Word: churlishly
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...seems churlish to take anything away from a film with such a unanimously powerful opening and an attention to history that is emotionally edifying and alive. Still, the connecting material by which Robert Rodat's script moves from the opening battle sequence to the last is less than wholly compelling, and the framing device of the ex-soldier in the cemetery is maudlin and cumbersome. But Spielberg hasn't gotten an ending right in at least ten years. Disputation seems insolent in the case of this film. --Nicholas K. Davis...
...seems churlish to take anything away from a film with such a unanimously powerful opening, with two pitch-perfect supporting turns from Jeremy Davies (the milk-livered translator), and an attention to history that is emotionally edifying and alive. Still, the connecting material by which Robert Rodat's script moves from the opening battle sequence to the last is less than wholly compelling, and the framing device of the ex-soldier in the cemetery is maudlin and cumbersome. But Spielberg hasn't gotten an ending right in at least 10 years. Again, disputation seems insolent in the case of this...
Almost assuredly a major player in late-year awards tallies, Steven Spielberg's war drama was more coherent and less lazily rhetorical than 1997's Amistad. In fact, it seems churlish to take anything away from a film with such a unanimously powerful opening, with two pitch-perfect supporting turns from Jeremy Davies (the milk-livered translator) and Barry Pepper (the born-again sharpshooter), and an attention to history that is emotionally edifying and alive. Still, the connecting material by which Robert Rodat's script moves from the opening battle sequence to the last is less than wholly compelling...
...since Frank's reputation is being used to lure prospective customers to Malachy's book, a perhaps churlish caveat emptor seems in order: A Monk Swimming is no Angela's Ashes. In fairness to Malachy, he never pretends to be writing anything remotely resembling his elder brother's book. But what he thinks he is doing instead on his pages never becomes particularly clear...
...neither he nor Hanks (who plays a captain) got star treatment during the exercises. "Tom and I had to run in the front," says Sizemore. "I threw up all down my shirt the first day." Yet the actor knows it would be churlish to complain, since he wanted a break from playing creeps like Detective Scagnetti in Natural Born Killers. "I get lots of letters from people who really like that guy," he says. "It's alarming...