So, I put Gwenda on an airplane, bought a loaf of bread, and then kicked back for six or seven hours of sword fights and tank battles.
Prince Caspian was better than I thought it would be. Susan looks like my friend Justine. They're also both into fashion and thus, in the CS Lewisverse, have no hope for salvation. All the brown people are bad guys except for the brown person who is played by a white person. Metaphysics! But, the bit that was fan fic for the Battle of Pelennor Fields was pretty good, Peter Dinklage kicked ass, and Tilda Swinton is always Tilda Swinton (except in that last crappy Cohen Bros. movie). Plus, Eddie Izzard.
Scaramouche, wow, that's a tough one. It's gorgeous, and the climactic six minute sword fight in a Paris opera house is the best sword fight I've ever seen. The way that the production values of the commedia dell'Arte stuff get ramped up as the performers graduate to fancier venues is interesting. But wow! The gender politics and, just, basic assumptions about how people in relationships treat each other are... wow. And even setting that aside, I bow to no one in my admiration of Janet Leigh, but what kind of fool would choose her over Eleanor Parker in this movie? Also, Mel Ferrer reminded me of my friend Scott.
(But seriously. Almost sixty years ago they filmed that sword fight and there's not been a lot since that even comes close.)
And then, the real surprise (to me), The Big Red One. Who knew Mark Hamill could act, kinda? There's not much here by way of "story" in the traditional movie-land sense, though apparently somebody hacked this print down into something like one for its theatrical release thirty years ago. It's grim, and funny, and weird, and scary, and the battle sequences are confusing as hell--it's B movie cinéma vérité, I guess, and I highly recommend it. One small thing that stuck out, the way the voice over was used-- sparse and particular--was excellent. Examples: "You know how you smoke out a sniper? You send a guy out in the open and you see if he gets shot. They thought that one up at West Point." and "The Bangalore Torpedo was 50' long and packed with 85 pounds of TNT and you assembled it along the way. By hand. I'd love to meet the asshole who invented it."