Vietnam at the Movies
As a career army officer and Vietnam veteran, the author brings important insights to this excellent compilation. His evaluation of "accuracy" is especially valuable: the depiction of the helicopter assault in Apocalypse Now (1979) is judged authentic, but the Russian roulette matches in The Deer Hunter (1978) are deemed fallacious. The essays in the first half of the book explore familiar themes (e.g., the returning veteran) and provide lists of films appropriate for each category, while the second half is an annotated A-Z guide to the films, including old potboilers. The analyses are lively and opinionated, with salty interjections and vivid evaluations such as this comment about Apocalypse Now: "Surrealism or not, anyone believing that Brando and his men would hang bodies and body parts around their camp has never smelled a ripe corpse on a warm Southeast Asian afternoon." Like the war, this has rough edges. Highly recommended.Richard W. Grefrath, Univ. of Nevada Lib., RenoCopyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.