“Wherever you go in the whole world whether you don’t know the language of the country, just say Manchester United” — Martin Tyler
ASoIaF Challenge | 04. character you grew to love that you previously hated/were indifferent to | Cersei Lannister
Cersei is as gentle as King Maegor, as selfless as Aegon the Unworthy, as wise as Mad Aerys. She never forgets a slight, real or imagined. She takes caution for cowardice and dissent for defiance. And she is greedy. Greedy for power, for honour, for love.
This has happened to me so many times but I’ll always keep my head up saying GGMU!
Submitted by la-t0rtuga :)
The Dirty Dozen
“Feed the French and kill the Germans!”
Well, I figured that to compensate for the disappointing taste Inglourious Basterds left in my mouth, I’d check out another WWII flick I’d been planning to see for a while, with the hopes it would be better. Spoiler alert: it is.
The Dirty Dozen is a movie set during World War II about a group of twelve military prisoners who are sent on an undercover suicide mission to kill a bunch of German officers, in exchange for commuted sentences. And that’s pretty much all you need to know about the plot to get the gist of this movie. It’s one of those really strong premises that’s been copied a million times since (including as the pretty decent 80s comic series Suicide Squad). It was made in 1967, and stars Lee Marvin, Telly Savalas, Charles Bronson, and a bunch of other actors. Yes, in case it wasn’t clear before now, this movie is actually quite badass.
Now, I’ve always had mixed feelings about war movies. I think war is subject matter worth exploring, but at the same time, the tendency for some war movies to be nationalistic advertisements for the military always rubs me the wrong way. And The Dirty Dozen is probably as far as you can get from a nationalistic celebration of heroism. No one in this movie is a hero, and no one is fighting for king and country. It’s a movie about a group of thieves and murderers, led by a major who resents both his assignment and his commanding officers, doing the job that they’re given, and trying to make it out alive. In fact, if there’s one thing that all of our protagonists, including Major Reisman, have in common it’s their hatred of the Army and authority figures. So what we get is a war movie that’s soaked in the spirit of rebellion rather than victory, in a way that is played for both humor and seriousness.
Now, the plot is very simple, yet it’s still a two and a half hour long movie. The mission itself only takes around 40 minutes (as all climaxes do), so that’s a lot of time spent on character development. The protagonists are a mixed assortment, ranging from decent people who’ve found themselves in a bad situation to complete psychopaths. How can such a varied and unruly group work as an effective military unit? Well, that pretty much falls on Major Reisman, played by Lee Marvin, whose combination of hard-ass toughness, charismatic leadership, and anti-establishment rebelliousness makes him seem like some sort of cool English teacher you’d have in high school, only with a gun. Yeah, I don’t care how hard Charles Bronson squints at everyone; Reisman is by far my favorite character in this thing.
Rather than using the whole almost-certain-death thing as a source of drama for the whole movie, the first two acts are relatively light, and have a fair number of comedic moments, although the humor isn’t exactly subtle. It almost feels more like an underdog movie than a war movie: it’s as though the unit are a down-and-out sports team with a terrible record, who their new coach has to turn into champions by the end of the season. The fact that there’s actually a very long war games sequence between Major Reisman’s unit, and his rival, whom he doesn’t like for some reason, makes this seem all the more apparent. The only difference is that rather than winning the championship in the last act, the team goes to a Nazi chateau to kill a bunch of people.
At the heart of things, The Dirty Dozen is a very well done action movie. It doesn’t focus too much on elaborate aesthetics, instead relying mostly on character dynamics, and some very suspenseful yet exceptionally violent scenes at the end. It has a slow set-up, but a big payoff, and while things get very dark very quickly for the third act, the more casual tone of the acts that preceded it help the ending rather than hurt it. A small handful of elements, like the music, and some of the humor, seem a bit cheesy, mostly because of the fact that it’s an old movie, but for the most part, it holds up very well. It’s a violent, suspenseful, and even fun movie about guys who are tough yet likable, who form a team you want to cheer for, even though you might not expect yourself to. And for the sake of my own peace of mind, I’m going to pretend that they never made a made-for-TV sequel 20 years later.
Overall Rating: 8/10Recommendation Level: Recommend
AMC was showing this over the Memorial Day weekend, and I saw the first half, didn’t get to finish because I had to go to work. I enjoyed what I did see though.
you will do things for them that you know you shouldn’t do, you will act the fool to make them happy, to keep them safe.
