Which movie is better, and why?!

If someone else wants to make a matchup to post please feel free. I like to speculate too!

I missed out on the second round but being that I'm me I'll just go ahead and weigh in anyway dig?

Caddyshack is just one of those movies that I will always return to when I need a comedy fix. It is so quotable and great God almighty I have been a using them lines for many a year.

I also love Blazing Saddles but for every one time I watch it, I will have seen Caddyshack probably twice as many times. I also agree with the sentiment that it's not Mel's best flick. I know I will be chastised for saying this but I even like Spaceballs better than Blazing Saddles. Sue me.



"Your Schwartz is bigger than mine!"

As far as the next match up goes I really love them both and I'm not sure if I could pick the one I like better.

Silence of the Lambs has some spectacular performances and I doubt that anyone who has seen it can go the rest of their lives without saying "It puts the lotion on its skin...", at least 10 or 20 times. I often like to tell people of Anthony Hopkins interview on Inside the Actors Studio when Lipton asks him about the movie and the funny little look he had on his face and as he said: "I started to read the script and almost immediately put it down because it was such a good part." Thank the Powers that be that he got the part eh? I don't think Kevin Costner would have pulled it off with quite the same *Ahem* gusto... Ted Levine has played some rather interesting roles over the years to say the least and this is obviosly one of his best, I wish he would do more films. And often overlooked is little Jodie Foster who I thought was just phenomanal as is just par for the course typically when I see her in a movie, any movie really. She just captivates me.

But then there is The Exorcist perhaps one of the most parodied and copied movies of all time. And I don't know about you folks but that scene with the crucifix has stayed with me from the very first time I saw it to this day. It is a solid horror flick and I think it deserves to be on any top ten horror list out there. That may be why I'm more than a little torn as to which one I like better. The Exorcist is a true horror film and to me Silence of the Lambs is a Police drama.

In a pinch I'll go with Silence of the Lambs mostly because of the cast.

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Ok then.



Platoon or Saving Private Ryan

The first half hour of Private Ryan is the best war scene ever in a movie. Without that scene this movies would be exposed. Great film I love it dont get me wrong, but IMO when you do war do it right and real or dont.i detested The Thin Red Line and abhored the constant philosophical prattling that oppresively......"ahem" sorry.

Basically Ryan suffererd from the classic Speilberg touches. Like the german that they let go and then he comes back or that over the top unrealistic finale.

Platoon scared me so bad I considered for the first timer in my life draft dodging as an option, and Im not trying to be funny. Platoon was real.

Which draft were you considering dodging?

I agree with you that "Steamboat Willie" comes back and that some could call the "finale" unrealistic, but what about it do YOU find unrealistic? I'm just wondering because many people don't even understand what happens during the last half-hour of Ryan.

I'm not sure that I ever considered Platoon "real", but it was certainly suspenseful. Coming on the heels of Aliens, it made the last half of '86 pretty tense (and I'm not even mentioning Reagan here ).

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Going back to Silence vs Exorcist, it has to be The Exorcist every time. Whilst neither of them is scary, Silence is hugely overrated (I didn't even know that it was meant to be scary. It just came off as a well made TV movie) while The Exorcist is one of the best horror films of all-time. Friedkin did a magnificent job directing the film, pushing the actors to get the most 'real' performance that he could from them. Also, at a time when special effects were mechanical, the ingenuity needed to create of some the effects was groundbreaking for the time.

Onto Platoon vs Ryan, this is another no-brainer for me, it's Platoon all the way. Ryan is another film that gets far too much credit and, while the fight sequences were brilliantly crafted and their length helped to give the viewer some idea of just how brutal and hellish the war was, that's all there is to the film. I found everything else about Ryan to be fairly standard, especially for someone with the talent of Spielberg. A bombastic but disapointing film and, as I've listed it as one of my 'eternal hell' films on another thread here, I really couldn't choose it over Platoon could I?

As far as The Exorcist/Silence of the Lambs, I'd say they're too close to call, but I definitely believe that The Exorcist is a far-deeper and better-acted film. I believe that Ellen Burstyn, Jason Miller and Max Von Sydow were truly mind-boggling, and for anyone who wants a complex story open to interpretation, it certainly works. The novel was superior, but it's one of my all-time faves. The Silence of the Lambs is a super-duper movie movie though, even if I don't think it deserved all those Academy Awards.

I am watching Platoon tonight, so I can't say which I prefer (I ironically watched Saving Private Ryan only a few days ago.), but I just have to say that the "finale" (last 40 minutes) of Saving Private Ryan was the best part of the film for me. It blew me away and was the fastest 40 minutes in any film I have ever experienced. Unrealistic or not.

I have high expectations for Platoon, though - I've been very interested in Vietnam War movies for the past few weeks! Hope it's as great as I hear it is.

^^^^^ Curious if the movie seems dated to you. please post after watching it.

Chef after watching Platoon - any draft. I read an interview with Stone in Playboy, and he based Elias and barnes after two captains he served under. Those things rumored about in war were shown front & center brazenly. Every scene from a villager girl getting raped in the background or a spastic teenager killing an innocent or each other, the corruption, and madness of it.

After watching Ryan I left the theatre knowing I saw an incredible movie (I hate you Shakespeare In Love). Again after watching Platoon......it was heavy on so many levels other than the firefights.

Ok heres this - Tom Berenger and Tom Hanks were both nominated for Best Actor for their respective roles in Platton/Private Ryan. Neither won, but if I had to choose one to win...it really would be Berrenger. Im sorry but Berrenger was incredibly powerful in Platoon, brought in a performance better than what most a-list actors deliver, and his talent is overlooked still. Hanks is the man, deserves his awards, but imo not in this comparison.

Berenger and Dafoe were both nomed Supporting Actor, and Hanks was nomed Actor. True, none of 'em won.

I love that movie.

Tongo, dude. Ex-Squeeze me, but you haven't been totaling them up since the first set. Sure, I haven't voted much, but that's really not the point.

I wouldn't have voted on either of the last set, anyway.

Platoon gets my vote this time. They are both fine movies, but I have this love for the 80's, that I just can't fight.

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No this isnt a vote total announce the winner type of thing. Just your choice, and why.

Berrenger should have won if it was for supporting.

OK, I just assumed it was, because you named the winner on the first set.

I'll go with Ryan on this one. Spielberg and company seem to get a lot of flak for that flick. Shakespeare in Love's oscar was more a product of Ryan backlash than a pro-Shake in Love movement. Some people love the film, but some people just seem to hate it with every fiber of their being. But you can put me in the camp that loves the movie for what it is. I don't think it's as important a film as some of the more vocal supporters make it out to be. It's a little too long and it's got some typical spielberg trappings, sure. Those bookends, for examle, are just totally unnecessary and lame. But i like the movie and I'm due to watch it again.

Platoon is a good movie, too, but it loses a lot of its punch the second or third time through. Private Ryan, meanwhile, just seems a lot more rewatchable. I don't think any of the performances in either film were especially noteworthy, but i think Hanks' performance is better than any of the three main guys from Platoon. Plus, yeah, nothing in Platoon even comes close to touching that opening scene from Ryan.

I think I'd grade 'em...

Saving Private Ryan (but it's a very high 3.5)
Platoon

What are these "Spielberg touches" you guys are talking about? Just curious.

Just, you know, those typical hokey Spielbergian flairs that spring up in his movies at just about the worst possible moments. Overblown sentimentality and preposterous and cliched situations. A perfect example has already been mentioned in this thread. The German soldier Jeremy Davies' character sympathizes with and ultimately lets go winds up in the final battle at the bridge somehow. And I think the German soldier actually smiles and waves at the Davies character before he's shot to death.

Another example are those horrible bookends on Ryan. Not necessary, Steven

And yeah, I could probably reel off at least two or three of these sort of flaws in each and every one of Spielberg's flicks. But I still really like the guy and he's made some of the most enduring classics of American cinema, so he gets away with a lot.

I'm going to go with Saving Private Ryan, it deserved all of the so-called accolades it received, I says. Platoon is a pretty good flick but it isn't the best Vietnam war movie by a long shot. Hamburger Hill is a good deal more "real" to what that war and what the people fighting that war were really like. When I was much younger one of my counselors growing up told me he re-conned that hill from the movie and he told me that that was the closest thing to being there that he had ever seen.

Wow nice match up.

This is a difficult choice. I'm going to have to vote for Saving Private Ryan and I'll say why...I'm even going to go as far and say that I think I'm biased because I saw it on the big screen and the Omaha beach D-Day scene is one of the single most captivating theatrical experiences I've had. It blew me away...

The extreme attention to detail, the doc filming style, score, sound design and Tom Hanks, are just a few things that make this movie extremely special. It's one of my favourite films and probably my favourite War film. True, as mentioned Speilberg cheeses it up with that German soldier bit, but he doesn't hold back on a lot of other things and the movie is gritty, violent, disturbing and touching. Not many Directors can pull that off and maintain all the fine technical details to make it feel so real.

Platoon is also a remarkable movie. man, it won Best Picture 1986...how can you beat that?? The performances in this film are even better than SPR, you can practically feel the confusion, fear and hot sticky heat of the jungle. This film is grimey and relentless. And you're left with a bad feeling in your stomach, and personally...sadness. It's an excellent anti-war film, **** it paints a candid, practically real picture of a aweful time in history. no shoulders to cry on here...god what a terrible world we live in sometimes. Definately Stone's best film hands down.

Both amazing amazing films. But I have to go with Saving Private Ryan, literally because I am into a bit of the cheese, and like those Spielberg cliches to soften up such harsh, brutal action. But it's very close, both are incredible films by incredible Directors.

Saving Private Ryan

Platoon

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Lets move it down in intensity a notch...



Die Hard or Lethal Weapon

For me this is an easy one - Lethal Weapon. I agree Hans Gruber is one of the best villains ever, but hey at least Busey was sober! LOL! Mel & Dannys interaction really helped fill out LW, and Willis' and Veljohnson (Capt. Al) were ok in comparison.

Action scenes are dated now, but a ton of unecessary sequels erupted from these two ingenious action films.

No need to worry, Tongo. In every war ever fought, more men survived military service than ever fell in battle. In fact, more men remained civilians than became soldiers.

With all due respect to all of you who just loved either or both of these films, I thought Platoon and Saving Pvt. Ryan both were a waste a film, because neither one has a single character who I give a damn whether he lives or dies.

Y’all did sorta solve one mystery for me: I once argued with someone that the German soldier they let walk away from the machinegun nest in SPR couldn’t possibly be the same German who shows up later. I based that on the fact that he was in two different uniforms, with two different classifications. First he was in a regular German army outfit serving with a machinegun crew; but when we see him next, he’s a rifleman in the uniform of a more elite unit, one of the Nazi member storm troopers as I recall.

That really doesn’t matter because some of the dumbest parts of the plot revolve around those two scenes. In the first scene, with little more than a normally 8-man rifle squad under his command, Capt. Tom Hanks decides at the last minute to make a frontal assault on a dug-in machine gun. In basic training, they tried to tell us we could take out a machine gun position with a minimum of two rifle squads if we first flanked it, but I never for a moment believed it. Then on top of that, they take along their only medic in the assault. Medics were not supposed to carry arms during WWII, so he could be of no help in the fight. So better to let him remain behind so you have someone with field experience and some expertise to tend to your wounded after the shooting stops. But he goes along and of course becomes the only casualty. And following the death of a man who they had served with for many months and supposedly liked, we’re supposed to believe they take one totally unharmed prisoner in the process? Well, the moment he tries to give up, you’ve got the same problem that they wrestle with later—do you send him back under guard, weakening your already weak unit, or do you kill him and move on? It’s one or the other—letting him go is never an option. If you’re going to shoot him, better to do so in the heat of action when your blood is up. Or put a bullet in his head as soon as he surrenders. But why go through the BS of having him dig a grave??? They shouldn’t even bury their own casualty—that’s what the grave registration unit is for. Leave ‘em where they drop and get on with the mission. But if you let him just walk away, then you’re jeopardizing everyone in the outfit, because he’s going to tell where you were and the direction you went as soon as he finds some more Germans.

And if that were not enough, the German himself repeats the same mistake when in the final battle he walks past the cowering clerk-typist without putting a bullet in his head. He not only leaves an enemy behind him, but an armed enemy who could have killed him the moment he turned his back—as happened to John Gavin playing a German soldier who kills a more realistic German soldier as he was about to shoot three unarmed Russians in some sappy war movie in the 1960s. Gavin tells the Russians they’re free to go, and when he turns to walk away, one of them picks up the dead German’s rifle and shoots him in the back.

Well, the SPR German learns the same lesson when the cowardly typist shoots him after he surrenders (look at all the time and lives that could have been saved if they had done that in the first place!). But then what does the dummy typist do—he let’s the other three Germans go free! Gawd, no wonder the war lasted so long!

Lots of folks make a big deal about the realism of the Normandy invasion at the start of the film, but I’m afraid that washed right by me too. I remember the scene of a uniformed extra carrying a plastic arm that supposedly had just been severed from his body and it looked to me exactly like a uniformed extra carrying a plastic arm. I think there also is a something in the law of physics that says a bullet traveling underwater so slowly that you can see it probably lacks the punch to kill or even wound a person under several feet of water. I think the Myth Busters on TV tried that trick and found that even a couple of feet of water can safely slow or even stop a bullet.

I pick on SPR because I actually had high hopes for the picture based on the one shot of Mother Ryan sinking to the porch as the three Army officers come up the walk to tell her of her dead sons. But then I forgot how Spielberg likes to keep piling it higher and higher in a film.

Like I said, I’m not trying to flame anybody. If you love the film, that’s fine with me—I’m not trying to change your mind. If you want to discuss it, that’s fine, too; In fact, I’d enjoy it.

And if you want to see a couple of war movies that I think is more realistic than Platoon and SPR, check out The Red Badge of Courage and A Walk in the Sun. Even Willie and Joe with Tom Ewell and David Wayne playing the famous World War II cartoon characters, if you can find a copy.