When Trumpets Fade

Well Worth Seeing
This movie focuses on a sad chapter in the history of the U.S Army in World War II. The Hurtgen Forest was a deathtrap the could have more or less been bypassed. Certainly a low point in the annals of command, though through no fault of the G.I.s involved. This movie made a point to bring out the frustration and waste experienced by the men of the 28th Inf. Div. in that campaign. I think Spielberg set a new standard for the war movie genre with Saving Private Ryan. So far, When Trumpets Fade is one of the few recent military movies to even come close to that standard. It's a shame that, being a made for cable release, it hasn't been seen by more people. The movie is technically very well done. Uniform and equipment portrayal is excellent. For those reviewers above who find fault with a G.I. wearing his watch cap backwards, try wearing one under an M-1 helmet sometime. It's more comfy turned backwards I assure you. The only thing the movie couldn't represent, being...

A Gritty & Realistic Look At Life In The Front Lines!
The opening scene in this HBO movie is perhaps one of the grittiest and most realistic depictions of the realities of combat ever filmed, at least this side of the first 30 minutes of `Saving Private Ryan'. The viewer is immediately transported into the surreal world of death, decay, and destruction, where the panorama in view is a smoke-seared scene that the young soldiers labor through in the midst of all this horror. In this excellent depiction of General Omar Bradley's ill-fated decision to strike deep into the forbidding terrain of the Hurtigen Forest, accuracy and detail are everywhere one looks. The situation described in the film is quite accurate, and the young cast of mostly unknown actors do a convincing and credible job in conveying the insane circumstances surrounding combat, especially of the lonely, nerve-racking and suddenly murderous nature of isolated units moving cautiously forward through the sometimes impenetrable glades of the forest.

All of the...

Pretty Accurate Portrayal of the Hurtgen Forest Fight
I am a captain in the United States Army and have studied the battle for the town of Schmidt and the Hurtgen Forest. This movie accurately portrays one of the darkest moments in US Army history in World War II. Inept leadership from the highest levels down to the regimental and battalion level launched the underesourced 28th Infantry Division into a suicidal attack across 13 miles of dense forest. The movies characters very closely showed the horrible confusion and improper tactical decisions made by leaders under fire. The poor weather negated the American advantages of tanks and close air support. The American infantry as shown in the movie were victim to attacks by unrelenting artillery and tanks. In one real case, the American soldiers of the 2nd Battalion, 112th Infantry regiment, so unnevered by constant artillery, actually got up and fled their positions in the forest village of Vossenack. This was 400 soldiers, including officers, who up and ran. The movie...

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Notebook: Ultimate Collector's Edition [Blu-ray]

One of the Best Love Stories of All Time
THE NOTEBOOK has long been my favorite of Nicholas Sparks' many books, so it is a happy surprise to me that the wonderful story transferred to the big screen with all the sweetness, warmth, and tenderness that made the book a runaway best seller.

The best part of this movie was the incredible chemistry between Rachel McAdams and Ryan Gosling as the young lovers Allie and Noah. Their story was told by an elderly couple in a nursing home. James Garner and Gena Rowlands were outstanding as the devoted "Duke" and the woman with irreversible dementia. As Duke recounted the story of Allie and Noah from the notebook he carried with him, the lady's memory began to come back and she could remember.

The movie always changes the book but the one major change (the ending) which had the audience letting out a collective gasp and reaching for the nearest tissue was, in my opinion, really good even if it was pure Hollywood melodrama.

Why does a movie like THE NOTEBOOK appeal to so many...

During the throes of Winter, remembering Spring
THE NOTEBOOK is an old-fashioned love story with the topical subject of Alzheimer's Disease thrown in to heighten the Hankie Factor.

The film opens in the present at a genteel, riverside, Southern facility for the long-term care of the aged. An old man, "Duke" (James Garner), is in the habit of reading from a book to an elegant, but chronically confused and distant, lady (Gena Rowlands) of equal antiquity. The story concerns two teenagers during a hot, carefree, South Carolina summer preceding World War II. They are (in extended flashback) Noah Calhoun (Ryan Gosling) and Allie (Rachel McAdams).

Noah, working in the local sawmill, is the uneducated son of a dirt-poor father (Sam Shephard). Allie, in these months before she's off to a prestigious New York college, is the only daughter of snobbishly wealthy parents, John (David Thornton) and Anne (Joan Allen) Hamilton.

The book's plot is that hoary one about two young lovers of disparate backgrounds and financial...

(4 1/2 ) A Well Acted, Old Fashioned, Romantic Tearjerker
This screen adaptation of Nicholas Sparks' bestseller is a deeply emotional story of young love, the process of maturity, the crucial choices in our lives, and the frailty of old age. I have not read the book, and thus cannot comment upon the fealty of this film to Sparks' manuscript, but its emotional tone and import is certainly consistent with his other works with which I am familiar. In the opening scene we meet Duke (James Garner), who resides in a nursing home and apparently spends most of his time befriending another resident there, Allie Calhoun (Gena Rowlands), who is captivated by a 1940's story of young love which he reads in installments to her from THE NOTEBOOK which is his constant companion. Allie is suffering from some variety of dementia and these interludes provide some small comfort to an otherwise apparently colorless and bland existence.

The moviegoer is then transported to the 1940's, and the relatively brief appearances of the elderly Duke's and Allie...

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Learn to Play Electric Guitar (4-DVD) for beginners

Great!!
I just got a guitar from a friend and really want to learn how to play. I ended up ordering this DVD set and it was a great start for me! After I finished up the lessons here I checked out JamPlay's main site and learned even more. Highly recommended!





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Last of His Tribe, The

excellent on many levels
This film is a must see for many reasons, primarily because it documents the very end of the ~15,000 year legacy of free Native Americans on this continent: "Ishi," the last Yahi and free ranging Native American is forced by circumstance to enter modern civilization in the early 20th Century in California. The historical significance alone makes it worth seeing.

Beyond that, Graham Greene and Jon Voight give outstanding and moving performances. Greene (who is always excellent - Clearcut, Thunderheart, Dances With Wolves, etc.) as Ishi, and Voight as the genius anthropologist who takes him in.

Voight's character is a pure scientist through and through who finds it difficult to get emotionally involved with much of anything. He prefers to look at the world in terms of evidence and hard data. He is distant as his wife is dying, and Ishi tells him (paraphrasing) 'you put me in your book, but not in your heart.'

A satisfying, sweet, & good, (if not great) movie
"Last of his Tribe" is a satisfying, sweet, & good, (if not great) movie. It is the simplified (& slightly fictionalized) account of the last Yana Indian nicknamed, "Ishi" by A. Kroeber (an early anthropologist at U.Berkley). It accurately portrays Kroeber's struggle to keep emperical distance from his subject as his love & friendship grew for this stoic, kind, and generous man. It is based upon the (second-hand account) book written by Kroeber's second wife Theodora (also an Anthropologist) over a decade after the events. A. Kroeber never published anything about Ishi- and even quit Anthropology for a few years after Ishi's death, so distraught was he over his friend's death, and the perception that they had killed him by working him too hard (Ishi died of tuberculosis 3 months into Sapir's linguistic analysis). The film is sensitively acted by experts (Jon Voight, Graham Greene, David Ogden Stiers). The sets & details are reasonably accurate , but even when they could...

Heart Wrenching!
I read the book, but the movie really brings home what the story meant. Truly amazing and heart wrenching - you will cry for Ishi, you will cry for all the Native Americans. Truly a must see! You will not be disappointed. Greene does another remarkable job!

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Rene Fleming: Live at the Opera National de Paris

What a Singer! What Productions! What a Bargain!
The three operas contained here, live performances at the Paris Opera and starring Renée Fleming, are Manon, Rusalka, and Capriccio. I reviewed all three of them at Amazon US when they came out as singles and will append those reviews here:

Manon:

This DVD comes from a June 2001 performance at the Opéra National National de Paris/Opéra Bastille and stars Renée Fleming as Manon and Marcelo Álvarez as des Grieux.

Fleming says that Manon is one of her favorite roles, and I can believe it. She invests the character with a good deal of feeling, and although she seems a little old and not quite giddy enough to be playing the simple school-girl in Act I, she gets better and better as the action proceeds. Her singing, of course, is nonpareil. Indeed, for me the action doesn't really catch fire until the final scene of Act II (although 'Nous vivrons à Paris,' in Act I, is exciting and beautifully sung by the young...





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Forbidden Hollywood Collection: Volume 7

"FINALLY Some WARREN WILLIAM Films REMASTERED......"
This seventh volume of TCM/Warner Brothers/Warner Archive's FORBIDDEN HOLLYWOOD series finally makes available on DVD for the first time two of Warren William's best films, both of which were responsible for rocketing him to the top of his profession, albeit briefly. This set, the third under Warner's Archive imprint is set to be released on factory-pressed DVD's for it's initial run, as were the previous volumes. I was hoping that Warner Archive would release a remastered set featuring EMPLOYEE'S ENTRANCE and SKYSCRAPER SOULS with two of his other star performances, THE MOUTHPIECE and THE MATCH KING (I even contacted them a while ago), but hopefully these will also be released in the near (I hope!) future. Now on to the contents......

"Love is as useful as wings upon a cat..." or so thinks Tong leader Nog (Dudley Digges, THE EMPEROR JONES) in 1932's THE HATCHET MAN from First National directed by William Wellman (NOTHING SACRED, A STAR IS BORN). Edward G. Robinson...

Another strong entry in an interesting series.
All of these movies have something going for them. I was kind of wary of having to see the great Edward G. Robinson and Loretta Young made up as Chinese but, in its own way, it works as a story of morality and redemption. The leads play their characters straight, not as caricatures. Though the "San Francisco" Chinatown is anything but, it is still interesting and pretty believable. Loretta Young actually looks beautiful and frankly, I really like her in these pre-code films as opposed to her later, sanitized image. It's also nice to see Edward G playing a "nice", though dangerous, guy. Both "Skyscraper Souls" and "Employees Entrance" are the best films in this collection. Much intrigue and "scandal" in these. Warren William is an absolute cad and once again, Loretta is in danger with her morality. The on-the side romantic stories, there are several, in "Skyscraper Souls" are excellent and inventive. The skyscraper in question effects all...

Average "pre-code" selections
This selection of pre-code films isn't as daring as Volumes 1 and 2, but the storylines are fairly good. I purchased this set because I'm a Bette Davis fan and I don't have "Ex-Lady" in my collection (except for the snippet from the film that is used in "What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?"). Also I have "Skyscraper Souls" and "Employees Entrance" on a "Forbidden Hollywood" laserdisc set, so I wanted to replace them. The pre-code elements of "The Hatchet Man" include adultery,"hitman" style murder, and an ending that would do "Friday the 13th" proud. "Skyscraper Souls", like "3 on a Match" in Volume 2, contains a fairly shocking suicide scene. Also it, along with "Ex-Lady" and "Employees Entrance", contains lots of pre-marital sex, which, of course, the Hays Code would ban in 1934. A note of interest is Hedda Hopper as Warren William's wife in "Skyscraper Souls", before she gained notoriety as the famous Hollywood gossip columnist.

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Silver Linings Playbook

This is why we go to movies
This is why we go to movies. Silver Linings Playbook is that rare breed of movie where all the moving parts got put together in exactly the right way. The dialogue is sharp, witty, insightful, funny, and often brutally honest. It respects and holds true affection for its characters and the wonderful ensemble cast makes it look easy. The direction, editing and soundtrack are spot on. It is a future classic and the best movie of the year.

Pat is an underachieving substitute high school history teacher who has just been released from the Karel Psychiatric Facility after spending an eight month court-ordered stint for nearly beating the history teacher to death when he finds him in the shower with his wife. His doting, eternally optimistic mother brings him home hoping that the worst of his previously undiagnosed bipolar symptoms are under control. But his refusal to take his meds and an unfortunate incident concerning Earnest Hemingway and a window quickly dispels that...

The Year's Best Ensemble In A Big Hearted Comedy About Love, Family, And Redemption (And Football, Dancing And Mental Illness)
David O. Russell's "Silver Linings Playbook" is a big hearted and nearly irresistible concoction that presents one of the year's most unlikely romances. I've been a huge Russell fan since his debut with "Spanking the Monkey" and "Flirting With Disaster" is one of my favorite flights of outrageousness. Russell can have an edgy cynicism about his eccentric characters, but he knows how to make an audience identify with even their most offbeat characteristics. Make no mistake, "Silver Linings Playbook" is loaded with an expected array of troubled souls. But the most remarkable thing about this film (and its screenplay) is the amount of compassion it shows to just about everyone. With a stellar cast including Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence, Robert DeNiro, Jacki Weaver, Chris Tucker and John Ortiz, the movie boasts easily one of the best ensembles of the year. Each of these actors is given a fully written character and each makes a huge impression in the screen time allotted...

Bravura Account of Quirky Love. Lawrence is Jaw-Dropping.
I didn't expect to like this film since I've disliked Bradley Cooper's past roles and because the script sounded shallow and formulaic. Initially, I thought they'd included De Niro as a come-on. In fact, the only reason I saw the film was because of Jennifer Lawrence, whose sophisticated performance in WINTER'S BONE convinced me I'd seen the breakthrough of a gifted actress.

Well, I was wrong about Cooper, wrong about De Niro's inclusion, wrong about a formulaic script, and dead-on about Jennifer Lawrence. Simply stated, this quirky, brilliant story of the evolution of love between two world-worn, emotionally troubled people -- against the chaotic background of family madness -- was one of the most satisfying, funny and affecting movies I've seen in recent years. In terms of clarity, continuity and heart, it surpasses the book on which it was based.

Since others have described the plot on this page, I will say that millions of viewers who have not seen the film...

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