anything that flew or floated, was pressed into service. The humiliating, final retreat of U.S. involvement in Vietnam was in full swing.

/snip/

In the closing days of the war, Naomi Bronstein helped organize what is now known as "Operation Babylift," a last ditch attempt to get as many orphan babies out of the country as possible. It was an effort that became both a personal triumph and a tragedy.

Bronstein helped arrange an airlift to get babies out of the country. Bronstein says the US embassy promised her a 747 for the flight. But on April 4, 1975, she was surprised to learn that there would be no jumbo jet, but a C-5 cargo plane.

Dozens of children were loaded onto the plane. A door was improperly secured. At 18,000 feet, the door flew open. The sudden drop in pressure sucked three nurses and several babies out of the plane over the South China Sea. The plane went down.



There are links to videos and audios there as well,

and it reveals/questions the USA/Canadian complicity in the Vietnam war.

[ForrestGump]

40. I voted "Hamburger Hill" - "Apocalypse Now" is the best FILM,

one of the best ever made, but it's not at heart (dark heart, that is) about Vietnam.

Hamburger Hill is horrible, harrowing, and all the rest of it...close as I'd want to get to the harrowing and horrible reality.

[moof]

41. The PBS series " Vietnam a television history "

From the home page at " American Axperience', notice the program transcripts links about halfway down the page. This series is available on Video tape in most librarys. If you have not seen it it is a great overview of the major and many minor points about the conflict.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/vietnam/

VIETNAM: A Television History is a 13-part documentary film series produced for
public television by WGBH Boston, in cooperation with Central Independent
Television/United Kingdom, and Antenne-2/France, and in association with LRE
Productions. A six year project from conception to completion, the series
carefully analyzes the costs and consequences of war in Vietnam for everyone
involved, beginning with early history, through the French colonial period, and up
to the fall of Saigon and unification of the country in 1975. Executive producer
Richard Ellison, chief correspondent Stanley Karnow, and Director of Media
Research Lawrence Lichty, with some 60 consultants and four production units,
comprised the production team, centered at WGBH in Boston. Its members
garnered hundreds of interviews, researched 70 film archives worldwide, and
traveled the length of Vietnam to create perhaps the most exhaustive historical
documentary series in television history.

Roots of a War
America's Mandarin
LBJ Goes to War
America Takes Charge
America's Enemy
The Tet Offensive
Vietnamizing the War
Cambodia and Laos
Peace is a at Hand
Homefront USA
The End of the Tunnel

[Guaranteed]

44. Good Morning Vietnam was good, too

:)

[Bonhomme Richard]

46. What about The Green Berets.................What a.............

bunch of shit that movie was. LOL - John Wayne - A national hero........NOT.

[voice of reason]

47. I voted FMJ

. . . but it was close with Apocalypse now and Platoon.

v.o.r.

[bigwillq]

48. Apac now followed by the Deer Hunter

Born on the Fourth of July and Coming Home (it's a sentimental favorite of mine)!

[asteroid2003QQ47]

49. My top 3

“Hearts and Minds”

“Full Metal Jacket”

“Casualties of War”--

(based on a true story and quite timely today)
Read the reviews at--
http://www.amazon.com