Says here that the Horten 229 could "have won the war for the Nazis." http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,529548,00.html. No, I don't think so, but interesting to read, nonetheless.
Saw "Saving Private Ryan" for about the six hundreth time on Sunday. It's one of those movies that if I happen to run across while channel surfing, I must watch it ("Day of the Jackal, The Searchers, the Godfathers, Animal House" are others). Daughter #2 sat down and remarked, "this must have won the Academy Award." I chuckled and let her know that in it's infinite wisdom, members of the Academy voted "Shakespeare in Love" as that year's best film, as they deemed the war pic to be a little too sentimental and patriotic for their refined tastes. I saw "Shakespeare" when it came out. I haven't seen it since and I'm probably not alone there or with the millions of others who have gone on to see "Private Ryan" six hundred times.
8 comments:
Thanks for bringing that back up. Saving Private Ryan is 30 minutes of hell followed by a good story. I have trouble sitting through the storming of the beach. I have never been to war, but that felt pretty real to me. I find myself staring at it and wishing I could turn it off, but it keeps me there every time.
Shakespeare in Love? It's your blog so I am not even going to start in on Gwyneth Paltrow.
No, Geoff--fire away with anything you want to talk about.
Yet another weapon that could have won the war for the Germans, the list seems to be endless. If all these weapons, aircraft, etc. came out in 1940, maybe so. All were too late, like the ME-262.
I'll have to watch the documentary on the National Geographic Channel, looks interesting.
Yes. Also, they could have used a lot fewer Russians, especially those riding in T-34s.
SIL won out over the vastly superior SPR because of an intense, not so behind the scenes battle between the two production companies, Miramax and Dreamworks. It really wasn't "between" the two companies; most of the work was being done by the former.
To put it as succinctly as possible, Miramax bought (stole?) that Oscar, once more proving that the Hollywood which thrills at the prospect of pointing out the greed and excess of America isn't exactly exempt from its own conemptuous description.
STAND AND DELIVER!
Geoffrey, your feelings are correct. I work with a guy who caught four in the legs while paratrooping in Vietnam. He saw some serious action. He said that Saving Private Ryan was the only movie that ever made him flashback to actual battle, even though he didn't quite realize it until the guy behind him in the theater tapped him on the shoulder and said "You okay, buddy?". Really got to him.
He also said that the details were so accurate that he had to leave during the scene when the medic was shot. He was shaking too badly. He said eveything about that scene was dead on.
My old man had a similar experience, especially in terms of the Normandy landing sequence. His chief complaint (and one of mine) is the arguing following the capture of the German after the assault on the machine gun position. He felt like that was real bullshit and wouldn't have been tolerated and I agree--it was essentially Spielberg's liberal b.s. in play. Other big problem is the casting of Ted Danson who called in a favor with Spielberg in order to show everyone that the left could support a "good war" every now and then. Danson was too old for the part and sucked. Some other arguable stuff, but the movie stands up real, real well.
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