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Day 3 – Your favorite action/adventure movie
The Guns of Navarone
When I was growing up, Sunday afternoon television, particularly in wintertime, was not devoted to watching football or basketball or even Wide World of Sports. No, Sunday afternoons, once all the items on my mom's "honey-do" list were done, my dad commandeered the television in the family room and watched old war movies. Channel 9 or Channel 11 usually had some old guns and flags film with John Wayne saving the world.
I hated them. I found them boring and stupid and practically unwatchable. My sisters and I usually retreated to our own space or hung out with mom and grandmother in the kitchen.
When I got older, I used to tease my dad whenever I caught him watching an old war movie, and say, "You know, we won."
He'd grin and tell me, "Yeah, of course I know – I was there."
The only war movie I ever enjoyed watching with (or without) my dad was Guns of Navarone. Maybe because it wasn't really a "war" movie, but an action/buddy movie set during the war. Or, if you insist on calling it a "war story", it was one unusually focused on character development and relationships – a rarity in its day (the movie was made in 1961). Although this era saw a number of big budget, big star WWII movies (Bridge on the River Kwai and The Great Escape ), I always felt that the focus on characters and their often difficult and contentious relationships was something that was more in common with the story-telling style of Band of Brothers and Saving Private Ryan .
It's also one of the few movies that was truly so much better than the book. The "sequels" to Guns of Navarone - Force 10 From Navarone and Where Eagles Dare probably hew more closely to their literary source material and are lesser stories for it.
Also, it's incredibly slashly.
( The List )
The Guns of Navarone
When I was growing up, Sunday afternoon television, particularly in wintertime, was not devoted to watching football or basketball or even Wide World of Sports. No, Sunday afternoons, once all the items on my mom's "honey-do" list were done, my dad commandeered the television in the family room and watched old war movies. Channel 9 or Channel 11 usually had some old guns and flags film with John Wayne saving the world.
I hated them. I found them boring and stupid and practically unwatchable. My sisters and I usually retreated to our own space or hung out with mom and grandmother in the kitchen.
When I got older, I used to tease my dad whenever I caught him watching an old war movie, and say, "You know, we won."
He'd grin and tell me, "Yeah, of course I know – I was there."
The only war movie I ever enjoyed watching with (or without) my dad was Guns of Navarone. Maybe because it wasn't really a "war" movie, but an action/buddy movie set during the war. Or, if you insist on calling it a "war story", it was one unusually focused on character development and relationships – a rarity in its day (the movie was made in 1961). Although this era saw a number of big budget, big star WWII movies (Bridge on the River Kwai and The Great Escape ), I always felt that the focus on characters and their often difficult and contentious relationships was something that was more in common with the story-telling style of Band of Brothers and Saving Private Ryan .
It's also one of the few movies that was truly so much better than the book. The "sequels" to Guns of Navarone - Force 10 From Navarone and Where Eagles Dare probably hew more closely to their literary source material and are lesser stories for it.
Also, it's incredibly slashly.
( The List )
