I love this movie. The reason I'm making this post is because there is a song by a band called Explosions in the Sky where they use some of the monologue and play it over music similar to that in the movie. The song is AMAZING. I was listening to it the other day and I just started thinking about how much I loved The Thin Red Line. It's much more of an in-depth look into war than a lot of other movies. It really looks at the internal frustration and confusion that soldiers go through. It just felt so much more meaningful than movies like We Were Soldiers (which I believe is simply a movie that tries to capitalize on the whole "war movie" craze, where people automatically assume that a war movie is good.) Not all war movies are good. Most of them just try to copy off Saving Private Ryan. But many people overlook The Thin Red Line because it was the same year as Private Ryan. It even got nominated alongside Private Ryan (Both had legitimate reasons to win Best Picture, but since the Academy SUCKS and is controlled by money and politics, they both lost to Shakespeare in Love.)

Bottom Line: See The Thin Red Line if you want a more meaningful war movie. See The Thin Red Line if you want more than action and over-used blood and gore.



PS. Saving Private Ryan is still my favorite movie.

TERRENCE MALICK!!! I'm not sure about anyone else on this site but I feel Terrence Malick is the greatest living director out there (yes even over QT and Scorsese). I mean he made two of the greatest films of the 70's in "Badlands" and "Days of Heaven" (the latter being his masterpiece). Then he goes away for 20 yyears and the entire film community turns to **** (if you don't believe me see how crappy the films were from 1978 to 1998). The he comes back with "The Thin Red Line" and doesn't miss a beat. Then, unfortunately, SPR comes out about 6 months before and people get pissed off when Malick hasn't made the same heroic all American film Spielberg did (I guess people don't like art). It also took a couple years for people to realize that TTRL had a way better cast (Adrian Brody, James Caveizel, Ben Chaplin, Elias Koteas, Nick Nolte, John Savage etc...). Then of course came the infamous Oscar year of 1999 when "Shakespeare In Love" beat both TTRL and SPR (they cancelled each other out I swear there's no other explanation) and Spielberg somehow beats out Terrence Malick for best director. It's times like this I get a renewed hate for the academy.

P.S. We're only a few months away from the annual "NOT-watching the Oscars" tradition

Come on now, Saving Private Ryan is still an awesome movie. They both deserved Best Picture, and for different reasons. The "canceled each other out" theory does seem possible, but I'm going to stick with MY theory: The Academy is all about politics and money. And it just so happens that Miramax does a better job at persuading the academy. They did the same thing with Chicago. The Pianist DEFINITELY should have won. I hate the oscars. Yet I watch them every year.

I really need to give The Thin Red Line another viewing. The first time I saw it, I fell asleep during half of it, and the second time I was only able to catch bits and pieces of it.

Relating to Saving Private Ryan, what did you guys think of Band of Brothers? I know it was a series, technically, but I think it ranks up there pretty high on the list of "war movies." I loved the book, and found the series to be pretty true to what I read (although it has been a few years).

[somewhat of a spoiler]One of the only times I have ever had to stop a movie/dvd to recover from what I am watching was the episode where they discover the concentration camp, and they have to refuse to help the Jews because sudden intake of nutrients might actually kill them, and some 19-20 year old kid in the group has to make this announcemnet to dozens of starving Jews. oish...[/somewhat of a spoiler] The end of Schindler's List also does this to me.

I'm going to have to go ahead and say that Band of Brothers is the best thing I've ever seen.

Explosions in the Sky is a damn good band. I have never seen the movie, what song do they use?

I love Band of Brothers, It is such an awesome series/movie. SOme of the reason it can be better than a normal movie, is because it has so much more time to let you get to know the people. The first time I watched one I was amzed how awesome it was.

quote:

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Originally posted by watson:
Explosions in the Sky is a damn good band. I have never seen the movie, what song do they use?

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The song is titled "Have You Passed Through This Night?" Check it out immediately.

quote:

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Originally posted by Heliotrope:
I love Band of Brothers, It is such an awesome series/movie. SOme of the reason it can be better than a normal movie, is because it has so much more time to let you get to know the people. The first time I watched one I was amzed how awesome it was.

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Yeah, that's what I always thought, too. It's like Saving Private Ryan, only ten or so hours long. Did you ever find Tom Hanks cameo in it? I am pretty sure I did.

No I never did find it, I guess I never knew he made a cameo. His son was in the second to last episode. i guess it would make sense for him to have a cameo, since he had so much to do with it.

Just watched The Thin Red Line today. Wow, what an amazing movie. It's funny even though it was really long, it didn't seem that long, which is really funny because there were long parts where nothing much happened. Isn't it amazing how 7 men can take a hill hundreds can't? It was definately one of the best war movies I've seen. Another awesome war movie is The Longest Day. It's crazy some of the stuff they could do back then they can't now.

The Thin Red LIne was awesome, although it was kind of hard for me to believe it was meant to be Guadalcanal as it was shot a few hours north of here in cane fields. Just looks like North Queensland to me, but i still love it.
For war film buffs, check out Breaker Morant, it launched the career of cinemaphotographer Don MacAlpine from Australia to Hollywood