I watched these movies in the winter holidays 2025.
(February 17, 2026)
I watched these movies in the winter holidays 2025.
(February 17, 2026)
The following is a list of movies I watched in the winter holidays 2025.
* All Quiet on the Western Front (1930).
* Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956).
* Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978).
* The Caine Mutiny (1954).
* Mutiny on the Bounty (1935).
One of the most memorable and traumatic episodes in All Quiet on the Western Front is the taking life of an enemy soldier who fell into trench in the chaos of war. Paul Baumer (Lew Ayres) did not have time to think and analyze the situation but acted on instinct for survival. After the incident, Paul gradually realizes that the body in front of him was as human as anyone and deeply regrets. (In Saving Private Ryan (1998), we see a hand-to-hand combat which is depicted as a fierce physical struggle between two beasts. The stronger one mercilessly takes life of the weaker. No humanity here. Another aspect of men.)
We believe that “Thou Shalt Not Kill” is the most important commandment which is coded into our genes through the learning process over 4,000 (or longer) years of human civilization. Or, is it?
Dave Grossman and Loren Christensen discourse in their book (On Combat: The Psychology and Physiology of Deadly Conflict in War and Pease (2008)) that men can overcome the commandment through training and conditioning. During WWII, 15% of the US soldiers were able to pull trigger at human targets within effective range. Within a few decades, the number had been significantly increased, up to 90%, thanks to the improved training methods such as replacing static bull’s-eye target with much more realistic and dynamic target in realistically simulated environment. The authors also warn the influence of violent video games on the fire arm safety among civilians. The book was published in 2008. Since then, the quality of CG-graphics in video games has been improving at an amazing speed. In addition, thanks to the increase in the speed of data transmission, online game players shoot targets that are controlled by real humans on the other ends of the connections. Maybe, it’s about time to review, update, and re-design the safety training for people who carry fire arms, civilians and officers alike, if the training materials appropriately reflect today’s socio-cultural-political-technological elements.
In these days, when I play Minecraft, I feel uncomfortable when I have to hack and slash Zombies even though they look more like green-colored cardboard boxes than humans. Some of the people close to me went to the undiscovered country. I’m marching toward the land, too. The marching speed may be different from one person to another. But no one can reverse the course. Maybe, after crossing the border, I have to join the group of green-colored men.
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) is said to reflect the real world and domestic conflicts between socio-political-economic systems at the time. Sans such background information, the movie, based on the story by Jack Finney and directed by Don Siegel, is an enjoyable science-fiction horror film. I enjoy even more watching the re-made in 1978. Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978) has a team of good actors and superb cinematography created by Michael Chapman. In the movie, the camera is used to capture the first-person view point for searching abnormal elements and events which surround the main characters. Sometimes, the camera is set at the driver’s seat of a moving car so that we feel like we are also in the car moving through strange streets in a strange city. (Michael Chapman is a cinematographer of Taxi Driver (1976).) In one segment early on, a car driven by the leading character Matthew Benell (Donald Sutherland) run into a screaming man (Kevin McCarthy) who kept screaming since 1956. I’m also impressed by actors who can display individuals in extremely terrifying situations. Veronica Cartwright’s method to express the sense of terror is re-enacted in Alien (1979).
I’d like to present the list of memorable presentations of extreme fear by actors who impressed me so much.
* Veronica Cartwright in Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978) and Alien (1979).
* Janet Leigh in Touch of Evil (1958) and Psycho (1960).
* Fay Wray in King Kong (1933).
* Naomi Watts in Mulholland Drive (2001).
* Cloris Leachman in Kiss Me Deadly (1955).
* Bruce Campbell in The Evil Dead (1981).
And the number one in my list is;
* John Lithgow in Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983, Episode 4 Nightmare at 20,000 Feet).
References:
Alien (1979), produced by Gordon Carrol, et. al., directed by Ridley Scott, distributed by 20th Century Fox.
All Quiet on the Western Front (1930), produced by Carl Laemmle, directed by Lewis Milestone, based on the novel by Erich Maria Remarque, and distributed by Universal Pictures.
The Caine Mutiny (1954), produced by Stanley Kramer, directed by Edward Dmytryk, Distributed by Columbia Pictures.
The Evil Dead (1981), produced by Robert G. Tapert, directed by Sam Raimi, distributed by New Line Cinema.
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956), produced by Walter Wanger, directed by don Siegel, distributed by Allied Artists Pictures.
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978), produced by Robert H. Solo, directed by Philip Kaufman, distributed by United Artists.
King Kong (1933), produced and directed by Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack, distributed by RKO Radio Pictures.
Kiss Me Deadly (1955), produced and directed by Robert Aldrich, distributed by United Artists.
Mulholland Drive (2001), produced by Mary Sweeny, et. al., directed by David Lynch, distributed by Universal Pictures.
Mutiny on the Bounty (1935), produced by Frank Lloyd and Irving Thalberg, directed by Frank Lloyd, distributed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
Psycho (1960), produced and directed by Alfred Hitchcock, distributed by Paramount Pictures.
Saving Private Ryan (1998), produced by Steven Spielberg, et. al., directed by Steven Spielberg, distributed by Dream Works Pictures and Paramount Pictures.
Taxi Driver (1976), produced by Michael Phillips and Julia Phillips, directed by Martin Scorsese, distributed by Columbia Pictures.
Touch of Evil (1958), produced by Albert Zugsmith, directed by Orson Wells, distributed by Universal-International.
Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983), produced by Steven Spielberg and John Landis, directed by John Landis, George Miller, Joe Dante, and Steven Spielberg, distributed by Warner Bros.
Christensen, Loren W., and Dave Grossman, On Combat; The Psychology and Physiology of Deadly Conflict in War and Peace, 2008.
