Saving Private Ryan (Sapphire Series) [Blu-ray]
by Steven Spielberg
![Saving Private Ryan (Sapphire Series) [Blu-ray]](/images/Saving-Private-Ryan-Sapphire-Series-Blu-ray-B003LL3N1I-L.jpg)
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Blu-ray details
Actor: Barry Pepper, Edward Burns, Matt Damon, Tom Hanks, Tom SizemoreDirector: Steven Spielberg
Brand: DRM
Producer: Allison Lyon Segan
Producer: Bonnie Curtis
Producer: Gary Levinsohn
Producer: Ian Bryce
Producer: Kevin De La Noy
Producer: Mark Gordon
Writer: Robert Rodat
Blu-ray: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); Portuguese (Subtitled); English (Original Language); Spanish (Original Language); French (Original Language); Portuguese (Original Language); French (Dubbed); Portuguese (Dubbed); Spanish (Dubbed)
Format: AC-3, Color, Dolby, DTS Surround Sound, Dubbed, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.85:1
Running Time: 169 minutes
Blu-ray Release Date: 2010-05-04
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: Paramount
Product features:
- Condition: New
- Format: Blu-ray
- AC-3; Color; Dolby; DTS Surround Sound; Dubbed; Subtitled; Widescreen
Blu-ray Reviews of Saving Private Ryan (Sapphire Series) [Blu-ray]
Blu-ray Review: Fawless HD Transfer for a Flawless Film
Summary: 5 Stars
As far as I'm concerned, war films are divided into to periods: Pre-Ryan and Post-Ryan. That is pretty much it. This film is that important.
Before private Ryan war films (specifically WWII films)were very different. I'm not saying they weren't good. Some were awsome and a few downright classics but looking at it from Saving Private Ryan's perspective, it almost seems like they were movies about wars that never happened.In those movies, your survival depended on whether you were a good soldier. If you were good, no one could touch you. In those films the good guys were good and that was that. Nothing that could shine even the slightest sliver of moral ambiguity would show up. In those films, the bad guys were robots with no souls who were intent on destroying anything resembling goodness. For millions of people, this is the way WWII was fought.
Then came Saving Private Ryan.
This film showed war as it had never been depicted: The reality of it all.(As many veterans have confirmed through their reaction to the film)The films first set piece, in which the 2nd Rangers storm Omaha Beach in Normandie is an unflinching and brutal wake up call. Good soldiers, extraordinary ones actually, die. Some didn't even had a chance to get off the boat. It wasn't about who was good or skilled. It was the luck of the draw. Maybe you die today, maybe you don't. That initial wave, in which the germans are practically using the American soldiers as target practice, shows not only the brutality of war but the frailty of man, as evidenced in the many individual reactions of soldiers Spielberg captures. We see them getting blown up,losing limbs and even guts. Suddenly, "crying for your mama" is not as childish or cowardly as we thought.
We also see the enemy in a whole new light. After the Rangers finally make it up the beach, some of them shoot a group of surrendering germans in a scene we would have never seen in a film before this one. At that moment the germans stop being robots and become human. "Our guys wouldn't do that!" would cry some but deep inside we know better. If you just saw most of your friends slaughtered, what would you do if you faced their executioners? This is the type of question this film makes you think again and again about war and what it means. But obviously gore and horror for gut and horror's sake is not what makes this film so important and relevant. In the end, it's the soldiers and the choices they make in all that chaos. Many filmakers in the past might have opted to downright ignore the chaos of war maybe out of respect. To avoid having thee soldiers looking a little less because of the things they did or witnessed but Spielberg chose to show it and the result is quite the contrary. By witnessing the true hell they went through we actually appreciate the choices they made even more. Under all of that, they chose to fight for their country and protect each other. Incredible.
I could go on but many, many people have made better reviews than this one. To think I wanted to focus more on the films transfer to BD. Now I'm running long.
To put it simply, the transfer is flawless. Spielberg has become notorious for the look of his later films which are defing by a rough, grainy, almost desaturated look. A.I. Minority Report, War of the Worlds, Munich and of course Private Ryan all have similar looks to them. (Not coincidentaly, all of them the handy work of Janus Kaminsky)I was worried that in this manic world of HD and "grain-haters", that the director's true intent might have been lost in a sea of noise reduction and edge enhancement. Not so. All those releases and this masterpiece in particular, retain their intended look. What HD has brought to the table is a sea of colors that I was not able to pick neither in theaters (where I saw it three times) or in all subsequent releases on home video. Now I'm, not talking about Pixar-Cars-The Incredibles kind of colors mind you. Its more subtle but very noticable. Now flesh tones look real and defined. The greens and olives (which dominate the film) look amazing and the bright colors that show up so sparingly now pop even more. Textures come alive. A scene where Mellish shares his gum with another soldier, check out the detail in their surrounding s and the barrel of the machine gun. Amazing. And all that, while retaining the original grain structure of the film. Now that is what HD is all about.
I cannot recomment this film enough and this Blu-Ray is one of the best transfers of a catalog title of 2010 if not the best so far. While I'm sure many would be dissapointed that the film doesn't look like, say, Avatar on Blu-Ray. I say they are missing the point. This is the way this film was meant to be seen.
Description of Saving Private Ryan (Sapphire Series) [Blu-ray]
Steven Spielberg directed this powerful, realistic re-creation of WWII's D-day invasion and the immediate aftermath. The story opens with a prologue in which a veteran brings his family to the American cemetery at Normandy, and a flashback then joins Capt. John Miller (Tom Hanks) and GIs in a landing craft making the June 6, 1944, approach to Omaha Beach to face devastating German artillery fire. This mass slaughter of American soldiers is depicted in a compelling, unforgettable 24-minute sequence. Miller's men slowly move forward to finally take a concrete pillbox. On the beach littered with bodies is one with the name "Ryan" stenciled on his backpack. Army Chief of Staff Gen. George C. Marshall (Harve Presnell), learning that three Ryan brothers from the same family have all been killed in a single week, requests that the surviving brother, Pvt. James Ryan (Matt Damon), be located and brought back to the United States. Capt. Miller gets the assignment, and he chooses a translator, Cpl. Upham (Jeremy Davis), skilled in language but not in combat, to join his squad of right-hand man Sgt. Horvath (Tom Sizemore), plus privates Mellish (Adam Goldberg), Medic Wade (Giovanni Ribisi), cynical Reiben (Edward Burns) from Brooklyn, Italian-American Caparzo (Vin Diesel), and religious Southerner Jackson (Barry Pepper), an ace sharpshooter who calls on the Lord while taking aim. Having previously experienced action in Italy and North Africa, the close-knit squad sets out through areas still thick with Nazis. After they lose one man in a skirmish at a bombed village, some in the group begin to question the logic of losing more lives to save a single soldier. The film's historical consultant is Stephen E. Ambrose, and the incident is based on a true occurance in Ambrose's 1994 bestseller D-Day: June 6, 1944.When Steven Spielberg was an adolescent, his first home movie was a backyard war film. When he toured Europe with Duel in his 20s, he saw old men crumble in front of headstones at Omaha Beach. That image became the opening scene of Saving Private Ryan, his film of a mission following the D-day invasion that many have called the most realistic--and maybe the best--war film ever. With 1998 production standards, Spielberg has been able to create a stunning, unparalleled view of war as hell. We are at Omaha Beach as troops are slaughtered by Germans yet overcome the almost insurmountable odds. A stalwart Tom Hanks plays Captain Miller, a soldier's soldier, who takes a small band of troops behind enemy lines to retrieve a private whose three brothers have recently been killed in action. It's a public relations move for the Army, but it has historical precedent dating back to the Civil War. Some critics of the film have labeled the central characters stereotypes. If that is so, this movie gives stereotypes a good name: Tom Sizemore as the deft sergeant, Edward Burns as the hotheaded Private Reiben, Barry Pepper as the religious sniper, Adam Goldberg as the lone Jew, Vin Diesel as the oversize Private Caparzo, Giovanni Ribisi as the soulful medic, and Jeremy Davies, who as a meek corporal gives the film its most memorable performance. The movie is as heavy and realistic as Spielberg's Oscar-winning Schindler's List, but it's more kinetic. Spielberg and his ace technicians (the film won five Oscars: editing (Michael Kahn), cinematography (Janusz Kaminski), sound, sound effects, and directing) deliver battle sequences that wash over the eyes and hit the gut. The violence is extreme but never gratuitous. The final battle, a dizzying display of gusto, empathy, and chaos, leads to a profound repose. Saving Private Ryan touches us deeper than Schindler because it succinctly links the past with how we should feel today. It's the film Spielberg was destined to make. --Doug Thomas
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