A Few Movie Recommendations for Your Memorial Day Weekend

Plus: Is ‘The Mandalorian and Grogu’ any good?

Tom Hanks, Matt Damon, and Edward Burns in Saving Private Ryan. (Courtesy DreamWorks/Paramount)

A COUPLE WEEKS BACK, Mark Hertling and I talked about his favorite war movies, particularly those related to the tricky task of leading troops into combat. You can watch it here:

In the course of this conversation, Mark talked about a small box he keeps on his desk, one with images of all those who died under his command. He wrote more about that box this week ahead of Memorial Day, and I just wanted to share a snippet of it with you:

There is something veterans often struggle to explain to civilians without sounding exclusionary: the bond formed in combat. Most veterans do not believe they are better than those who did not serve. In fact, most deeply respect Americans who contribute to society in countless other ways.

But there is something uniquely intimate about serving beside others in dangerous places. It emerges from shared fear, shared exhaustion, shared discomfort, shared responsibility, and shared grief. It comes from understanding that your life may depend entirely on the competence and courage of the person beside you—and theirs on yours. You remember absurd humor in terrible places and exhaustion so deep it became numbness. You remember who shared water, who carried the heavier weapons, who cracked jokes when morale collapsed, and who checked on others first after contact.

And you remember who never came home.

You should read the whole thing (and buy his book, If I Don’t Return, which also, obviously, touches on this topic). I’ll just reiterate the point I made both in the video and in my newsletter last week, which is that Black Hawk Down is one of the best films I’ve ever seen on this point about the unique intimacy of combat; Eric Bana’s work as Hoot is definitional here.

Anyway, as part of the video, I asked viewers and listeners to send us some suggestions for movies we may have missed; I picked a handful here with an emphasis on sacrifice, as Memorial Day is for remembering those who have fallen rather than all who have served.

Glory, which is currently streaming on Netflix, was one of the most-requested films; as subscriber Kentuckistan noted, Glory is “an excellent examination of American Citizen Soldiers and why they volunteer to go to war, to risk and forfeit their lives, to secure something important for themselves and for humanity as well.” I remember the first time I saw Glory, sometime in high school, and being shocked by the ending. But the sense of loss and grief—of sacrifice—in the service of ending America’s original sin is a moving tribute to all who served in the pursuit of that goal.

Warfare was another film recommended by a few folks; it’s a more recent production, and currently streaming on HBO Max. I’ll let subscriber Travis explain why: “I found Warfare to be an excellent/realistic portrayal of small unit leadership in the kind of ground combat that was often seen in Iraq during the insurgency/civil war years. They did a really great job with set design and the ‘flow’ of the film as well as making you feel like you were with the small teams on the ground seeing things the way they would see them (including through supporting assets and radio traffic). I served on the ground across the Al Anbar province from ’05-’08 and this was the best portrayal of that place/time I’ve seen to date.” As it happens, I interviewed one of the directors of that film, Ray Mendoza; if you want more on Warfare, I suggest giving that a listen.

One last recommendation from a reader: Das Boot. Yes, it’s about a German submarine crew, but it is a riveting look at life underwater in the midst of naval warfare. As subscriber Donald Leonard notes, “I can still see, when the U-boat dives deep to avoid depth charges, the rivets popping off the interior of the sub from the great water pressure from such submerged depths. Submarine service is not for the claustrophobic. . . . [A]nd of 44,000 in the Kriegsmarine submarine service, only 10,000 survived!”

The comments were full of great suggestions—I have a real soft spot for Fury, and obviously Full Metal Jacket is one of the great films of all time, even if it’s not an entirely realistic portrait of the Vietnam War—too many to list them all here. But this should get you through the weekend if you need something a bit more serious than, say, a new Star Wars adventure.

Review: The Mandalorian and Grogu

Din Djarin and Grogu in The Mandalorian and Grogu. (Courtesy Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures)

SPEAKING OF WHICH: There’s a new Star Wars adventure in theaters! It’s … fine. But I’m guessing my kids are going to love it. From my review:

The resultant picture is rarely boring; there’s an action beat every few minutes just in case you start to nod off. But it’s also not quite as rousing as you sense director Jon Favreau and writers Favreau, Dave Filoni, and Noah Kloor might have hoped. It’s also weirdly hard to see: Despite watching it in IMAX, it felt as if the picture was simply too dark, too muddy. As a result, the action sequences are almost obscured, the individual beats are a little difficult to parse. There’s often just a lot going on in any given sequence, often multiple points of attack and numerous characters squaring off. I sometimes found myself a little overwhelmed by everything that was going on. (This is also a very loud movie, particularly in IMAX; I don’t think I’ve ever heard blaster fire quite so extravagant. My head was practically shaking after the first shot of the film.)

The bottom line: Two things may be simultaneously true. I think my kids, for whom this picture is designed, are going to enjoy The Mandalorian and Grogu, and maybe quite a bit; and I think it plays like a couple of mid-tier episodes from the TV series. As such, I’m not sure it’s the rousing hit Disney needs to rekindle the moviegoing experience for the Star Wars franchise. But it’s probably good enough for a generation that has yet to experience the joy of Star Wars on the big screen.

Please read the whole thing!

Assigned Viewing: The Boys (Prime Video)

Jensen Ackles and Antony Starr in the final season of The Boys. (Courtesy Amazon)

I HAVE SOME ISSUES WITH HOW this show evolved over the years, and the ways in which it more explicitly tied together Homelander and Donald Trump as the show went on. And I think the showrunner eventually fell into the trap that all too many foes of Trump wind up pursuing, the idea that there’s One Easy Trick to defeat him. (I am being intentionally vague here so as to avoid spoilers.) But the show—which is not for the faint of heart or the easily offended; there are buckets of blood and tons of nudity—was never boring and even if it didn’t quite stick the landing this week, I do not regret watching the whole thing.

Antony Starr’s work as the Superman-stand-in Homelander is one of the great performances of the entire “Prestige TV” era we are living through and the fact that he has been completely ignored by awards viewers is a real indictment of all such events. He does pathetic evil about as well as anyone I’ve ever seen.