Rescue Dawn (2006)
A US Fighter pilot’s epic struggle of survival after being shot down on a mission over Laos during the Vietnam War. Christian Bale, Steve Zahn. Directed by Werner Herzog. Sundance Channel. 9:00 PM EST (and again at 3:15 AM EST).
This is obviously a new one, but is and will remain a classic. If you missed in theaters, catch it on Sundance tomorrow evening. Christian Bale is his usual great self and the criminally underrated Steve Zahn more than pulls his weight as an American POW at the beginning of the Vietnam War who escapes with Bale trying to make it to freedom. This is based on the true story (though it is Hollywood not history) of Dieter Dengler who was shot down while on a classified bombing mission over Laos and captured. This has all the classic elements of a great story… man, nature, etc. — a great movie and none of the Vietnam sucker punches. Dengler is in fact a patriot who loved America and appreciates what she has done for him. Herzog had made a documentary back in 1997 called Little Dieter Needs to Fly about Dengler and was inspired to make the film. Also on Sundance at 12:45 AM EST is David Lynch’s debut — and vastly weird Eraserhead. Post-apocalypse like you’ve never quite seen it.
TCM is continuing its Fred and Ginger trip tomorrow night, but I wanted to tip y’all off to Rescue Dawn.
Print
Digg
StumbleUpon
del.icio.us
Facebook
Yahoo! Buzz
Twitter
Google Bookmarks
Google Buzz
LinkedIn
MSN Reporter
MySpace
Orkut
Ping.fm
Reddit
RSS
Slashdot
Technorati
Tumblr
Webnews.de
With no offense to our (and my) good friend Jack Marino, this is THE best Vietnam War movie I think I’ll ever see. Bummer about not having the Sundance Channel (or maybe not so bad a thing), but as a proud owner of the DVD, pretty obvious where I stand. Great call, Floyd!!!!
I’ve got the DVD…great movie.Dengler,a German,talks about loving America because it gave him a chance to fly.Good stuff.