Barbecue safety tips you should know before grilling Memorial Day
No sane person wants war.
That's something that shouldn't need saying -- especially on Memorial Day, May 26, when we pause to remember the toll it takes. Soldiers killed, families devastated, the country deprived of some of its best and brightest.
But wars are sometimes -- sometimes -- necessary. Or at least, they may seem necessary at the time.
The best war movies are not the ones that glorify war. Nor are they necessarily those with an anti-war message.
They are the ones that convey -- in terms that a veteran would recognize, and a civilian can understand -- what war feels like, and what kinds of conflicts and issues it raises for the people who have to fight it.
Here, for Memorial Day, are some titles worth checking out:
'The Big Parade' (1925)
This World War I blockbuster, directed by King Vidor, wowed audiences in the silent era, and much of it still holds up today. The slow march through Belleau Wood -- a single line of soldiers walking abreast, with death by sniper fire an ever-present possibility -- is one of the great war sequences on film. The loneliness of combat, even in the company of other soldiers, is something only a veteran would know about (writer Laurence Stallings was one). "Although friends are only a helping hand away, that hand may never be raised," critic Alistair Cooke wrote. "The line must keep its broken order and unbroken pace." Available for streaming on Tubi, YouTube, Apple TV, Amazon Prime.
'All Quiet on the Western Front' (1930)
This was an anti-war film (it was based on the 1929 bestseller by Erich Maria Remarque), but it's not preachy, not "intellectual." It simply shows the horrors of war from the perspective of a grunt -- a German grunt (Lew Ayres) in this case, his head full of schoolboy heroism, who discovers the awful reality of the trenches. This is depicted by director Lewis Milestone with a ghastly realism that must have been overwhelming at the time. A glimpse of a dismembered hand, clutching a barbed wire fence, can still give "Saving Private Ryan" a run for its money. Available for streaming on Tubi, YouTube, Apple TV, Amazon Prime.
'The Red Badge of Courage' (1951)
It probably helped that the young Civil War recruit, in Stephen Crane's story of cowardice under fire, was played by Audie Murphy -- the most decorated combat soldier of World War II. So we know this young man, in the end, will find his mettle. Still, the depiction of what goes on in a soldier's head, in the fearful hours and minutes before battle, has seldom been matched for intensity. Director John Huston's film (which was recut by the studio) is also one of the most beautiful-looking, and authentic-feeling, of all Civil War films. Available for streaming on Amazon Prime, Apple, Google Play.
'From Here to Eternity" (1953)
The "peacetime army" of Hawaii, in the weeks leading up to Pearl Harbor, is pretty uninspiring. Lots of petty intrigues -- from soldiers bullying a stubborn recruit (Montgomery Clift), to a sergeant (Burt Lancaster) having an affair with a superior's wife (Deborah Kerr), to a hapless private (Frank Sinatra) victimized by a sadistic keeper of the stockade (Ernest Borgnine). But then, in this adaptation of the James Jones novel, the Japanese attack -- and everything changes. Both a critique of, and a warts-and-all tribute to, the military establishment that won World War II. Available for streaming on Philo, Amazon Prime, Apple, Google Play.
'The Caine Mutiny' (1954)
Seamen on a decrepit Navy minesweeper rebel against their incompetent, petty-tyrannical captain (Humphrey Bogart), and we're on their side. But then the lawyer at their court martial (José Ferrer) gives us a new perspective: by taking a ship out of action during the worst of the Pacific conflict, the mutineers have put their own grievances above the need of the country. Who's right? Ferrer, in this adaptation of the Herman Wouk bestseller, makes a compelling argument. But Bogart's Captain Queeg, rolling his little steel balls as he suffers his famous breakdown in court, suggests another. Available for streaming on Amazon Prime, Google Play, YouTube, Apple.
'Paths of Glory' (1957)
The claustrophobia of World War I trench warfare has never been better portrayed than in this Stanley Kubrick film about a miscarriage of justice -- a glory-hungry French general (George Macready, superbly chilling) who orders Kirk Douglas' men to take an impossible target, and then demands that three of them be arbitrarily tried and executed for cowardice when they don't succeed. Available for streaming on Amazon Prime, Tubi, YouTube, Apple.
'Bridge on the River Kwai' (1957)
When is heroism not heroism? Alec Guinness is the British colonel, in a Japanese POW camp, who refuses to let his men be broken by the rigid commandant (Sessue Hayakawa). But by encouraging his unit to build a railroad bridge for the Japanese -- to keep up esprit de corps and teach their captors a "lesson" -- isn't he playing into the hands of the enemy? This ironic epic, directed by David Lean from Pierre Boulle's book, won seven Oscars. Available for streaming on Amazon Prime, Google Play, YouTube, Apple.
'Patton' (1970)
Patton is an SOB. Patton is a hero. Patton is an SOB and a hero. But can wars be won by any other kind of leader? Franklin Schaffer's World War II epic, with George C. Scott's memorable performance (he declined his Best Actor Oscar) dares to ask the question -- and after this three-hour blockbuster, you may still not be sure of the answer. Available for streaming on Amazon Prime, Google Play, Fandango, Apple.
'Glory' (1989)
War may seem "futile" when you don't know what you're fighting for. But the African American soldiers of the 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment -- most of them former slaves -- do know, absolutely. The issues of the Civil War are anything but abstract to Denzel Washington, Morgan Freeman, Andre Braugher, and the others who have been ordered to take Fort Wagner, South Carolina. When they go marching to their deaths, they are all in -- as few soldiers in few films ever are. One of the most genuinely heroic moments in any war film. Available for streaming on Amazon Prime, Google Play, YouTube, Apple.
'Saving Private Ryan' (1998)
The Normandy invasion, presented in the movie "The Longest Day" (1962) as an exciting skirmish followed by a cheerful mop-up operation (to a whistling chorus on the soundtrack) is shown in all its unimaginable horror in Steven Spielberg's epic. Not to debunk war, but to show -- as nearly as a movie can show such things -- its true cost. Life is precious, as Captain Miller (Tom Hanks) tells the soldier (Matt Damon) whose life he has saved -- at the expense of his own. "Earn this," he says. Available for streaming on Amazon Prime, Google Play, YouTube, Apple.