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Reviews
Battleground (1949)
Most underatted and forgotten movie of WW2 ever...
Before "Band of Brothers" came out, I considered this the best, most accurate depiction of an infantry unit in action ever, and I still think it has an edge over "Saving Private Ryan" and "Patton" as the greatest World War II movie(not mini-series) yet made.
The entire cast is not only fun to watch, but very believable in their individual roles, and as a veteran, I can attest to the fact that the swings between humor and deep thoughts in their conversations are dead on accurate. Anybody who's ever served in an infantry unit will tell you that for all the bickering back and forth, members of a squad, platoon, or company will always look out for each other. "Battleground" captures this perfectly.
One of the saddest things for me about this movie is how few people know of it. Except for the occasional airing on AMC or TCM, it rarely shows up on TV and that's a shame. It's well worth the time and effort to find this one.
To Live and Die in L.A. (1985)
Horrible, terrible, I could go on, but you get the idea....
I enjoy watching William Peterson on "CSI", as I like his low-tone approach to the geeky Gil Grissom, but this is one of the worst movies I've ever seen. The only bright spot in this train wreck is Willem Dafoe. This is one of the few movies where the supposed hero is so unlikeable that I not only rooted for the bad guy, I couldn't have cared less when Peterson's character got killed at the end. Actually, I came away from this movie unable to find a single character who was likable.
This was simply a miserable movie to sit through, and I did manage to keep the rental on the VCR throughout the entire thing, in the hope it would actually get better as it went along. Well it did, as I mentioned above, but that's a small consolation for having to sit through nearly two hours before getting any satisfaction from this movie.
One other note, the car chase is okay, but if you really want to see the modern standard for those, check out "Ronin". As others have suggested, "The French Connection" is a much better choice than this stinker.