I’m genuinely and pleasantly shocked at how well “1917” is doing in its opening weekend at the US box office. Between the esoteric subject matter and the fact that there are zero American soldiers involved, it usually would mean domestic box office poison.

I’ll be watching this next weekend for sure.

For comparison, “Midway” only made 18 million on its opening weekend and it was World War 2 which is a much more popular war when it comes to movies AND it involved Americans. Go figure.

If you're targeting a somewhat adult crowd, don't overdo with the explosions ... is the lesson I'd take from this.

True but the majority of films in the US that target an adult crowd don't do very well commercially. I think what helped "1917" greatly here was the large amount of social media buzz from the Golden Globes award wins as well as positive word of mouth from critics.


Having said that, Chris Nolan also had great box office success in the US with "Dunkirk" which I was also convinced was not going to do well in the US.

We saw 1917 two weeks ago.

My opinion of it is the same as my opinion of Dunkirk.

You don't want to hear my opinion of either film.

That's fine but also realize that the personal opinion of one viewer is a totally different subject from what sells and doesn't sell to a mainstream audience in the US. One thing I do find very interesting is that both "1917" and "Dunkirk" are not traditional war films in that the story-telling mechanisms used are not conventional. In the case of "1917" it was the "single shot" perspective of the cinematography and in the case of "Dunkirk" it was the scenes being played out of sequence in the timeline.

I saw 1917 with two friends this past Monday--one in his early 50's and the other late 60's. I just turned 74 this past November. We all quite liked it and thought it quite well done. The effect of the supposed one-shot camera work was amazing. It's more of an action/adventure quest set against the backdrop of WWI rather than what I would call a pure war flick. There's very little actual combat action other than a few encounters that the main protagonists run into in their quest to deliver a message calling off a doomed attack.

I did not care much for Dunkirk by the way. The use of vignette storytelling just did not work to give an epic overall feel.

However, I think 1917 may do well in the awards department. Whether one buys the premise or not that two corporals were picked out by a general to hand-deliver a message because all the phone lines were out--the story of their quest is still wonderfully told. It's the first action movie I've seen in a while that I did not have to suspend a lot a logic to follow and enjoy.

Cheers

I learned in 1917 that Germans can't shoot and that ditching your rifle isn't that bad of an idea.

I liked it till the stair case, then it went down till the woods scene.

I want one of those rifles the British troops had in 1917.



A Lee-Enfield No.1 Mk.III bolt action that loads from a 10 rounds magazine.

The magazine doesn't look like it's 10 rounds because it's so short.

Several variants of that Lee-Enfield have been made since the first one was introduced in 1895.

Over 17 millions of them have been produced.

Believe it or not, there are many countries whose military or police or paramilitary forces are still using the Lee Enfield.