Here's Quint's review for SAVING PRIVATE RYAN. He's 17 years old, he's in love with film. He'll watch anything, drive across town, drive several towns, he's a movie nut. First met him at the initial Tarantino Film Fest. He was there, every film, every showing. Always with a shit eating grin. He's the sort that waits hours in line, and does the same the very next day. He's a technophile with a DVD player and Surround sound and giant screen. He's a Beatles man, and did I mention he loves film. He's not always on the money (recently upon seeing a screening of Key Largo and Dark Passage, he preferred Dark Passage) but he's a geek in training. He doesn't often talk out his ass, only on special occassions. This is a non-spoiler review and written from the heart...
Hey, Harry. Father Geek told me to write you up a review, so people can see what a 17 y/o thinks of Steven Spielberg's newest masterpiece, Saving Private Ryan. That's right, good ol' Quint is really cool and young. Surprise constant readers! I woke up at around 1:30 pm this afternoon (I guess that Elijah Wood interview wore me out more than I thought). I call up a friend, who we'll call Mr. Hooper, and we board the Orca at roughly 4:10. With all of Hooper's education, you'd think he'd learn to show up on time. He just said something about not giving him that working class hero crap, then we left, heading towards a geetar store. If you didn't know, Quint's a musical genius, but still needs a geetar.
We are running late in the store, so I tell Hooper, who is methodically outclassing me playing the musical instrument, to hurry it up now. He yells, "Don't wait for me!" I pull him out and we head to Geek HQ to pick up Father Geek. Then on to the theater to catch Spielberg's newest, Saving Private Ryan. Nuthin much happens in line. Hooper and I bump into Brody, who has come to leach off of Hooper's ticket into the screening. I see he didn't forget his rubbers!
We get into our theater about an hour early. Father Geek and Hooper discuss Super 8 shit while I contemplate suicide after the third or fourth cycle of the "Clap if..." shit that Cinemark runs on their screens. Anyway, the screening starts with a bad-ass trailer for Prince Of Egypt, then directly into the movie (I blocked out that terrible musical number done by Front Row Joe).
One word: "Wow." Or, to quote Spielberg himself, "Oh, my God." This movie is incredible. Due to my age, I'm separated from the generation presented in the film by about four decades. That made no difference to me. This could have been portraying a war that happened last year for all I cared.
It didn't change the fact that it is probably the best war movie to come along in a very long time. I hold this movie above Platoon, which I loved. That shows you how powerful it is. Acting is wonderful, scripting the same, yadda, yadda, yadda. Any critic in their right mind can tell you that. I'm here to tell you it is an incredibly moving film. Very well done. I tip my old baseball cap to you, Mr. Spielberg. (Of course I guess you could say that I'm biased).
Hooper says of the film: "In my opinion Spielberg is the Godfather of all war movies. This world would not be the same without him. This film exceeded my expectations. I anticipated that because he's always right on cue with his war films, like "Empire of the Sun," and "Schindler's List," all of which are amazingly poetic and beautiful. This is a film that makes me re-assess my values as a human being and anything that is capable of doing that to any human being is a goal well met and personally I think Spielberg achieved what he was trying to."
Wow, pretty words from Mr. Hooper. It's all that education, I'm telling you. Anyway, to close, all I want to say is that if the man who made this incredible work of film said, "Oh, my God," at some footage of Episode 1, then I can't wait for the prequel. His film made me say, "Oh, my God," so if he said that about another, then I'm first in line. SPR has in a sense escalated my anticipation of the Prequel tenfold.
I cannot give enough praise for this film. I can't wait until What Dreams May Come because I believe, based on what I know (Which isn't all that much, kiddies), that it will be the only possible movie that could have a snowball's chance in Hell of contending with this film for Best Picture. That about wraps it up for me, folks. I must now go clean out the Orca. Damn smelly fish.
"Farewell and adieu to you fair Spanish ladies....."
-Quint
AICN Quint@aol.com
