Bruce Willis could star in the movie adaptation of a cookbook and he would make it awesome! :O:

Yeah, the Die Hard series were kinda special.

I also enjoyed the Lethal Weapon series.

I don't know if I can explain it better. Obviously I don't object that the movie followed the book in the sense that it didn't invent a lot of stuff to make the story more exciting or sexy or whatever the studio thought it needed to make $$ or because some screenwriter thought he could write a more interesting version of someone's life than they actually lived.

But the movie felt to me like it relied too heavily on the book stylistically. Watching the movie for me was kind of like having someone read the book out loud to me, with actors coming along to act out bits and pieces of the story. But they weren't telling the story, some voice representing the book's author was doing that.

Sorry I was just naming any submarines that came to mind at the time.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0109779/ maybe not related with "German point of view" that much, but surely with "history is written by the victor" :D
you have also Die Gustlof, a german production, but it's not even worth posting a link to imdb.

Sorry but for me The Cross of Iron has nothing to do with a german point of view. At least in comparison to Stalingrad for example. I'm not saying that only germans can make good films about german army but the way Peckinpah made that story is just too "western-like".
One more imba movie: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0363163/ fully based on J.Fest's idea of what happened in the bunker.

All quiet on the western front
 

All quiet on the western front:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0020629/

Yes I know wrong war, but still had to be mentioned

Good choice, nonetheless. Book trumps the movie, but the movie was still pretty decent.

At least the original black and white version. The "new" one with John boy Walton and Earnest Borgnine is,...meh.

In terms of books get the Sven Hassel series. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sven_Hassel Even the egnlish translations are a fun read with lots of action, dark humour and although some of the plots get a bit far fetched in the later books, they give a pretty good picture of what life was like for the German tank soldier.

One of the got made into a pretty bad movie in the '80's. It was based loosely on Hassels book Wheels of Terror but was names The Misfit Brigade for some reason.

I also highly recommend The Good Soldier Švejk WWI again but hilarious. There are a few versions around but I think the 13 part German TV version is best.

Well, no books here, but in the way of movies, check out this one (maybe you've seen it already):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ixRh...eature=related

It's unfortunately a very poor quality upload. At one point, there was a HD version up on youtube, which is when I watched it. I could only find this low quality one now - seems like the other version was removed on copyright grounds.
It's a very well made movie I think. Granted, it's not a Japanese movie, but an American one directed by Clint Eastwood (who imho is a great actor and film director). So I don't know if it would qualify your demand for "the Japanese view." But Eastwood tried to portray it from that perspective and I think it is done very well.


Or try this one (which I haven't seen in full yet, and afaik it's not in full on youtube, either):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=imtQE...eature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czAws...eature=related

Japanese movies about WWII:

Fires on the Plain

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0053121/


The Human Condition (actually a trilogy):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hum..._(film_trilogy)

Made by Americans but told from the Japanese POV:
Letters from Iwo Jima
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letters_from_Iwo_Jima

here's more

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yamato_%28film%29 <- thats a good one

http://eiga.wikia.com/wiki/Sea_Without_Exit

i'm big on everything japanese :yeah:

Thanks alot for all the current suggestions guys :yeah:

A neglected masterpiece of war literature:

“The Stalin Front”, also published as “The Stalin Organ”, by Gert Ledig.

Gert Ledig served in a Penal Battalion on the Eastern Front near Leningrad in summer 1942 as punishment for having made “communist statements”.

“ Stalin Front is a harrowing, almost photographic, description of violence and devastation, one that brings home the unforgiving reality of total war (The New York Review of Books).


Opening scene:
“The Lance-Corporal couldn't turn in his grave, because he didn't have one. Some three versts from Podrova, forty versts south of Leningrad, he had been caught in a salvo of rockets, been thrown up in the air, and with severed hands and head dangling, been impaled on the skeletal branches of what once had been a tree.

The NCO who was writhing on the ground with a piece of shrapnel in his belly, had no idea what was keeping his machine-gunner. It didn't occur to him to look up. He had his hands full with himself...”

I second this remark! A great effort of a great community! :salute:
Thank you all for the cool tips on the Japanese films, I have only seen Letters from Iwo Jima so far. I can only recommend to watch it as a double feature.

@heatc: there was a very impressive dokumentation about surviving kamikaze pilots on arte some 15 years ago. They gathered together for the first time, 50 years after the war. I will do a bit of research to find it, or at least its title.


I must admit that I have never heard of Ledig before, but I will have to get the book. I might had known someone who had been in this particular batallion :o, too bad that the book is written as a novel, but maybe the names or descriptions can give me a hint about my late acquaintance.


Glad to see that there are still some readers outside! A quick amazon.com search has shown me that some of the good books have indeed been translated into american ;)
I will make a list of books from the german pov which I can recommend tomorrow, had a stressfull day today, so I'll dive down again after this message.

over and out,
Penguin

Ah, yes, the American language...maybe I will bother to learn it one day.:D

You might be better off to learn Spanish.
:haha:

As a side?
Check out info on
'The Battle of Los Angeles'
UFO nuts claim it was a UFO.
Others claim all kinds of stuff.
Draw your own theory, but it is interesting given the time period.

The Americans say that I speak with a British dialect (and a sweet;) german accent) - the British claim that I babble with an american dialect.

I guess this makes me talking the English which the folks in BD77 speak. :D

We prefer to minimize the military aspect of it so we tend to call it "The 1992 LA Riots".

:O: