bobsluckycat

Caught the un-cut version DVD the other night, The audience it was shooting for is too young to view this, but any adult can't or won't be able to enjoy this mish-mash. Juvenile doesn't begin to cover how pathetic this film is. It's sort of like an old Mad magazine satire but without the humor. Most of the movies it tries to make fun of are themselves very fragile "today" films which have already started to "date" themselves. The actors! Jennifer Coolidge has a fun part as the "White Bitch", Fred Willard should be embarrassed to have his name in the credits. Nothing else is of any value as entertainment. Costuming and sets are lush, but don't help.Carmen Electra has a fun part which she has fun with. Our 4 adoptees? Jayma Mays, perky and maybe a comedy star ala Goldie Hawn some day, but not yet. Kal Penn was good with what he had to work with, which is what you find on the floor of a cow pen. Think name change my friend. Faune A. Chambers needs to go back to commercials and stay there. Adam Campbell comes off as totally gay whether the script calls for it or not.

When I first viewed "The Fighting 69th", I was probably 8 years old, around 1948 I'd say. It literally scared me out into the lobby more than once. At that age you're not ready for trench warfare that up close and personal. Being Irish, Catholic and a kinship with people named O'Brien, I have always liked this movie on many levels for a variety of reasons. I have watched this film many times over the years, including a "colorized" version, when they were in vogue. Now comes the definitive DVD copy of the film. I watched it again in all it's 42 inch LCD, near "Hi-Def", glory again recently. I was affected by it again but in an entirely different way. Basically the story is about bright, mostly full of pluck and good humor, young men who want to get this war over with and get home again. Now it could be viewed an "anti-war" movie in some ways. It also very much is like the young men,today, shedding blood in hell holes named Iraq and Afganistan. Quite a comparison. It hit home. I'm an older man and I cried and sniffled through the entire film, and I know the film! I didn't have any lobby to run out into. Bobsluckycat, in all his reviews, has tried to give you some out of the box appreciation for whatever film he reviews and this is no exception. Yes, the stars are all fine, but look to the mostly young supporting cast, many of whom would go off to WWII and come back having served proudly and heroically, and you'll see the meat of this film. William Lundigan, George Reeves, and many many others with a line or two here and there just outstanding and would go on to long acting careers post war. Gwinn "Big Boy" Williams, Frank McHugh, Dick Foran, Sammy Cohen among many of the "pros" doing superior work. Not one casting note rings false throughout. World War I does not play well in color, with the exception of John Fords' "What Price Glory" also starring Cagney, maybe. It's meant to be in black and white. Today, it's not the "rah,rah" picture it was made to be, but a stark reminder that war kills our youngest and brightest before they mature to fullness, just as today. In that light, It's one of the best war movies EVER made, period.