A trivia question came up last night while I was playing a hot, sexy board game called Cranium: What countries fought in the War of 1812?
Not knowing the answer indicated two things to me. One — driven by my bitter shame, I must read and retain more history. And two — there’s still a void for a major motion picture about the War of 1812.
Certainly, I would have known the answer if there were a blockbuster film with a spare yet dramatic title like 1812 in which Bruce Willis leads an American invasion of Canada against the British.
How else will future generations know that the British never actually left North America after we adopted the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, or that we fought them and allied Indian tribes in the expanding West and Canada through the spring of 1815?
Seeing how important Hollywood films are to our appreciation of American war history, I’m recommending that everyone stay in this Independence Day and brush up our country’s great militaristic moments by renting/downloading some classic videos/DVDs. It’s cooler than blowing off your hand with backyard pyrotechnics and safer than being on the road with a bunch of gung-ho drunks.
The following titles are suggested for their “historical accuracy” and killer plots.
The Patriot (2000) — Mel Gibson stars as noble father and militia leader Benjamin Martin, who defends his family with bloodthirsty battlefield bravery against General Cornwallis and the Brits.
Glory (1989) — Denzel Washington acts his butt off scene after scene in this personal and immediate portrayal of the Civil War.
Pearl Harbor (2001) — A throwback to old-school war epics, this gorgeously shot film centers on two pilots (Ben Affleck and Josh Hartnett) and a nurse (Kate Beckinsale) whose sunny Hawaiian tour ends when history intervenes on Dec. 7, 1941.
Saving Private Ryan (1999) — Tom Hanks as Captain Miller leads a band of character stereotypes behind German lines to retrieve a private (Matt Damon), whose brothers have been killed in action. Along the tour de action-adventure, Spielberg manages to work in almost every imaginable WWII battle scene.
Born on the Fourth of July (1989) — Overlook Oliver Stone’s excessive star-spangled flourishes of irony and this is an acute, sympathetic biography of Ron Kovic, a veteran paralyzed in Vietnam who returns America a disenchanted hero and takes to pro-human rights political activism.
Three Kings (1999) — Starring George Clooney, Mark Wahlberg, Ice Cube and Spike Jonze, this is a pretty rockin’ satire of Desert Storm.
Let’s hope this list will soon be revised with a War of 1812 flick, even if it’s just a Ken Burns documentary. Maybe it could be called Revolutionary War II: Britain Strikes Back. Everybody loves sequels.
This article appears in Jul 3-9, 2003.
