1980: "The Big Red One"

                              I like war movies, though I find the genre to be stale most of the time, because there's only so many times you can tell the same story: war is bad. Unless you have strong characters and narratives, war movies can only regurgitate the same harrowing themes without seeming fresh.
                             Samuel Fuller (an unpretentious director mostly known for directing well-received B-movies) directed his passion project that was also semi-autobiographical and is often considered the finest movie he ever made.
                           
                             The Big Red One is an episodic war movie following the lives of five men (with Lee Marvin as their captain; in one of his best roles, I might add) of the Sixteenth Regiment of the 1st Infantry Division (known by its nickname as the Big Red One). It follows them through some of the major events of World War II (it jumps from the African campaign to the Sicily invasion to D-Day to the invasion of Germany to the Holocaust).                        
                             This is a solid war movie. In fact, it's one of the finest World War II movies ever made and sadly overlooked in the canon.
                             What makes The Big Red One refreshing in this stale genre is that it's grand in its sweep while remaining a small-scale B-movie (the movie had a four million dollar budget, which is rather scant for a war movie). It is not a stylistic movie with sweeping wide shots or elaborate battle sequences. It is plain, unadorned, and unsentimental. It does not glorify war nor does it condemn it either. It presents the life of a soldier as grunt work. When we see the regiment transition from one major military campaign to the next, it is presented as just another job. We see the engaging camaraderie between the soldiers (I was reminded of movies like The Dirty Dozen and The Great Escape with its moments of patriotism and humor) and the more harrowing sides of war. It manages to balance both tones very well, since I have to imagine that is what war is most of the time (moments of levity followed by moments of horror). Fuller respects his audience enough to let them view the war however the way they want to (as most movie often take the easier anti-war route).
                           It also has a rather idiosyncratic cast of actors, from Mark Hamill (who is riding the crest of the Star Wars wave around this period), to Robert Carradine (of Revenge of the Nerds fame; he also provides the voice-over narration), to Kelly Ward (Putzie from Grease). They are not A-list actors so we are not overly distracted by them.

                          I've heard there is a much longer cut of this movie which I am curious to get my hands on. I think the movie works perfectly fine at its 113-minute running time (the longer cut is supposed to be  47 minutes longer).