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I liked Saving Private Ryan's opening scene as they stormed the beach, as well as the sniper sequence, but the rest I thought was Disney-Hollywood fare typical of Spielberg anyway, so no surprises to me.
Glad you all mentioned Stalingrad. Loved it! Really enjoyed the tank sequences, and the actors were so believable and amazing. Another tank movie I loved was The Beast, but that was 80s. Jason Patric and George Dzundza as Russian tank soldiers in Afghanistan.
My husband and I rented that movie when we were first dating. He had seen it before, but thought it was a great movie that I should see. I added that DVD to my collection (downloadable movies weren't easily available back then. )
Saving Private Ryan made a big impact, because it was really the first big Hollywood World War II film for a generation that didn't sugarcoat the violence and intensity of warfare that a lot of people saw. There were a lot of Vietnam movies from the late 70s and 80s that were dark and violent in how they portrayed war, but for a child of the 80s and 90s growing up, World War II movies shown were usually old John Wayne films on TV with a lot of patriotic talk from the Duke about "How we're gonna win this war".
Saving Private Ryan portrayed D-Day closer to reality of warfare---you never saw guys getting burnt alive or getting their legs blown off in most famous World War II films before that. It subsequently influenced the HBO film Band of Brothers, but also was responsible for a whole new generation of World War II themed shooter video games in the last decade.
But I agree, Saving Private Ryan was a few excellent battle scenes in between a fairly average war movie.
Totally agree, very good post! I think SPR was the most influential of modern war movies as far as battle realism goes (by 'modern' I mean with guns, and therefore exclude Braveheart which was also very realistic).
The beach sequence blew me away. I was not surprised by Spielberg's inevitable cheesiness, but I still did not expect even him to ruin such a promising opening.
But Spielberg isn't the guy I hate most in this production (mostly because he's behind the camera and I don't see his face). The guy I hate the most is by far Ed Burns with his cartoonish Brooklyn persona, followed by Ribisi whom I otherwise like, and the wussy intello type who reminds me of Henry Thomas.
On the plus side, this movie was Barry Pepper's coming out, even though we (sadly) haven't seen much of him since.
My husband and I rented that movie when we were first dating. He had seen it before, but thought it was a great movie that I should see. I added that DVD to my collection (downloadable movies weren't easily available back then. )
A hidden gem all right! I especially liked Stephen Bauer (Manolo from Scarface) playing a mujahedeen. Interesting casting choice!
Totally agree, very good post! I think SPR was the most influential of modern war movies as far as battle realism goes (by 'modern' I mean with guns, and therefore exclude Braveheart which was also very realistic).
The beach sequence blew me away. I was not surprised by Spielberg's inevitable cheesiness, but I still did not expect even him to ruin such a promising opening.
But Spielberg isn't the guy I hate most in this production (mostly because he's behind the camera and I don't see his face). The guy I hate the most is by far Ed Burns with his cartoonish Brooklyn persona, followed by Ribisi whom I otherwise like, and the wussy intello type who reminds me of Henry Thomas.
On the plus side, this movie was Barry Pepper's coming out, even though we (sadly) haven't seen much of him since.
He was good in True Grit but could not fill the shoes of Robert Duvall, but how many actors can?
SAving Private Ryan was my fav war movie. I also liked "Behind The Enemy Lines". It was pretty good.
Does anyone know about a foreign movie involving two friends or neighbors(not sure ?) who were Serb and Bosnian and eventually ended up as snipers and one had to kill the other or something. I saw it being mentioned on tv one time, but i never got to see the movie since i forgot the title. It dealt with the Bosnian-Serb war during the mid 90s.
My favorite, in terms of realism, is Blackhawk Down. It did a great job of showing the brutality and absurdatity of that entire action.
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