War Horse (2011)

Set against a sweeping canvas of rural England and Europe during the First World War, War Horse begins with the remarkable friendship between a horse named Joey and a young man called Albert, who tames and trains him. When they are forcefully parted, the film follows the extraordinary journey of the horse as he moves through the war, changing and inspiring the lives of all those he meets-British cavalry, German soldiers, and a French farmer and his granddaughter-before the story reaches its emotional climax in the heart of No Man's Land. The First World War is experienced through the journey of this horse-an odyssey of joy and sorrow, passionate friendship and high adventure. --(C) Dreamworks

IMDB: 7.2 

Tomatoes: 77% 

                            

 

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The Thin Red Line (1998)

The return of director Terrence Malick to feature film making after a twenty year sabbatical, this World War II drama is an elegiac rumination on man's destruction of nature and himself, based on James Jones' semi-autobiographical novel, his follow-up to From Here to Eternity. James Caviezel stars as Private Witt, a deserter living in peace and harmony with the natives of a Pacific island paradise. Captured by the Navy, Witt is debriefed by a senior officer (Sean Penn) and returned to an active duty unit preparing for what will be the Battle of Guadalcanal. As Witt goes ashore in the company of his fellow soldiers, they meet diverse fates. Sergeant Keck (Woody Harrelson) is killed by an exploding grenade. Captain John Gaff (John Cusack) is an intelligent, sober leader facing the destruction of his command because his commanding officer Colonel Tall (Nick Nolte) is bucking for a general's star. Sergeant McCron (John Savage) loses his mind. Private Bell (Ben Chaplin) gets a "Dear John" letter from his beloved wife. However, as the U.S. troops advance up grassy slopes toward entrenched Japanese positions, it is Witt's voiced-over ruminations on life, death, and nature that are the real heart and soul of The Thin Red Line (1998). Adrien Brody appears as Private Fife, the major character of Jones' novel and the author's alter-ego, although Fife has been relegated to a minor supporting role by Malick's filmed adaptation.

IMDB: 7.6 

Tomatoes: 78%

 

 

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Act of Valor (2012)

 

An unprecedented blend of real-life heroism and original filmmaking, Act of Valor stars a group of active-duty U.S. Navy SEALs in a film like no other in Hollywood's history. A fictionalized account of real life Navy SEAL operations, Act of Valor features a gripping story that takes audiences on an adrenaline-fueled, edge-of-their-seat journey. When a mission to recover a kidnapped CIA operative unexpectedly results in the discovery of an imminent, terrifying global threat, an elite team of highly trained Navy SEALs must immediately embark on a heart-stopping secret operation, the outcome of which will determine the fate of us all. Act of Valor combines stunning combat sequences, up-to-the-minute battlefield technology, and heart-pumping emotion for the ultimate action adventure film-showcasing the skills, training and tenacity of the greatest action heroes of them all: real Navy SEALs. -- (C) Relativity

IMDB: 6.5 

Tomatoes:  25%

 

 

 

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Canto XII from The Heights of Macchu Picchu

Arise to birth with me, my brother.
Give me your hand out of the depths
sown by your sorrows.
You will not return from these stone fastnesses.
You will not emerge from subterranean time.
Your rasping voice will not come back,
nor your pierced eyes rise from their sockets.

Look at me from the depths of the earth,
tiller of fields, weaver, reticent shepherd,
groom of totemic guanacos,
mason high on your treacherous scaffolding,
iceman of Andean tears,
jeweler with crushed fingers,
farmer anxious among his seedlings,
potter wasted among his clays--
bring to the cup of this new life
your ancient buried sorrows.
Show me your blood and your furrow;
say to me: here I was scourged
because a gem was dull or because the earth
failed to give up in time its tithe of corn or stone.
Point out to me the rock on which you stumbled,
the wood they used to crucify your body.
Strike the old flints
to kindle ancient lamps, light up the whips
glued to your wounds throughout the centuries
and light the axes gleaming with your blood.

I come to speak for your dead mouths.

Throughout the earth
let dead lips congregate,
out of the depths spin this long night to me
as if I rode at anchor here with you.

And tell me everything, tell chain by chain,
and link by link, and step by step;
sharpen the knives you kept hidden away,
thrust them into my breast, into my hands,
like a torrent of sunbursts,
an Amazon of buried jaguars,
and leave me cry: hours, days and years,
blind ages, stellar centuries.

And give me silence, give me water, hope.

Give me the struggle, the iron, the volcanoes.

Let bodies cling like magnets to my body.

Come quickly to my veins and to my mouth.
Speak through my speech, and through my blood.

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Death by John Donne

Death be not proud, though some have called thee 
Mighty and dreadfull, for, thou art not so, 
For, those, whom thou think'st, thou dost overthrow, 
Die not, poore death, nor yet canst thou kill me. 
From rest and sleepe, which but thy pictures bee, 
Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow, 
And soonest our best men with thee doe goe, 
Rest of their bones, and soules deliverie. 
Thou art slave to Fate, Chance, kings, and desperate men, 
And dost with poyson, warre, and sicknesse dwell, 
And poppie, or charmes can make us sleepe as well, 
And better then thy stroake; why swell'st thou then; 
One short sleepe past, wee wake eternally, 
And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die.

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Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley

I met a traveller from an antique land 
Who said:—Two vast and trunkless legs of stone 
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand, 
Half sunk, a shatter'd visage lies, whose frown 
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command 
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read 
Which yet survive, stamp'd on these lifeless things, 
The hand that mock'd them and the heart that fed. 
And on the pedestal these words appear: 
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: 
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!" 
Nothing beside remains: round the decay 
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare, The lone and level sands stretch far away.

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O Captain! My Captain! by Walt Whitman

O CAPTAIN! my Captain! our fearful trip is done; 
The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won; 
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting, 
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring: 
But O heart! heart! heart! 
O the bleeding drops of red, 
Where on the deck my Captain lies, 
Fallen cold and dead. 

O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells; 
Rise up—for you the flag is flung—for you the bugle trills; 
For you bouquets and ribbon’d wreaths—for you the shores a-crowding; 
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning; 
Here Captain! dear father! 
This arm beneath your head; 
It is some dream that on the deck, 
You’ve fallen cold and dead. 

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still; 
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will; 
The ship is anchor’d safe and sound, its voyage closed and done; 
From fearful trip, the victor ship, comes in with object won; 
Exult, O shores, and ring, O bells! 
But I, with mournful tread, 
Walk the deck my Captain lies, 
Fallen cold and dead.

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How Do I Love Thee? by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. 
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height 
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight 
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace. 
I love thee to the level of everyday’s 
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light. 
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right; 
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise. 
I love thee with the passion put to use 
In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith. 
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose 
With my lost saints,—I love thee with the breath, 
Smiles, tears, of all my life!—and, if God choose, 
I shall but love thee better after death.

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Ode on a Grecian Urn by John Keats

Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness, 
Thou foster-child of Silence and slow Time, 
Sylvan historian, who canst thus express 
A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme: 
What leaf-fringed legend haunts about thy shape 
Of deities or mortals, or of both, 
In Tempe or the dales of Arcady? 
What men or gods are these? What maidens loth? 
What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape? 
What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy? 

Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard 
Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on; 
Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear'd, 
Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone: 
Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave 
Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare; 
Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss, 
Though winning near the goal—yet, do not grieve; 
She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss, 
For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair! 

Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed 
Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu; 
And, happy melodist, unwearièd, 
For ever piping songs for ever new; 
More happy love! more happy, happy love! 
For ever warm and still to be enjoy'd, 
For ever panting, and for ever young; 
All breathing human passion far above, 
That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy'd, 
A burning forehead, and a parching tongue. 

Who are these coming to the sacrifice? 
To what green altar, O mysterious priest, 
Lead'st thou that heifer lowing at the skies, 
And all her silken flanks with garlands drest? 
What little town by river or sea-shore, 
Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel, 
Is emptied of its folk, this pious morn? 
And, little town, thy streets for evermore 
Will silent be; and not a soul, to tell 
Why thou art desolate, can e'er return. 

O Attic shape! fair attitude! with brede 
Of marble men and maidens overwrought, 
With forest branches and the trodden weed; 
Thou, silent form! dost tease us out of thought 
As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral! 
When old age shall this generation waste, 
Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe 
Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st, 
'Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all 
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.'

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