I am sure everyone knows the details by now.
Last night was the perfect night to see this again:
For a few weeks now, I was planning on seeing this movie on D-Day, as
it seemed the most appropriate. This motion picture has been viewed by
me before, although the last time was a real long time ago. I soon
discovered the action scenes are still incredible. The opening 20 minute
battle will forever receive all the accolades but all the action beats
are still stunners, both visually and aurally. No wonder that the five
Oscars it won were for Director and various technical awards like sound
and editing. Even if you listen to it via a portable Blu-ray player and a
pair of halfway decent headphones, the Blu-ray is an impressive
presentation; I imagine the new 4K release is all the more better.
Yet the movie is much more than just the combat moments. It's an engrossing story (even if it is cliché at times) where a small band of soldiers has to find the titular Ryan because his three brothers died so he gets to go home. Of course most of the soldiers are against risking their lives wandering through French country that is occupied by the Germans in the slimmest of hopes to try and fine one random soldier, but of course things change... of course it helps that the cast is talented and Tom Hanks was magnificent in the role where at times he breaks down as he remembers his quite different job back home. The people behind the camera including several legends never hurts either.
As an aside, there are several young not yet established actors who had important roles, and of course Matt Damon isn't included in this list; who could have predicted 20 years ago that Vin Diesel would be the one who became the biggest star? He did well in his role but I imagine many would have predicted either Adam Goldberg or Barry Pepper; regrettably for the latter, Battlefield Earth happened and even though it wasn't his fault that movie was so putrid, his star still dimmed. It also reminds me of how Tom Sizemore's star dimmed after all of his personal issues. If those alleged heinous stories about him and some of his actions are true, it supersedes all of his acting talent.
Anyhow, the movie is still tremendous 20 years later, whether it's the combat so realistic it gave World War II veterans flashbacks or all the drama and sacrifice made in attempting to find one soldier. I'll close this out with an amusing anecdote: even in the school year after the movie was released, it was something worthy of being discussed at the high school lunch table. A conversation one day was speculation how Ryan could have an R rating despite all its graphic moments yet RoboCop received an X rating and had to be trimmed to be an R. At the time Criterion did put out the now easier to find unrated cut on LaserDisc then DVD but none of us had seen it yet. There was wonder of what RoboCop could have possibly had that was so violent it needed to be excised... well, even at the time I figured it was because of who the director of Saving Private Ryan was and well, I still feel that way. But no matter, as both movies are pretty awesome.
Yet the movie is much more than just the combat moments. It's an engrossing story (even if it is cliché at times) where a small band of soldiers has to find the titular Ryan because his three brothers died so he gets to go home. Of course most of the soldiers are against risking their lives wandering through French country that is occupied by the Germans in the slimmest of hopes to try and fine one random soldier, but of course things change... of course it helps that the cast is talented and Tom Hanks was magnificent in the role where at times he breaks down as he remembers his quite different job back home. The people behind the camera including several legends never hurts either.
As an aside, there are several young not yet established actors who had important roles, and of course Matt Damon isn't included in this list; who could have predicted 20 years ago that Vin Diesel would be the one who became the biggest star? He did well in his role but I imagine many would have predicted either Adam Goldberg or Barry Pepper; regrettably for the latter, Battlefield Earth happened and even though it wasn't his fault that movie was so putrid, his star still dimmed. It also reminds me of how Tom Sizemore's star dimmed after all of his personal issues. If those alleged heinous stories about him and some of his actions are true, it supersedes all of his acting talent.
Anyhow, the movie is still tremendous 20 years later, whether it's the combat so realistic it gave World War II veterans flashbacks or all the drama and sacrifice made in attempting to find one soldier. I'll close this out with an amusing anecdote: even in the school year after the movie was released, it was something worthy of being discussed at the high school lunch table. A conversation one day was speculation how Ryan could have an R rating despite all its graphic moments yet RoboCop received an X rating and had to be trimmed to be an R. At the time Criterion did put out the now easier to find unrated cut on LaserDisc then DVD but none of us had seen it yet. There was wonder of what RoboCop could have possibly had that was so violent it needed to be excised... well, even at the time I figured it was because of who the director of Saving Private Ryan was and well, I still feel that way. But no matter, as both movies are pretty awesome.
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