FlasshePoint

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Pride of the Valkyries

Posted on | January 1, 2009 at 4:04 pm | 4 Comments

ValkyrieThe girlfriend bought me a movie theater gift card for Christmas (among other things), so since I’ve been on vacation this week I availed myself of its use and went to see the latest Tom Cruise revival vehicle Valkyrie. I kind of wanted to seen The Curious Case of Benjamin B*tton more, but since that’s one that N wants to see too, I choose the historical suspense thriller instead. Plus, Sue says that B*tton has some material that I would find objectionable.

I’ve been really interested in finding out more about this Hitler-assassination plot since I first saw it dramatically rendered in an old Winds of War (or whatever) miniseries. The movie goes into a lot more detail about the plot than the TV show I saw, and I realized there was a quite a bit I didn’t know about it. For example, the movie spends a lot of time setting up the plan for what would happen after Hitler’s death, which in some ways is more important than the actual assassination itself. The German resistance was interested in not only offing Hitler, but in stopping the war and preserving Germany. It doesn’t do much good to chop off the head if the body continues on its bloody way. So I was fascinated to see the details on all that, and was really surprised to see how the conspirators even got Hitler to (literally) sign off on part of the plan to bring him down. The resistance came amazingly close to achieving their objectives and were done in by a few pieces of bad luck, including a table leg. It’s really edge-of-the-seat stuff.

I wasn’t totally convinced by Cruise’s portrayal of chief conspirator Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg, although I do have to say he bears an amazing resemblance to him. Director Bryan Singer made the decision to have everyone act using their own accents instead of a German one, in order to keep dialog distractions at a minimum. I can see why he did it, but it ends up sounding odd, especially since Cruise is one of the few people with an American accent, and most of the rest have British ones. Even though Cruise is in nearly every scene, he at least doesn’t dominate the picture as much as you’d think. There’s some nice ensemble acting. Bill Nighy does a great job losing himself in the role of General Friedrich Olbricht, and I didn’t even recognize Kenneth Brannagh until the end credits rolled.

I had a good time and was fitfully entertained. I just wish I hadn’t drunk a big old pop and had to pee really bad for the last half hour or so. I didn’t want to miss any of the movie. I gotta stop doing that!

I found it interesting that the admonishments before the movie about not talking and turning off your cell phone now include warnings about “texting”. The times, they are a-changing.

Happy New Year, everyone! Latre.

Pet Peeve of the Day: Actually, this one’s a major peeve. The theaters that I go to now have changed the way they serve soft pretzels. It used to be they heated them up in a toaster oven-like thing, like they do at pretzel stands in the mall. Now, they heat them in a microwave inside a bag. They give you a couple of packets of coarse salt along with the pretzel inside the bag, and you’re supposed to add the salt to the bag yourself and shake it up so that the salt covers the pretzel. Not only does this method inadequately coat the pretzel with the salt, but microwaving soft pretzels results in a less than satisfactory culinary experience, especially after they start to get cold. Guess I’ll have to switch to popcorn.

Unknown Fact Search Term Of The Day That Led To This Blog: “peepios are cereal with apple juice in it.”.

Videogame(s) Played Recently: Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia (DS). Massive addiction to this game!

Comments

4 Responses to “Pride of the Valkyries”

  1. DMR
    January 2nd, 2009 @ 2:58 am

    I enjoyed Valkyrie, too – both the History and Military Channels should be spitting out every documentary they have on Hitler assassination attempts now. I think Mythbusters did a recreation to see if the table leg made the difference, and if the 2nd charge would have done the job (yes, and yes – although this wasn’t so much an investigation of a myth as taking an opportunity to blow something up, repeatedly).

    It’s funny how you can get caught up in the excitement as if just maybe they’ll pull it off. But, it was good to see a Hollywood production that didn’t gratuitously change history. If Ridley Scott had done the movie, Hitler might have been offed and the war would have been brought to a swift and harmonious conclusion. And, of course, Russel Crowe would have played Stauffenberg. ;-)

    It’s fascinating that Hitler had a plan in place to handle an attempt by his beloved SS should they get too power hungry. Not surprising, though, especially if you know what he and the SS did to the SA early on.

  2. Flasshe
    January 2nd, 2009 @ 7:18 am

    I believe the TV show you’re thinking of is Unsolved History from the Discovery Channel (at least according to this article. “The results supported the conclusion that Hitler would have been killed had any of the three other scenarios occurred [2nd bomb, stronger shelter, moving briefcase to the other side of the strong table leg].”

    Ridley Scott would never tamper with history!!

  3. d.w.
    January 4th, 2009 @ 12:57 pm

    Rog, not even switching to popcorn will save you. While most of the big chains in this area have started supplying scary-but-yummy yellow-orange oh-hell-yes-I-completely-believe-it’s-not-butter in a consumer-accessible heated dispenser at the concession stand, they don’t add _any_ of the aforementioned liquid to the popcorn when they fill the bag, which means all the yummy-yet-deadly goodness is concentrated at the top of the bag and there’s virtually none in the lower two-thirds of the bag. We’ve taken to wolfing down the upper layers of popcorn while the previews play, then making a desperation dash to the counter to replenish the Yellow Magic before the feature properly starts.

  4. Flasshe
    January 4th, 2009 @ 1:58 pm

    You just reminded me I need to relisten to my Yellow Magic Orchestra CDs sometime.

    Those self-buttersubstance dispensers are one reason I switched to pretzels in the first place. If I’m going to subject my body to the toxic yellow goo, then I want to cover every kernel in the deadly sludge, not just the ones on the top.

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