It sucked. It sucked big time. Well enough of my witty banter. In doing some research on Terence Malick and the Battle of Guadalcanal I found this very witty review on moviefinder.com. This guy who wrote this review must have channeled every thought I was thinking watching that stinkburger of a movie. So with out further ado I present the review:

National Geographic’s Guadalcanal

By filming this WWII combat movie like a nature documentary, director Terence Malick has managed to create the most beautifully photographed (and ponderously philosophical) war film ever made. Starting off with a South Seas island village so peaceful and picturesque the natives do everything but sing “Bali Hai” we then go to the battle of Guadalcanal where the GIs are photographed so beautifully (the dirt is smeared evenly over their handsome faces) it looks like Calvin Klein led the invasion. And the philosophy! Spouting questions and metaphors in voiceover narration about evil in nature and the meaning of life, these soldiers must have had English lit as part of their basic training. Among the younger cast, only Sean Penn is talented enough to create a realistic character: the pain in his face as he delivers his philosophical dialogue manages to show that his soldier has EARNED his jaded point-of-view. The rest, most of whom get less screen time than the animal close-ups, are hard to even tell apart. As the only one who realizes he’s in a war movie, Nick Nolte walks away with the picture in the one terrific performance. Cameos by John Travolta and George Clooney are ineffective and distracting, the combat scenes hard to follow, and the thin red plot over-extended at such a tedious pace that I began to expect Brad Pitt showing up any moment as Death. For the same good/evil nature debate in a war movie based on a James Jones novel, rent “From Here To Eternity,” which manages to tell an emotional story about realistic characters in under two hours without close-ups of birds, trees and bamboo chimes.

By the way, there was a version done back in 1964. The first version of James Jones book was directed by a guy named Andrew Morton, who also did The Longest Day. Its not on video. I also disagreed on the this guys opinion of Nolte’s performance. Nolte sucked. Don’t waste your money on this piece of shit.

Today the new Star Trek movie opens up. Insurrection. I’m not totally sure this is going to be a good one. I think it just might blow. This is the third next gen movie, and if you go by the curse of the odd movie this one is going to suck.

I just returned from seeing Saving Private Ryan. And was totally amazed. Usually after seeing a movie I feel like the main character. When I saw Diehard I went away feeling like I could take on a skyscraper full of terrorists. With Saving Private Ryan I did not go away feeling like a W.W.II soldier. In fact I no longer have the child dream of fighting in the big one. John Wayne era W.W.II movies always gave you the heroic feeling. Those movies portrayed W.W.II as a great war. Not that I ever thought wars were great. They made it feel like W.W.II was a noble battle. Where as opposed to movies about Vietnam. Which portrayed that war as a dirty ruthless fight.

Saving Private Ryan did not try to glamorize W.W.II. It showed it the way my Grandpa told me about it. “You would be standing right next to a guy and see him get shot to pieces.” Grandpa would go on to say “John Wayne movies don’t show you the truth.” And that “they were bullshit.”

Saving Private Ryan Showed the landing at Normandy like I would figure it really was. The poor bastards first out had the shit shot out of them. Speilberg did war scenes with a camera effect that made it feel like you were there on the beach with them. It was very erratic camera movements. It added to the claustrophobia of the scene. They also showed all of the gory detail of war. When people where hit, they fell down. None of the running around like a funky chicken. Blood was everywhere. And these GIs wanted two things. Their momma and morphine.

Well enough of me playing Siskel and Ebert. Go see the goddamn movie. And do not bring kids to see it. And mark my words Tom Hanks is getting another Oscar for this movie.