Movie War Stories

As a complement to All Quiet on the Western Front, I wanted to watch one of my favorite actresses, Audrey Tautou, in A Very Long Engagement.  (Seeing recent pictures of Audrey on the Internet, it strikes me that she is no longer the French gamine/ingenue she was but is maturing into a woman who looks like my great aunt, not the Busold side, the Trembley side.)

Anyway, the stupid DVD from the library kept skipping and stalling and all I got to watch last night was the first few minutes and actually that was enough to depict the horrors that Remarque's couldn't do justice to with its scattered pen and ink abstract sketches.  It was the disc and not my player as I inserted the other movie I picked up this weekend and it played fine.  If I can find another copy of AVLE I want to watch it because it dawned on me that the "engagement" referred to a troop engagement as well as to moving slowly towards a marriage.

So the pitch hitting movie last night was Abe Lincoln, Vampire Hunter.  Somewhere in this unruly blog I think I wrote up how much I liked the book, vampire junkie that I am.  Hated the movie.  For two reasons.  I resent saying what I liked most about a film was its special effects; and given my sons proclivity to all things Southern and my husband's south of the Mason Dixon line family tree, I could not entertain a version, however fantastical, of Jefferson Davis conspiring with vampires to win the war.  One of the most moving days of my life was visiting Gettysburg.  It was bloody hot and dusty that day and the boys hung out with the reenactors on the Gray side, sitting with Lee and getting pictures taken with other generals who walked among the tents.  I was heart sick when a battle began, mourning both sides, the unnecessary losses to life, family and the flower of our nation's youth.  Demonizing one side was a sacrilege to both.  I've already decided not to see Lincoln despite my interest in Day-Lewis performances.  I recognize Hollywood demonizes certain aspects of history to get across its own political agenda.  This took it beyond the pale.