Home
Creators
Search Recent Random
Posts
Search DMs Popular Hash Lookup Tags Random
Importer
Import FAQ
Register Favorites Keys Review DMs Logout
Community
Telegram ThePornDude
Home Creators Posts Import Register Favorites Logout

Radio War Nerd EP #427 — War Movies Feast Pt. 2: The Bums Always Lose, feat. Will Menaker (Patreon)

Published:
2024-02-17 01:39:38
Imported:
2024-02
Tags:

Downloads

Content

Guest: Will Menaker, Chapo Trap House

Recorded: February 14, 2024

Will from Chapo joins us again to complete our 2-part series on the best & worst of war flicks by chronological US wars. This episode: war movies from the Korean War through the GWOT.

Check out part 1 of our War Movies Feast with Will: Revolutionary War - WWII.

Subscribe to the Chapo Trap House podcast. Follow Will on Twitter (forever known as Twitter).

Total time: 1:21:13

Direct link to this episode's mp3 here 

*

Subscribe to Radio War Nerd at patreon.com/radiowarnerd

Sound production by Telescope Audio

Check out the Radio War Nerd Merch store here!

Order your print or ebook of John Dolan's new book Erdogan Pizza: Dispatches from a Violent & Grotesque World

Files

Comments

cstenzy

Figured this would drop today after the Navalny news came in

PostmasterFenian

Any good ww2 movies about China? 20 million dead

Karl Childers

regarding full metal jacket maybe i just saw the film too late into my teens and had been bullied too much younger but i always saw leonard as the hero of that film, the only american character who correctly identified his enemy, the one man with the moral courage to confront real evil. as such i do have to regard full metal jacket as a genuine anti-war film, even if i find the back half forgettable and no one else took from the film what i did.

Dark Belden

Can’t wait to listen to this. Even though it’s not a real war movie I hope to hear everyone’s take on starship troopers since apparently that’s a thing on the internet today.

ThatAintChocolate

The Thin red line slander is pretty weird yall I love you 3 but damn; you should really all give it a real shot again. At least wait until the famous woody harrelson scene; the movie is about the contradictions and pointlessness of war when contrasted with the beauty of nature and the soul. It’s good stuff, give it another chance

Matthew Garnham

A couple things that were not mentioned... WW2 Hacksaw Ridge unmentioned as another Mel Gibson movie. Just an insanely pro war bloodthirsty film that is focused on a pacifist, completely bizarre case of a movie being so opposed to its protagonists morals. The scene that revels in Vince Vaughn mowing down Japanese soldiers while being dragged to safety by Andrew Garfield is something to be beheld. Masters of the Air is airing right now as a another series following up Band of Brothers and The Pacific. It is ok but I think the fake documentary style that Saving Private Ryan really popularised doesn't serve air combat very well. There are just too many similar looking and sounding guys wearing air masks, all in identical planes and most of the view of what's going on is looking out windows that it gets very confusing. Good visceral moments and stuff back on the ground but the combat really needs some more objective clarity. War on Terror Black Hawk Down: while pre war on terror events it is released just after 9/11 and every war on terror film afterwards is borrowing from its style and visual language. Worth emphasising how incredibly influential it was. American Sniper: the film almost feels like it was made with the truth about his lying sociopathy in mind. Every scene with his wife gives the impression he is just a hair trigger away from some terrifying domestic violence. I think the thing with Clint Eastwood and the reason he has endured when other conservative film makers have fallen away is he can't help but show the truth of things. Guy is just better at making movies than he is at pushing an agenda and so these films that should be angry old man trash somehow have these transcendent elements.

Doug Cartel

American sniper was pervy as fuck, the scene where they ram a power drill into a child's skull while shes still alive and screaming is nothing short of violence porn. ffs the first people he kills in the movie are a woman and kid and hes just all boohoohoo whys this happening to meeee But yeah chris kyle's character in that film does seem weird to normal people but hes like every 3rd dude in the military. Friend of mine once talked about the weird psychos he met during officer training out in OK who are just like "yeah ever since emy divorce I've really been getting into swords"

Matthew Garnham

Oh also Generation Kill created by David Simon of The Wire fame is an interesting look at the invasion of Iraq, very much a portrayal of the officers have no idea what they are doing and are going to get us all killed and also of a bunch of marines basically wishing they were back in Afghanistan doing proper combat missions. Keeps pretty locked in to this platoon of Humvees.

Michael S. Judge

If you count this as a Vietnam movie, there is a completely insane, direct-to-VHS movie called KILL CRAZY from about 1990. It's written by, directed by, and starring one guy, who also wrote the VERY frequent songs on the soundtrack, and it's about a group of mentally-ill Vietnam vets being held hostage by a white supermacist paramilitary squad for ... unclear reasons. There are multiple male-on-male rape scenes, and it includes the single least judicious use of the N-word in modern film history.

Michael S. Judge

In the early 2000s, some friends & I used to buy stacks of 25¢ VHS tapes from the local Goodwill and watch all of them with no prior preparation, so I've seen a LOT of terrible no-budget movies, and KILL CRAZY was easily both the worst and most uncomfortable of them

Christian Kaiser

God I was hoping Lebowski would come up in the Gulf War movies. It was such great commentary on that war and the phase of the “crisis of masculinity” america was in at the end of the cold war. Walter quoting, “If your will it, it is no dream” was a great touch

Trout Mask Original

How did you all just skip over Catch-22? It's a legit anti-war film, and it's an anti-war film set in WW2 to boot (a bold move). It goes pretty damn hard on the absurdity of the US military and the pointless horrors of the all-time "good war" in USian mythology (not as hard as the novel of course but still).

PostmasterFenian

As far as Korean movies go there's also that recent one called devotion about the first black naval pilot. Seems to get a lot of aspects about aviation correct but rooting for the US in the Korean war feels like rooting for the Confederacy lol.

Will Newberry

It doesn't really fit the bill of being a war movie but 4 Lions is easily the best anti-war on terror film I've ever seen

PostmasterFenian

Black hawk down is such a good war movie with such horrible politics -the message man the brothers

T

Two Uncs hangin with their cool nephew

Ltfinn

Not an American film, but Johnny Mad Dog made a really big impression on me as a young person. If you haven't seen it I highly highly highly recommend it, and think it might count as an anti war war movie.

Quinn

Generation Kill is very good, completely fails at the obligatory "anti-war" angle but theres some good insights into the psychology of the people there.

Jeremy Heffernan

More love for Generation Kill. You guys could probably do a whole episode on this miniseries.

Alex

Great ep. A great gwot movie that wasn’t a war movie is Syriana

Marc Catapano -Flowers in the Concrete Tours/Geekedelia Media

Re: the late 20th century American attitude toward the military as bumbling losers - I think a lot of the generation that served in WW2 came out jaundiced and super skeptical with US military culture - think Catch 22/ Private SNAFU. My dad, who was in the Navy during WW2, described his officers as “boy scouts” and the enlisted men as “hillbillies” and had very little confidence in the competence of the Cold War US Military. If you listen to some of JFK’s oval office tapes you can practically see his eyes rolling whenever he is meeting with the brass. And I dont think JFK was totally being self effacing when he would attribute his war “heroism” to the fact he got his boat sunk by accidentally driving it into a Japanese destroyer

Anthony Miller

I’m curious as to the groups take on guy ritchies “the covenant”

Matthew Garnham

Jacobs Ladder doing the Vietnam war as a trippy horror film about the experience of dying

AG

War moviese haha. In the past when John said Top Gun, the original, was a bad movie I thought "oh but I liked it." I guess I am dumb.

CR

I just realized that the only world war 2 movies I’ve seen set in Germany are about commando missions to destroy V-2 rockets or The Great Escape. Almost every WW2 movie I’ve seen or can think of is set in an occupied country. Because we were liberating France and the Mediterranean and Yugoslavia and Italy … But it gets a loss like 100% righteous when the Allies are destroying everything in their path to take Berlin because everyone knows what happens next. Anyway, Live from Baghdad is great. Keaton and Reeve are great, especially since it’s hard to think of memorable performances by Reeve that aren’t as Superman, to be honest. HBO tried that again later in the 90s with woody harrelson in Welcome to Sarajevo. And it was about a print reporter, but Tina Fey and Margot Robbie were in Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, which was about a female reporter in Afghanistan that came out like five years ago. But really, what is there to say about war journalism in this century except the only people who would ever have films made about them are the biggest cretins on earth. No one is making a movie about all the murdered press in Gaza. As for the Cold War, the 80s was a rejection of that new left new Hollywood navel gazing. As the trailer for “The Delta Force” put it, “There are no more heroes. … Until now.” In the 80s we got an actor president and a Hollywood eager to play ball, and that set the stage for everything since. The beginning of Stripes also makes a point of showing that the Army was for losers in that 76-82 period. Until it wasn’t because the losers kick Soviet (well, Czech) ass in the end and Ramis’s character calls the soviets pussies on the cover of one of the magazines in that closing montage. But there were motivated people at work. And as it happens, the U.S. government wasn’t alone in providing military assistance and “advising.” All of those Cannon films like The Delta Force and Iron Eagle were filmed with support and resources from the IDF. But the Pentagon got the message after Top Gun and to a lesser extent Navy SEALs. As an aside, an execrable example of GWOT propaganda trash was Acts of Valor, a movie about the noble fight against transnational terrorism (it takes place in Asia and South America) starring real life SEALs. It’s funny to think, but there was a r/movies thread about what would change or remain the same if Enemy of the State was made (one of the onslaught of Bruckheimer Simpson propaganda turds). In case you missed it or forgot (mercifully), the conflict is over someone getting footage of the deputy director having a congressman killed for opposing, basically, the patriot act. Well, 25 years later, everything about that conflict feels like it could only happen on another planet. But it’s okay, back then it was just a rogue element. Like the marines in The Rock. (Don’t forget that Bruckheimer produced Black Hawk Down, BTW. It was originally going to be directed by the guy who directed Con Air, then the Pirates director, THEN they got Ridley Scott. TBF, his brother would have completely erased the few second of humanity of the Somalis that ended up in the movie). The 90s were a watershed for “terorism” and all sorts of flailing to find enemies. Jarhead was not that good, but it at least tried to convey the message of the book that the experience was pointless for Swofford. Now its legacy is three direct to streaming sequels just using the name. Our buddy Tom Clancy was also invaluable at this time. Not just to justifying the Cold War with Hunt for Red October (which is - good movie, to be honest.) and rationalizing Iran Contra and retconning the IRA because Clancy was a Prod bastard. But all that small unit badasses shit did really kick off in the 80s, although they were basically following in the footsteps of dozens of WW2 films like Guns of Navrrone and Dirty Dozen. But Hollywood and D.C. policy have been in lockstep since the 80s. It wasn’t just Hollywood’s ties to Reagan. They loved Clinton in L.A. and The Peacemaker and similar dreck served to bolster policy on nukes, balkans, interventions, and keeping a decent military even though we had no reason for one. People had to forget before we got Hotel Rwanda, in contrast.

Allen M

I think the take on Apocalypse Now is a bit too shallow. The script by Milius was shifted by Coppola into the masterpiece before he went into crazy with Redux. Williard was disintegrating just like the American War Effort, and ended up weirdly finishing his mission for himself, rather than just following orders. The choice not to become Colby and go native was highly American. The voiceovers about how the command never wanted the truth either told or even acknowledged was repeated in the Afghan fiasco. Ames loves to talk about Empire, but how we fought Vietnam was the same. We flew half the way around the world, brought our fast food and created little bits of America while blowing up people it would have been cheaper and more humane to simply bribe into submission.

CR

William Friedkin’s The Hunted begins with Benicio del Toro killing a Serb commander in Kosovo. The same year Antoine Fuqua followed up Training Day with Tears of the Sun, which was basically “What if we let the U.S. Navy do the bare minimum to stop one ethnic cleaning incident in Africa?”. The quintessential GWOT movie will always be Zero Dark Thirty because it was a movie made by the CIA through a cutout (Boal) about how even when we’re wrong we’re always still right and righteous. And when it comes out that it was all bullshit, no one cares because as The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance told us long ago, “ When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.” Anyway, the land of Radio War Nerd is a land of contrasts; and it’s worth re-listening to episode 110 on disinformation during the Regan era, when American disinformation just annihilated Soviet attempts.

CR

The mission in Maverick is straight up the Dam Busters mission, a story and movie so often retold it is its own subgenre of film, touching everything from Star Wars to at least one comic sports movie I’m forgetting the name of. But it’s still a great movie and the “2:15” scene kicks ass.

CR

To be fair, it’s the only movie I can think of that shows urban warfare, specifically Hue, in Vietnam.

CR

Malick should release all 3 million feet of footage and let people recut it into, well, something else.

CR

To his credit, Clint also made Richard Jewell, which is super anti establishment, anti cop. Fucking travedy, to quote Stavvy

CR

Will, I can understand, but I’m shocked that JD didn’t push back about what the Fox News viewers think of him. As a student of these people in the same way as JD, although I study the kind of people who read and follow the Soldos, Rufos, and Sailers of the world and not yahoo! Commenters like he does — I assure you, THIS IS NOT A DREAM (Simpsons did it). Those other people who aren’t like Kyle are the losers and the enemy. These are the same conservatives and liberals like the governor of New York screaming about how “I wish someone would …” so they can live out all of their genocidal fantasies like the Israelis are doing. This is classical hierarchical thinking. His SEAL team is better than those pussy army and marine maggots. And he’s better than those SEALs who don’t take joy in murder and exacting righteous justice on evildoers.

CR

Theodore Herzl. State of Israel.

CR

Jonathan Majors stars in that, so it’s fallen into the memory hole.

CR

The Tuskegee Airman that HBO made decades ago is great as a WW2 air war movie. George Lucas’s Red Tails remake is not.

CR

Come to think of it, HBO has made some decent stuff in this genre. They also made Pentagon Wars, about the Bradley development process. Another “of its time” movie was By Dawn’s Early Light, about a limited nuclear exchange around the end of the Cold War. One particularly memorable scene was the Nightwatch general leaving the SAC HQ for the Looking Glass airborne command center as a nuke is incoming. Everyone is going about their jobs coordinating and communicating with the rest of the military as they know certain death is imminent in a matter of minutes. And the only signifier is an airman pulling security (funny enough, the same actor would later be on The Agency, the cbs series about the CIA that premiered like a week before 9/11) telling the general to “kick their asses” as he walks out. But they’re also the biggest perpetrators of this “we’re just about the troops” bullshit that avoids asking policy questions like “why the fuck do we have 900 military bases around the world?” They are the kind of studio (at least pre-Discovery takeover) to make a movie about those SEALs killing the Green Berets in Africa over drugs without anyone stopping to ask “Why were either of those teams in Western Africa at the time?”

CR

Same goes with Japan. Movies may cover the occupation superficially like Memoirs of a Geisha or The Emperor and the General about MacArthur, but nothing about the actually war touching Japan itself. Not that Oppenheimer should’ve covered it. The bombings are irrelevant to that movie. But we were liberating Oceania. Not inflicting hell on earth on the home islands.

CR

Cannot wait for the Ukraine - Russia war movies if horseshit like The Battle for Mariupol are any indication of what to expect.

CR

Does Ip Man count?

CR

One last thing. The strategy in Full Metal Jacket sublimating libido into violence is, of course, now used to train cops. I’m old enough to remember when cops didn’t like veterans becoming cops because of that. Then the Clinton Biden Crime Bill came along and really put the war in war on drugs/crime by incentivizing the hiring of veterans and every other damned military and paramilitary bullshit idea into getting the cops to go full Occuptional Army Mode.

Josh

8th grade social studies teacher here, I showed my students the patriot last week then did an activity where they had to change a scene in the movie to make it more realistic or historically accurate. Most of them picked either the fact that Mel’s character is a plantation owner with no slaves, the lack of racist South Carolinian characters, or the insane accuracy of Mel and his sons when they’re picking off hapless Brits with muskets. A few also mentioned that they would change Mel hooking up with his dead wife’s sister 😂 With all that said, they were actually much more into the movie than I expected and couldn’t wait to finish it. Goofy movie but still a good time

'Bortion Scott Card

I'm surprised nobody mentioned Inchon, that psycho Korean War movie made by the Moonies in the early 1980s

Jason Thompson

Oh man, John’s comment about Gaza… I’ve dreamed of what kind of unfair world we live in that (in addition to other things) Palestinians don’t get to make movies about blowing away evil Israelis. (Which oooooobbbbbviously does not mean I am endorsing blowing away people IRL……but i’m a USAan, I’ve had the privilege of growing up with countless video games and movies about killing whatever enemy the USA had at the moment…) Middle East Media Watch would have that stuff on Western news in 5 minutes. Even when there are Arab films about the occupation, afaik they’re all classy ones like the film version of “Gates of the Sun.” Maybe in some far future Palestinians will get to make anti colonial ass kicking films like India’s R.R.R. Maybe. Hopefully.

Josephus Franks

Gotta see The Battle at Lake Changjin and The Sacrifice, two recent Korean War movies from China. The Sacrifice gives a great sense of what it's like to fight against an enemy with air superiority.

drizzly_november

That's an interesting point and I think directly related to the draft - more Americans of that generation, from all walks of life - had actual, first-hand experience of the military, and had a more skeptical, nuanced view of it. That includes writers, directors, actors - a lot of art about war was being created in part by people who'd lived through it, like Will mentioned Samuel Fuller, or Kurt Vonnegut, or John Ford. Our current volunteer force is very insulated from the public, and if you're of a certain social class - especially the kind that gets to write magazine articles and make TV shows - you probably don't interact with veterans all that much. What was the most recent war movie made by a veteran? That's what I love so much about Matt Farwell and his writing - he has this sort of jaundiced, gonzo spirit of a Vietnam vet for a younger GWOT era.

John Hieronymus

Thought that it was strange generation kill didn’t get a mention, it suffers from all of the issues any war movie does but absolutely gets the vibe of early 2000’s GWOT plus the absurdity of the invasion. It’s also based on actual reporting and I read the book they didn’t really hold back especially on the stupidity of the officers and SNCOs. Fun fact the asshole Sargent major got busted for something involving child pornography or molestation or something a few years later.

John Hieronymus

The best world war 2 movie about China, and probably one of my favorite movies period but it’s been practically censored out of existence by the Chinese state is “devil’s on the doorstep” about a village under a Japanese fort where insurgents (they purposely are not identified as either nationalist or communist) deposit a captured Japanese officer and his Chinese interpreter for interrogation and trial. It’s practically a black comedy but also a terrible tragedy. 10/10

John Hieronymus

War movies about America’s dirty wars that i think should have gotten an honorable mention: “walker” the acid western about the America filibusters who invaded Nicaragua in the 1840’s but bleeds into the contra wars. “Matawan” is a movie about the coal wars after world war 1 in West Virginia about a shootout that happened right before the battle of Blair mountain and very much has a strike as literal class war vibe with the Pinkerton types explicitly being ww1 vets. “the quiet American” about the CIA ramping up the war in Vietnam as the French are on their way out. “State of Siege” by Costa Garvas about the Tupamaros kidnapping of an undercover FBI officer training the Uruguayan police and death squads in torture and counter insurgency. “Salvador” about the American support for the Salvadoran dictatorship and our support for their counter insurgency. “The Spook Who Sat by the Door” is a fictional account of a black guerrilla movement in 1970’s urban America which was shot completely underground by Ivan Dixon in chicago and Gary. I once heard zero dark thirty as a war crime as documented by the perpetrators, which I think was worth commenting on. Just a few I thought could have been added and generally recommend on. Overall a fun episode

CR

It’s worse that these films are made by non-vets because the people making them are flag humping chickenhawk chickenshits like Peter Berg, Mark Wahlberg, John Kraczyinski, and the worst of the bunch, Bay and Bruckheimer. Actually, the worst are Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg because at least Bay and Bruckheimer are just opportunists. Hanks and Spielberg believe all this shit.

CR

Hooking up with his dead wife’s sister is the most accurate part

CR

RRR - what if Mel Gibson made a Tollywood movie

John Lima

I think Michael herr wrote a bunch of the VO for apocalypse now. Also letters from iwo jima by Eastwood I think is a very good WWII movie. Good clint as opposed to reactionary clint

etienne

to me *the* Gulf War I movie is Hot Shots

pelicans123

During basic in Canada we had competitions to see who could quote more lines from Platoon and Full Metal Jacket. Not clear to me that anyone noticed they were supposed to be anti-war.

Arno

You have been hard with Thin Red Line and Deer Hunter which are sheer masterpieces…

Dark Belden

Great episode. Went back and watched Starship Troopers again and the bonus features which included a 25th anniversary cast reunion. I was unaware that PV cast actors who weren’t in on the joke until will said something about it and hoo boy was he right. Pretty sure there were a total of 3 of them that got it and two of them were Clancy brown and Michael Ironside. Johnny Rico was telling stories about vets telling him how they watched the movie before Fallujah and he was just beaming with pride. Really wild to see.

Jonathan Penn

There's a stanza about war in a Heine poem which goes, "But War and Justice have far different Laws/And Worthless Acts are often quite well done/The Bastard's Shots were better than his Cause/And I was hit, and hit again, and fell." It seems to apply to war movies, especially more recent ones. Take for instance the new serial on the WW II air war, "Masters of the Air." The effects are very good and the technical aspects of the film making impressive. But for all that, the much earlier film, "Twelve O'Clock High," with Gregory Peck which used clips of gun camera footage and hand held camera film is by far the more engaging movie. Same thing with "Zero Dark Thirty" which certainly belongs in the GWOT category of war films. Technically excellent but emotionally cold as can be. Perhaps when we do so much of the killing with drones and volunteers, most of us are too far from the reality of war to really empathize with the participants. One small quibble with the list of films- "Jarhead" is not a fictional accounting. The book was an autobiographical account of a marine in the first Gulf War so, technically the film is autobiographical. I am sure liberties were taken...Fun episodes. Like the topic itself, the films about war are legion in number but you picked and discussed a great selection of "The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly."

etienne

I watched War Machine with a friend because we wanted something that captures the bureaucratic clusterfuck energy of Pentagon Wars and we had a perfectly Okay time with Adequate amount of laughs and honestly like, I can understand how few comedies get made these days. They got a completely original script, no franchise, an A-list actor, and got a box office meh that like 17 people remember. On some level i kinda wish that they'd make more but on the other hand, im not going to be the one that goes to the theatre to watch them on opening weekend...

Jeff Normal

Nomination for actual anti war movie, it’s Norwegian, and on Netflix: War Sailor…doesn’t make ya want to join the Merchant Marine any time soon. Enjoyed it

Mark Ames

agree, brilliant movie that can be watched endlessly and never gets old

Mark Ames

Richard Jewell is a great film, hugely underrated. They don't make reactionaries like Clint anymore, they're all pithed meatheads now.

Everett

Something notable about Battle for Lake Changjin is that a clip from it showing Douglas MacArthur and the American Marines went semi-viral on twitter a few years ago. The movie clearly aims to depict MacArthur as nothing less than Hitler but similarly to how conservatives responded to Starship Troopers criticism this last month they thought it was just a depiction of a strong and inspirational leader.

OvO Hoot

Not a movie (a miniseries), but Generation Kill is worth a watch. It's a fictionalized retelling of what an actual Rolling Stone reporter embedded with the "tip of the spear" saw in the invasion of Iraq. It captures the teenagerdom of soldiers well, and completely shatters the GWoT portrayal of army competence. One of their captains tries to call an artillery strike nearly on top of them. Despite his Lt. warning him about danger close, they are saved only because he gets the coordinates wrong. Another captain charges an abandoned airfield screaming "follow my tracers!" and later tries to bayonet a POW. They set up a checkpoint in town and mistakenly kill a young girl with their warning shots when a civilian car comes too close. The next day, their new plan is to fire a smoke grenade into the ground as a warning instead. It ricochets into an old man's head.

Bill Rose

Three Kings is a criminally underrated war movie. It does an excellent job of showing journalistic confusion on the broader themes of the 91 Gulf War, plus US greed and redemption embodied in our three protagonists.

Brian

I'm not a great fan of Malick, and "The Thin Red Line" is definitely open to the criticism so often levied against it. But I will say that the assault of the Japanese camp in the mist is something I have never forgotten, and surely captures something of the chaos and caprice of combat: https://youtu.be/tbDaYUdDsGg?si=lW3gsGvoogHDV94Z