I can not believe nobody made a motion picture out of this. The Allies are trying to invade this monastery on top of a hill, the weather is terrible, the hills are steep and we have the dramatic tension of bombing the monastery or not. It's filled with great work of art and has historical value. The inside of the monastery is very qualified for cinematographic beauty as well as the outside view:
We're in Italy again. I watched this yesterday and it's okay. I always had this fantasy of having a time machine and living in Ancient Rome for a few years. Learning they wash their clothes in human urine kind of killed it.
The ironic thing about destroying the famous monastery; was they did so because "we must give our men every advantage" and they were afraid the defenders had occupied it and made it into a fortress. However, the Germans were not using the site and it was only after the allies blew it to bits...that the rubble was used to make a good defensive line.
The World at War Doc covers the story pretty well in the episode "tough old gut" the American phrase for Churchill's comment about Italy being a "soft-under-belly."
artu
Promising
Undefeatable Hero
My BS sensor is tingling again
posted October 31, 2013 01:07 AM
Yes, I know. same irony is also mentioned in the doc I linked. They basically turn the monastery into "the perfect trench" by bombing it. I just didn't want to give any spoilers for the ones who were going to watch it for the first time.
Here is a well-done PBS Doc on a fault-line that lies about 400 miles from my home. It's not as famous as the western area but it has produced some strong earthquakes in the past.
artu
Promising
Undefeatable Hero
My BS sensor is tingling again
posted January 22, 2014 01:23 AM
I just watched Produced by George Martin, it was really interesting and what a modest yet also charmingly clever man... There was a lot of Beatles talk naturally, McCartney and Ringo Star were in it but it's was not only focused on those years. The doc is not available on Youtube but you can download it as a torrent file from the regular sites.
It was funny and marvelous to learn that the strings in Eleanor Rigby were inspired by Bernard Herrmann's score for Psycho, rum rum rum rum! And many more things like that...
Terry Pratchett: Choosing To Die. Stumbled to this one accidentally while reading about the guy, and couldn't stop watching. It's a really interesting topic (assisted death), and I gotta say I totally agree with him.
Last documentary I watched was a couple of weeks ago: China's Megadam. Tells the story of the construction of the really huge ass dam that was recently installed in the Yangtze (visible from space), as well as the political and cultural dynamics & tension surrounding it. Large rivers have always been a source of civilization, so a major modern dam means a lot of area needing to be abandoned.
I liked it fairly well. I'm slightly annoyed that it was compiled before the dam was 100% complete, so it lacks retrospect in it, but I guess that's a story for another time, and practically speaking, a lot of documentaries are done during an ongoing event for the sake of conducting interviews.
____________
"Folks, I don't trust children. They're here to replace us."
artu
Promising
Undefeatable Hero
My BS sensor is tingling again
posted April 19, 2014 06:16 PM
Narrated by Kenneth Branagh, this 6 episode BBC gem focuses on the rise of the mammals after the extinction of dinosaurs, it's written incredibly well, "the daily stories" from various early mammal life are presented in rich detail and a very balanced personalization.
the "Walking with.." series are truly well done, presenting prehistoric life as we'd see a normal nature documentary, unlike some which only shows old farts with paleontology degrees and bloated egos.
I believe recently BBC produced a new series on dinosaurs in a similiar way.
____________
"Kip is the Gavin McInnes of HC" - Salamandre
"Ashan to the Trashcan", "I got PTSD from H7. " - LizardWarrior
If so it is probably among my top 5 movies ever seen.
It is quite long but apparently the actors and actresses got so into the movie that real smiles, tears and anger are shown towards the end. It's pretty good stuff. If you watch through the whole thing, maybe 1 hour per day and then watch the last 2 hours in one go then by the end you will be completely engulfed, forced to choose sides and ridden with emotion yourself.
Here's a really good one about Napoleon, and the events leading up to the battle of Austerlitz, narrated by Brian Blessed, a man of godlike stature. link ____________
"No laughs were had. There is only shame and sadness." Jenny
@Artu: I think the paleozoic era animals got the least coverage, and some mammals, like from the ice age periods are covered as well as dinosaurs. but yea, the early ones aren't introduced to the masses well.
Also I might argue about the extincton of the mammoth. some of those frozen carcasses found in Siberia look pretty fresh to me.can't recall where I saw it, but the photo's of the corpse looked like it died very recently. that, or it could be a fake.
same could be said about other presumably extinct animals, like the New Zealand's Moa bird.
And I think a piece of jewelry I own has mammoth ivory in it since it doesn't look like a bear's claw to me.
also I found the "prehistoric predators" series quite interesting as well.
____________
"Kip is the Gavin McInnes of HC" - Salamandre
"Ashan to the Trashcan", "I got PTSD from H7. " - LizardWarrior
Well, the mammoth isn't some tiny little deep sea fish. They were huge, they lived in groups, migrated through long distances... I think if there were any around, we'd know it by now. The ice might have prevented decomposition, it's quite a common case.
well, Siberia is a wast place, and it's barely explored. so who knows.
Also, some of the indigenous people there tell tales about huge shaggy beasts, which depictions match the appearances of mammoths.
and you know as they say, that every legend has a grain of truth in it.
If we have living coelochants or whatever their called and shark species which date millions of years swimming around, why there isn't such a possiblity that some ice age animals also survived to this day?
I mean we do have some plant species which are considered ice age relics, so why not some animals from back then also survived?
I'm going to a bit of a conspiracy theorist there, but what if the goverments do know about the existance of such animals and keep it secret so you know, ivory would still be expensive as snow?
I mean really, small populations are quite easy to control, and any sightings of them would be passed on as gibberish.
I also remember reading that they once found a mammoth corpse so well preserved that even it's bloody meat was edible. maybe it was a hoax, I don't know.
Sorry for going off topic here a bit.
This Youtube channel has some nice history docs on it. once had a quite interesing films regarding the history of Soviet Aviation, but those were deleted or so ____________
"Kip is the Gavin McInnes of HC" - Salamandre
"Ashan to the Trashcan", "I got PTSD from H7. " - LizardWarrior
Andrew Marrs History of The World is interesting. It's a little bit overselective at times but definitely worth your time if you are interested in hearing out different angles to explain why things happened the way they did. For instance, the Romanization of Christianity building the path to Islam was a very original perspective for me.
F for Fake by Orson Welles was exhausting. I really love Citizen Kane and all, I have enormous respect for the man but this seems to be a failed experiment on "free-style documentary" which leaves you with a headache. I adore the 1963-1973 Era, this unfortunately is the messy side of it.
Still, you learn about this guy.
This thread is pages long: 
posted October 28, 2013 07:17 PM
