Mal ,'War Stories'
A place to talk about movies--old and new, good and bad, high art and high cheese. It's the place to place your kittens on the award winners, gossip about upcoming fims and discuss DVD releases and extras. Spoiler policy: White font all plot-related discussion until a movie's been in wide release two weeks, and keep the major HSQ in white font until two weeks after the video/DVD release.
Would he be too young, or too bored by, Band of Brothers? It covers a lot of WW2 european locations and battle conditions, for all that it's primarily a character study of the men of Easy Company.
Likewise, From the Earth to the Moon (1998--I have no input on more recent versions) is more recent history, but if you're doing The Right Stuff, the miniseries hits a lot of that time period, too.
Kind of a very specific WWII topic, but I really enjoyed The Monuments Men.
Isn't World History going to be less about the 20th century and more about "ancient civilizations" around the world? What are the good movies about Ancient Egypt, Ancient Greece, China? How about the rise of Islam/Christianity? Medieval Europe and the Renaissance? Why can I not come up with titles for these topics?
Ooh, Mongol, I forget who it's by I think it's Russian. About Genghis Khan, very good. I honestly don't remember if it was subtitled or what.
Ooh, I don't think Spartacus has been mentioned, yet; or Cleopatra.
What are the good movies about Ancient Egypt
Unfortunately, all we seem to have are terrible flicks with white actors in brown-face with the background of video game violence. Or they are all about mummies and Egyptian curses, etc. The animated movie about Moses from the 1990s, "Prince of Egypt", was quite good, if I recall.
I think the best filmed material about antiquities are in TV series form. The HBO series "Rome" is fantastic but way too mature for a 15-year-old. And there is the splendid "I, Claudius" -- it's been ages since I watched it, but it's like 12-episode long and might be a bit dry for a high-schooler.
Ooh, Mongol, I forget who it's by I think it's Russian. About Genghis Khan, very good.
Oh, neat! I haven't even heard about it, but there is a trailer on IMBb and it looks pretty epic: [link]
(The IMDb pages says the languages used are Mongolian and Mandarin)
I have also heard great things about Red Cliff, an epic historical film about political power struggle and warfare at the end of Han Dynasty, although I haven't seen it personally. That cast is dynamite though: [link]
I Claudius might also be a bit too mature for a 15 year-old as well.
One old TV movie set in ancient times was Masada, about a Hebrew city under siege by the Romans.
I have also heard great things about Red Cliff, an epic historical film about political power struggle and warfare at the end of Han Dynasty, although I haven't seen it personally.
I only caught part of this. It's an excellent production, but not necessarily too historical. There was a battle of the Red Cliffs, but it's best known in China through a much later novel, The Romance of the Three Kingdoms. That book added some ahistorical elements to improve the narrative (and possibly to reflect current politics), and the movie is closer to the book than the original event.
Nonetheless, the goal of representing early Chinese history is a good one. I'll check with Biyi if there's anything else in that genre worth considering.
I don't know, Masada ends with hundreds of people defiantly committing group suicide as a solution to their problem with Roman authority. I wouldn't show that to a teenager.