Das Boot Is NOT a Chick Flick

[JackhammerJohn]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

But...but...but...we still don't know that's you. I'm gonna need to see a photo ID. And a proof-of-purchase seal. And your SS number. And a...


Actually that's pretty cool. You and Ray Bradbury. In fact that's very very cool!

Thank you, Steve. It was really cool. I am so glad to have the memory.

[Miggy4000]

Mmmmmm, yes. Well that was certainly a spewing up of opinions there, much like her description of the actors in the movie. The thing that gets me though is that some think all women regard Das Boot in that way. I most certainly don't. To me at least, it's one of the most honest war movies ever made.

I recall, when it was first broadcast on TV here in the UK, I sat and watched it with an elderly friend of mine (now sadly passed away) who served as a First Officer on a MTB during the war. He said that persuasive sense of fear that the movie portrayed was very real indeed and as for their behaviour outside of combat, that was a way that fear was managed. Sailors (no matter what flag they served under) behaved in pretty much the same way in how they dealt with the pressures combat put them under, mainly a powerful sense of relief that they survived and sometimes that would encourage such rowdy behaviour. Either that or they would curl up into a ball and try and shut the rest of the world out. In either case, it shows just how fragile human beings really are.

This is something the reviewer doesn't understand, luckily for her.

[Pisces]

Originally Posted by desertstriker

pornographic really? where at all is it pornographic?

Hint: sarcasm.

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by Miggy4000

The thing that gets me though is that some think all women regard Das Boot in that way. I most certainly don't. To me at least, it's one of the most honest war movies ever made.

Thanks for that insight. Other female members have expressed similar sentiment. The women I know who dislike the movie do so for the same reasons as the men I know: It's boring, can't get into the characters, there's no variation or romance, it's nothing but one long set-piece; you know, the same reasons the rest of us like it.

I think the reason we're having so much fun with Midge is that her review was so singularly hateful. It really stands out, even among others who didn't like it.

[Ardaeshir]

Well it was pretty one-sided to the point of me thinking she may be a "revier-for-hire" person given that it seems she only reviews movies and a few specific unrelated products and always seems to give them 1 or 5 stars, basiclaly nothing in between.

However I seen her respond to one of the comments in a pretty long and detailed way that no pay-per-review person would ever bother with. Let me quote a part of that:

I was raised on military bases in a military family so I know something of their behavior up through the 70's & have managed a veterans group for 15 years. This may be acceptable behavior from the 80's thru current day service personnel but prior to the 60's, such total debauchery would only have been tolerated for Neptunous Rex or shore leave. Certainly not on board & even questionable that the shore patrol would even tolerate it off base. So the implication that 2 hours of disgusting primal behavior was an accurate depiction of their normal discipline just doesn't pass muster as valid. Any reviewer under 50 would not have any idea how these crews conducted themselves at that time. Present day voluntary military personnel & demeanor are completely different from the WW's, Korea or VN draft era troops. There is no comparison between the 2. But even if it were, it was unnecessary to subject the audience to 2 hours of retched, despicable behavior. 10 minutes would have sufficed to make the point. No excuse for it.

I don;t agree with her opinion of the film, but I do get a sese where's she's coming from and why she might not have liked the film.

Generally my experience with german culture is that you do get a lot more "ass-and-fart" type of humor there than what you see in slavic cultures and I assume the same thing can be said for american 60s and 70s servicemen.

In general sailors in Poland, like most servicemen actually, often come from poor urban backgrounds and don't mince words. Humor on board could often be vicious and at times lewd. Still, the amount of bodily-related jokes and especially the gay innuendo references would feel very out of place in the Polish navy of the 80s and 90s.

[Sailor Steve]

Interesting that you should bring that up. I have the five-hour version, and even there the total "debauchery" doesn't add up to fifteen minutes. Even the infamous Nightclub scene only has about five minutes of that. "Two hours of wretched, despicable behavior" is about as far from the truth of that movie as you can get. Most of it is people talking, and not about "Subject number one".

As for "onboard", I guess she was never in the navy. I was one of the Vietnam-era sailors in 1970, and knew many older men who had been in the war. Trust me on this - Das Boot is mild in that department. Any time someone picked up a new dirty joke he didn't just share it with his friends, but with everyone who would listen. For the most part there isn't much else for an off-duty sailor to do.

[Ardaeshir]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

Any time someone picked up a new dirty joke he didn't just share it with his friends, but with everyone who would listen. For the most part there isn't much else for an off-duty sailor to do.

I agree on the dirty jokes part (especially given the usual age of enlisted men), though I disagree about the "not much to do" during off-duty part (unless maybe its some foreign exotic port where nobody speaks any understanable language). Most of the time (even in said exotic ports) our sailors, both navy, merchant marine and long-range oceanic fishing crews, would find a ton of things to do. I rmemeber the visit the ORP Warszawa had in Stockholm... some people say Stockholm was never the same again

[Sailor Steve]

When I said "off-duty" I was referring to "off-duty while at sea" as in "not on watch". Of course we found plenty to do in port, like anything that would get us away from the ship for a few hours. It's funny, though - we would "swear like sailors", as the saying goes, but the unwritten rule was never in front of women or children. Or any civilians, for that matter. It just wasn't done. These days of course the women and children use language that would "make a sailor blush", and often does.

Times change.

[Quasimodo]

Judging by the reviews of most of the movies she watched she should stick to "Bambi".

[Sailor Steve]

Sudden necro after five months?

[Cybermat47]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

Sudden necro after five months?

Now we can all talk about what a terrible person she is while listening to The Dark Knight Returns Part II OST

[Ishtarius]

I will say she got some issues.