Author Topic: The Best Years Of Our Lives  (Read 350 times)

Offline CptTrips

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The Best Years Of Our Lives
« on: November 14, 2023, 07:05:25 PM »

Hate the title.  Reminds me of the soap opera my mom would watch when we were kids.

Love the movie.  Watched it again this afternoon.

Spin that a few decades later and it could easily be about VN vets.  Still seems a bit quaint, but given the time period it was made, I thought it was a pretty adult addressing of the topic given the movies of the time.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/detail/B00D5WUQSQ/ref=atv_hm_hom_c_OB6e828d_brws_17_1?jic=8%7CEgRzdm9k


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Offline AKIron

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Re: The Best Years Of Our Lives
« Reply #1 on: November 14, 2023, 11:04:27 PM »
No matter the pain or the sorrow, make each one the best.

“The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life. Attitude, to me, is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than failures, than successes, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, giftedness or skill. It will make or break a company...a church....a home. The remarkable thing is we have a choice every day regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change our past...we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude...I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it. And so it is with you...we are in charge of our attitudes.”
― Charles Swindoll
Here we put salt on Margaritas, not sidewalks.

Offline Brooke

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Re: The Best Years Of Our Lives
« Reply #2 on: November 15, 2023, 03:33:50 AM »
The Best Years of Our Lives is an excellent movie.

Directed by William Wyler, one of the 5 famous directors who filmed in WWII (a story told in the excellent Spielberg documentary series Five Came Back).  Wyler made the documentaries The Memphis Belle (where he went on missions, and where his assistant was shot down and killed on a mission) and Thunderbolt.  He went deaf from flying in B-25's.

The other four were Frank Capra (It's a Wonderful Life, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, etc.), John Ford (The Grapes of Wrath, etc.), John Huston (The Maltese Falcon, The Man Who Would Be King, etc.), and George Stevens (Giant, Shane, etc.).

Offline Nefarious

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Re: The Best Years Of Our Lives
« Reply #3 on: November 15, 2023, 06:29:56 PM »
Thanks for sharing. The field of scrap P-39s at the end was pretty neat.

Great film.
There must also be a flyable computer available for Nefarious to do FSO. So he doesn't keep talking about it for eight and a half hours on Friday night!

Offline Kermit de frog

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Re: The Best Years Of Our Lives
« Reply #4 on: November 15, 2023, 07:42:10 PM »
The Best Years of Our Lives is an excellent movie.

Directed by William Wyler, one of the 5 famous directors who filmed in WWII (a story told in the excellent Spielberg documentary series Five Came Back).  Wyler made the documentaries The Memphis Belle (where he went on missions, and where his assistant was shot down and killed on a mission) and Thunderbolt.  He went deaf from flying in B-25's.

The other four were Frank Capra (It's a Wonderful Life, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, etc.), John Ford (The Grapes of Wrath, etc.), John Huston (The Maltese Falcon, The Man Who Would Be King, etc.), and George Stevens (Giant, Shane, etc.).


Five Came Back, mini series on Netflix was amazing.  I had skipped over this one for years, but finally watch it.  Looking forward to watching it again.  10/10  :aok :aok

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Offline CptTrips

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Re: The Best Years Of Our Lives
« Reply #5 on: November 16, 2023, 11:04:55 AM »
Thanks for sharing. The field of scrap P-39s at the end was pretty neat.

Great film.

I guess that was an allusion to how that character felt.  A formally impressive weapon of war, now discarded by his country that no longer needs him.  Left to rot away in a junk yard.
However, like the discarded aircraft, it is there that he found his new path. Both man and machines, finding new purpose. 


I've been meaning to watch that Five Came Back documentary.  Those are some of my favorite directors.  Ford's The Searchers close to my favorite Western.

Toxic, psychotic, self-aggrandizing drama queens simply aren't worth me spending my time on.