2002 - THE TRUTH ABOUT CHARLIE, is a disasterous remake of Charade.

When it was released this remake of Stanley Donen's Charade was considered a complete disaster.  In many ways it depressingly ended director Jonathan Demme's ability to combine off beat film making with commercial viability.  Demme had been having some decent critical and commercial success in his career.  Silence of the Lambs and Philadelphia had performed very well for him.

However he stumbled badly with the Oprah Winfrey project Beloved which was a big commercial disaster.  Probably looking for a box office hit he decided to remake Stanley Donen's Charade as The Truth About Charlie.  Demme's approach was to film in Paris as a tribute to the French New Wave movement that had started in the 1950's.  He got financial backing from Universal Studios and was off and running. "Big Mistake" as Arnold says in The Last Action Hero.

About the only thing Demme got right was casting Thandie Newton in the role that Audrey Hepburn had created in the original film.  However things started to go off the rails with his Cary Grant replacement Mark Wahlberg.  In short Wahlberg was to put it very mildly no Cary Grant.  He looks completely ridiculous running around wearing a beret.  Someone should have told him that only tourists wear berets.  More importantly he had absolutely no chemistry with Thandi Newton which for a romantic thriller is kind of a problem.

Demme's idea to film this as a tribute to the New Wave was to shoot the film with hand held cameras.  The Truth About Charlie is a head ache inducing shaky mess and  the camera work a complete distraction to the story.  I suppose I could comment on the frenzied editing but what's the point.  

Demme also stuck some of the old French New Wave gang into this film.  Director Agnes Varda shows up in a couple of scenes and recreates the ending from Truffaut's The Bride Wore Black.  Anna Karina,  Jean Luc Goddard's one time wife and muse appears.  Charles Aznavour the star of Truffaut's Shoot the Piano Player makes a couple of appearances crooning some songs.  Finally there is a shot of Francois Truffaut's grave in Montmartre Cemetery.  All these New Wave jokes and tributes get really tiresome when the rest of the film is an unwatchable mess.

The Truth About Charlie is the price movie studios and ultimately the audience pays when a quirky filmmaker is allowed to run amuck with his so called personal vision.   Demme had only himself to blame. He wrote, produced and directed this film. 

The screenplay is by Jonathan Demme, Steve Schmidt, Peter Joshua (the alias for Peter Stone when he knew he was working on a turkey like this), and  Jessica Bendinger.  The running time is 104 minutes.

2004 - THE JANE AUSTEN BOOK CLUB, I was expecting the worst.

Five women and a guy form a book club where they decide to read all of Jane Austin's novels.  The gimmick in this film is that each of the club members is living out one of Austen's plot lines.  What this film has going for it is a really good cast of women and honestly a not uninteresting story line interweaving their fascination for Jane Austen's books with their actual lives. 

Kathy Baker is Bernadette sort of the ring leader of the group who kind of orchestrates the whole shebang with the group which includes get mixed up in their personal lives.  Amy Brennerman is Sylvia a woman whose husband has walked out on her for a younger woman.  Sylvia still hopes for a reconciliation with her cad of a husband.  Brennerman who by the way looks way to young, has a daughter in her twenties who is a lesbian having relationship problems.

Emily Blunt with a really bad haircut, is Prudie a woman with an inattentive husband.  She finds herself falling for a high school student in the film's ickiest subplot.  Finally there is Maria Bello as Jocelyn a dog trainer who is ignoring the male member of the group who has a crush on her.  It's easy to see why that is.  He attempts to woo her by giving her science fiction novels to read for some odd reason.   

 The Jane Austen Book Club is one of the better films in this genre. This good cast and a fairly decent screenplay help make this a better than average romantic comedy.  These types of genre films have a preset list of scenes and "meet cute" situations that must always be followed. These boy meets girl stories do have the inevitable march to their happy ending.  In these types of films the entertainment value comes from how the director and writer can pull this bunch of cliches off.  In this case the makers of this film pulled it off fairly well. 

The film was written by the director Robin Swicord, the running time is 105 minutes. 

2026 - MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE, a very strange film

This is not a good film, in fact it's a very stupid film.  Mattel owns the rights to the He-Man and the Masters of the Universe characters. They were looking for a studio to make a live action version of their cheesy syndicated cartoon series. Mattel managed to get MGM/Amazon to sign on to create a feature film.  And what brought this on?  Well one word Barbie.  Barbie another Mattel character made so much money that all these corporate interests thought they had a potential money source converting plastic toy doll characters into actual films. 

Unfortunately nobody seemed to understand the success of Barbie.  The film had an excellent screenplay, good direction and casting.  Barbie also pitched a message of female empowerment and you can rest assured Masters of the Universe really had no such message just a cowardly tiger called Cringer and a floating magic guy called Orko.

As poorly as this film turned out there was the gem of a decent idea in it.  Add the usual action and fantasy stuff but also stick in lots of self deprecating humor with a wink to the audience that all this sword and sorcery stuff is actually mighty silly.

Half the time the actors look like they can barely contain the smirk on their faces while playing these silly characters.  The action scenes are the usual bunch of overblown computer graphic animations. After a while it just looks so outrageous it ceases to be remotely believable even for a fantasy world.  But maybe that was the point. 

The director Travis Knight had primarily been associated with animated cartoons. I suppose he was considered to be a safe choice for what is essentially a live action animated cartoon.  But in the end the whole thing just came off as another  flop that ended up on streaming almost immediately after it was released.  If you are for some reason interested in the He-Man and the Masters of the Universe world I would recommend watching the Dolph Lundgren version.  Released in 1987 by the Cannon Group who at least recognized this was B-Movie junk instead of the wasted $170 million dollar budget that this film spent.

 The film went through a lot of screenwriters but only four got credit.  Chris Butler, Aaron Nee, Adam Nee and David Callaham.  The running time is 140 minutes for a film that is an updated toy commercial, 

2010 - TAMARA DREW, a good comedy from a graphic novel for a change

Gemma Atherton is Tamara Drew a woman returning to her small home town in Dorset, England to settle her mother's estate and generally create havoc with a lot of the men in the village.  

The director is the talented Stephen Frears who is a good storyteller and works very well with actors who in this case were carefully cast.  Frears is a filmmaker who manages to pick interesting projects throughout his career.  He hasn't allowed himself to get locked into one particular genre.  The Hit, Dangerous Liaisons, The Grifters, The Van, The Hi-Lo Country and Tamara Drew  couldn't be more different but Frears manages to bring a lot of skill when it comes to making entertaining movies

Gemma Arerton is a very talented performer who has been attached to some interesting films but her attempts at some large scale Hollywood films like the stupid Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters and the unnecessary Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time and The King's Men have not really been successful.  She appears to have carved out a career in some off beat interesting films.  Arterton comes off on screen as a very likable performer and her character Tamara Drew is not a particularly likable person.

The film was based on a graphic novel aka "comic book."  It was well written by Moira Buffini, the running time is 111 minutes. An entertaining film.

1949 - BATTLEGROUND, award winning war film is mighty dated

During World War II, the German Army makes one final large scale attack on the Allies.  The Ardennes Offensive also know as The Battle of the Bulge was designed to take the U.S. Army by surprise by overwhelming them. General Eisenhower sends in one of the toughest regiments, the 101st Airborne also known as "The Screaming Eagles" to hold a key key city in the battle, Bastogone. 

The film Battleground is based on the siege of Bastogone.  The film was originally set up at RKO studio by Dore Schary.  When Schary took over as head of production at MGM studios he brought the Battleground script with him.  MGM under Louis B Mayer was primarily a studio that emphasized wholesome entertainments and musicals.  Mayer had no interest in a World War II film.  But Schary soldiered on as it were.   

William Wellman aka "Wild Bill"  Wellman a World War I veteran directed.  The story and screenplay was by a writer named Robert Pirrosh an actual veteran of The Battle of the Bulge.  MGM's contract players filled the roles of the foot soldiers and the film was released to good reviews and commercial success.  Viewed today the film while well intended looks mighty dated with only a few good scenes that convey the intense nature of the battle fought in the freezing winter.

The film was primarily shot on a large soundstage at MGM which gives it a very phony look. The award winning screenplay has the usual foot soldier troupes.  The green kid, the tough guy tobacco chewing sergeant, the scrounger and finally the sensitive newspaper reporter turned soldier.  In an obvious attempt to humanize and identify with the soldiers there is a lot of humor in the film and talk lots of talk.  It's amazing that the 101st had time to fight with all the chatter that went on in the foxholes.

Using MGM contract players to play the soldiers turns into a spot the star viewing experience.  Look there's 40's actor Van Johnson who usually played in romantic comedies and musicals.  James Whitmore a character actor and had actually served in World War II in the Marine Corps.  A personal favorite of mine character actor Richard Jaeckel had a long career in Hollywood and had been in the Merchant Marines.  Mr. Roarke himself Ricardo Montalban covered the ethnic soldier angle.  Finally James Arness, Marshall Matt Dillon from Gunsmoke had been at the Anzio invasion.  What these actual veterans must have thought about running around big phony soundstage battle sets playing soldier boys will unfortunately never be known.

For a war veteran and veteran director William Wellman's direction isn't very good. He doesn't seem to  be able to get across the intense nature of the Ardennes Offensive.  Probably shooting almost entirely on sound stages didn't help.  The pack of war cliches that film is loaded up with from Robert Pirrosh also seriously dates the film.  Pirrosh had better luck with his screenplay Hell Is For Heroes which was a lot tougher of a war film than this.  But really the film to watch about the foot soldier is A Walk in the Sun now that's a good war film.  Battleground gets a big gold star for good intentions but a big demerit for execution.

The running time is 118 minutes.   

2026 - THE LAST HOUSE, is B movie stuff

The B movie genre lives on particularly on these streaming sites.  The Last House has a reasonably decent idea for a story.  A family has to survive inside their suburban home.  The film sets up this situation but unsurprisingly can't really find a way to resolve it satisfactorily.

In brief, because the movie sure isn't.  A family starts their day by getting ready to leave their home.  The trouble is they can't get out of the house.  The doors won't open and windows won't open.  Even attempts to break the windows and doors down fail.  The family is trapped inside of their home without an explanation.  Not that I want to point it out but this is the same situation that arose in Luis Bunuel's The Exterminating Angel.  However Bunuel's film was a satire of the upper class.  The Last House is strictly a science fiction film with horror moments stuck in it and yes there are monsters involved in the plot.

At first the idea of being permanently trapped in your house is kind of a clever one.  How do you survive when you start to run out of food.  How do you communicate with your neighbors?  How does this family keep from driving each other crazy?  More importantly what will they do when they lose access to the internet  Well you have close to two long hours to find out.

I  really don't have a problem with B-movies like this.  The premise can make for a fairly entertaining time killer of a movie.  What I do have a problem with is the drawing out of the premise.  In the good old days a director like Roger Corman could have taken an idea like this and knocked it out in 72 minutes.  The Last House just goes on and on until it finally has to find a contrived explanation of what is causing this phenomenon and then figure out a resolution for it.  I'm fully aware that with a high concept like this there will inevitably be a let down with the explanation of the story.  It's just the way these kinds of movies go.

The cast kind of does what it can in the acting department.  In films like this the dialog isn't exactly Shakespearean, we are in the B-movie tradition of very lame dialog. There's lots of talk about what it means to be a family and how this situation bonds them together even closer.  The Last House's family situation kind of reminds me of the Space Family Robinson from Lost in Space who only had each other to count on when they were trapped on an alien plane also loaded with strange monsters.

Is this film worth viewing?  Well probably not. As usual this is just another made for streaming movie that will end up in the abyss of all the other streaming films that are viewed once and never heard of again.

The film was written by Mathew Robinson the writer of Love and Monsters who in this case is really just reworking the same plot as that film.  The running time is 112 minutes. 

2021 - THE DIG, yet another archelogy based on a true story film

Another based on a true story film although in this case it's barely based on a true story.  After sitting through The Lost King I ended up watching yet another dig up the countryside story looking for old stuff.   In this case a ship buried in the dirt from the middle ages.  

Set during World War II, The Dig in many ways has a lot in common with The Lost King.  It has another talented but untrained archeologist working against significant odds.   Once again the archeology group network of "good old boys" from Cambridge University conspires to ace him out of the credit he deserves.  Interestingly enough The Cambridge Archeology department is about as bad as the Leicester Archeology department the main villains in The Lost King when it comes to taking credit for other people's work.

This film introduces us to a young archeology couple Stuart and Peggy Piggot.  Based on some real people they are also involved in the dig. They are having marital problems according to the screenplay. The woman falls in love with an RAF pilot so we have to sit through this love affair plot.  The film implies that their marriage fell apart during the excavation, in reality they were married for 20 years.

 

 

Ralph Finnes plays Basil Brown the untrained archeology digger who is sort of a savant digger as kind of like a Limey Pa Kettle badly in need of a bath.  Carey Mulligan is the rich land owner Edith Pretty who hires Brown.  She may be kind of a upper class snob but she has a sense of fair play in that British tradition and she works to make sure Brown gets credit for his discovery.  Well anyway...

 

 Written by Moira Buffini, time wasted 112 minutes. 

1959 - HORRORS OF THE BLACK MUSEUM - a real piece of crap for a horror film

Horrors of the Black Museum is a horror film that is really a horror of a film to watch.  This is the first in a series of three the other two films being Circus of Horrors and Peeping Tom.  The plot has a crime reporter and the police investigating some gruesome murders being committed on what else, beautiful women.  The crime reporter just happens to have a secret room in his house which is a celebration of various types of murders using bizarre devices to kill people.  Well you can guess where this is going.  There is also a Jekyll/Hyde character and a couple of young lovers but in this film I can assure you they won't last long as a couple.

 

Let's get to the main lead in this film.  Michael Gough plays the crime reporter.  Gough had a long career in horror films.  He shows up in crap like Dr. Terror's House of Horrors, The Skull, Trog and the British remake of The Phantom of the Opera.  Towards the end of his career Tim Burton cast his as Alfred Pennyworth in  Batman.  Burton must have had a fondness for Gough he used him in four more films.

To single out a couple of supporting players in this film.  Sbirley Anne Field was one of those model turned actor individuals.  She was easy on the eyes but not really known for her thespian abilities.  Geoffrey Kean was a working actor who usually turned up in supporting roles playing a Scotland Yard Inspector or a military officer.  He ended up taking over the role of "M" in the James Bond films after Bernard Lee passed away.  He was always a reliable presence playing that "stiff upper lip" character the Brits were so fond of sticking in their films.

Horrors of the Black Museum is essentially a series of killings with some sex tease stuff throw in. The killings don't really have any reason to them and are just killings for the sake of titillating the viewer.  The film was commercially successful.  For the most these films usually make money.  Nobody ever went broke underestimating the taste of the movie going public.

The film was photographed in some really lurid color and had of all things a hypnotism prologue which ran 13 minutes.  The prologue was eventually edited out of the released version of the film as the producers claimed it was actually hypnotizing people in the theater. 

Horrors of the Black Museum was written by Herman Cohen and Aben Kandel, the running time is 81 minutes but if you find a copy with the hypnosis prologue add an additional 13 minutes to the film.

2020 - LOVE AND MONSTERS, has both

After an asteroid blows up in Earth's atmosphere suddenly the world gets lots of mutated creatures running around.  This is a problem for the human race to deal since the creatures like to eat people.  Jump ahead in time and the remaining humans are fighting for their lives in order to avoid being some monster's appetizer.  Our hero is a young man named Joel Dawson who decides to head out into the scary world to improbably find his girlfriend he lost contact with years ago.  He encounters what remains of the human race and lots and lots of icky creatures in his search for her.

Love and Monsters had the unfortunate luck to come out during the COVID crisis although even without a COVID crisis I doubt this film would have done all that well.  It was not commercially successful.  However this film does move along at a decent pace.  It sets up it's monster world building thing and has enough action to keep the science fiction/action nerd entertained.  The cast is decent with a lot of actors who I don't really recall seeing in other films.  The helps make the film a little more interesting since you don't know who is going to get eaten.

One of the producers on this film is Shawn Levy who is a practiced hand at cranking out decent and successful commercial entertainments like Night at the Museum, Free Guy, The Adam Project and Deadpool & Wolverine.

Love and Monsters ends up being an okay and ultimately forgettable time killer of a film.  Nothing particularly wrong with that.

The film was written by Brian Duffield and Matthew Robinson, the running time is 109 minutes.

2022 - THE LOST KING, the cutthroat world of archaeology

Another one of these based on a true story films.  Normally I am highly skeptical of these kinds of films but in this instance there actually appears to be some truth behind this story.

The story focuses on writer/reporter Philippa Langley who becomes interested in King Richard the III.  Shakespeare wrote an entire play about Richard the evil hunchback who attains power through manipulation and assassination.  The play even has Richard ordering the deaths of his nephews as they are an obstacle to his ascension to the throne.  The writer Philippa Langley played very well by Sally Hawkins decides to investigate Richard's life and begins to suspect that instead of his body being thrown in the river after his death he is actually buried in a parking lot in Leicester, England.

Here's where the story gets interesting.  Langley manages to get help from the archeology department of  the University of Leicester and also the cooperation of the Leicester City Council to dig up the parking lot where the presumed body lies.  Amazingly the body is located but Langley's work on the project is essentially ignored to play down her involvement on the project by the University and the City Council.

Well to put it mildly this film caused a real uproar in the archeology world with lots of finger pointing and counter accusations from everyone involved in the Richard The III project.  Understandably no one wanted to be accused of freezing out a major player and a woman no less who helped to recover the body of the King of England.  You can spend a lot of time reading about this mess on the internet.  Who would have thought is was a dog eat dog situation in the world of archeology nerds. 

The film is well directed as usual by Stephen Frears.  Although I could have done without the fantasy elements which has Langley interacting with the ghost of Richard The III.  Steve Coogan the comedian and writer of the film along with Jeff Pope plays Philippa Langley's ex-husband.  This film has a lot in common with Coogan's Philomena the story of another woman who was seriously mistreated by the Catholic Church.

The running time is 108 minutes. 

2025 - THE RUNNING MAN, the remake

The director Edgar Wright had a big desire to remake the old Arnold Schwarzenegger version calling it a dream project.  Apparently Wright had not cared for Arnold's film of the Stephen King story and wanted to stay closer to the original. Careful what you wish for when it comes to dream projects.  The final result of this film is a jumbled mess that ends up in a series of individual action scenes which don't tie together. 

 

Wright went about creating a story about a totalitarian government now in charge of the United States tusing the media to manipulate the public to stay in power.  Apparently Wright didn't read  “1984” in school like everyone else was forced to do.  Glen Powell plays a contestant in The Running Man game show.  He's desperate to make money for his family and his sick child needs a doctor of course.  Nothing like dragging that old trope out.  The film follows Powell around from one situation to another as he is pursued by some government agents all the while being stalked by video cameras that transmit his situation over network TV for the entertainment of the public.  

This film is just a big miss for Edgar Wright.  Normally he is a director with an entertaining visual style who really knows how to move a story along.  Wright's other skill is adding humor to his films which he is usually very good at.  However the pace of this film is off and a lot of the film's attempts at humor are just not that funny.

Edgar Wright besides being a director is a serious film nerd as he has demonstrated on one podcast after another.  He started out strong in his career with his very funny television show Spaced.  He moved into film with Shawn of the Dead,  Hot Fuzz and his tribute to Walter Hill's The Driver with his version called Baby Driver.  Wright had his misses with Scott Pilgrim vs. the World and Last Night in Soho but at least they were interesting films.  However The Running Man is a complete failure from conception to execution. 

Frankly this film also has some very disappointing casting decisions in it.  I hate to say it but Glenn Powell as the lead can't even begin to generate the charisma of Arnold Schwarzenegger. Arnold's film also had Richard Deacon as the evil game show host who is really fun to watch.  Josh Brolin is the head of the game show in this version but he can't compete with Richard Deacon’s funny performance.

I think the major problem with this version of The Running Man is that it's just not as much fun as Arnold's goofy version was.  As film critic Andrew Sarris liked to say there is a "strained seriousness " throughout this film.   The Running Man  is also ungodly long running over two hours.

The writers were Edgar Wright and Michael Bacall.  The running time is 133 minutes. 

1991 - ENCHANTED APRIL, is really boring

On the never ending search to find films I can share with my wife I found this tiresome bore of a film.  The film's own advertising proclaimed "that if you love A Room With A View you will love Enchanted April."  Well I've seen A Room With A View and I can assure you this film is no A Room With A View.

The story such that it is concerns four women who rent a villa in Italy for a month.  They're all repressed in their lives or under the thumbs of their husbands.  A vacation in Italy for a month is just the thing to turn their lives around.  A month in the Italian countryside is going to solve all their problems never mind the other eleven months of the year.

The story has the usual bunch of British characters that show up in these period pieces.  Everyone acts and talks like they are the most emotionally and unhappily repressed people on the planet.  There's lots of introspection and soul searching as they wander around the villa and they wander around the villa a lot.

The film was photographed in Portofino, Italy so the viewer gets many shots of sunlight glistening off of the lake, spiderwebs artfully photographed and lots and lots of photography of one woman sitting in a garden sunning herself.  Not actually an action packed film. 

Clearly the film was trying to pull off a romantic mood but for a film like this to succeed you really have to know your stuff to put this mood stuff over.  You just can't make a film with four women walking around a villa for an hour and a half and not have something happening.  You need interesting characters, interesting situations and interesting dialog which you won't find in this film.  Enchanted April could barely past the mustard as some dull PBS Masterpiece Theater presentation.

The film was written by Peter Barnes, the running time is an interminable 95 minutes.   

1955 - STRANGER ON HORSEBACK, enjoyable B Western

Joel McCrea is a circuit judge who rides into a small town which is completely owned and controlled by a rich banker.  McCrea investigates the death of a man who was shot by the rich rancher's son.  The judge takes the rancher's son into custody and a standoff occurs as the rancher and his hired men try to break the son out of jail.  The screenplay of this film has a lot in common with the better known Howard Hawks film Rio Bravo which was produced four years later.  

The actor Joel McCrea had been working in film since the 1930s.  He played a variety of roles in comedies, dramas and of course westerns.  McCrea had worked with Alfred Hitchcock, William Wyler, King Vidor and George Stevens.  He was an excellent leading man in two of Preston Sturges's best films, The Palm Beach Story and Sullivan's Travels.  As McCrea got older he gravitated exclusively to the western genre.  McCrea was proud of his image as a western hero and worked hard to uphold it.  He appeared in probably Sam Peckinpah's best film Ride The High Country which was an excellent summation to his western hero career.

Stranger On Horseback is a fairly standard small scale western.  It's got good guys and bad guys and a shootout at the end. McCrea has a fairly interesting love interest in this film a Mexican performer Miroslava Stern.  She was born in Czechoslovakia but her family emigrated to Mexico when she was 15 years old.  She apparently had a rather troubled life and committed suicide when she was 29 years old. 

Stranger On Horseback was directed by Jacques Tourneur a good director who had been associated with Val Lewton's classic RKO horror series.  Tourneur has a couple of classic films to his name Out of the Past and Night of the Demon.   Tourneur worked with McCrea in some other films and directed him in what McCrea called his favorite film, Stars In My Crown a very good film by the way.  

The film was written by Herb Meadow and Don Martin, the running time is 66 minutes. 

1998 - SAVING PRIVATE RYAN, as usual 'War Is Hell'

You can't fault the technical aspects of this film.  Steven Spielberg is at the height of his film making skill.  His cinematographer Janusz Kamiński brilliantly photographed this film draining the color and  making it look at times like a black and white World War II film.  The decision to shoot the film with a hand held camera added a stunning immediacy to the fighting.  Spielberg's long time editor Michael Kahn cut the film together for maximum impact.  Considering this was a large scale and expense film with complicated battle scenes Spielberg was such an experienced director he brought the film in under schedule, an impressive achievement.

Saving Private Ryan was clearly inspired by the real life tragedy of the five Sullivan brothers.  They were sailors serving on the same ship which was torpedoed by the Japanese killing all five of them.  This incident so traumatized the country the United States Navy changed their policy of letting family members serve together.

I haven't viewed this film since it was originally released and while the battle scenes were still as intense as I remember I had some reservations about the actual story.  In many ways this is just a hyped up 1940's World War II film with a lot more graphic violence.  One of the messages of Saving Private Ryan is the emotionally draining effect that war has on soldiers.  The problem I always have with these anti-war films it that they tend to exploit the very thing they are trying to condemn the fighting.  Saving Private Ryan definitely has a "this is a cool combat scene" vibe. I would probably call it violence porn.  The audience is being manipulated to enjoy how impressive the fighting scenes are at the expense of the anti-war message.

As far as the cast goes it's the usual group of soldier boy character exaggerations.  Tom Hanks is the Captain in charge of the mission to find Private Ryan.  He's a resourceful leader of men but underneath a sensitive soul who in a previous life was a teacher.  Tom Sizemore is the battle hardened sergeant who has a philosophical side to him.  Jeremy Davis is the private who has never been in battle before.  Barry Pepper is a Bible quoting sniper.  A young Matt Damon is Private Ryan the soldier Hanks has been looking for to bring home.  However he won't leave his platoon because he has bonded with them in this "profession of arms."  One of the oddest casting choices is Ted "Sam the Bartender" Danson as an army captain.  I half expected to see Cliff and Norm from Cheers to pop up at any moment.

Saving Private Ryan is almost three hours long and towards the end it kind of drags as we wait for the final big battle scene which in many ways is like one of those big musical production numbers.  In this case it's Hank's platoon vs some German tanks and what seems like a whole regiment of German soldiers.  Fighting these Germans against overwhelming odds is about as big a fantasy as anything found in any other war film.  If you are looking for a good film about the effect of war on the foot soldier I would probably go with A Walk in the Sun or The Big Red One.

The film was written by Robert Rodat, with uncredited contributions from Frank Darabont and Scott Frank.  The running time is 170 minutes.