Movie Details
| Title: | The Siege of Firebase Gloria | |
| Director: | Brian Trenchard-Smith | |
| Year: | 1989 | |
| Genre: | War | |
| Times Seen: | 1 | |
| Last Seen: | 08.16.09 |
Other Movies Seen By This Director (23)
- Aztec Rex
- BMX Bandits
- Dangerfreaks
- Day of the Assassin
- Day of the Panther
- DC 9/11: Time of Crisis
- Dead-End Drive-In
- Deathcheaters
- Frog Dreaming
- Hospitals Don't Burn Down
- In Her Line of Fire
- Kung Fu Killers
- The Man from Hong Kong
- Megiddo: The Omega Code 2
- Night of the Demons 2
- Official Denial
- Operation Wolverine: Seconds to Spare
- Out of the Body
- Sahara
- Strike of the Panther
- Stunt Rock
- The Stuntmen
- Turkey Shoot
| Date Viewed | Venue | Note |
| 08.16.09 | Alamo Ritz | This Screening is part of event: Cinemapocalypse 2009 Next up is a Brian Trenchard-Smith movie I've never seen, or even heard of: The Siege of Firebase Gloria. Plus it stars R. Lee Ermy and Wings Hauser. Hot shit! I was super pumped for this. I'm a big fan of Wings and Trenchard-Smith, and QT described the movie as one of the few big-battle-'nam movies. He also professed his love for BTS (who he lovingly referred to during the last QT fest as a "great Australian hack.. and I truly mean that in the best possible way"), and said that he'd been churning out good movies "during the 70's, the 80's, and even today into the 90's... 90's?... what am I talking about?... 2000's... I guess you can see where *I'm* hung up..." You can tell that QT really has a true love for BTS's work, and it is easy to see why that is. Even more than Fernando di Leo, this is the director who I am most glad that QT turned me on to. Trailers: Up From the Beach (a war movie with Red Buttons and Slim Pickens), Andre de Toth's Play Dirty, Von Ryan's Express (with Sinatra), Eye of the Eagle 2: Inside the Enemy (man, this trailer looked deathly serious), Uncommon Valor, and Callipoli Film: Well... this ended up being tied for my favorite non-IB movie of the night (not that IB was my favorite overall, I'm just not counting it in my ranking). Ermy and Hauser have a relationship that reminded me of what Devane's and Jones' characters must have had during the war in Rolling Thunder. They lead a dogged unit in 'nam and end up taking shelter in a super-lax US base (Firebase Gloria) in the middle of VC territory. They have a very short amount of time to get things into shape if they want to survive the oncoming onslaught. Or, as Ermy puts it to one of his subordinates "We're going to reinforce this piece of shit then protect it like it's your daughter's cherry." There were dozens of lines like that from Ermy, who was in hypermode Full Metal Jacket (which had come out 2 years prior) territory here. Best line of the film (and almost of the night: "It's time to sprinkle some shit on Charlie's rice.") As I said, I really liked this movie. The two leads were excellent, and Trenchard-Smith's relentless depiction of the VC attack was overwhelming and ofter wincingly-brutal. The siege lasts several days, and it was physically exhausting to me just watching Ermy's men defend (barely) their base one day, only to have to refortify to do it again the next day. Those scenes were balanced, however, by an interesting look at the VC leaders, who were equally uncertain of their battle prowess. It made a nice comparison. And hey... this was the second movie of the night that made me think of Shogun Assassain. Like that movie, this featured a shitty synth score (that actually ended up working despite itself) and narration that - if we're to be honest - is completely lazy storytelling. In fact, if you'd told me that this movie, like SA, was patched together from two separate films, I wouldn't have a hard time believing you. Track this one down. I'm going to start digging through the rest of BTS's filmography. I've never seen a movie of his that I disliked. |