Jack Mullaly ([info]medrawt) wrote,
@ 2003-08-03 14:18:00
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Current mood: calm

I watched "The Thin Red Line" last night for the second time (I think). It's still a weird, surreal movie but I liked it better this time around. One day I must watch it alone so no bastard is talking over the voice-over ... the bits of it I caught sounded interesting. "Where does it come from? Is there an animal inside every man?" Stuff like that ... maybe light-weight, cheap philosophy, maybe not - as I said I didn't catch enough of it to tell. Probably a bit of both.

I also watched "Saving Private Ryan" again. And I cried at the end of it - again. That movie does it to me every damn time. It's got flaws, there's no perfect flick, but it's so incredibly powerful.

I should get my own VCR one of these days. Bugger it, I should get a TV that works. :)

Cheers!


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(Anonymous)
2003-08-08 01:45 pm UTC (link)
i never watched that movie, but i heard it was good.
who plays in it ?

theturkishbabebwahah.

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[info]medrawt
2003-08-09 05:30 am UTC (link)
Which one?

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[info]medrawt
2003-08-17 01:54 am UTC (link)
"Saving Private Ryan" is a war movie about the invasion of Normandy. It stars Tom Hanks as Captain Miller. Matt Damon plays Pvt. Ryan - actually a minor part. Ted Danson also has a bit part. The rest are relatively unknown. It's about a squad of US infantry led by Hanks searching for Pvt. Ryan, whose 3 brothers have already been killed and the War Dept. decides he has to be found and brought home as he's the last child alive in the family.

The first half hour is savage, it depicts the fighting on Omaha Beach where the toughest fighting on D-Day took place - the first time you see it it's very disturbing, very gory; it's possibly the most realistic battle I've ever seen in movies. It's a mix of two genres - the squad movie and the quest. The power of it is in the drama and situations - even the unlikeable characters are powerful. The cowardly clerk (Jeremy Davies) who's seconded to the squad because he speaks French and German is actually one of the most powerful, affecting characters. He's an educated, thinking young man who never expected to see battle and is trying to come to terms with it cerebrally, unlike the other grunts who just accept what they're doing without (much) question. He's not really well equipped for war and his actions betray this. The Wehrmacht machine-gunner (I think played by Martin Hub) adds pathos and humanity, as well as almost inspiring a squad mutiny. The end always brings a tear to my eyes ... but if you haven't seen it I won't spoil it. The only bit about it I find really annoying is the "America won the War single-handed" theme so current in Hollywood WW2 flicks. The only indication at all that anyone else is involved in the war is a throw-away line by Danson about Field Marshall Montgomery: "That guy is over-rated." I liked the attention to detail - one trooper is armed with a BAR heavy rifle, they use pipe-bombs on the beach, and sticky-bombs (which I'd actually heard of before seeing the movie yay ;) in the final defense of the bridge at Remalles. Barry Pepper plays a sniper who prays to Mary before each shot. It's details and quirks like this that make it so fascinating to me.

"The Thin Red Line" is about the US Marine battle for Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands. Again, the toughest, most savage fighting in the entire campaign took part here, and the "America won the War single-handed" bias is forgivable this time as no-one else took part in the Pacific Campaign (apart from a negligible number of Australians, but they were mostly involved in retaking New Guinea). Windsept green hills with long grass and completely invisible Japanese hidden in the terrain make for powerful cinematography, and the entire theme seems to be the savagery of war - what happens when you put ordinary men into extraordinary situations? It's cut with surreal scenes of the troops swimming with native children etc., and the final scene of the Marines over-running the Japanese camp is really very disturbing but I think that's the point of the whole film. After decades of the Japanese being portrayed as vicious killers - which they undoubtedly were - it's a change to see the US troops portrayed the same way, and in a Hollywood movie no less. It's a long overdue recognition that war does very strange things to otherwise decent people, "us" as well as "them", and it always has and it always will [1]. Perhaps Hollywood is finally getting a conscience? (Though it must be remembered this film was made in 1998, before the whole "War on Terrorism" stuff we're going through now; it would probably have been made differently in the current political climate, if it was made at all.) As I said, I think the voice-over may be important but I didn't catch a lot of it. I need to see it again and pay attention. I found parts of it disjointed and hard to follow, though again this may be partly because I've not yet been able to give it my full attention. The only name actors are Woody Harrelson and George Clooney. I'm still very uncertain about this film. I might end up hating it, but I feel it deserves a chance before I make up my mind.

[1] Incidentally, there's some recogniton of the terrible things war does to normal men in "Pvt. Ryan" as well.

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(Anonymous)
2003-08-18 01:23 am UTC (link)
..
:P

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