Band of Brothers

I had to read the book last semester for the second part of American History and got hooked to it. Great read, need to check out the dvd soon!!

 

I liked it but it was kind of uneven as a miniseries. The episode where they drop in on Normandy and the combat scenes were very cool. The neat thing after watching the whole thing was seeing what happened to who.

(spoiler)



Watching the way he led his men, I'm surprised Winters lived long enough to be promoted. Then the way Captain Speirs charges in is incredible.








I think I've seen almost everything on the Hitler channel about WW2, I mean History Channel, and read most of the CMOH citations for WW2, so I'm jaded.

 

Yeah, I'm gonna have to go pick it up probably this weekend, since I have nothing else to do.It's really interesting what they go through, cant wait to see it!!!!

 

I watched Band of Brothers each night when it premiered on HBO. It was an absolutely awesome series. My favorite parts were the present-day interviews with the actual soldiers.

 

Absolutely amazing series. Loved it...haven't seen the whole thing all at once, but the movie channel here usually played 2 or 3 of the mini-series back to back, and that was good enough.

 

Yeah, after watching David Schwimmer on Friends and Six Days, Seven Nights, you just kind of assume that he's lanky, goofy looking pansy ass...nice to know that he can portray an angry, tough character...

No matter what I see him in, though, Ron Livingston will ALWAYS and forever be known as Peter from Office Space

 

I recently watched the series through DVD (rental) and would agree that it was both excellent and uneven.

Mostly, I thought it made Saving Private Ryan look even worse than I already thought it was.

 

Agreed.

I mentioned it previously, but my father considers it the most accurate portrayal of the War that he's seen.

 

I watched it when it was released on HBO, one of the finest programs I have ever seen. The book was excellent and the movie was very close to the book.

Hanks/Spielberg did a great job with Ambrose's book. If you want another good read try "Citizen Soldiers" by Stephen Ambrose. It's sad that he is gone now. It's extremely sad to see the Greatest Generation fade away. I hope that if my generation ever faces such a daunting task that we will respond in the same way with such spirit, sacrifice and fortitude.


I plan on watching my DVD set over the next week when I am off. I'm gonna watch The Shield Season 1 again also.

 

I honestly, truthfully doubt that we would. We are nowhere near as tough as we used to be, on the whole.

 

I kinda feel that David Schwimmer has been typecast and shouldn't have been in the series. I couldn't help but laugh thinking, "Hey that's Ross from Friends,"every time he got in someones face during training camp.

Otherwise a very fantastic and compelling series. I believe it won some emmys.

 

I agree, but I still have hope that we would. Something about tragedy and desperate situations that brings out the best in Americans. That's why I love this country. Remember after 9-11? The blood donation lines at the George R. Brown were over 3,000 people long the day after. I believe that we could do it, I hope that we could. I don't know if we could equal their achievments though.

 

I would share the hope, but nothing indicates our hopes would be realized.

Westerners spend significantly less time doing manual labor than 50 years ago...we spend a much higher percentage of our time indoors...we are much more prone to being prone, ie. sitting down for our leisure time. We consume way more junk food...

Consider that, according to both Ally and Axis commanders, the 'toughest' allied troops in the two world wars were 1) Canadians and 2) Australians...this mostly attributed to their rather hardy general lifestyles, rural upbringings, and emphasis on manual labor. Both of those nations have become much less like this, but worse still, the U.S. has become waaay less like those nations were at the time, as we generally use foreign, cheaper labor or mechanization for much of the manual labor that we once did ourselves.

Add to that the fact that virtually every socilogical study marks an increase in sense of entitlement, devotion to personal gratification, and dependance on technology, and while I agree that we are capable of short term 'rally round' in the wake of fear and/or outrage, our ability to both sustain that will and physically endure the ramifications of a World War type of scenario is bleak.

 

I hope we never have to find out.

 

Amen.

 

I know I get scared whenever I see a drunk guy wearing a skirt with no underwear and carrying a gun.