They Were Expendable

As per the request of my friend I will be posting old Angry Rant articles. For any one who might read this, but isn't familiar; angry rant was a comedy website which I wrote for that lasted about a year until it's untimely demise. Translating some of the articles will take time as some are saved in old windows office formats, and others are pasted into emails which means I need to retype them as copy and past makes them come out weird for some reason. So all in good time.

Also in case you were wondering I did not write the text of my previous post about America I simply copied it from the North Korean YouTube channel. What a world.

New business aside I went thrift storing, and found a place in Miami that had the most incredible treasure trove of PC games I have ever seen. Seriously, if I had money I would have bought everything. Instead I bummed a couple bucks and got Free Lancer with the instruction manual, and Redguard with the manual.

Twas then that I came back, and since it was rainy enough, I watched They Were Expendable directed by John Ford and starring The Duke. My honest opinion is that it was a film that bordered on greatness, but was held back by being overly long, and a lack of solid characterization.

There's a moment where John Wayne and Donna Reed are sitting on a hammock together making romance when the bombs begin to go off in the distance, and the two of them suddenly get this glazed and distant look on their faces. Personally I would have liked to know more about the characters, and understood what had brought them to that point. Perhaps it didn't need to be said as the film came out just after the end of the second world war.

The film is stylistically similar to My Darling Clementine (also directed by Ford) which would be released a year later. It has a wonderful, and almost eerie film noir look with broad shadows punctuated by dull streams of light, and smokey and burned out sets during the day. It's also worth mentioning that it had some of the most realistic, and spectacular battle sequences I've ever seen. Definitely a must watch for any fan of Wayne or Ford's work.

And here's one my rare video posts that aren't weird.