So, there was this one trailer before Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull I saw that totally sucked me in . . .
I imagine very few of you actually saw it, either.
So it starts off with the usual thing with Mr. Voiceover going "It was a time of innocence..." and then a sequence with a soldier asking a girl out and her response of "I don't dance with soldiers...". Mr. Voiceover then goes "...a time of love..."
So I'm thinking, "Greaaaaat, another grand war film with a super-cheesy romance in there as well . . ." Naturally the next little while keeps it up with soldier-boy and the girl yakkin' it up. I couldn't see the uniform clearly enough, though . . .
"It was a time of war..."
Bam. Marching uniforms. And the Alliance film logo.
Okay, British saucer-helmets, cool, cool, at least it's not another American war film (not to rag on 'em, but y'know, it's a nice change). Next, dirty, dirty, cratered fields . . . oh cool! World War 1! Nice, nice, there aren't too many crazy epic movies about that these days . . .
Officer walking down street with another guy mentions a thing about recruitment being the main issue . . . heh, that sounds kinda familiar but totally not likely . . . Union Jacks all around, neat . . . missed the other flag in there, though . . .
Then some more people start talking. Wait a minute . . . that's not a British accent . . . but during more romance-type bits the guy's definitely wearing a British uniform . . . I think . . . . it's not American, that's for sure . . . . .
. . . oh, the girl became a battlefield nurse. Alright, clever, clever . . .
"One nation found its heroes..."
. . . . . that doesn't sound like something that the British would say. They have plenty of heroes . . .
Then some guys talk about the location of the focus battle . . .
Passchendaele.
I remember my war history pretty well. And Passchendaele was one of the big battles that Canadians fought and that's why we learned about it so much. But seriously, the scale of this movie could not be . . . but anyway, just so you get a full sense of the eventual smash to the audience's collective face, I'll just quote the trailer (which I just found, thank goodness):
"This party we call Passchendaele started three months ago... The job of breaking out falls to the only outfit in this entire circus that seems capable of getting anything done and that's us... The Canadian Corps."
No way. No. Fucking. Way.
Holy fuck! Giant, epic-scale CANADIAN war movie!
"Their Story is Our Story..."
And really, by this point I was just glued to the screen as it all scrolled by. And I pretty much shit my pants right then and there. And then it just kept getting better and better.
More dialogue comes up from a guy: "Y'know they got a name for us, the enemy... they call us stormtroopers."
Fuuuuuuuck yes. And y'know, I'm even gonna roll with this romantic side-story as well, 'cause as contrived as those are, I'm seeing a lot of explosions, machine-guns, and guys crossing en masse over No-Man's Land. So . . . yeah. This is gonna be amazing and I'm totally pumped and excited about this. Like, the last Canadian war film I saw was "Dieppe" which was more of a 2-part made-for-tv deal. It did the job, but it was extremely low-budget, you never even saw the Germans they attacked at the beach . . . in contrast, "Passchendaele" has guys in both uniforms all over the trailer, so I'm happy.
The movie is "Passchendaele", it was filmed in Alberta and in Belgium, it's due this fall . . . and I need you all to now watch this trailer linked from the film's homepage:
http://www.passchendaelethemovie.com/
As an extra sweetener, I think everyone whom I've ever wished a happy birthday will get a gigantic smile over one fairly well-highlighted line of speech in there. As you can tell, this movie was pretty much destined for me to see it.
