world war I Tagged Articles at Cinematical
Christopher McQuarrie Now Writing WWI Movie
Filed under: Action », Drama », Scripts », War »
There aren't a whole lot of WWI veterans left (I think there's less than a handful of Americans), which is a shame with Memorial Day coming up since many people aren't familiar with the significance of that Great War. It certainly hasn't helped that Hollywood -- the history textbook writer for many young Americans -- hasn't been interested in the first World War as a subject for a long time. The studios used to produce great WWI films like Wings, All Quiet on the Western Front and Sergeant York. Then WWII came along and became the more popular war, with its definite villain, Adolph Hitler. Meanwhile the best WWI movie we've gotten in awhile (from the U.S., anyway) is the terribly cartoon-like Flyboys, which actually had to be made independently. There's hope on the horizon, though, as a new WWI epic is being written by Christopher McQuarrie. The screenwriter of The Usual Suspects and the upcoming WWII movie Valkyrie, McQuarrie is interested in making a film that not only depicts the Great War, but also explains it. His script, titled No Man's Land (not to be confused with the German WWI film Niemandsland or the recent foreign Oscar-winner No Man's Land) focuses on the stories of three soldiers who stand in to illustrate the reasons for their nation's involvement in the war. One is an American who fights first for the French Legion and then for the U.S.; one is a Brit who is wrongly accused of being a coward; and the third is a German trench dweller.
Review: Flyboys
Filed under: Action », Drama », Independent », New Releases », MGM », Theatrical Reviews », Cinematical Indie »
Those familiar with the comic-strip Peanuts will recall that Snoopy often fantasized about being a World War I flying ace. Sitting atop his doghouse as if it were a Sopwith Camel biplane, he dreamed of being in dogfight combat with his arch nemesis The Red Baron, a real German ace (never actually depicted in the strip) who would riddle the doghouse with bullet holes. It is probably our generation's greatest association with that war, seeing as how Hollywood has pretty much ignored it for decades.
Ever since Howard Hughes lost both money and lives attempting to recreate the war's aerial combat on screen for 1930's Hell's Angels, the cost of showing another realistic dogfight just couldn't have been worth it for producers in the subsequent 75 years. The closest thing to a dogfight at the movies has been Star Wars, which modeled its space battles after WWI footage -- not using real spaceships, of course. Now, finally, there is Flyboys, a film that uses computer effects for the dogfights, making for a much safer production, and also a more artificial one.
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