Slashdot Mirror
Review: U-571
Daryl Carpenter writes: U-571 is a "film" starring almost no one you've heard of, directed by some guy, and lifted mostly from older, better films. It is an insult to the eyes, the ears, the nose, the brain, common sense, and the human desire to be entertained. If I had a sixth sense, that could see dead people, it would be offended by U-571. Every time a person watches U-571, the bodies of 150,000 brave sailors killed in World War II rumble. The only reason for this $90 million mess is to prove that, in the words of Jonathan Mastow, "Das Boot was based on a lie". If the lie was that talented German directors should go to Hollywood, then that was already proven.
They say that imitation is the highest form of flattery. It's another thing when you rip-off an older, better movie, re-assemble it with some "creative license", and end up with a total piece of crap. It's another thing when you denounce the movie you just ripped off, saying it's "based on a lie". But who cares, really? Mastow is a jerk. Onwards to the movie, if I must. U-571 begins with an opening text about how the U-boats are winning the battle of the Atlantic and so on and so forth. The first thing we see is the obnoxiously lit control room of a German U-boat. Red lights flood the oversized room with little consideration for natural lighting, realism, or the art of filmaking. It is obvious that these poor extras spent at least nine takes cooped up in this horribly cramped set. U-571 destroys a tanker in a ridiculous Hollywood explosion; a destroyer comes out of nowhere, blah blah yadda yadda...
So the next thing you know, without any tension or excitement, about a zillion depth charges explode three inches away from them. For no good reason the diesel engines explode in a ridiculous Hollywood explosion, killing the only two people onboard with any idea whatsoever about how to operate a diesel engine in even an amateurish manner. The eeevelllll (I need to make a point of that now) captain orders a re-supply boat to assist.
And now we end our obvious rip-off of "Das Boot" and move on to the obligatory Big Band/Leisure Time/Sailors in nice suits/Party/Dance/token female characters scene that we've seen in a million war movies, despite the fact that less than a million war movies have ever been made. As we find out, and will not care about, Lt. Tyler (played like a sticky note by Matthew Mcwhothehellcanspellhiisname) will not get command of the leaky, obsolete piece of 25-year old war-torn scrap metal S-33. Instead, he will have to be 1st Officer (Pitiful!) while the Captain (played like a block of wood by Bill Paxton) will remain in command.
As our "story" moves on, we're introduced to some obviously important guy (played like a section of soggy cardboard by Harvey Keitel) and some ensigns and whatnots (played like scraps of dirty sheet styrene by some guys you've never heard of). As we find out, Harvey Keitel is a "sea dog who wants some salt", a line that could only be delivered with a straight face by a man who has cleaned a piano in the nude in a previous movie. Also introduced is the token black cook (played like a slab of old ham by some guy) and some guy from "ER" who's supposed to be a Marine. While the characters weren't paying any attention, the ever-resourceful dockyard workers converted S-33 into a too perfect for it's own good replica of a "German supply submarine", which is actually a regular U-boat with an extra gun. This process probably included building an entirely new hull, conning tower, and deck. All in one week; imagine what it would be like if it weren't for Rosie the Riveter? She must have been tired after THIS job. An ever-observant crewmember remarks "that looks like a god-damned Nazi sub!" This begins the process of the viewer laughing whenever the word "Nazi" is used.
S-33 leaves port. We find out, from a decoded message, that U-571 is stranded in the middle of the Atlantic. In an obviously idiotic goof by the director, the intelligence report includes an excellent photo of the Enigma machine, one of the lamest "McGuffins" in movie history. I guess the French agent couldn't fit the thing in his coat pocket. We're then presented with a bunch of sailors talking about what happens when a submarine goes too deep. One of them cracks an egg to demonstrate what happens when a submarine exceeds its crush depth.
Based on this conversation, we know the submarine is going to go too deep. No really, I think the director was trying to keep us in suspense on that one. In another scene, we see a sailor writing a love letter and look at a picture of his wife. I'll bet a fiver that that's the one that dies in the end. We're then presented with a horribly dull scene in which Lt. Tyler and his even-duller captain discuss why he can't be Captain or something useless like that to be rendered meaningless by the brainless events of the second hour of the movie. This is sort of like the first 45 minutes of Das Boot, except the actors have all the emotions of household appliances.
In case the audience is falling asleep, the movie takes us back to the German U-boat. They manage to get the diesel running for a few seconds, and it roars to life like a kid banging on a typewriter. The next thing you know, a boatload full of British survivors SNEAKS UP ON THEM AND ATTACKS OUT OF NOWHERE (did I get you excited?) and asks to be taken prisoner. So what does out EEEVELLLL NAZI GASTAPO UNDERSEE-SS U-BOAT SEA KILLER Captain do? You guessed it, he orders them to be killed. Never saw that one coming! Meanwhile, the audience stares contentedly at the screen, satisfied by the results of the massacre, rendered idiotic about the Battle of the Atlantic. So, it's finally time to take over the damn German U-boat. The crew of S-33 is SO brave, they disguise themselves in German uniforms, bring along a translator, and pack enough firepower to demolish downtown New York. You seee... They're Americans, and everything that Americans do must be really brave and full of false heroics. Next thing you know, there's an incredibly exciting (not) scene of a raft full of sailors-turned-green beret approaching the U-boat. And approaching. And approaching. And all during the lamest fake storm ever on film, which is more like a pond during a mild shower with a 10-mph wind. The scene mercifully ends when our "heroes" board the U-boat. The incompetent Germans fight back with the tenacity of a blind dyslexic with a BB gun, while the Americans score every hit. The Americans drop down the conning tower hatch one by one, are attacked by a half-dozen idiots with machine guns, who don't hit anything but get killed in the process. In one scene, reminiscent of the opening scene of "Saving Private Ryan", yet another idiotic German is shot about a dozen times from close range, which causes him to grunt and fall over, totally bloodless. War is hell.
Throughout the entire scene, not a single person is hit by a stray bullet, or appears to be disturbed by all the noise such a firefight would create. Realism! Authenticity! Historical Truth!
So you were wondering what happened to the token black guy? The Americans are loading the German POWs onto the S-33. Mr. Politically Correct asks one of the German submariners "what, you never seen a black man before." You know, it's nice that Mr. Mastow had the guts to take on an important subject like the Nazi persecution of non-Aryans in such a deft and subtle way. Take that, Speilberg! SUDDENLY ANOTHER GERMAN U-BOAT APPEARS OUT OF NOWHERE (surprised you again!) and blows up S-33, in what could only be a rather obvious case of "friendly fire".
It doesn't just blow up, it ESPLODES. Yes, esplodes. It goes beyond "ridiculous Hollywood explosion". Every male pyromaniac in the audience is probably in ecstasy. I mean it gets blowed up so good, it kills everyone except the token black guy. The camera zooms in on Tyler's face! Shock! Horror! Emotion! Futility of War! The captain, standing heroically on the bottom of a studio water tank, shouts something mockingly heroic to Tyler, sits there for a little while, and sinks like a rock. Ohhhh... Pass the tissues.
Now we come to an even dumber scene. You see, they can't let the Germans know they have the Enigma. Then why did they blow up their submarine? Anyway, this is the idiotic underwater dogfight that everyone brings up. Harvey Keitel gets two idiotic lines: "Where's the Christmas Tree!" (Camouflage for the bridge!) followed by the infamous "It's all in German!". No @!#$, Sherlock. By using the universal translator (this is Star Trek isn't it? Oh wait, they have the half-German guy onboard) they manage to dive the submarine simply by knowing that "Klar" means "Clear." At this point I was hoping the diesel induction would fail, everyone would drown, and end my misery.
No such luck. The crippled German submarine, which has taken a zillion close depth charges, hundreds of small-caliber gunshots, and several grenades, dives faster than even the original crew could make it. American ingenuity, made in Taiwan. So now the German supply boat launches two torpedoes at U-571, which miss by three millimeters or so. The Americans try to attack the other sub, but the torpedo tubes make a horrible noise, which is probably Wolfgang Petersen in agony. We know this scene is exciting because the music is someone banging on a drum very loudly and with increasing speed. Based on a crude sonar bearing, they blow up the supply sub in a ridiculous Hollywood explosion.
They surface again, and take aboard U-571's electrician and the token black guy. The German guy is the only one who has any knowledge on how to operate the vessel, but because "Klar" means "Clear", he's totally useless to them. So they handcuff him to a bunk. Oh, did I mention the electrician of U-571 is EEEVILLLL...? Now we have about 20 minutes of useless scenes just to pad things out. We see the Americans repairing the smashed U-boat because they're magic and stuff. The U-571's electrician is eevilllll. He gets loose somehow, kills some useless character and injures someone totally pointless to the story. If electricians are always that evillll, I'm seriously considering learning how to operate the switchbox myself. The token black man runs in and shouts "what do you think you're doing you Nazi sumbitch". I laugh once more. The Americans realize that the handcuff wasn't enough, so they chain him to the bunk next time. Oh, that'll really work.
So here's a scene in the Officer's mess, with Lt. Tyler and Harvey Keitel talking about something useless to the plot. The cramped mess of "Das Boot" is replaced here with an overlit, really cozy restaurant-style place with large, leather sofas, a beautifully crafted table and lots of pictures related to the U-boat war. I hear they hired the same production designer as "Das Boot", but I'm started to think they hired him based on his work in "Cabaret".
The crew is up in the conning tower (wait a minute, six on board, four up on the bridge... there's only two people running this whole operation!). They break out in an argument with the captain, (outranked solely by God) someone gets punched in the face (insert stock face-punching sound) and that's that. So really, it's okay to argue with your commanding officer in the middle of a major war.
Suddenly, OUT OF NOWHERE, COMES A PLANE! Surprised you again, didn't I? Oh, no it's a German long-range Reconnaissance Plane! No @!#$ Sherlock, it's a P-51 with floats attached, and really FREAKING huge fuel tanks to, uh, boot. But, woe is us, a, GASP! Nazi Destroyer (more giggles). Not just any Nazi Destroyer (Hmmm, Nazi. Has a nice ring to it. Nazi. Nazi Nazi. Nazi...). But some old Italian salvage ship with some fake guns attached and a big Z number painted on the side. By constantly showing the ship's flag, the idea that this is an enemy ship is beaten into the viewer's head. The Ocean-Going Tugboat/Destroyer launches a motor launch towards U-571. The crew of the Destroyer obviously doesn't see the crew of U-571 manning the deck gun, and allow them to blow up their radio shack in a ridiculous Hollywood explosion. The Germans set phasers on miss, and consistently avoid hitting the 75-meter long stationary object barely 500 feet away. Yet another crash dive, and through the magic of shoddy model work, the U-boat barely avoids colliding with the Tugboat of Doom (tm).
Another lame depth charge attack follows. You can feel the tension and fear in the soundman's voice. Several times, in the blandest voice possible, he intones "maneuvering, splashes". "I see dead submariners". McWhatshisface stands around and whispers into voicepipes. We get lots of external shots of rudders moving and propellers speeding up. According to Keitel, who gets stiffer and stiffer as the movie goes on, a depth charge can knock out your teeth and snap your spine. But of course, can't do anything to a submarine. A gazillion depth charges go off roughly at once, all about two feet from the hull. This causes light bulbs to burst, and doors to pop open. This is, of course, all for the "awesome DTS sound" that will "blow you away" and leave you half-asleep and pissed off about blowing $3.50 on renting the damn thing.
"The pressure hull canna take much more of this!" shouts the chief engineer. "We need depth factor 200 in four minutes or we'll all dead!" responds the captain. "But if we go to 200 we'll a implode!" "I said "depth factor 200!" So they go to 200 meters (note: the depth gauge only goes to 200, so Mastow doesn't think he's ripping off Das Boot), and duh, disaster strikes. The rivets start popping off, the sub sinks to 260 meters for no good reason, magically rises to 200, and everythings back to normal. Wow, that made a ton of sense. Now excuse me for rambling, I'm getting tired of writing about this piece of junk. But it's almost over. Almost over. The Evilll electrician of U-571 tries to signal the destroyer overhead, and someone finally kills the evilllll SS-Nazi Gestapo Sea Killer electrician! Yay! Onward with the gratuitous stereotyping of our former enemies!
Remember, although it is based off material written in reputable sources, Das Boot is based on a lie! I am Jonathan Mastow, and you will bow to me! Nazis, all of them! I am rich bastard American brain-washer, believe everything I say! Mwahha-haha-ha!
And now for the inevitable Tale of Two Cities- good of the several apparently outweighs the good of the one type mock heroic ending. This time our sacrifice is some whiny ensign who's really a hero or something like that. Lt. Tyler orders our asking-for-it back to the stern torpedo room bilge to find the contrivly (is that a real word?)-placed handle that activates the stern torpedo tube compressed air thingy or such nonsense. You see, they're gonna blow up the German destroyer, because it looks cool when you do. And if they don't, they'll be tortured by the SS and Gestapo, oh my!
So our worthless sacrifice (I mean, it's a vulnerable destroyer in the middle of the Atlantic without any protection and no radio, but still....) goes off to activate the torpedo tube. Some @!#$ back in Kiel put the compressed air starter in the bilge. He struggles for what feels like an eternity, at one point loosing his breathing device. This moron, who we're supposed to feel sympathy for, struggles for two whole minutes trying to get it back on. Finally, he pulls the handle, the diesel engines turn on (twenty meters underwater!) and they fire the torpedo. Almost....Over. The destroyer REALLY ESPLODES! KABOOM! POWWEY! UP IN FLAMES! DECK BLOWS UP! WHOLE SHIP GOES BOOM! 10,000 TONS OF GUNPOWDER GOES UP! SINKS IN SECONDS!
So we find out that our little hero (sniff..sniff) died. So please, don't try to hold your breath for six minutes. The token black man says something idiotic that's supposed to be moving, and the music goes all cheesy on us. Oh, during the battle a six-inch shell hit U-571. To be honest, I don't know whether the shell or the exploding destroyer did them in. They decide to pre-emptively end the movie. The fatally wounded captain watches as his bombed out submarine slowly sinks into the oily water, the token black guy runs over to help, Lt. Tyler collapses as blood runs out his mouth, camera pans out, token black guy stares in horror, fade to black.
No actually, they all crowd into the goofiest looking dingy you've ever seen, and start to row(!) this oversized condom something like a thousand miles to shore. An incredibly fake-looking CGI PBY Catalina flies overhead, with huge "US NAVY" markings on the wings, ending our misery. I would have been just as happy if a fake-looking CGI Fw. 200 flew overhead, with "NAUGHTY NAZIS" written in huge letters on the wings, and dropped a stick of depth charges on them. But not in an American movie, I guess.
My experience with this movie is certainly unusual. Back in August, I rented this movie called "Threads" from the public library. It was this obscure BBC TV movie from the eighties about the effects of nuclear war, made on a rather tight budget. What I saw was so graphic, realistic and horrifying, it still sticks with me. At first it had little effect on me. Days later, I would wake up in the middle of the night, sweating, in a panic, afraid that the bombs would drop, that everyone I knew would die, and that in ten years, the human race would be reduced to mutated savagery. Days after I saw U-571, I woke up in the middle of the night, sweating, in a panic, afraid that Jonathan Mastow would make even more crappy submarine movies, that he would say that Das Boot was based on a lie, and that ten years from now he would be the most well-paid director in Hollywood. And yes, I'm joking about this paragraph. But not the one about "Threads". Oh, and John Bon Jovi was in this mess somewhere. Playing a war correspondent, I think. No, I didn't say that. I didn't say that....
Why are we reviewing this old movie?
that's historically inaccurate, was released ages ago and is yet another film where the Americans solely win World War II without any help from anybody?
Video Game cheats, hints a
the british code breakers at bletchley park were responsible for the intelligence coup that was the primary result of this incident. what most people don't know is that alan turing of the famous turing test was one of the scientists who worked as a code breaker during the war.
...that I used to make myself until a friend of mine finally corrected me with a dictionary. I always thought it meant "super-ultimate", and made an inadvertant fool of myself using it improperly. It actually means just before, or not quite, ultimate.
At least I feel a little better that I'm not the only one to make this mistake.
---
the pen is mightier than the sword, the sword is mightier than the court, the court is mightier than the pen.
Not only in this movie an insult to Americans who died during WWII, it is also an insult to the *British* who actually captured the Enigma machine and cracked the code:
From Roger Ebert's review:
"In case you're wondering, the German sub on display at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago is U-505, and it was boarded and captured not by submariners, but by sailors from the USS Pillsbury, part of the escort group of the carrier USS Guadalcanal. No Enigma machine was involved. That was in 1944. An Enigma machine was obtained on May 9, 1941, when HMS Bulldog captured U-110. On Aug. 23, 1941, U-570 was captured by British planes and ships, without Enigma. This fictional movie about a fictional U.S. submarine mission is followed by a mention in the end credits of those actual British missions. Oh, the British deciphered the Enigma code, too. Come to think of it, they pretty much did everything in real life that the Americans do in this movie."
What's next a review of Episode IV? :)
--
"Me fail English? That's unpossible!" - Ralph Wiggum
Why is this awful piece of prose being published?
Mmmm, poppin fresh dough!
*giggle*
Anyone seen The Wizard of Oz yet?
Advice: on VPS providers
Let's compare the views on sexual mores in Britan 50 years ago to contemporary American views of sexual mores. Brilliant.
Movie reviews attempting to be funny while bashing everything in sight, just for the sake of being "cool", is sooo 2001.
Honestly, if I saw a nearly two-year-old movie that was as bad as Daryl here makes it out to be, I'd get on with my life instead of writing a two page review that makes up words like "esplode" and submitting it to slashdot. This review doesn't accomplish anything -- I don't think anyone who doesn't pursue the genre would rent this movie in the first place, and even if they did, it wouldn't be such a great tragedy that we need to prevent it by posting reviews online.
Why don't we have useful reviews about current movies? You know, the kind that tell you "This is a great movie for war buffs" or "Don't see this if you don't like cheesy special effect explosions", and can actually be used to select what movie you're going to go see with your friends on Friday? I'm not going to go so far as to say JonKatz writes better reviews ("I snuck in through the air vent so I wouldn't have to pay to see K-Pax, but I left after 20 minutes anyway when I found out it wasn't about alien abductions after all"), but this review is like watching Harry Knowles lecture you about the new series on the sci-fi channel, corn-nut breath and all.
If you take out all the good parts of this review you are left with a 10:1 ratio of crap:good. This review is pure crap.
I submit a story about Stephen Wolfram's controversial new book, A New Science, (for those who don't know, Stephen Wolfram is the creator of Mathematica and is a genius, published his first paper on particle physics at age 15, etc, etc...)and you guys post this piece of shit about a movie that has nothing to do with news or nerds or anything that matters, on top of which, the movie is 2 years old. What the hell is happening to /.? This is pathetic.
Maybe Katz can learn a thing or two about reviewing flicks from Daryl.
The Poles (Marian Rejewski et al) cracked the Enigma code. The British exploited and expanded on their work.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
Das Boot.. It even has an archetypal Unix admin that goes crazy in the engine room from all the stress, and from all the clatter from the diesel engine.
Cheers,
Bowie J. Poag
Besides, it's like 2 years old or something...
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
I think I can guess. It's okay to have a rip at a crap film that we're all agreed was crap but not to have a go at a crap film that lots of people here liked for some reason.
So, what about a halfway house: a review of "Titanic", a crap film that loads of "normal" people liked, would that get on?
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
Here's an idea for slashdot: if there isn't any news, simply don't publish any stories that day.
But the biggest problem here is that the "review" was horrifically written. It read like it came from the reject pile out of AICN.
If the review contained something new or interesting to say, then ok, maybe it's worth posting. But all the issues this review bitches about had been pointed out when the movie came out.
It may be a slow news day, but c'mon. If you don't have anything good to post, tis better to not post, than print this drivel.
Guess we don't like the MPAA today.
Someone finally beat out Katz in the full-of-myself, over-opinionated, no-one-bothers-to-read-the-whole-thing useless article contest.
_sig_ is away
"...lights flood the oversized room with little consideration for natural lighting"
Natural lighting...inside a submarine?
I hope they have flyscreen on the windows to keep the bugs out
The best part about this movie was when John Bon Jovi gets decapitated... That made the movie alright by me. In fact if they could lots of 80's hair band members getting eaten by sharks, raped by Rhinos, shot in the nuts, etc, that would be great!
Well, Turing died over 50 years ago...
Way to go on retelling the story of one of the worst movies ever made, 2 years late.
Am I supposed to agree with the reviewer and cheer?
Why the fuck should we care if you like it or not ?
...and bullshit like this is precisely why a pay version of slashdot is a bad idea. i wouldn't subscribe to a paper whose editors ignored serious stories in favor of publishing tripe like this; It'd be an insult. I mean, fine, fine, fine, you guys get your content from your audience and that's cool, cos ultimately this is a site about and for a unique audience with a singular focus (tech); but fucking putting this on the front page? "penultimate"? and you have the gall to ask for my money?
In the words of cartman: That is mighty weak.
FreeBSD for the impatient.
...a Deja Vu, right?
First stuff in Sunday morning is a review of a 2 yr. old submarine movie? In Slashdot?
WTF??
(Maybe because the movie has MENTIONED Enigma, so really matters to us, right?)
Gosh, where's my coffee? I can smell the bad day ahead...
This is the funniest signature I could ever think of.
was a major hottie!
Sure it wasn't great, but lighten up, it wasn't bad!
It's SUV-driving, Jesus-worshiping, cock-sucking, gun-totin', Budweiser-drinking, left wing-hating pieces of shit that are the reason that the USA no longer stands for freedom or democracy or anything else of the sort. Please do me a favour and kill yourself, you dirty rotten ass spelunker! No really, I HATE YOU!
At least California can't complain about this being a spoiler...even though it may sometimes seem like three years (an not three hours) time difference.
"U-571 is a "film" starring almost no one you've heard of"
Oh he's heard of Jon Bon Jovi, he just does not want to admit it.
http://www.kubuntu.org/
I was laughing my ass off all the way through it!
/ Peter Schuller
--
peter.schuller@infidyne.com
http://www.scode.org
Cool! I love how the review's got all the "yee-haw!" braindead Yankees all riled up.
The actual U571 was taken out by a RAAF Sunderland of RAF Coastal Command.
I can not explain why this review came when it did, and it is unfortunate that it is so late because anyone who would have seen it has probably already seen it.
I wish I had read this review about two months ago, so that I would not have rented this movie. I could make a better movie about submarines filming turds in the toilet. Really.
Keep in mind that every time the protagonists sink a ship, it "blowed up real good". So based on this movie, you would think that when a submarine or other ship dies, it goes out with a bang. But later on in the movie, the protagonists fool the destroyer that is hunting them into thinking they are dead by jettisoning the bilge and a dead body.
I saw this movie, and I have seen Das Boot, and if you are interested at all in what a u-boat was like, or if you want to see a good movie, see Das Boot. If you are a serious masochist, see U-571.
Troll Like a Champion Today
So I'm guessing that this is a "Pan?" Two thumbs down?
Not only does the movie sound so bad that I will actively prevent others that I care about from watching it...
This review was so bad, so comepletely over the top, I think I want my 15 minutes of precious Sunday-morning surf time back!
(Who is Daryl Carpenter anyways? Maybe Taco would take my review of "Transformers: The Movie" on DVD?)
SlashSigTheorem: Humorous, Political, Critical, Constructive- If you have a
The hack of a director "Jonathan Mostow" who directed this piece of crap known as "U-571", was chosen to direct "Terminator 3".
http://us.imdb.com/Title?0181852
So, I have a really bad feeling that "T3" is going to be really, really bad, and extremely stupid.
Oh well, back to K5.
Nothing else is going on here, and watching /.ers bitch is more exciting than nothing at all. I do have admit the "review" is old, and strangely written.
/. isn't on websense yet!
All my web traffic is through a proxy (.mil) and *all* other types are blocked. I was bored enough to read through all the old polls! (Why is the first one dated 1969?)
At least
And a HUGE box office hit!
dunno why i always enjoy pointing that out. poor guy was hounded by british inteligence for it, placed on drugs to "cure" him, etc.
must have been annoying as hell for the brits to be so dependent on a genius who happened to be gay.
Treatment, not tyranny. End the drug war and free our American POWs.
See my user info for links.
So... did you like it?
I went to the 'movies' and 'PAYED' for the 'movie' and all I can say is I WANT THOSE TWO HOURS OF MY LIFE BACK!!!!!!!!!!
And yes, it was _that_ bad!
I'm probably coming off as a jerk but sometimes I wonder if a few of these movie reviews are just for the purpose of making his entertainment expenses legal tax deductions.
Now, I don't think about that for every review. The star wars stuff is legitimate "News for Nerds". However, stuff like this has me wondering if he wanted to write of his dvd player? Why did we get his tivo review? Why did we get his mp3 player review? Is this "news for nerds" or for his 1040?
Anyway, it's just a thought that occured to me.
Vanguard
That which does not kill me only makes me whinier
To make everyone even more sick, "U-571 Is Not Just For Guys!" was a snippet of text from a review of a movie. They used it as a title in an print ad for the movie when it was running out of steam in the box office. It was a modified movie poster to show all the ladies the sailors in their dress uniforms.
But it still wasn't as bad as Battlefield Earth.
Waste no more of your time and move on to the next article. If only we could mod articles down...
It's gonna be bad because Arnie is waaaay past it.
Hail to the king, baby!
I hadn't been planning to submit a report on the neat lint formation I found in my navel this morning, but I'm reconsidering that decision.
that oftentimes when they show people speaking the Queen's English on some American news programs they have subtitles in English?
Lets pick this appart piece by piece untuil I got so disgusted by your review that I couldnt read anymore.
"As we find out, and will not care about, Lt. Tyler (played like a sticky note by Matthew Mcwhothehellcanspellhiisname) will not get command of the leaky, obsolete piece of 25-year old war-torn scrap metal S-33. Instead, he willhave to be 1st Officer (Pitiful!) while the Captain (played like a block of wood by Bill Paxton) will remain in command."
First of all, he was turned down for HIS OWN COMMAND not the command of the S-33. In order for a Lutennant to make command, he must first be recomended by his current CO. Furthermore, his reasoning for not getting command are quite sound. Also note that today, CO's of submarines are Commanders, not Lt. Commanders or Leutennants unlike WWII. Therefore this scene is rather accurate.
"Also introduced is the token black cook (played like a slab of old ham by some guy) and some guy from "ER" who's supposed to be a Marine."
In WWII, the United States segregated the navy. The only thing that a black man could do at all in the USN was to be a cook. Since there were many black men who wanted to serve their country and did so bravely, the MS rating was flooded with black men. Again, another very accrurate historical fact. And again, the token black man would have probably been on nearly every submarine in the US Atlantic Fleet, let alone surface combatants.
"While the characters weren't paying any attention, the ever-resourceful dockyard workers converted S-33 into a too perfect for it's own good replica of a "German supply submarine", which is actually a regular U-boat with an extra gun."
The addition of a single plate of metal across the front of the sail, along with an additional rail is all that would have been necessary. The pice could have been prestaged and simply welded into place upon the S-33's arrival. Again, another common thing to be done as you have the pieces that are required before the submarine returns to port.
"So what does out EEEVELLLL NAZI GASTAPO UNDERSEE-SS U-BOAT SEA KILLER Captain do? You guessed it, he orders them to be killed. Never saw that one coming!"
Unfortunately this also is historically accurate. Adm Donitz (the CO of the German Navy) ordered in early 1942 that any surviors were to be shot instead of picked up contrary to maritime rules. This was done after an incident with another UBoat tried to save the crew of a Merchant vessle in the Mediteranian. They declared a neuteral area around the U boat and were eventually bombed by a US B25 while attempting to save the surviors. However, Donitz was not found guilty at Neuremberg because Gen. MacArthur had sent a very similar message the US Pacific fleet.
"The crew of S-33 is SO brave, they disguise themselves in German uniforms, bring along a translator, and pack enough firepower to demolish downtown New York. You seee... They're Americans, and everything that Americans do must be really brave and full of false heroics."
They carry tommyguns, and one small amount of explosives. Additionally there is one grenade used in the scene. That equates to a lot of firepower? The average US Soldier in WWII carried over 50 lbs of equipment into battle. This would include a weapon (rifle or tommy gun), 100 or more rounds of ammunition, their helments, their packs, 3 grenades, etc. etc. These guys carried maybe 20lbs and this is if all of them had explosives and all of them carried 3 grenades.
"The incompetent Germans fight back with the tenacity of a blind dyslexic with a BB gun, while the Americans score every hit"
One american is shot and killed in that scene. They did recieve some training which obviously included planning (not difficult on a single level submarine), and there were many Germans killed. Of course, the S33 crew did have the element of supprise.
"SUDDENLY ANOTHER GERMAN U-BOAT APPEARS OUT OF NOWHERE (surprised you again!) and blows up S-33, in what could only be a rather obvious case of "friendly fire"."
There are many ponts to make here. First of all, Germans used the wolf pack tactic which included at least two submarines operating in the same area at all times, secondly the German commander did radio for help and was expecting another submarine within 12 hours, and finally the appearance of an unknown submarine with a crew transfer taking place would have caused suspicion at any time. It did not appear out of nowhere, it appeared out of the storyline which you were very obviously not paying attention to.
i"It doesn't just blow up, it ESPLODES. Yes, esplodes. It goes beyond "ridiculous Hollywood explosion"."
The location of the diesel fuel and torpedoes that were loaded on the boat would have caused a huge explostion when combined with a direct hit. Yes most submarines that sank in WWII are in tact for the most part on the bottom. However, most were not hit directly by a torpedo which is designed to penetrate the hull and explode inside to cause the maximum amount of dammage. A direct hit to a submarine by a torpedo would have probably hit as a minimum the diesel fuel causing a huge explosion and a large fire topside.
I will give you one thing though, the acting in the movie is not all that great. However, historically it is fairly accurate if you remember that it is FICTION. I agree the British did a whole lot in WWII, and enigma was cracked by them and they deserve the credit. However, the second enigma (the one with the sixth wheel) was found and turned over to the British by a US Lead expidition. The German navy did not change their Enigma when Hitler ordered the change to the sixth wheel untuil late in 1944.
As for the bravery of the US militiary, we took 6,000 casualties on the beaches in D-Day, while the British army commanded by their "Hero" Monty (remember, none of the US commanders liked this man) drank his tea. Monty told Ike that the British would have Caen by the end of the day... Six months later it was the US forces who had to come in to help Monty achieve his goal that he was six months late in accomplishing.
Personally, being an x-submariner myself, the movie was not all that bad other than the acting. Next time, pay attention to the dialogue and youll catch more of the story.
This whole submission should be moderated as "Irrelevant"
Believe in things of which no person has ever learned
On another note, here's a little nugget to take away with you: the clown who directed U-571 (Jonathan Mastow) is directing Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines.
You may not have liked Titanic, but I'll take Cameron any day of the week over this hack.
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
I really can't believe that there was nothing better to post. That the "editors" couldn't have tried editing the insanity out of this. That they couldn't have picked someone to review this movie in a balanced way instead of picking something that would be rejected by a middle school newspaper.
This is a sad and pathetic day for
Jeez, stop sugar coating and tell us what you really think.
I understand - and I believe - that the movie is bad, but you should stop hammering on the fact (liken unto the ice pick in the eye which was Robin Williams' performance in Patch Adams) around halfway through, when it ceases to be funny.
First half of the review - excellent; humor, wit, verve. Second half of the review disappoints, ceases to be fresh.
The good and new comes from no quarter where it is looked for, and is always something different from what is expected.
Hrm.... Matthew McConaughey: A Time To Kill, Amistad, Contact
Bill Paxton: Titantic, Twister, Apollo 13, True Lies, Tombstone, Aliens, Weird Science
Harvey Keitel: Pulp Fiction, Rising Sun, Reservoir Dogs, Thelma and Louise
(boldface indicates movies most people have heard of)
I wonder... If someone had posted a rant like that in the comments section, would it have been modded up to 5? Doubtful. Probably it would have been modded to -1, Troll or Flamebait.
It's always great to see people jump on the Bandwagon when they have no idea what they're talking about. Shortly after this movie premiered, one of the news agencies (probably CNN) reported that (drum roll please) this fictional movie was indeed not based in fact. What a shock! They said that in fact, the British did all the stuff depicted in the movie, and the Americans did squat. Therefore, they decided, this movie was a farce. However, those of us who watched the movie know that at the end not only does it say that the movie was fiction, but rather that the British did capture the Engima first, and that the Americans never did capture the coding material.
I don't have enough time to comment on everything else that's wrong with the review (including several glaring "I wasn't watching the movie" errors), but suffice it to say that the reviewer has obviously never seen a war movie before. Go rent Tora, Tora, Tora. Go rent They Were Expendable. Go rent Twelve OClock High, or The Great Escape. You'll see the same hollow acting, predictable plots, and unlikely situations in those movies. Don't get me wrong, these are great movies, but you'll see lots of things in them that Hollywood put in to sell the movie. If you compare a war movie to the actual events, they will always come up short. Even the recent war movies, that tried to make things more accurate (Saving Private Ryan, and that piece of crap known as Pearl Harbor) failed miserably, and resulted in movies that were just as inaccurate as U-571 was.
Yet it was not cool to badmouth those two movies, so everyone loves them. If you want the facts about WWII, with no Hollywood crap, go watch the History Channel. If you want historical fiction; entertainment set in a certain time period, go rent a movie.
There is no sig, there is only Zuul.
This is a stupid ass review. Guess what else, "The 6th day" was pretty crappy. So was "Jurassic Park 3". There's no use getting worked up about it, especially years after they've come out.
Also, if you want to write a review about how stupid something else is, you should be careful not to make blunders of your own, as (for instance) the editors pointed out in your summary.
I've not seen the film but went to imdb to see the cast for U-571.
The movie can be horrible, i don't know, but you must have heard of Matthhew McConaughey (EdTv, Contact), Harvey Keitel (Pulp Fiction, Smoke, The Piano) or Bill Paxton (Twister, Titanic). Or at least from John Bon Jovi!
Personally I hold works of entertainment to any standard of accuracy only if they actually claim some sort of historically factual basis.
No doubt British actors are superior (watch this year's Oscars for painful side-by-side comparisons) but it is likely cheaper to produce with American actors.
Want historical accuracy? -watch PBS or the History Channel. Want entertainment? -catch this thrilling movie on DVD.
N8F8 (USNR)
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
Matthew McConaughey
Bill Paxton
Jon Bon Jovi
Harvey Keitel
I'm sorry, you must live under a rock, because if you don't recognize these stars, you don't deserve to review a movie.
You have a problem that they had this picture of the enigma but don't have a real one? Did you ever stop to realize that the enigma machine was a commercialy available product in pre-WWII days and was used by the banking industry? Everyone involved in breaking it knew how it worked, no one happened to know the internal wiring the Germans tossed in. Once that was figured out (well, actually one was smuggled to the Brits in a super secret meeting) now we had the problem of the daily wheel positions. The problem wasn't so much finding the enigma machine, it was finding the code book!
Wheeeee
he forgot to mention the stock war-movie scene with the crewmen in their *living quarters*, getting all buddy-buddy. They're reclining on these HUGE bunkbeds, in what is obviously a very large room. The beds are stacked in 3's though, in an attempt to create a sense of claustrophobia. Yeah, i was having difficulty breathing alright, i was laughing so hard.
i saw a more realistic portrayal of wwII in Kelly's Heroes.
Some nobody trashes Casablanca for no apparent reason.
Stating on Slashdot that I like cheese since 1997.
Unfortunately, Americans seem to like this sort
. ht ml
of self serving tripe.
If you really want to know about Enigma read
"Enigma: The Battle For The Code"
ISBN 0 75381 130 8
Lots of _real_ sea battles and subs and stuff.
And Americans did capture a sub... U-505 so it's
even got that for ya too. Better yet, since
U-505 is _real_ you can go see it or take a
virtual tour at it's web site.
http://www.msichicago.org/exhibit/U505/U505home
BTW, I walked out of this film. It has nothing
whatever to do with history.
Sure did!
www.somethingawful.com/truthmedia
i ew.htm
In the same vein IMHO.
Hell, I even did one: http://idisk.mac.com/pipebomb/Public/spidermanrev
You guys get WAY too excited over a simple troll.
If I had a sixth sense, all the dead slashdotters would be crying out in anguish for having viewed such useless drivel. This movie was released TWO F$&%@# YEARS AGO!!! This is an assnine rant on something that isn't even news anymore!!! Mike, my man, what's up? Do you hate us that much? Is there nothing else worthy of news but this garbage? Are you submitting stories from some temporal bubble that lags behind reality by two years, because this movie was already universally condemed. I mean, I can help... I heard the Wright Brothers flew in their first powered flight recently... Oh, the Cold War is over, you can submit that. Hey, did you see Terminator 2? Review that one for us!
Somebody yank this guy before he kills us all with these inane articals.
You need a FREE iPod Nano
"U-571 is a "film" starring almost no one you've heard of, directed by some guy..."
::Colz Grigor // michael!!! Wake up! Don't post this kind of drivel as a story!
You can tell from this half-sentence that the "review" isn't a review at all but a rant. Ignoring the fact that U-571 was one of the summer "blockbusters" from the year 2000...
To be a little picky, who on Slashdot hasn't heard of Matthew McConaughey after his performance in Contact? Or Bill Paxton in Apollo 13? And if you don't know who Harvey Keitel is (from, say, Pulp Fiction, Taxi Driver, or The Piano), you aren't fit to be reviewing movies! Oh, and let's not forget Jon Bon Jovi. Don't tell me you've never heard of him!
And just for irony's sake... the "some guy" you refer to will be directing Terminator 3, too. But I suppose you've never seen that series of movies, either...
I have researched WWII submarines and I can tell you that. The story of DAS BOOT or "the boat" was based on the war correspondent that sailed with U97 and has been confirmed by as much of the crew that could be found including the caption. It is a true story. The shots of inside the sub and the procedures are all 100 % accurate even to the type of U-boat users a type VII. The only two part that have been disputed was the part where the captain pulls a gun on one of the crew, And the very end when most of the crew and captain dies, that did not happen. U571 was extremely bad. I hatted everything about it. it is truly is an insult to any one who served on submarine.
I did not find this movie DVD-purchase-worthy, but I found it to be DVD-rental-worthy.
Yes, there are a few obvious historical issues as the reviewer points out, and much of it feels recycled somewhat, but a significant portion of the reviewer's comments show that he did not fully understand what was going on through many parts of the movie.
Token black guy? That's how it was back then.
Why did the agent photograph and not steal the Enigma? Because then the Germans would know the Enigma was stolen and react. One could have made this huge logic leap if one paid attention to the dialog.
I also thought that the sinking to 250+ meters made perfect sense. It was all explained pretty clearly in the dialog. I knew what was going on, at least. Maybe you have to have an elementary-school education of submarines to get the terminology.
Gratuitous stereotyping via the electrician? Would you do anything different if you were in his place?
The scene with the crewman in the bilge fixing the air line had nothing to do with the engines. They have to have air to launch anything out of the torpedo tubes, and the line supplying this air was broken. I thought this was sufficiently documented in the dialog as well. How did the reviewer conclude that he was trying to start diesel engines underwater with an air starter?
I would invite those reading this review to do so with a grain of salt. I found the movie was exactly as I was expecting it to be: entertaining. The sound is great, and despite what the reviewer would have you think, many of the "quirks" he sees are actually due to historical accuracy, though other parts suffer in the same area. If you're looking for a deep movie, this isn't it. If you're looking for a piece of historical fiction, this probably isn't it. If you're looking for an entertaining submarine movie, I'd consider it.
And please lay off the coffee before watching and trying to review older movies. Your understanding of the events will suffer and what you write will not earn you any job in journalism. I can't believe this is what Slashdot is publishing nowadays..
Contrivially.
Contraventionally.
Counterintergalactically.
Contraptoplotdevicekludgically.
--Blair
"I'm making it up as I go along."
-Indy
No, it's gonna be crap because it's got a female terminator. Writers run out of ideas? Don't worry, tell the same story as last time, with a woman in the role. It'll be doubly awful because she's a fucking wrestler.
who enjoyed the review, even of an old movie. It was sort of like MST 3000, but without the commercals. I haven't laughed this hard in a while. Well done!
Dawn of the Dead
There are times when I wish I could mod a story down. What a waste of time.
You're thinking of Joania Lauruer (aka Chyna in the WWE (aka the WWF)), and she's not in the movie.
Kristanna Loken is the actress playing the female Terminator. She's a model, so I'm sure she'll be a fine actress... *cough*
I've got a few story ideas for Mr. Carpenter:
1) Review LOTRs movie with special attention to how historically inaccurate the movie is.
2) Cover a random Usenet flame thread. The thread should be at least six-months old and on a subject no one cares about. Please be very mad and personally injured, even though the thread doesn't concern yourself.
3) Review the personal web sites of small children, paying close attention to spelling errors and poor design.
4) Review historical texts on WWII. In particular complain that "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich" uses the word "Nazi" too often and presents an unfair stereotype of Germans during WW II.
Someone needs to apologize for this being on Slashdot, by the way.
-- I browse at +5 with stripped sigs
Republic How one brave American kept alive the words of his mentor, Socrates, and gave birth to modern Philosopy.
Luther of Pittsburg The American that defied the Catholic Church, and by faith alone brought the Protestant faith into the world.
And 7 days in Louisiana How the Lord Almighty "Chuck", created the Universe and everything in it, then sat down on the 7th day, ate grits and watched the first ever superbowl.
Wolfram is a crusty old "used to be a child prodigy" type asshole...his book is 1000 pages of pseudo intellectual wanking with a tangled web of semi scientific mathematical ramblings. So the guy wrote some over glorified calculator program for the computer...big fucking deal.
From the perspective of technical accuracy, historical plausability and overall believability, Crimson Tide sucked. Hunt for Red October sucked. And that travesty whose name escapes me but it had Kelsey Grammer (sp?) in it sucked. And so on.
With the single exception of Das Boot, submarine movies are made by Hollywood candy-asses who appear to do all their tech research on the 'submarine' ride in Disney Land, who couldn't tell an MBT blow valve from the wardroom crapper, and who probably would put a deck gun on a Los Angeles class boat if they thought it would help the plot.
Big freakin' whoop. The only suprising thing is that we are talking about it here and now. But since we're digging up old grudges here, maybe this is the time for me to finally write an impassioned article about how IE's unfair victory over Netscape really pisses me off....................or maybe not.
"In a hierarchy every employee will rise to his level of incompetence". The Peter Principle
where do I send my cool review of, "Raiders of the Lost Ark?"
I agree that the movie sucked. It was an insult to history. Bletchley park built an enigma machine without actually seeing a real one. Another machine was taken from a german U-boat, but well after the codebreakers had already cracked the code. In that case a British destroyer forced a U-boat to surface. After the Germans abandoned and scuttled the ship, the Brits boarded it and managed to close the valve. Which they towed to port.
However this review was an obnoxious ramble, that belongs on adequacy.org and not on slashdot. It sounds like it came from the comic book guy on the simpsons.
I can't wait to see /.'s review of Episode One! I mean, what if it sucks?
U571 wasent that bad a movie. it had holes, but i felt entertained at the end, and didnt feel like i had wasted my time or money.
U571 is horribly inaccurate. that many depth charges would have surely broken the boat up. after the second one, the crew would be deaf due to the concussion. Also the near misses with the torpedos were posible, assuming they used contact and not magnetic detonators.
U571 was a made up story based loosely on facts. Pearl Harbour was the facts presented in a revisionist manner. I consider the truth mistold to be a greater insult to those involved then something made up loosly on facts.
The premire of German Director Fritz Lang's mounumental Sci-Fi summer blockbuster! Be sure not to miss METROPOLIS. Opening in select theaters only, May 30, 1927.
>
...two words: DEPTH CHARGES
You know, I used to get all worked up about entertainment I didn't like. I could go on for hours about why Voyager wasn't as good as Next Generation, and sometimes did. The plots, the sets, the tones, the target audiences, and so on. I could nail down each episode of Voyager for why it didn't impress me, and put them in context of how the Star Trek franchise as a whole went downhill since Gene Roddenberry died.
:)
But then I realized something. Ranting and venting about entertainment you don't like is just a tremendous waste of energy.
The few episodes of Enterprise I watched didn't impress me, but instead of watching and then complaining about them, I decided to just not watch them. I got hours and hours of my life back by realizing that bad episodes of Star Trek are not worth the time of watching and critizing them. I just stopped stressing about the whole thing and done more productive things with my life.
If you enjoyed writing thousands of words about how U-571 sucked, all the more power to you. But let me humbly suggest that not every movie is supposed to be liked by every person. Let me suggest that if you're not the kind of person who likes tight reaction shots, big "esplosions," and the sacrifice of historical accuracy for drama, you might want to avoid such movies in the future, and save the aggravation of ranting and venting over a piece of entertainment. There were people who liked the movie because they didn't mind the dramatic exaggerations you mock.
I, for one, have become happier since treating entertainment like entertainment, and not like politics or other life-impacting issues. Of course, I'm going into entertainment for a career, so my attitude is something more like "since I don't like the way Star Trek is now, it's my responsibility to go out there myself and show them how it should be done."
No seriously, Hollywood filmmaking is an industry that is very much in tune with how to try to make money. They simply executed their formula with this film, just as they have hundreds of times in the past: the movies suck, the historical accuracy is of no concern, that sort of thing.
It is a shame that no subject matter is safe from the formula. If any subject matter should be, it should be the fact that many hundreds of thousands of British, Russian and American (yup, we were there too!) men and boys willingly put up their lives in order to fight against the greatest organized evil (yup, it really was!) of the twentieth century.
U-571... now in Smell-o-vision!
The way I unerstand it, some Brits did capture a Uboot with the Enigma codes on it... NOT AMERICANS!!!! Yes, the US has done a lot in history. Please try not to claim that you did EVERYTHING.
I know nothing about the plot of T3 except that there's a female terminator...
I know that James Cameron isn't directing it.
I guess that it will probably suck because he's not directing it.
Time will tell...
"Nothing strengthens authority so much as silence." - Charles de Gaulle
oh, and loosing should be losing too.
Oh, right, you can't mod down stories. That's a real lack.
If you're into this, read "Eight Bells", by Adm. Daniel V. Gallery, who planned and executed the capture at sea of the U-505, the submarine that sits alongside the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago. The real thing is a better story than this movie.
humans are so stupid. it's not worth explaining why wolframs crap is just nonesense in a slashdot post, one that will start at zero and inevitable end at -1, but i must say this book is garbage. there are major problems with it. the smart people will see them, and the dumb people, well i don't really give a shit about them anyways. heh.
A British sub stole the Enigma, making this just a bunch of patriotic bullshit
Episode IV? they haven't even made episode III yet?
I managed to compress this movie to 29 bytes without loosing any quality.
echo "What a total load of rubbish" > u571.avi
This movie is ancient.
Who expected a movie with Jon Bon Jovi to be particularly good?
I liked it though because unlike Das Boot it wasn't 80 hours long.
Reviews like this make me want to ESPLODE...
This
A lot of people are complaining because this movie was released so long ago, and doesn't seem relevant to us, Nerds that want News that Matters.
/. at some point, and I don't think that this is any different. Others have pointed out how insulting this movie was to anyone that actually fought the U-boats, and the soldiers that captured and cracked the Enigma Machine.
:)
However, most anything involving the Enigma Machine shows up on
While this certainly doesn't have any deep meaning to our lives right now, I think people would do well to remember '1984' when reading about this movie. If you can control the past, you can control the present. Don't let Hollywood rewrite history. It's the worst kind of societal manipulation.
Besides, that review gave me the best laugh I've had in weeks.
What's next a review of Episode IV? :)
Actually, in a couple years, after Ep3 comes out, I'd like to see Slashdot review episodes 4 through 6.
Will I retire or break 10K?
are you implying that big Jim Cameron is a GOOD director? for goddness' sake!
That was classic intercourse!
The currently showing British movie, "Enigma" (reviewed recently on /.) also misrepresents history.
.
In this movie the Brits invent the "bombe" decryption machine and crack the Enigma. In reality however, the importance of Engima was first discovered by the Polish intelligence service, who were the first to crack it. Poland provided England with full specifications for Engima and the design of the "bombe". Engima started as a commerical product, so it's basic design was not a secret. The Brits did excellent work in building on this treasure, but this Brit movie was as unfair to Poland as U571 was to Brittian.
The U.S. did by far the most spectacular reverse engineering job of the war when it reverse engineered Japan's "Purple" machine without ever seeing the real thing.
If you are interested in this subject, you must visit the NSA's National Cryptologic Museum
Jim
don't be mad that you're crappy work never got published and that you could never get a job teaching, go post some crankish rants to sci.physics or something you wanna be academician.
for brightening up my sunday afternoon with this review (albeit on an old movie), i forgive you for all your previous rants against MS with your own brand of FUD.
with lines like "Matthew Mcwhothehellcanspellhiisname", i could have sworn i was reading a SomethingAwful movie review.
i'm amazed that i survived - an airbag saved my life.
True.. If you read Slashdot and don't know who Alan Turing was there is something wrong with you!!
I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!
In this episode of Slashdot: Our crew gets trapped in time! Will they be able to save them selves and put everything back to the status quo in which nothing effects regular continuity by the end of the day? Stay tuned and find out, true believers!
I originally posted this on the forum for uboat.net (probably a better audience It's not meant to be a ebert-style review, but a roasting of the film in question. I intended it to be long and rambling, and to point out all of the flaws and stupidities.
If anyone was offended, I'm sorry.
The more anti-Hollywood's-shit-doesn't-stink that makes it into the collective consciousness, the better for us.
>Gratuitous stereotyping via the electrician? Would you do anything different if you were in his place?
Has anyone pointed out that the "electrician" was in fact the captain of the U-Boat, who lied about being an electrician so he wouldn't get killed, and did what he did because he didn't want his boat in the hands of the enemy? I thought that was perfectly reasonable, and, as Fastolfe says, it would have been even if he _was_ just an electrician.
Not to mention the fact that if an American had been captured on his own boat and tried to stop the enemy from using it, everyone including the reviewer here would recognize it as A Good Thing.
BTW, I enjoyed watching this movie too. I didn't bother getting steamed up about historical accuracy. When I want that, I go to the library.
your so intelligent. fixing grammar mistakes is a sign of massive genius you know. i am awed by you're brilliant intellect. you my friend are a grammar prodigy!
Yes, the movie U-571 was historically inaccurate, and it also failed to entertain in many ways, but this "review" is hardly any better. The reviewer has an obvious agenda, and the review reads more like an seventh-grade book report than a professional criticism. There's a time and a place for this kind of "review" (like, say, April 2000 when it would have been relevant) but I'd prefer not to see this kind of thing on Slashdot again.
U-571 is a "film" starring almost no one you've heard of, directed by some guy...
This is true, if you've never heard of Matthew McConaughey (Contact), Bill Paxton(Apollo 13), Harvey Keitel (Pulp Fiction), and Jon Bon Jovi (Ally McBeal). And couldn't the reviewer be bothered actually name the director he's blaming for this? (I guess he does later, although he misspells director Jonathan Mostow's name "Mastow" every single time)
The only reason for this $90 million mess is to prove that, in the words of Jonathan Mastow, "Das Boot was based on a lie".
A more complete version of this quote, if you care, is from the Washington Post, and reads, " "based on a lie" because "[...] it pretended that the captains and crews were submariners first, and only incidentally Nazis. They were dedicated Nazis; they had to be to fight that hard." Did "Das Boot" underemphasize the Nazi patriotism of the German submariners? I don't know, but it seems like a valid viewpoint to try to express.
Apparently, every movie made by Hollywood that doesn't have an "All-Star" cast with already established actors is bad, since it might star actors I've never heard of.
The Evilll electrician of U-571 tries to signal the destroyer overhead, and someone finally kills the evilllll SS-Nazi Gestapo Sea Killer electrician! Yay! Onward with the gratuitous stereotyping of our former enemies!
Wow, a WWII movie that portrays the Germans as the bad guys. That's a new one, aside from the ten-thousand other WWII movies.
Is U571 inaccurate? Sure, the tale told never happened, and the historical events closest to this tale were done by the British, not the Americans. Does that really matter on a sort of ho-hum movie like this, that few watched, even fewer remember, and nobody thinks is anything but mild entertainment? Nope.
I look forward to your review of Pearl Harbor in 2004, though.
Happy April Fools day!
No... That's not right... wait a minute.
Was it entertaining? Yeah. It was entertaining. I don't think it was intended to be a thought-provoking movie, and I don't think it was trying to make any sort of point. If it was, of course, it kind of failed. So? It was entertaining. I liked it.
...did he like it?
...about the movie. Please, don't hold back.
--- There's no place like 127.0.0.1
OMG dude.... if you look at EVERYTHING and ANYTHING you can find words of satan in them. EVEN LOOK AT THE OH HOLY BIBLE!
The reviewer clearly states that the movie was rented. I didn't watch the movie when it was in theatres, haven't rented it yet, and probably never will. At least now I know for sure that I'm no missing anything. Nobody was pretending to be reviewing a brand new movie...
besides, maybe the point is that if they review a movie that's a year old, people won't shit and piss their pants about lone-gunmen-ing it since it's old news.
as for all the "what's happening to slashdot" and otherwise complaining comments, honestly you people need a sense of humour. That review was funny, and it isn't as if there's more than one article every now and then that's "off topic" as far as nerd news goes. settle down.
In typical American style it seems the majority of comments on this sub are about how this movie is "ancient history". Heaven forbid we discuss anything over a week old, especially a movie as crappy as U-571. I just don't get it, I am surprised intelligent people, like those on Slashdot, would stand by while history is re-written in typical Hollywood style. Braveheart, U-571, Gladiator, etc etc all total farces, but our TV watching/taught populous takes it as the word of history. Oh well this society is doomed, we don't know where we come from and have no idea where we are going.
Ok, well this IS a 'geek site'. But c'mon Bill FUCKING Paxton is in this movie! Never heard of him? When's the last time you crawled out from under your rock?
As far as the rest of the review goes, the filmmakers always proclaimed loudly that this movie was historical fiction, not to be taken seriously.
This movie was in many ways not very good, but I don't really see how it was bad enough to warrant a Slashdot review (or a review on any other site, for that matter) approximately 500 years after it was released...
But, since this is also what is done by that bozo Harry Knowles, people probably don't know any better any longer.
* As is generally the case, my opinions do not reflect those of my employer.
So, is it Rocky Horror bad, or just Battlefield Earth atrocious? C'mon now, don't hold back..
I was very happy to see this reference to Threads, which is an absolutely fantastic movie. Please go rent it if you can find it (those of you in Portland OR can get it at Movie Madness). It was released around the same time as "The Day After" but was HIGHLY realistic, a documentary style depiction of the weeks leading up to, the period during, and the months and years following a NATO - Warsaw Pact nuclear exchange which devestates Britain and brings polulation and living conditions back (literally) to the dark ages. VERY VERY highly recommended. (it is also interesting on a historical note, to provide a taste of the zeitgeist from the days of Reagan "Evil Empire" madness and a still existant USSR.)
wow. I was seriously distrubed after reading this review. It is written so poorly it doesnt even begin to pass for a "review". The director's name is constantly misspelled, the attacks on the actors are uncalledfor (he doesnt even mention their names), the metaphors are simply annoying and rendundant, the constant impatient statements stilts the writing and breaks any flow it might have had, etc. etc.
Fortunatly, the review is a spoof. And all those people who posted things about this movie being old should now feel mighty stupid, ESPECIALLY those people that modded those comments up!
-- "Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains." Jean Jacques Rousseau
If Jon Bon Jovi is in it, it's not worth watching.
U-571, Homegrown, Ally McBeal. Yeah, whatever. Move along, nothing to see here.
going on in the world today is there? Esp. to be reviewing an old movie.
Or perhaps, there was some small delay in getting the story posted.
Man, this was probably _THE_ funniest review I ever read, I must bookmark it and read it at least once a month! :-))) You can go to rest now, because you will probably never ever write something that shockingly funny again!
But I think it might have the opposite effect on me: Now I am really interested in seeing this piece of crap, it seems to be the ultimate trash, like 100 times worse than "X-Files - The Movie" (which for a long time was the peak)...
BTW, Wolfgang P. really directed a lot of crappy movies ("Independance Day", "Star Gate"... shiver...) but "Das Boot" _was_ great, no doubt about it. Nice of you to give him credit for it.
Excellence: Moderate (mostly affected by comments on your karma)
LMAO! The story and comments are worth the price of admission. When did slashdot become a humor site?
p.S. I have enjoyed this movie several times since I bought it when it came out on DVD. Not all movies need to be real anyways.
"You do not support the root but the root supports you." - Romans 11:18
YHBT. HAND.
Can we get a spoiler warning next time?
The nerve of some people...
Ah ah ah:
You're so intelligent. Fixing grammar mistakes is a sign of massive genius, you know. I am awed by your brilliant intellect. You, my friend, are a grammar prodigy!
Has anyone ever even made a movie acknowledging Poland's cryptanalytical work during WWII? Does anyone even realise that they were involved?
The heuristic that was previously employed when deciding to see an US warmovie:
if(film.countryoforigin == "U.S."){
fprintf(stderr, "\t Buggers, bound for disappointment\n");
if(film.subtitle == "Based on a true story"){
fprintf(stderr, "\t Historical Inaccurate and U.S. egoboasting film, consider renting The_Postman\n");
if (film.credit == "In Memory of all the American Heroes that did this or that\n"){
fprintf(stderr, "\t Danger Danger\n);
exit(-1);
}
}
}
has been optimised over the last decade:
if(film.countryoforigin == "U.S."){
fprintf(stderr,"\t Don't Bother\n");
exit(-100);
}
Genius doesn't work on an assembly line basis. You can't simply say, "Today I will be brilliant."
*Somebody needs to up his Geritol dosage. IF THE EXPLOSIONS ARE TOO LOUD, YOU'RE TOO OLD.
*Any movie where Bon Jovi is beheaded can't be all that bad!
*Yes, the British cracked Enigma (helpfully provided to them by the Poles). They also subjugated about half the known world at one time. From China to the Middle East the effects of their empire can still be felt. Nobody's making movies about how they effed up the world, but let someone make a fictional movie about Yanks capturing a U-boat and all heck breaks loose.
*Let's try a little moral relativism: the Germans and Japanese were only trying to emulate the British...
do u mean prosecution or persecution. not an attack, just a not for next time
This guy sounds like a less-cynical version of the Filthy Critic.
Filthy has a much better (and filthier) review here: http://www.bigempire.com/filthy/u571.html.
If you watch TV news, you know less about the world than if you just drank gin straight from the bottle.
Go ahead, the British film industry is a joke anyway. I bet more movies get made in Australia.
Where browsing at -1 is worth it.
go figure.
hey, at least the sound effects were cool.
Oh Christ people, it's fiction, it's not supposed to be history. It's a story, people. I guess only the dumb, the incompetent and pissed off movie reviewers would think that they movie makers where doing anything else but trying to tell a fictional story. How much did this reviewer have to drink, and how long has it been since he/she had enough ruffage in their diet?
U571 was no work of art, but it wasn't nearly as bad as perl harbor. I could rant on and on about that tripe, especially if I had a few to drinks.... but hey, I'm not a slashdot movie reviewer.
cluge
"Science is about ego as much as it is about discovery and truth " - I said it, so sue me.
The Bell X-1 in no way was a copy of the M52. It merely copied a large amount of the technology. Unlike the M52, it used primitive rockets rather than an advanced afterburning turbojet; it used a low-tech straight wing rather than the notched-ogive of the M52, which caused severe vibration to the Bell design; and the pilot had little chance of escape whereas the M52 had a jettisonable capsule, like the F-111. On the other hand, the ".50 calibre bullet" shape of the fuselage, and the all-moving tail, were "inspired" by data from the Miles design.
My father was an aerodynamicist working on the Miles M52. Here's the story as I got it from him:
There was an agreement that there should be co-operation between the US and UK on supersonic aircraft research. So the US delegation came over to Miles Aircraft (then working on the "black" M-52 project), and took away lots of data, especially from the wind-tunnel (more advanced than anything else in the world at the time). They also took data about the M-52's all-moving tail, the so-called "all-flying tail". When it came time for the Brits to visit the US, they were told "No can do, our work is Top Secret". Because their new Bell project had suddenly acquired *gasp* an all-flying tail as it turned out. As late as the 90s many Bell corp engineers were still under the impression that this was an All-American Invention.
But the real stinger was when the M-52 got cancelled. All of the calculations, blueprints, test data, special instruments and the analogue computer my Father had invented specifically for stress calculations on supersonic wings, all got bundled into Tea-Chests and sent to Bell Corporation in the USA. OTOH the UK Government got a large loan to help rebuild bomb-damage taken (for the most part) before the US entered WW2.
Links? Ok, try the M52 exhibit at the Museum of Berkshire Aviation. Or the Miles Aircraft history page. A plan view and video is available here.
Shortly before he died, my father met General "Chuck" Jaeger. He was glad to know that his work was put to good use.
The UK Channel 4 made a great documentary about the M52, including some footage of the rocket-powered model that hit Mach 1.5 in tests in the late 40's, after the project had been cancelled.
Zoe Brain - Rocket Scientist
I don't know which is worse; the review or the film? It reads like it was written by a ten year old, or is that degrading ten year olds too much?
do you think that the NASA X-30 looks suspiciously like the cancelled BAe HOTOL project by any chance? Is it official American policy to brook NO competition? Do Americans believe that it was THEY that invented 20thC rocketry and not the Germans? Does American revisionism have ANY limit?
That was classic intercourse!
I have ALOT of issues with "Gone with the Wind", that I will soon be submitting in a 12 page essay form to Slashdot.
Awesome!
The biggest joke of all is the Brits and continental Europeans that think Americans actually take this horseshit seriously. Americans are just making these movies to poke sticks in the eyes of pompous Old World jackasses, and we're laughing our asses off the whole time.
And wait...here's the best part...you show up at the theaters in droves to pay us money for maligning you.
I don't blame the reviewer of. Sure, he's obviously a hack, but the net is full of them. I blame the person who brought this to our attention. If not for him, we would have never wasted our time on this tripe Micheal evidentally thinks is news. Didn't U-571 debute in April of 2000? Two years ago? What the hell happened here!? And if I remeber right, it has already been lambasted on Slashdot once!!! The story isn't news and it sure as heck isn't news and Micheal must be suffering from a labotomy. It's the only explanation I can think of. Or Micheal is actually nothing but an IRC script. No, wait. A script would have pulled a better submission than this crap.
Well, I don't want this to be a total waste of our time, so I'll submit a story of marginally better value. ANTI-CHRIST SEEN IN BABY'S ULTRASOUND!
Oh, and on a side note, I'm sure Brit movies have never twisted history around a bit. Ever.
I think you hit on something when you said too many Americans take the movies as gospel... but it doesn't apply only to Americans. The movies are fictional. If you want to see historical accuracy, watch a documentary.
Movies are for storytelling. Hollywood movies tend to do a good job of that, and that's why they travel so well. Most Americans have enough trouble with the geography of their own country... I wouldn't expect too much ffrom the American masses on telling the difference between reality and fantasy in cinema. This doesn't speak well of the British if they can likewise not see a fictional medium for what it is. Let's not even get into the undereducation of the Arab masses.
This is a medium that has given us everything from Citizen Kane to Howard the Duck(woah... never knew anthropomorphic ducks walked the streets... America must be an odd place), The Thin Man to Miller's Crossing(everyone in the thirties in Chicago and New York were either thugs, bosses, molls, or policemen), Indiana Jones to Foreign Correspondent(not only was a big part of WWII concerned with finding the lost ark, but Nazi spy operations were thwarted by reporters falling in love with the daughters of Nazi agents).
The other problem(besides the confused idea of the nature of the movies) is that very few people seem to be able to glean good information from a fictional source. The main characters in Braveheart were, for the most part, real people. The garb was designed to be accurate, as were the weapons. Braveheart and The Patriot were both based in real historical periods. They have to have that basis strong enough to justify our suspension of disbelief, yet still be entertaining.
There exists such a thing as Artistic License. Learn it.
This is my sig. It's prescription, I swear. I need it for reading things... on the other side of things
"It Steam-engines come steam-engine time." . There are only so many right ways to do things. Not every design that looks identical is a copy.
Yes, it IS American policy to brook no competition. Can't blame them for that, just make sure that they don't get away with it.
BTW it would be a good idea for the benefit of lurkers to give some links to the subjects under discussion. For example, the X-30 also here looks rather like the German "Saenger" rather than a HOTOL.
Zoe Brain - Rocket Scientist
I've had submissions rejected before and been unfazed, even if I saw another on the same news item or subject surface soon after. But to run with this "story" when I know there's probably dozens of far superior submissions that went unpublished ...
Bleh, it's bad enough that Jon Katz is given a regular slot on the front page ...
Nothing against the review, it's just that it was an insignificant movie that came out two years ago ... not a very newsworthy piece on a site that brands itself "News for Nerds. Stuff that matters" ....
AZspot
He's the frickin' captain! He lied about being the electrician!
Sheesh, if the original reviewer is too thick even to pick that up, it's no mystery why it took him two years to write the review!
Dont you have anything better to do with your time than beat up a movie that came years ago? Here is a suggestion... get a life...
I'm not commenting on the review, but I thought this little historical detail might interest those of you who follow such things.
While the capture of a German Enigma device greatly aided the allies in deciphering high-level German Communiques, The British had already been able to crack the enigma code for years. It began with what is arguably the first paralell processing electronic computer ever made called Collossus. It was just that cracking even one small communication could take days, whereas the posession of the machine allowed much faster translation and therefore much more valuable information. If you want to read more about this computer which preceeded WWII, Ira Flatoe writes an excellent essay about it in his book, "They All Luaghed."
Andonyx www.andonyx.com
*cough* It's a Terminator film, dumbass! Have you even seen the first two? Let's see. The first one stars... Arnold "I'll be back" Swartzenager, and the second one stars... yes, Arnold. Since when could Arnold act? He was a body builder. A female model would be -perfect-.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
The fact that James Cameron isn't directing it can only make it better.
He's from Region 15 and doesn't have DeCSS. They only got it yesterday and they didn't even get the Criterion special edition with Hilary Rosen's subliminal commentary.
Xix.
"Everything is adjustable, provided you have the right tools"
First things first; I am a British citizen. I do not speak for all British citizens but then again those that say "Fucking Americans/revisionists/liars" and the like do not speak for all British citizens.
Hollywood is the Entertainment industry. For those of you who missed the emphasis it is the Entertainment industry. An industry whose soul purpose is to make money from, I'll point it out again, ENTERTAINMENT. This means that they are not bound to, but at the same time are not forbidden from following, historical fact.
If legislation was to be introduced whereby all cinematic recreation must follow historical axiom (I have more pretentious phrases - you just wait) which sort of people will attend the cinema. It will be archaeological societies in sandals, beige socks and stripy woollen jumpers (sweaters for out transatlantic chums). Even then the will fiercely debate (split infinitive for those who are following - naughty) the colours of threads in the wall tapestries.
Should sci/spec-fi be subject to such analysis? Take, for example, 2001: Set in, bizarrely enough, 2001. This has now passed. Is 2001 now a historical film? Should this be subject to the same flaming as experienced by The Patriot, Braveheart or U-571?
I'll summarise here because I know the only person who will read this far will be me when I preview it - even then I'm not sure I'll get that far. It is entertainment, the idea is that you watch the film and are entertained by it. The fact that it has caused you to piss and moan about the historical flaws is a by-product of you missing the entire point. How would it affect the box-office takings by advertising a film as "A rough summary of events that may or may not have taken place on the 7th of December 1941. This film contains scenes and storylines that did not occur during the days surrounding the 7/12/1941 (12/7/1941 as per your choice)" as opposed to "It was the end of innocence, and the dawn of a nation's greatest glory." The films in question do not purport to be historic fact. If you feel the need you can watch the credits until you get to the part that begins "This film is entirely fictuous...". That's a big fucking clue there.
Liam
--
The opinions contained in this document are in no way expressed.
...as you can see here:7 1&hl=de &lr=&selm=20020305113829.03924.00001407%40mb-ck.ne ws.cs.com&rnum=3
http://groups.google.de/groups?q=naval+U-5
"Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master."
The Great Escape already is americanised... in the historical event, no americans went through the tunnel at all.
Care to back those claims up? I live in America. Better yet, I live in New York City. I learned in kidergarten that when people hurl insults at you, it is most often an indication that they want you to pay attention to them. In the case of Euro-peons, constant griping about Americans is displaced envy. It's rough being a loser, isn't it? Life sucks (for you).
U-571 was no groundbreaker, but i enjoyed the movie
... U-571 had my wife holding her breath in the theater while the depth charges rained down so that's worth the price of admission right there.
And anyway, Crimson Tide still holds the title of "Worst Submarine Movie Ever" so why pick on U-571?
I'd like to invoke Godwin's Law and end this thread now.
Maybe someone can just add a godwin's law filter to slash?
if (/hitler|nazi/) { die "Godwin's law exception!"; }
<?php while ($self != "asleep") { $sheep_count++; } ?>
It is informative. Really. Check it out for yourself in the history books.
Everybody knows that we are the evil boys, making noise with deadly toys.
Some threads here were complaining about not enough truth in hollywood stories. Hahaha, you guys are joking right? I just watched Blade2. I can assure you that Hollywood is not in the history business. If you want history, watch the history channel. If you want entertainment, watch hollywood movies. You act as if they are the dumb ones because they didn't get the facts right when it was the people who thought it was a factual movie who are actually dumb.
So next time you get irked at a hollywood movie that takes place in the past and you notice something out of place. Follow these steps.
1.) Insert buttery popcorn in mouth
2.) Remove stick from ass
I haven't laughed so much in a long time. I was sitting here giggling like a little girl. Good stuff. keep em coming. And the people take this so seriously. I agree 100% with him. The one and only good submarine film I have ever seen is "Das Boot". The director managed to capture the claustrophobic feeling like no other film I have ever seen. The only piece of crap in "Das Boot" was the German token "They weren't all Nazis" effort where the whole crew hates the nazi political officer. But the film was good. Most submarine movies, especially the made for TV ones, all seem to be filmed in the same deserted warehouse.
Yawn yawn,
Take a true story about Britian and re-cast as though America is the hero.
Who give's a stuff, maybe it made the US feel better about Pearl Harbour.
My appolgies for our Winstan Churchill keeping that under his hat, but we needed your men for the D-day landings.
It seems only a large tragedy can get the US involved with helping any one but its self.
regards, Jon Hutson