At The Mountains of Madness, first, then these other movies.

There's a MAJOR difference between bombing a civilian population, town, infrastructure and EVERYTHING until it looks like the surface of the moon, and simply waging war.

There's a reason we hold up the bombings of Coventry and Dresden as some of the worst atrocities of the war.

where was i? right! the first _slaughterhouse_ filmization was truly brilliant, george roy hill's finest work, very fluid and melancholy. felt closer in spirit, if i may be permitted to work the room a little bit, to _gravity's rainbow_, or at least the "in the zone" portion, than the brisk unstuck-in-time exposition of the vonnegut novel. i certainly would love to see del toro tackle any vonnegut -- ron perlman as kilgore trout, anyone?

(and, damn, gravitysrainbow, leobloom...when did this become the 20th c. literature seminar? i ain't complaining, fanlads -- i'm SHOCKED!)

But. All that being said. In Devil's Backbone and Pan's Labyrinth GDT has shown himself really capable in at capturing the horrific reality of war, and that's something nobody's touched on here yet: Vonnegut's disgust with war is a HUGE part of Slaughterhouse-5. If there's a saving grace to the idea of this project, it ain't del Toro's willingness to make a movie that is 'pure cinema' (whatever the fuck that is supposed to mean). It's his understanding of just how ugly war can be.