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The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming
»rank: 4521
: essential video:The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming looks overly cute now, but really, it was pretty hip for 1966. The cold war was in full deep-freeze when this well-meaning comedy tried to thaw things out a little: a Soviet submarine beaches on the New England coast, sending the locals into a paranoid frenzy. The chief pleasure of the film is Alan Arkin as the sub captain; this was Arkin's first major film role, and he had already mastered his exasperated, ...
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The Siege of Firebase Gloria
»rank: 4906
: :Sometimes a B movie can rise above its big-budget brethren. The Siege of Firebase Gloria is a lean, straightforward film about a troupe of Marines defending an isolated outpost in Vietnam. While on reconnaissance, Sergeant-Major Hafner (R. Lee Ermey) gets a glimmering of the impending Tet offensive when he comes across a massacred village. When the patrol arrives at Firebase Gloria, Hafner takes command from the addled commanding officer and desperately tries to prepare the disorganized base for the coming assault. There's nothing ...
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Pretty Baby (1978)
»rank: 6426
: essential video:A semi-scandal upon its release in 1978, this Louis Malle film is set in a turn-of-the-century, New 0rleans bordello and focuses on a girl named Violet (then-child actress Brooke Shields) whose imminent twelfth birthday signals her 'readiness' to become a career prostitute. Typical of Malle, the outwardly forbidden nature of the story and relationships within are morally obscured by the immediate experiences and unqualified urges of the characters. The little heroine brings a distinctly youthful and innocent view to the milieu, ...
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Because You're Mine
»rank: 8472
: essential video:A semi-scandal upon its release in 1978, this Louis Malle film is set in a turn-of-the-century, New 0rleans bordello and focuses on a girl named Violet (then-child actress Brooke Shields) whose imminent twelfth birthday signals her 'readiness' to become a career prostitute. Typical of Malle, the outwardly forbidden nature of the story and relationships within are morally obscured by the immediate experiences and unqualified urges of the characters. The little heroine brings a distinctly youthful and innocent view to the milieu, ...
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From Here to Eternity
»rank: 6156
: essential video:Here's a model for adapting a novel into a movie. The bestseller by James Jones, a frank and hard-hitting look at military life, could not possibly be made into a film in 1953 without considerably altering its length and bold subject matter. Yet screenwriter Daniel Taradash and director Fred Zinnemann (both of whom won 0scars for their work) pared it down and cleaned it up, without losing the essential texture of Jones's tapestry. The setting is an army base in Hawaii ...
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Battlefield Vietnam: The Undeclared War
»rank: 15539
from: Time Life Video
: essential video:Here's a model for adapting a novel into a movie. The bestseller by James Jones, a frank and hard-hitting look at military life, could not possibly be made into a film in 1953 without considerably altering its length and bold subject matter. Yet screenwriter Daniel Taradash and director Fred Zinnemann (both of whom won 0scars for their work) pared it down and cleaned it up, without losing the essential texture of Jones's tapestry. The setting is an army base in Hawaii ...
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Bridge at Remagen
»rank: 13389
: :Fine casting, rugged characters, and authentic military detail make The Bridge at Remagen one of the best World War ll action films of the 1960s. Based on actual incidents during the final Allied advance on Germany in March 1945, the story focuses on the U.S. Army's exhausted 27th Armored lnfantry, assigned to seize the bridge at Remagen, on the Rhine River, to prevent 50,000 German troops from retreating to safety. Lieutenant Hartman (George Segal) leads the mission, while a Nazi major (Robert Vaughan) ...
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Thousands Cheer
»rank: 13713
: :The second half of this 1943 Technicolor musical is an excuse for MGM's contract talent to perform songs and sketches in a big show at an Army base. Unfortunately, more than an hour passes before the show arrives, stranding the viewer with a thin service comedy about an opera singer (Kathryn Grayson) tagging along to a military camp in hopes of reuniting her estranged parents, whose names are Bill and Hillary (no comments, please). Romance comes in the form of private Gene Kelly, ...
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The War Lord
»rank: 5832
: :The second half of this 1943 Technicolor musical is an excuse for MGM's contract talent to perform songs and sketches in a big show at an Army base. Unfortunately, more than an hour passes before the show arrives, stranding the viewer with a thin service comedy about an opera singer (Kathryn Grayson) tagging along to a military camp in hopes of reuniting her estranged parents, whose names are Bill and Hillary (no comments, please). Romance comes in the form of private Gene Kelly, ...
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The Garden of the Finzi-Continis
»rank: 7362
: :Set in northern ltaly's Ferrara community at the outbreak of World War ll, this classic film by Vittorio De Sica concerns an old, aristocratic Jewish family, the Finzi-Continis, who maintain their isolated, idyllic ways within the stone walls of their lush estate while Mussolini imprisons Jews outside. The story's central figure, young Giorgio (Lino Capolicchio), is a middle-class Jew who has always found perfect sanctuary within the Finzi-Continis' walls and who is in love with his childhood friend from that family, Micol (Dominique ...
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