vietnam | the m0vie blog

280. Apocalypse Now (#53)

Posted on March 18, 2023 by Darren

Hosted by Andrew Quinn and Darren Mooney, this week with special guests Alex Towers and Brian Lloyd, The 250 is a (mostly) weekly trip through some of the best (and worst) movies ever made, as voted for by Internet Movie Database Users. New episodes are released every second Saturday at 6pm GMT, with the occasional bonus episode between them.

This time, Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now.

In the midst of the Vietnam War, Benjamin Willard is given a special assignment. He is tasked with taking a patrol boat up the Nung River in pursuit of Colonel Walter Kurtz. Kurtz has apparently gone completely rogue, no longer responding to directives from command. Willard is instructed to terminate Kurtz’s command, by any means necessary. However, as Willard journeys deeper into the country, he finds himself drifting further and further from reality, embracing some sort of primal insanity.

At time of recording, it was ranked 53rd on the list of the best movies of all time on the Internet Movie Database.

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Filed under: The 250 | Tagged: alex towers, america, apocalypse now, Audio, brian lloyd, film, Filmmaking, francis ford coppola, marlon brando, martin sheen, Movie, podcast, psychedelia, season, trip, vietnam, Vietnam War | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Column! On the Complicated Seventies Nostalgia of “Poker Face”…

Posted on March 15, 2023 by Darren

We’re launching a new column at The Escapist, called Out of Focus. It will publish every Wednesday, and the plan is to use it to look at some film and television that would maybe fall outside the remit of In the Frame, more marginal titles or objects of cult interest. With the end of the first season of Poker Face last week, it seemed like a good opportunity to take a look back at the show.

Poker Face is obviously designed as something of a seventies throwback. The show is very obviously a hybrid of classic seventies television like Columbo and Kung-Fu. However, there’s more than simple nostalgia at play within the series. Poker Face is a show about grappling with the memory and legacy of the seventies, of understanding why these stories resonate in the modern world. It has a nuanced and complicated relationship with the era from which it draws, which makes for compelling television.

You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.

Filed under: Television | Tagged: 1970s, charlie cale, cynicism, economy, memory, natasha lyonne, nick nolte, nostalgia, out of focus, paranoia, poker face, Rian Johnson, seventies, the escapist, vietnam, war, watergate | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Column! On “The Bad Batch” as a Show About Veterans of a Forever War…

Posted on February 19, 2023 by Darren

I published a new piece at The Escapist last week. With the release of the second season of The Bad Batch, it seemed like a good opportunity to talk about one of the more interesting facets of the series.

The Star Wars franchise has always been intensely political. George Lucas tied the original films to the Vietnam War, and the prequels to the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars. The Bad Batch feels like a culmination of this trend, a follow-up to the prequel trilogy, released in the wake of the American withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan, that is very much engaged with the question of what happens to an army of soldiers at the end of an ostensible “forever war.” It’s a meaty theme for an animated series, and The Bad Batch is at its most interesting tapping into it.

You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.

Filed under: Television | Tagged: george lucas, star wars, metaphor, politics, iraq war, Vietnam War, vietnam, veterans, the bad batch, forever war, afghanistan war | Leave a comment »

New Podcast! Primitive Culture #114 – Star Trek and Vietnam

Posted on February 28, 2022 by Darren

A little while ago, I had the pleasure of sitting down with the wonderful Tony Black to talk about Star Trek and Vietnam.

The general reading of classic Star Trek tends to play up the show’s liberal credentials, to read Star Trek as a utopian and pacifist series that was very much on the right side of history. This antiwar reading is supported by episodes like Errand of Mercy, The Trouble with Tribbles and Day of the Dove, among others. However, the show’s politics are decidedly more complicated. Like America itself, Star Trek was divided over the Vietnam War, as reflected in episodes like Friday’s Child or The Omega Glory, and most especially in A Private Little War.

The result was a fun (and involved) discussion, and you can listen to it below or directly via Primitive Culture‘s homepage on trek.fm.

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Filed under: Podcasts!, The Original Series | Tagged: A Private Little War, doves, Errand of Mercy, friday's child, hawks, podcast, star trek, star trek: the original series, the day of the dove, the omega glory, the original series, the trouble with tribbles, the united states, vietnam | Leave a comment »

252. Platoon (#222)

Posted on September 18, 2021 by Darren

Hosted by Andrew Quinn and Darren Mooney, with special guest Joe Griffin, The 250 is a (mostly) weekly trip through some of the best (and worst) movies ever made, as voted for by Internet Movie Database Users. New episodes are released every Saturday at 6pm GMT.

This time, Oliver Stone’s Platoon.

In late 1967, Chris Taylor volunteers for service in Vietnam. Arriving in country, Taylor quickly discovers that the war is not what he expected. As the platoon descends into civil war, Taylor finds himself torn between the two sergeants: the monstrous Barnes and the philosophical Elias. Taylor discovers that he might not just be fighting for his life, but for his very soul.

At time of recording, it was ranked 222nd on the list of the best movies of all time on the Internet Movie Database.

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Filed under: The 250 | Tagged: afghanistan, awards, dale dye, history, joe griffin, legacy, memory, Method Acting, oliver stone, Oscars, Platoon, podcast, propaganda, The 250, tom berenger, vietnam, Vietnam War, war, willem dafoe | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Column! On the “Karate Kid” Franchise as an Exploration of Hollywood’s Complicated History with the Martial Arts…

Posted on January 1, 2021 by Darren

I published a new In the Frame piece at The Escapist this evening. The new season of Cobra Kai launched on Netflix today, so it seemed like a good excuse to take a look back at the Karate Kid franchise.

The Karate Kid franchise is often overlooked in discussions of the American action movie, particular the American martial arts movie. However, the films offer a fascinating snapshot of the tension that existed within Hollywood around martial arts during the seventies and into the eighties. The genre was largely imported from East Asia, however it was quickly reworked and reinvented as an American genre. Indeed, one of the recurring tensions within the Karate Kid franchise is the idea of appropriation – of who karate “belongs” to and what happens when others try to take it.

You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.

Filed under: On Second Thought | Tagged: appropriation, bruce lee, cobra kai, in the frame, martial arts, pop culture, the karate kid, vietnam | Leave a comment »

212. Star Wars: Episode VI – Return of the Jedi (#86)

Posted on December 12, 2020 by Darren

Hosted by Andrew Quinn and Darren Mooney, and this week with special guests Grace Duffy, Luke Dunne and Andy Melhuish, The 250 is a weekly trip through some of the best (and worst) movies ever made, as voted for by Internet Movie Database Users. New episodes are released Saturdays at 6pm GMT.

So this week, Richard Marquand’s Return of the Jedi.

It is a time to settle old scores. Returning to his home planet of Tatooine, Jedi Knight Luke Skywalker begins the final stage of his journey towards reconciliation with his father Darth Vader. Meanwhile, the Empire has embarked upon construction of another planetary superweapon, as the Emperor hatches a plot to crush the Rebel Alliance once and for all.

At time of recording, it was ranked 86th on the list of the best movies of all time on the Internet Movie Database.

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Filed under: The 250 | Tagged: andy melhuish, blockbusters, Boba Fett, dad stuff, ewoks, formula, george lucas, grace duffy, luke dunne, Luke Skywalker, princess leia, return of the jedi, saga, star wars, vietnam | Leave a comment »

196. The Terminator (#245)

Posted on August 22, 2020 by Darren

Hosted by Andrew Quinn and Darren Mooney, and this week with special guests Joe Griffin and Emmet Kirwan, The 250 is a (mostly) weekly trip through some of the best (and worst) movies ever made, as voted for by Internet Movie Database Users.

This time, James Cameron’s The Terminator.

In 2029, Los Angeles is a burning hellhole. In 1984, it is not much better. In the dead of night, two soldiers from an apocalyptic future escape into the urban landscape. These mysterious veterans of a coming war make their way across the City of Angels, with only one name on their minds: Sarah Connor.

At time of recording, it was ranked 245th on the list of the best movies of all time on the Internet Movie Database.

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Filed under: The 250 | Tagged: apocalypse, Arnold Schwarzenegger, emmet kirwan, end of the world, horror, james cameron, joe griffin, los angeles, reagan, The 250, vietnam, violence | Leave a comment »

Non-Review Review: Da 5 Bloods

Posted on June 10, 2020 by Darren

Da 5 Bloods argues that the wounds inflicted by the Vietnam War never truly healed.

The basic plot of Da 5 Plots is standard war movie stuff, recalling the set up of the classic Simpsons episode Raging Abe Simpson and His Grumbling Grandson in “The Curse of the Flying Hellfish”, which itself drew upon a variety of inspirations including episodes of M*A*S*H and Barney Miller. The film follows four veterans who return to Vietnam ostensibly to repatriate the remains of their lost squad commander “Stormin’ Norman.” However, it quickly becomes clear that these former soldiers also have their eyes on a more lucrative prize.

The past never stays buried.

Co-writer and director Spike Lee uses the familiar trappings of war movies – and specifically of Vietnam War movies – to interrogate the legacy of the conflicts and the scars that it left on the national psyche. Indeed, one of the most interesting structural choices in Da 5 Bloods is to effectively invert the basic structure of BlacKkKlansman, which opened as a pointed genre tribute before seguing into actual contemporary news footage during its final act. Da 5 Bloods starts by offering a glimpse of the chaos of the early seventies before diving into the story that it wants to tell.

The result is to contextualise both Da 5 Bloods and its statement on contemporary American identity, drawing a strong line from the unrest and horror of the Vietnam era to the madness of the present moment. Da 5 Bloods was obviously written and filmed well before the latest crisis in the United States, but Lee is a shrewd filmmaker with his finger on the pulse. Da 5 Bloods feels like a movie that is both about the nightmare of this particular moment and the tragic inevitability of that moment as the outcome of unprocessed trauma that has been festering for decades.

Normcore.

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: da 5 bloods, film, Movie, non-review review, review, Spike Lee, the american war, vietnam, Vietnam War | Leave a comment »

New Podcast! The Sanctuary – “A Private Little Vietnam”

Posted on June 8, 2020 by Darren

I was flattered to be asked by the wonderful Tony Black to help him launch a new Star Trek podcast. The Sanctuary hopes to be a look at the politics and the social commentary of the larger Star Trek franchise, and will feature Tony and a host of guests looking at how the franchise examines a big issue.

As a pilot, Tony suggested that we might discuss how the original Star Trek series looked at the Vietnam War. It’s an interesting discussion, because it’s a very complex and evolving conversation that takes place across the run of the show, between various creative voices within the show. This is interesting, because the show itself unfolded against a backdrop of shifting public opinion on the topic, which means that it’s not as simple as a “pro” or “anti” position.

Anyway, it was a huge honour to be invited on to help launch the show, and I hope you enjoy it. You can subscribe to the show here. You can listen to the episode here, or click the link below.