Here’s part two of Dan’s interview with Fig and RePete from the podcast So There I Was! This half we talk movies a little, with some cool details about the harrier jets in True Lies, and get some personal “oh shit!”flying stories from the guys. If you want to hear more from Fig and RePete, here is their True Lies ep, where they interview their squa…

This week on Danger Close, a Veteran interview with yours truly, Dan! I sat down with two former Marine aviators and we talked about our experiences in the Corps, traded aviation stories, and I even played them a special recording that has not gone public until now! This is part One where Dan mostly talks about his career in the Marines and in avia…

For the first time ever, the Fright Pub crew and the Danger Close team get together in person to record a podcast. In Pittsburgh!! If this film is where the Venn diagram of horror films and war films meet, then I guess Liam is where the Venn diagram of our two shows come together! He's...the glue? The central spoke in the wheel? I don't know, this …

We’re back! The show returns with a brand new DCE episode that we decided to release free to everyone. We want to thank our generous Patrons for sticking with us during our much needed break as we caught up with our schedule and got a bunch of recordings done. We have six episodes in the bag that we are editing and will be releasing over the next f…

Another good example of a modern war film produced before September 11th, this one puts us in the helicopters and humvees of Task Force Ranger during the humanitarian crisis in Somalia in 1993. Dispensing with most of the geo-political complexities that led to US forces deploying to East Africa, the focus here is mostly on the Rangers and Delta For…

Dan sits down with former Marine infantry Sergeant Rich Cervantes. Rich enlisted in the USMC in 2001, and trained as a TOW (Tube-launched, Optically tracked, Wire-guided) anti-tank gunner. In this exclusive interview, he tells the story of why he joined, his training, and his experience in Iraq over several deployments with the First Marine Divisio…

This isn’t the first WWII film we have covered to be filmed and released while the war was still ongoing, but it is our first comedy that fits those parameters. It often pops up on lists of best comedies ever, and for good reason. The Nazis have invaded Warsaw and a German spy has just landed with damning information about the Polish resistance. It…

If you only saw one movie in the summer of 2023… statistically speaking it was probably Barbie. But if you saw two movies in the summer of 2023… okay, statistically it's fairly likely they were both Barbie. But if you saw two movies on the same day in the summer of 2023, there is technically a non-zero chance that today's film wasn’t one of them, b…

We've talked Nazis before. And we have covered WWII in several films which varied in style and subject manner, but this is our first time dealing with the Holocaust, so we figured we should start with an old classic that is famous for the way it handled its difficult subject matter. Premiering in West Berlin in 1961, Judgment at Nuremberg was met w…

First conceived in 2015 and released in 2022, The Woman King had a long, turbulent road to the box office. An historical action epic starring and driven by a cast of black women, it was a tough sell to studios until the overwhelming success of Black Panther proved beyond a doubt that there was not only an audience for films with this kind of repres…

Released in November of 2001, Behind Enemy Lines came out in a totally different time in history. 9/11 had just happened, and tensions were high all over the world, especially in the U.S. This movie is a little dose of “rah-rah NATO” rescuing an American navigator from…Yugoslavians? No, Serbs. But there are Bosnians there too, and Croats? What _exa…

Dan sits down with good friend and former Marine Sergeant Tyler Funk. Tyler enlisted in the USMC as an Air Traffic Controller in 2003. After some initial training, he volunteered for deployment, and later was selected for the MEU (Marine Expeditionary Unit), and an MMT (Marine Air Traffic Control Mobile Team), a small enlisted team trained to be dr…

Last episode, we talked about a military aviation film. It had some pretty great aerial scenes, the best Cessna vs motorcycle race we have ever seen, and a fun soundtrack! But not nearly as good as the one for the film we are covering today (although apparently some in the audience will debate this point). This movie was released the same year as I…

1986 was a landmark year for military aviation in cinema. Top Gun came out in May, the very start of the Summer blockbuster season, and immediately boosted Navy recruitment by 10 bajillion percent. That’s not an approximation, those are the official figures from the Navy. 10 bajillion percent. People flocked to this movie, and who could blame them?…

One of the most famous and most successful retellings of one of the most infamous and highly mythologized incidents in the history of the British Navy, this 1935 adaptation of the novel by Charles Nordhoff and James Newton Hall might be a little old-fashioned for most modern audiences, both in its acting styles and in its special effects. But it wa…

One of Michael Mann’s most beloved films, this is the most recent and most enduring of ELEVEN screen adaptations of the historical fiction novel by James Fenimore Cooper, and it takes us to a war we seldom see depicted elsewhere in cinema: The French and Indian War in North America. It follows the journey of the last members of the vanishing Mohica…

For our first Wolfgang Peterson film, we decided to cover what is often touted as the best submarine film ever, and one that is on most people’s Top Ten War Film lists. Starring a young Jürgen Prochnow as the Captain of U-96 and a cast of mostly unknown actors as his crew, this is the thrilling story of one German submarine crew in the Battle of th…

With a screenplay based on Erich Maria Remarque’s immensely popular book, first published in 1929, director Edward Berger has taken on the daunting task of leading the first German team to take this story to the big screen. It is written, directed, and portrayed by Germans, and offers a unique perspective to the war film genre: that of a country wh…

To give our fans some additional content while we are operating on a reduced release schedule - and in honor of Halloween - we are dropping an episode of our sister Horror Movie podcast, Fright Pub, into the main feed. Listen as Liam, Shaggy, and Lauren drink adult beverages and discuss a different horror movie each week. In this episode, recorded …

The year is 1990. The Cold War is in full swing, and the threat of thermonuclear world war is ever present. The Soviet Union is…wait…what? Oh the Berlin Wall came down last year? And the Soviet Union is rapidly dissolving? The Iron Curtain is being lifted? Ok then… Checks production notes… The year is 1984. The Cold war is in full swing, and the th…

A classic example of the once popular "Service Comedy" genre, this hit film was adapted from a hit stage play, in turn adapted from a hit novel. Henry Fonda reprises his role from the stage play as the titular Lieutenant (j.g.) Roberts, alongside a young and hilarious Jack Lemmon playing Ensign Pulver, and our first time with James Cagney as the in…

One of the first big-budget Vietnam War films from the US, the production of Francis Ford Coppola’s epic was quite a war in its own right. The shooting was fraught with issues, including filming in the Philippines where rebels interrupted the work regularly, Coppola putting $7 million of his own funds on the line, and the usual complications that c…

Finishing in second place for our third poll in a row earned this film its rightful spot in the Danger Close catalogue. Set in a Japanese prison camp in Thailand in 1943, it pits the principled Lt Col Nicholson (Alec Guinness) against the ruthless camp commandant Col Saito (Sessue Hayakawa) in a battle of character and wit. This fictional story, lo…

Even in a year like 1939 - which gave us the likes of Stagecoach, The Wizard of Oz, and Gone with the Wind - it’s hard to believe that an Oscar-nominated action adventure from a legendary, Oscar winning director, featuring an all-star cast of future Oscar winners, would somehow get lost in the shuffle, but here we are. It’s a film most of you have …

This film has been requested many times; usually by our Aussie and Kiwi listeners, and occasionally by people who think our podcast is entirely dedicated to this one film from 2019. Well-known down under, but not as much in the rest of the world, this is the story of one of the most famous battles Anzac troops fought in the Vietnam War. They were o…

Get ready for an alien-invader stompin' good time! In the rare case where Liam loves a film just because it is so fun, we go back to our childhoods and reminisce over the roll-out and execution of this Roland Emerich gem. From a time when a relatively sane Randy Quaid played insane characters (as opposed to just playing himself), comes this surpris…

Robert Egger’s third film, following The VVitch (2015) and The Lighthouse (2019), The Northman has the largest budget and the biggest scope by far. Set in the late 9th/early 10th centuries in central Europe and Iceland, this epic revenge story is undoubtedly the most thoroughly researched and most accurate Viking film to date. With a phenomenal cas…

Well, here we are again. It’s World War II. Another three-hour war film, another big ensemble cast! In some ways a follow-up to The Longest Day (also written by Cornelius Ryan), this time in color, this film depicts Operation Market Garden, which followed the Normandy Landings in September 1944. The Allies dropped forces from the First Allied Airbo…

From director David Mackenzie, who brought us the excellent modern western Hell or High Water in 2016, comes a retelling of the First War of Scottish Independence in the early 14th century. Taking place during and after the capture and execution of William Wallace, this film focuses on Robert the Bruce and his allies in their fight for freedom from…

Hot on the heels of our Saving Private Ryan episode, we return to the beaches of Normandy (this time filmed in Corsica) with the WWII two-time Oscar winning classic, The Longest Day. Clocking in at three hours, this is the longest film we have covered so far, and our first John Wayne flick! It has a star-studded cast that includes Richard Burton, H…

Starring a young Colin Firth and probably no one else you would recognize, this film released on television in the UK six years after the conflict it depicted. We can’t blame you if you haven’t heard about the 1982 war between Argentina and the United Kingdom; after all it only lasted ten weeks. It’s known as the Falklands War to most of the world,…

Directed by Gillian Armstrong and starring Cate Blanchett in the titular role, this is the fictionalized story of a British SOE (Special Operations Executive) operating in Nazi-occupied France in 1942. The character is a composite of several real women who worked as spies for the Allies during this time period. She is sent on missions to deliver pa…

Easily the biggest WWI film of recent memory, 1917 conjured a variety of opinions from critics and viewers alike. Its 3 Oscar wins (Cinematography, Visual Effects, and Sound Editing) and over 200 total award nominations speak for themselves. Director Sam Mendes, with Roger Deakins as Director of Photography, boldly chose to shoot and edit the film …

In his directorial feature-film debut, J. P. Watts stretches a £600,000 budget to show us an aspect of World War I we hadn’t really seen before: the British efforts to tunnel underneath no-man’s land in order to lay mines under the German trenches. For those of you who have seen 1917 (our next episode), you will find some familiar territory: filthy…

Part biopic, part historical drama, this film tells the story of Alan Turing and the team at Bletchley Park (the eminently secretive Project X) whose work led to the breaking of the German Enigma machines, and arguably to the Allies winning the War. This is one of the best performances we have seen out of Keira Knightley, who plays a brilliant math…

What has not already been said about this monumental film? The Omaha Beach landing sequence it opens with is one of the most gritty and violently realistic combat scenes ever put on film to this day, and it gave a new generation of viewers an idea of what their grandparents had gone through in that war while they were still around to see it themsel…

Filmed in the fjords of Norway and on the coast of France (standing in for Northumbria), this epic tale set in the ninth century immortalized a singular moment in time. The first film depiction of Viking culture since the Nazis had claimed Norse lore for themselves, the story is based as much in myth and legend as it is in history (like most of wha…

Releasing to critical acclaim, this film took home seven Academy Awards, including Best Actor (George C. Scott), and Best Director (Franklin J. Schaffner). It is often at the top of “best war films” lists, and a favorite of film buffs. It follows Patton's various commands through their campaigns in North Africa and the invasion of Europe in the lat…

BONUS EPISODE: The Terminator! The Danger Close team is taking their holiday break for this week's release, but we didn't want to leave you all empty-handed. So here is a gift from us, our first Patreon episode from last year! You can listen to two of us gush over one of James Cameron's most popular films, and hear the other host be wrong. If you e…

DISCRETION ADVISED: This film depicts several sexual assaults that are discussed in the episode. Our first David Lean film, but certainly not our last! Set during World War I and the October Revolution of 1917, this love triangle (square? parallelogram?) takes place during turbulent times, and the production spared no expense with its full-scale re…

In this sprawling two-part biopic, director Steven Soderbergh shows us the experiences of Ernesto "Che" Guevara during the Cuban revolution in 1956, and Che’s subsequent failed attempt at revolution in Bolivia in 1967. Approaching Gettysburghian lengths, the two parts relay in sometimes oppressive detail (drawing from Guevara’s own journals) the co…

A rebellion film if there ever was one, Italian director Gillo Pontecorvo's magnum opus dramatizes the fight against French Colonialism in 1950s Algeria. A quintessential example of Italian neorealism, the documentary-style of the filming, the film stock itself, and the use of non-professional actors give this film a gritty, real-life feel. It has …

Are we doing it? We're doing it! We are diving into our very first musical! Depicting two pivotal battles in the American Revolutionary war (1775-1783), it certainly has some war in it. And it is a FILMed performance of the stage play. It has been a sensation since its debut on Broadway for good reason, and it really does bring some of America's fo…

From British director Ken Loach, this story is set in 1920 during the War for Irish Independence, depicting the conflict between Irish militants and occupying British forces, and the internal struggle between the newly formed Irish Free State Army and the IRA. One side supported a treaty with the British, while the other side would only accept an u…

Groom your beards and dust-off your Civil War uniforms and dresses, cause we are going back to 1863! This popular Ron Maxwell film has no shortage of stellar actors: Martin Sheen, Jeff Daniels, Tom Berenger, and even Sam Elliot and his mustache make an epic and most welcome return. But is this just a four and a half hour battle reenactment, or is t…

If you are a Patron of the show, you will notice that this is our second film starring George Peppard and THIRD film scored by Jerry Goldsmith in a row! Is this just a coincidence, or some weird thing Liam has been doing with our film selection? Who knows! This week's episode brings us a very famous WWI aviation film from director John Guillermin. …

From director John Frankenheimer (The Manchurian Candidate, Birdman of Alcatraz, THE Island of Dr. Moreau) and screenwriter Rod Serling (The Twighlight Zone, Planet of the Apes), comes what many consider one of the best political thrillers of all time! It asks questions of us that are just as relevant now as they were around the time of the JFK ass…

BONUS EPISODE: Starship Troopers with Paul M. Sammon! Just a taste of our Patreon offerings, for anyone who is on the fence. Dan, Katie, and Liam talk with Hollywood legend and film historian Paul M. Sammon about all the bug-hunting details of this classic film from Dutch director Paul Verhoeven. Paul Sammon has been in the business for a long time…

This film is...something. Depicting the first major battle between U.S. forces and the NVA, and the first coordinated use of helicopters in combat, there is no doubt that there is a story here that must be told. The common recollection seems to be that we all liked this film when it came out in 2002. But has it aged well? At first, we were sure Mel…

Based on Patrick O’Brien’s extensive series of novels set during the Napoleonic wars, and touted as one of the most accurate period pieces ever made, this film features Russell Crowe in his prime as Captain "Lucky" Jack Aubrey, several brave little midshipmen, lots of swashbuckling, and...well, what more do you need? Oh right, maybe a proto-Darwini…