Everything I know about WWII, I learned from movies. Oh! And video games.

I ventured down to the DFT again over the weekend, this time to see Zwartboek, aka Black Book. You know, the WWII movie by Paul Verhoeven. Yeah, the guy who did Robocop. Yeah, he did Starship Troopers too. Yeah, and Showgirls. Verhoeven went back to his native Holland to make this movie about the Dutch resistance in WWII. A movie that would be the most expensive Dutch movie ever made, not to mention the highest grossing.

It all starts in 1956 Israel. A Dutch woman on a Holy Land tour runs into an old friend from back in the war. The friend is teaching a class in Hebrew, and much to our Dutch friend's surprise, is Jewish!

The teacher is the former Rachael Stein, a German Jew. We flashback to 1944, Rachael lives in a farm house with a family who forces her to recite scripture in order to be fed. When the farmhouse is inadvertently bombed, she must go on the run again. It's at this time that she meets up with a man who tells her about a way to escape to freedom. All she needs is to be ready and bring all her money. It's at this time that she is reunited with her family to make the crossing. The crossing, however, is a rouse to kill and rob the Jews! Rachael is the only survivor on the massacre.

Fun Fact! Jews were persecuted in WWII

Rachael then ends up joining the Dutch resistance and is instrumental in smuggling in insulin and wire tapping the office of a high ranking Nazi. She also manages to fall in love with a different high ranking Nazi. The shit, however, hits the proverbial fan when he finds out that she's a Jew and might be working against the Nazi's. She gives him some info, but when he tries to use it, it gets turned around on him and he gets arrested by a German Howie Mandel.

In the subsequent jailbreak, a number of Dutch resistance members are killed and the Nazi's use the wire tap to make it appear that Rachael tipped them off. Now, the Nazi's plan to kill her, and the Dutch want her dead too! Once again, though, she manages to escape from the German's to freedom.

When the liberation comes, she and her Nazi boyfriend are still on the run. Now they have to avoid the Dutch themselves. As she starts to collect information to clear her name, her lawyer gets killed, her boyfriend gets arrested and she gets captured.

It's really kind of sad, the poor girl can't catch a break throughout the movie. Every time things look up, they dump more shit on her. Everyone who tries to befriend of help her ends up worse for it. It's as though she's cursed. You're really rooting for her the entire movie, but she just can't catch a break.

Verhoeven, in his commentary for Starship Troopers said that he was trying to convey the message that "war makes fascists of us all." It's a message that he was sort of coy about in Starship Troopers, but comes right out and beats you over the head with in Black Book. No one is innocent in this movie, everyone is sinning and everyone is only looking out for themselves. If it means working with the Nazi's to kill and rob rich Jews, then so be it. Who says you can't work with the Nazi's and be a hero of the resistance? It's okay to fuck everyone over so long as you can save your own son, right? Everyone has their motives for the things that they do. everything is justifiable.

It really was an amazing movie, and if you get the chance, check it out. 8 greedy bastards locked in coffin while they try to escape justice for their crimes out of 10.

dreamrot's favorite movies week: day 4: Starship Troopers

If ever there was a movie that could be called "my kind of movie" Starship Troopers would fall into that category.

Think about it. It's in outer space. There a giant fuck off monster bugs. It has Johnny Mnemonic's Dina Meyer. Shit gets blown up. And Neil Patrick Harris controls ferrets...with his mind!

Come on you apes. You want to live forever?

It's the story of Johnnie, or Rico as we'll call him. Rico is that good looking athlete from high school who had the All-American smile but was quite possibly dumb as a brick. A retarded brick. Sorry. That wasn't very PC of me. An autistic brick. Whatever.

Rico decides to join the Army along with his lady friend Carmen and chess club champion Carl. Carl gets assigned to Military Intelligence. Carmen is off to become a pilot. Rico is off, however, to catch the short bus to Mobile Infantry.

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Rico starts basic with the typical tough as nails drill sergeant. Along for the ride is Flores, who had a huge crush on Rico in high school. There's also your cocky recruit named Ace. Ace is that guy who's not so much sure of himself as he is full of himself.

Meanwhile Carmen is serving under Captain Janeway while learning how to pilot a spaceship. Word on the street is that she's a little "wild on the stick" but that's a much different movie.

Back in basic, Rico is showing everyone what he's got, even making squad command, right up until he gets a guy killed. In return he gets "administrative punishment". In other words the go all sorts of Kunta Kinte on him (though in a reversal of that famous scene, the guy whipping Rico is black). Rico decides that maybe this Army shit ain't for him. When his home is destroyed by an asteroid though, he changes his mind.

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Earth and Klendathu are at war now. Rico's platoon is about to be deployed, and he's now on the same ship as Carmen. They're kind of broken up at this point. And, she's kinda with another guy. And Rico and the new guy don't exactly like each other. But does the old guy EVER like the new guy? No.

The troops begin to be deployed at Klendathu while the bugs launch their blue doodies into space to destroy the invading forces. It's an all out assault on the planet. It takes a lot of bullets to kill these things. Apparently, in the future, there is now Raid. There's no bug bombs. None of those little glue traps. You kill bugs with your foot, or advanced military grade weaponry. Those are your options so you better be damn agile if there's a spider on your ceiling.

The first wave of fighting goes pretty poorly for our infantry pals. Lots of casualties, and I'm not just talking about their pride. People get fucked up and killed. Even Rico gets punctured in the attack. Luckily, back on the ship, they're able to put him into a jar of jelly to heal.

Did you see the size of that chicken?

It's off to a new platoon and a new battle. Rico makes corporal until he dies, or the Lieutenant finds someone better. When the Sargent dies, Rico gets promoted again. The next battle results in the death of Diz and the Lieutenant. And another promotion for Rico. They're Rico's Roughnecks now.

The whole movie plays like a propaganda film. It's sort of like Saving Private Ryan meets Saved By The Bell meets Star Wars. If the army made a movie this good about Iraq, even my pacifist ass would consider it. I remember seeing this in the theater and being all excited when I left. It was so much fun. And really, there's two ways to go on it. There's director Paul Verhoeven's stated theme of "War makes fascists of us all," which there may be some truth to. I mean, people get so anti-"enemy" in war time that it can be rather scary. One could also watch this and see something very pro-military. Something that is very gung-ho and just an average action movie.

My take is that it's satire. It's a send up of war movies. It's so blatantly propaganda. That's what makes it fun. That and the bugs are a lot like zombies. I mean they're almost unstoppable. And there's so many of them. They swarm.

What's great, too, is think back to 97, think of the movies that were coming out. CGI was good, but not exactly great. The effects in Starship Troopers still look good. It's one of those flicks like Jurassic Park or Star Wars where the effects will always look great.

Starship Troopers gets 9 citizens with the courage to make the safety of the human race their personal responsibility out of 10.