About this product: When Steven Spielberg was an adolescent, his first home movie was a backyard war film. When he toured Europe with Duel in his 20s, he saw old men crumble in front of headstones at Omaha Beach. That image became the opening scene of Saving Private Ryan, his film of a mission following the D-day invasion that many have called the most realistic--and maybe the best--war film ever. With 1998 production standards, Spielberg has been able to create a stunning, unparalleled view of war as hell. We are at Omaha Beach as troops are slaughtered by Germans yet overcome the almost insurmountable odds.
A stalwart Tom Hanks plays Captain Miller, a soldier's soldier, who takes a small band of troops behind enemy lines to retrieve a private whose three brothers have recently been killed in action. It's a public relations move for the Army, but it has historical precedent dating back to the Civil War. Some critics of the film have labeled the central characters stereotypes. If that is so, this movie gives stereotypes a good name: Tom Sizemore as the deft sergeant, Edward Burns as the hotheaded Private Reiben, Barry Pepper as the religious sniper, Adam Goldberg as the lone Jew, Vin Diesel as the oversize Private Caparzo, Giovanni Ribisi as the soulful medic, and Jeremy Davies, who as a meek corporal gives the film its most memorable performance.
The movie is as heavy and realistic as Spielberg's Oscar-winning Schindler's List, but it's more kinetic. Spielberg and his ace technicians (the film won five Oscars: editing (Michael Kahn), cinematography (Janusz Kaminski), sound, sound effects, and directing) deliver battle sequences that wash over the eyes and hit the gut. The violence is extreme but never gratuitous. The final battle, a dizzying display of gusto, empathy, and chaos, leads to a profound repose. Saving Private Ryan touches us deeper than Schindler because it succinctly links the past with how we should feel today. It's the film Spielberg was destined to make. --Doug Thomas
About this product: When Steven Spielberg was an adolescent, his first home movie was abackyard war film. When he toured Europe with Duel in his 20s, he saw old men crumble in front of headstones at Omaha Beach. That image became the opening scene of Saving Private Ryan, his film of a mission following the D-day invasion that many have called the most realistic--and maybe the best--war film ever. With 1998 production standards, Spielberg has been able to create a stunning, unparalleled view of war as hell. We are at Omaha Beach as troops are slaughtered by Germans yet overcome the almost insurmountable odds.
A stalwart Tom Hanks plays Captain Miller, a soldier's soldier, who takes a small band of troops behind enemy lines to retrieve a private whose three brothers have recently been killed in action. It's a public relations move for the Army, but it has historical precedent dating back to the Civil War. Some critics of the film have labeled the central characters stereotypes. If that is so, this movie gives stereotypes a good name: Tom Sizemore as the deft sergeant, Edward Burns as the hotheaded Private Reiben, Barry Pepper as the religious sniper, Adam Goldberg as the lone Jew, Vin Diesel as the oversize Private Caparzo, Giovanni Ribisi as the soulful medic, and Jeremy Davies, who as a meek corporal gives the film its most memorable performance.
The movie is as heavy and realistic as Spielberg's Oscar-winning Schindler's List, but it's more kinetic. Spielberg and his ace technicians (the film won five Oscars: editing (Michael Kahn), cinematography (Janusz Kaminski), sound, sound effects, and directing) deliver battle sequences that wash over the eyes and hit the gut. The violence is extreme but never gratuitous. The final battle, a dizzying display of gusto, empathy, and chaos, leads to a profound repose. Saving Private Ryan touches us deeper than Schindler because it succinctly links the past with how we should feel today. It's the film Spielberg was destined to make. --Doug Thomas
About this product: The first of the 14 episodes in this second season of TNT’s Saving Grace certainly hits the ground running: Detective Grace Hanadarko, the character portrayed so vividly by Holly Hunter, has already had a beer, maybe two, for breakfast when she gets into a wild shootout with a wanted murderer on the streets of Oklahoma City, followed by a foot chase that ends with the bad guy leaping to his death. Clearly, Hanadarko’s life is anything but usual. As was the case last season, she still drinks and smokes too much, still lies way too often, and is still carrying on with a married fellow cop; she can also still be abrasive and off-putting in both her professional and personal life. But underneath Grace’s tough-chick facade and rock-hard bod (which Hunter again displays to the extent that basic cable will allow) beats a wounded heart. She remains haunted by her history of childhood molestation, as well as by the death of her sister Mary Francis in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing (it doesn’t help that some, including family members, blame her for her sister’s being in the Murrah Federal Building on that fateful day). And she still loves, as her “last-chance angel” Earl (Leon Rippy) puts it, “with a fierce, white-hot, mighty love.”
Saving Grace is again largely about Hunter (no surprise there--the Oscar®-winning actress is also an executive producer); in fact, with the help of the plain-spoken, immensely appealing Earl, Grace may be on the verge of discovering just what God’s plan for her is. But there are also noteworthy developments involving other characters. Her lover, Ham Dewey (Kenny Johnson), is in the process of divorcing his wife, although whether that bodes well for him and Grace is uncertain. One of her brothers, her dead sister’s widower, is about to remarry. And the fates of the pervert priest Father Murphy (Rene Auberjonois) and Death Row convict Leon Cooley (Bokeem Woodbine), both of whom have something important in common with Grace, are resolved--the latter in the final episode, which is perhaps the most moving in the series so far. The weekly storylines (mostly involving homicides) aren’t nearly as memorable as the characters, but the latter easily separate this smart, well-written show from the rest of the cop-show crowd. The paltry bonus material includes two so-so featurettes. --Sam Graham
Stills from Saving Grace: Season Two (Click for larger image)
About this product: There are very few television shows that revolve around a single figure to the extent that Saving Grace does. Then again, there are even fewer that can boast an actor as good as Oscar winner Holly Hunter in the lead role, and Hunter draws on her considerable chops and charms to bring to life a character who, while certainly sympathetic, isn’t always especially likable. Her Grace Hanadarko, a detective working for the Oklahoma City Police Department’s Major Crimes division, is a mess. We’re barely into the pilot episode (the first of thirteen comprising the show’s first season) before we discover that her married partner is just one of Grace’s many bedmates (promiscuous is one way to describe her; slut is another), and that she’s a heavy smoker and drinker and a foul-mouthed, habitual liar. And that’s on her good days. There are reasons for all of this, of course--turns out that the death of her sister in the 1995 terrorist bombing that claimed 168 lives is just one of them--but it’s only when Grace commits a particularly stupid and reckless act that the potential for redemption appears in the form of Earl (Leon Rippy), a tobacco-chewing good ol’ boy who just happens to be an angel. A "last chance angel," to be exact, who suggests that if Grace will simply turn herself over to God, good things will ensue.
It won’t be easy. Despite Earl’s good-natured appeals (along with an occasional spectacular display of God’s awesome powers), Grace is nigh on incorrigible. And while each episode features a crime of some sort, ranging from murder and child abduction to the theft of a million-dollar statue of a steer, creator-writer Nancy Miller (who was an executive producer for The Closer, another TNT series with a strong female lead) focuses much more on Grace’s ongoing struggle to accept Earl’s presence ("Why me?" she asks. "I don’t know," comes the reply) and do something to clean up her life. The show’s bluesy, authentic music (including Everlast’s title tune), dry sense of humor, and sexy tone (Hunter, looking very buff, is nearly nude on numerous occasions) are all positive elements; so’s the supporting cast, especially Rippy and Laura San Giacomo (as a police examiner who’s Grace’s best pal). But Saving Grace is all about Holly Hunter, and by and large that’s a very good thing. Bonus features include audio commentary by Miller and others on two episodes and several short featurettes. --Sam Graham
About this product: When Steven Spielberg was an adolescent, his first home movie was a backyard war film. When he toured Europe with Duel in his 20s, he saw old men crumble in front of headstones at Omaha Beach. That image became the opening scene of Saving Private Ryan, his film of a mission following the D-day invasion that many have called the most realistic--and maybe the best--war film ever. With 1998 production standards, Spielberg has been able to create a stunning, unparalleled view of war as hell. We are at Omaha Beach as troops are slaughtered by Germans yet overcome the almost insurmountable odds.
A stalwart Tom Hanks plays Captain Miller, a soldier's soldier, who takes a small band of troops behind enemy lines to retrieve a private whose three brothers have recently been killed in action. It's a public relations move for the Army, but it has historical precedent dating back to the Civil War. Some critics of the film have labeled the central characters stereotypes. If that is so, this movie gives stereotypes a good name: Tom Sizemore as the deft sergeant, Edward Burns as the hotheaded Private Reiben, Barry Pepper as the religious sniper, Adam Goldberg as the lone Jew, Vin Diesel as the oversize Private Caparzo, Giovanni Ribisi as the soulful medic, and Jeremy Davies, who as a meek corporal gives the film its most memorable performance.
The movie is as heavy and realistic as Spielberg's Oscar-winning Schindler's List, but it's more kinetic. Spielberg and his ace technicians (the film won five Oscars: editing (Michael Kahn), cinematography (Janusz Kaminski), sound, sound effects, and directing) deliver battle sequences that wash over the eyes and hit the gut. The violence is extreme but never gratuitous. The final battle, a dizzying display of gusto, empathy, and chaos, leads to a profound repose. Saving Private Ryan touches us deeper than Schindler because it succinctly links the past with how we should feel today. It's the film Spielberg was destined to make. --Doug Thomas
About this product: Imagine a Cheech and Chong pothead comedy, only instead of two scruffy lowlifes, the movie is about an aimless Scottish gardener and a middle-aged British widow with a green thumb. Grace (Brenda Blethyn of Secrets and Lies and Little Voice) has just discovered that her recently deceased husband has left her with an enormous debt when her gardener Matthew (Craig Ferguson, The Big Tease) asks her to help him tend to his small, personal-use marijuana crop. Grace soon realizes that they can turn her green house into a hydroponics laboratory and turn out a profitable crop--if only they can keep the local constables at bay and then find a dealer to actually sell the stuff. Saving Grace has well-developed characters, intelligent dialogue, a charming and capable cast, and clean, clear direction. But at heart it's still a marijuana comedy, with most of its funniest moments coming from the silly, stoned behavior of elderly ladies and other stuffy Brits. Nothing wrong with that, and Blethyn and Ferguson give the film a strong anchor. The ending goes a little over-the-top, but most of the movie is well-grounded in genuine human behavior. A subplot about Matthew's girlfriend's pregnancy is treated with respect and integrity. Sweet, silly, and sincere. --Bret Fetzer
About this product: Directed by Michael Landon, Jr., Saving Sarah Cain is a sweet film with an Afterschool Special vibe about a family thrown together by unfortunate circumstances. When her Amish sister dies, Sarah (Lisa Pepper, What About Brian) is forced to question her priorities. Should she move to Pennsylvania where the children feel safe within their Amish community, or should she relocate them to Oregon where she has a successful career as a newspaper columnist? Presuming that the children are more adaptable than she is, Sarah opts for the latter and gives it a shot at making the kids feel at home. But the five orphans have a difficult time trying to fit in to the modern world. They also are still grieving the loss of their mother, whose ways were much different than that of their more abrupt aunt. Like his father, the younger Landon has a deft touch at creating scenarios that are heart-tugging, but not too maudlin. The fish-out-of-water concept isn't a new one, but it's executed well by both Pepper and the young actors portraying the children. Though the film tries to force a surprise ending, the outcome is expected and welcome. And while no one has a miraculous change of heart, the viewer can see that the sextet is creating its own kind of family--one that works for within the frame of their unique circumstances. --Jae-Ha Kim
About this product: Saving Face starts like you might expect a Chinese-American lesbian romantic comedy to start: Young surgeon Wilhelmina (Michelle Krusiec, in her first starring role) has kept her sexual orientation secret from the conservative Chinese community of Flushing, NY--but when her mother (Joan Chen, The Last Emperor) becomes pregnant and is kicked out by her own parents, Wil suddenly has to juggle her mother's secrets with her own...which include her sparky new romance with Vivian (Lynn Chen), a ballet dancer and the daughter of Wil's boss. This bundle of intrigue and lust could motivate a wacky farce, but writer/director Alice Wu takes things a step further, delving into the characters' psyches and the complex social rules of their world while still crafting a strong plot and plenty of sly humor. Wu captures excellent performances from her entire cast, particularly Joan Chen, who gives perhaps her most multifaceted performance. A rich, rewarding, and delightful movie. --Bret Fetzer
About this product: Darren (Jason Biggs of American Pie) is convinced that he'll never know love, since his one true love moved away during high school. To cheer him up, Darren's best friends Wayne (Steve Zahn, Out of Sight, That Thing You Do) and J.D. (Jack Black, High Fidelity) hook him up with Judith (Amanda Peet, The Whole Nine Yards)--little suspecting that Judith will tear their friendship apart. Judith wastes no time in taking over Darren's life, exiling his friends, and burning his beloved Neil Diamond records. If only Wayne and J.D. can bring Darren back together with his high school sweetheart (Amanda Detmer), who's about to become a nun. Saving Silverman is unquestionably of the There's Something About Mary school of comedy, throwing together absurd characters and over-the-top gags (for example, a scene of Darren getting butt implants, per Judith's orders). It doesn't quite balance everything, but Black and Zahn are engaging comic talents. Also featuring R. Lee Ermey as the boy's deranged high school football coach, whose advice continues to guide their lives, as well as a surprise appearance by Neil Diamond himself. --Bret Fetzer
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