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Saving Private Ryan

Saving Private Ryan

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Rating: 1 stars
Summary: If i want realizm, i'll go to battle for real
Review: I'm sure i'll get voted down on this one, but i don't understand why todays' directors have to be so graffic and get into such realizm. When your reading a book you need graffic explanaztions so you can picture in your mind what is going on but in a movie where the majority of people are looking for entertainment is another thing.We are living in real war times NOW and have been for sometime. Maybe alot of Americans are looking for more blood shed, body parts being blown up and scattered all over the place, the cries of people in pain and suffering but i don't. What i see in daily normal life is enough. War films are fine without getting the audience worked up and basically sick from some of the sights in this film. To me that is not entertainment. If you want war realizm watch the news on TV, read the newspapers, or look outside your own door or the place you work. Better yet,,,,just watch all the coverage of 9/11. I go to movies for one reason, to escape the daily life of realizm, the struggles, the hardships, this screwed up country and i go to be entertained. The key word here is entertain. It is for this reason that i give this film only 1 star.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: this movie makes you proud to be an american
Review: Saving Private Ryan makes you proud to be an american.

It is 9/11 and I watched this.

Superb!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: The best war film ever made!
Review: This outstanding film is based on World War 2, and has probably some of the best actors in the film industry. I would definetly recommend this breathtaking and tragic masterpiece to anyone looking for a tear jerking experience.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Excellent
Review: Saving Private Ryan directed by Steven Spielberg was released in September1999 and stars Tom Hanks and Matt Damon.
The film, that many agree is the most realistic war film ever made, is about a small band of soldiers that are deployed a day after the D-Day invasion to locate a soldier. The soldier is to be retrieved and returned home after the Army learns that his 3 brother's have all been recently KIA.

Captain John Miller (Tom Hanks) leads the group in the search for Ryan who is eventually found but is not willing to leave his fellow soldiers.
Captain Miller has to make a number of difficult decisions during the search for private Ryan (Matt Damon) that frequently puts his subordinates in danger of being killed. The mission's goal is not popular with the group and slowly they lose their moral and almost confidence in Millers leadership. When Ryan is finally located, his attitude of loyalty inspires Millers men.

The films opening invasion scene is not for the faint of heart but conveys the extremes of chaos, fear, pain and courage of the men that participated.
The incredible sound and visual effects add to the intensity of the battle scenes. Just before the beach invasion, the muffled sounds of explosions and gunfire on the distant beach can be heard from within a U-boat as it approaches the shore to deploy its cargo of soldiers. The chaos and noise on the beach get increasingly louder as the boat nears the shore. When the deployment ramp is dropped, the full effect of the battle sequence at Omaha Beach where troops are slaughtered by German machine guns yet eventually overcome enormous odds to capture the beach.

The film seems incredibly realistic in part due to the sound effects, and camera angles. Many scenes, even when violent and spectacular don't seem to reach for shock effect as much as empathy.

The film won five Oscars for editing, cinematography, sound/ sound effects, and directing.
It's an awesome film, highly recommend

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: One of the best War Movies ever to hit the big screen!
Review: This is my favorite war movie of all time. This movie reaches out and touches you. It touches your heart and soul to see these men risk their lives in the name of honor and all things that are good. It's inspiring and brings out the patriot in anyone. One of Hanks' best!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A movie every American should see
Review: This movie is a very touching, very real story of war. Spielberg made no qualms about the raw violence shown in the movie. It's sickening, it's gruesome and it's real.

The cinematography in the film is very well done. The use of hend-held cameras and a special wash used during the processing of the film to flatten out the colors add a special touch, much like Spielberg's use of black and white in Schindler's List. Williams' score is muted and many times non-existent, which underscores the intensity of the action.

Hanks gives a great performance, although his character isn't as well developed as I would have liked. Several good performances were given by Jeremy Davies as the interpreter and Giovanni Ribisi as Wade. I especially likd Davies' character: at first he is timid, naive and passive, and by the end of the movie he is corageous, aggressive and violent. Spielberg wanted to show the effects of the war on the men, and it comes out in Davies' character, and to a lesser extent Hanks' character.

I saw this movie on opening day, and from start to finish I found it very compelling. But the moment that solidified this film in my mind as a great achievement came when the movie ended. The very large audience was extraordinarily silent, even as the credits rolled by. Nearly the entire audience sat still, until they shuffled out into the corridor. It's a very powerful, emotional, movie that does what every great movie should do: makes you feel.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: true story with true learning experience
Review: Through the "up close and personal experience" of war, private Ryan indeed learned a good & hard lesson of being a good loyal solider. At the end, he sacrifaced his love through the hard battle of war and made confession about his mistakes and weaknesses and point out what his future is going to be. This is a great video to keep. However, I wish the cast is with a little bit more of diversity.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Not just quantitatively different
Review: But qualitatively different. It's not just that this is a great war film, but it's a great war film of a drastically different kind. The only recent analogue I can think of is Eastwood's Unforgiven, which was not only a great western but a western of a different kind. Finally Spielberg has felt free and mature enough to let go of his often sabatoging sentimentalism -- almost (subtract the first 5 and the last 5 minutes or whatever it is of the film which take place anachronistically). The film was shot with the same techniques and film stocks as documentaries are filmed and it makes a big difference. It's a great movie.

By the way, my best friend here in New Orleans is fond of saying, when things get rough, in a semi-ironic tone of voice: "What does a brother have to do to get a break around here?" I'm shocked and awed to find out from the previous reviewer that:

'You know, he is an "untouchable" by other than autograph seekers. The uncritical support of his skullduggery by the american Jews is a sad testimony to their "belated" guilt feelings. '

Wow! I didn't know that 1) I gave Spielberg uncritical support; 2) I had belated guilt feelings towards, as I understand it, either the country of Czechoslovakia or the country of Germany (I am so sorry the murder of six million of my relatives took place under your auspices -- please forgive me); or 3) i am part of "the" american jews. my impression from being jewish a long damn time is that we argue with each other over every little frickin thing -- including the value of spielberg's work, by the way -- but then obviously i'm not the talmudic scholar and humanist this fellow is.

I mean I hate to be derivative, especially when all i wanted to say was i think this is a good movie, but -- damn, what does a brother have to do to get a break around here?

the triumph of western civilization in the americas and western europe in world war 2 and beyond is one in part (small part) of the triumph over anti-semitism (among other things)...

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Saving Private Damon
Review: This movie was very good and very emotional. I can't even imagine what the world would be like if they hadn't saved Matt Damon. Buying this movie could be the one good and decent thing you do in your life. Personally, if buying another copy of this movie earns me the right to go home to my wife, well, then that's my mission. There's not to reason why, there's but to just go and buy!!!!

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: typical US hogwash dramatized ad nauseam
Review: I watched the opening scenes with disbelief. Firstly - there is no air support for the incredible "Omaha Beach" slaughter, secondly, after bloody but victorious assault, the few GI survivors, not surprisingly, elect to kill everybody found in the Kraut bunkers. As they do, there is the scene ... the Krauts are abandoning their bunker and, suddenly there is a Czech speech, which I recognized instantly and startlingly..., the supposedly Czech-speaking Wehrmacht soldier screams out, in Czech language : "I did not kill anybody, don't shoot me." The impact on me was immediate - the use of a language other than German (incomprehensible to US viewers, of course) is still the cheap Spielberg device to unnecesarilly magnify (and falsify) the Nazi brotherhood of nations going against "us". The american children of all ages would buy this easily, I know he (Sir Spielberg) knows.
There are some other tendentious attempts at a parable, such as the one following a "US GI" running alongside a column of Wehrmacht POWs yelling in schoolyard intonation "Ich bin eine Jude, ich bin eine Jude...." You get the picture. This is not the "thinking person" stuff. But then whose stuff is it ?
In the similar vein, there is some Sir Spielberg's baggage in the movie called "Schindler's List". Herr Schindler was a native of a town of Svitavy na Morave and a Gestapo agent to boot. (Caused some lethal suffering there, but saved 200 Jews elsewhere). Apparently, Sir Spielberg has some beef with Czechoslovakia, I am fascinated to find out. You know, he is an "untouchable" by other than autograph seekers. The uncritical support of his skullduggery by the american Jews is a sad testimony to their grotesquely distorted guilt feelings.


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