Baseball. Apple pie. Country music. Starting quagmire wars that never end. These are some of our greatest American pastimes. In honor of our 238th Independence Day, I propose we add another far more period-appropriate tradition to the great American lexicon: the binge watch.
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This holiday weekend, when you're sick of fireworks, barbecue and your family, we here at GameNGuide have compiled a list of Red, White and Blue films and tv shows you can watch to celebrate this country breaking up with its longtime girlfriend so many years ago.
There are surprisingly few films and shows made about the Revolutionary War. You would think that would literally be the first thing we'd want to do with a camera, because "America".
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April Morning; 1987 - this made for TV movie is based on a novel by the same name, written by Howard Fast and tells the story of 'the shot heard 'round the world' on April 19, 1775 during the first skirmish of the Revolution, the Battle of Lexington and Concord. It stars Tommy Lee Jones as an overbearing dad who just doesn't understand his kid. The production values are very 1980s television and it's slow moving, but if you have little ones and want to give them a taste of some slightly revisionist propaganda, this one is good for the whole family. Sadly, it is currently not available on any streaming service at the moment.
The Patriot; 2000 - this Mel Gibson starring, Roland Emmerich directed is one of the biggest, most successful Revolutionary War properties to date. It is also one of the longest, clocking in at an impressive 2 hours and 55 minutes. Gibson is Benjamin Martin, a family man who gets swept up into the Revolution when his son is killed. He's also a bit of a badass, wielding axes with more aplomb than Gimli would a year later. It also stars an impossibly young Heath Ledger and a mustache-twirling Jason Isaacs. There is very little 'history' involved in this one, but for a grand, epic, flag waving action adventure, it's hard to do any better. Again, no version exists on any available streaming platform.
John Adams; 2008 - this HBO miniseries is the end all, be all of Revolutionary war tales. Before he was known as "The Rhino", national treasure Paul Giamatti took on the role of a lifetime as John Adams, one of America's most influential and misunderstood founding fathers and the second president of the United States. The miniseries is based on the book by John McCullough and retells the first 50 years of the United States through the eyes of Adams. Giamatti is good, but Laura Linney as Adam's wife Abigail may be even better. It's seven hours long, truly worthy of the term 'binge-watch' and well worth every moment. Amazon Prime subscribers can find it in the HBO section.
Independence Day; 1996 - so it's not a Revolutionary War piece persay, but I am guessing that more people think of this Will Smith-starring, Roland Emmerich-directed action movie when they hear the term? Besides, it has all the hallmarks of the great American movie: underdog, revolution, the most epic speech ever put on celluloid. ID4 is the kind of film you love watching while you're watching it but could not care about otherwise. Today, my friends, is the day you watch it. Pop it into the DVD player, you know you already own a copy.
Sleepy Hollow; 2013 - we all love the Revolutionary War, but sometimes it's just not sexy. It's all guys in wigs standing in a line and shooting one another. You know what it's missing? A machine gun wielding headless horseman, that's what. Based loosely, extremely loosely on Washington Irving's classic tale, this is pure kitchen sink tv: the creators throw everything at you, including a time displaced Ichabod Crane, monsters, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, Washington's Bible and standard procedural elements into something that simply should not work. At all. Yet it succeeds by being so utterly ridiculous. Tom Mison as Crane is the gift that keeps on giving, he's the best television find of the last five years. You can watch the first season of Sleepy Hollow on Hulu Plus.
1776; 1972 - the only Founding Father approved musical spectacular! The popular musical tells a wildly inaccurate account of the first Continental Congress. The music is catchy, though not entirely memorable and it is such a bizarre concept for a musical that you're nonetheless entranced by it. A lot of the films and shows listed above are full of grimness and violence, so a musical may be precisely the kind of sherbet your palette needs at the end of this long marathon.
Again, no streaming option exists.
From all of us here at GameNGuide, Happy 4th of July. Find some time for family today, but don't forget the movies and games, either! And do remember...
