I am part of a Facebook group called War Movie Zone. I read posts looking for other people's views of war movies that I loved, liked or hated.
Because there are fans from all over the world with a variety of backgrounds, I get perspectives on movies that are interesting, even when I disagree.
When someone mentions a movie I saw one or two or five decades ago, I try to remember how I saw the movie the first time in contrast to later. The same movie looks very different to the veteran approaching 70 years old than the same movie did to a 12-year-old in a Boston theater.
I recently watched "Battle of the Bulge" with one of my sons. I first saw it in a theater in Boston in 1965. My twelve-year-old self saw a vast drama of arrogant Nazis stopped by ingenious Americans. Since that time I spent nine years a tank commander and last in a war zone in 2010. The big Hollywood drama looked much smaller in 2020.
In 2014 I took my son to see "Fury" in a local theater. Compared with the 1965 movie, Fury used actual Sherman tanks and even had a fully operating German Tiger tank. It had a lot of contrived Hollywood drama, especially at the end, but I saw the movie several times, delighted with the way the crew joked, and talked and fought with each other.
My favorite war drama ever is "Band of Brothers." I have read the book and had the unusual (for me) experience of liking the HBO drama better than the book. When I deployed to Iraq in 2009 we watched a lot of movies in pre-deployment training. Soldiers, both now and when I served during the 70s and 80s love to make fun of war movies. But I never heard anyone make fun of Band of Brothers.
Look up War Movie Zone on Facebook if you want strong opinions about war movies.
