Bridge Of Spies

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Aesop
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Bridge Of Spies

Post by Aesop »

I wasn't particularly planning to see this when the trailers came out, despite the people headlining it.
Cold War, defending spies, CIA/military screw-ups, dead history, blah blah blah.
But the reviews convinced me to give it another chance, so I caught it last night.

Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks are clearly the Joe Monatana-Jerry Rice combination of film-making.
If this flick isn't up for multiple Oscars next year - deservedly - I miss my guess.
Hanks carries this movie nearly single-handedly on his back and plants it in the end zone in a performance last seen by Gregory Peck in To Kill A Mockingbird.
And Spielberg is still taking every movie director alive to school, in every frame of this movie.
The care and craft to the littlest details demonstrate what's possible on a truly A-list production, and the story by Matt Charman and the Coen brothers weaves around the good and bad in our history without setting any straw men on fire, and still showcases everything that still continues to make America the greatest nation on earth.

Like my review of The Martian, it's almost like someone in Hollywood finally got the memo from the entire country to stop crapping on the home team, and give us stories we want to watch.
If this trend continues, being a left-wing jackass celebrity could get seriously out of fashion, even in Tinseltown.

Be still my beating heart.


This movie isn't one minute too long, but at 2:21, I counsel a small soda and a large popcorn.


Rating: Four stars, on a blue field, with red and white striped bunting.
"There are four types of homicide: felonious, accidental, justifiable, and praiseworthy." -Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
toad
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Re: Bridge Of Spies

Post by toad »

If you can find it there is a biography of Francis Gary Powers. He was working for Lockheed as a test pilot at the time and they fired him when the book came out supposedly because it was critical of the CIA who was a big customer of Lockheed.
Powers regarded himself as a technical civilian contractor to the CIA trying to keep an aircraft that was constantly on the edge of stalling out at 70,000 feet. His attitude toward the poison pill was that it was optional not a requirement. It was interesting that Soviets shot down two of their own planes trying to get the U2. Powers put up with enhanced interrogation for two years by which time he figured what ever he knew would be obsolete.
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HTRN
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Re: Bridge Of Spies

Post by HTRN »

Aesop wrote:Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks are clearly the Joe Monatana-Jerry Rice combination of film-making.
What is it with Alan Alda playing conservatives?
HTRN, I would tell you that you are an evil fucker, but you probably get that a lot ~ Netpackrat

Describing what HTRN does as "antics" is like describing the wreck of the Titanic as "a minor boating incident" ~ First Shirt
Aesop
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Re: Bridge Of Spies

Post by Aesop »

Churchill was right.

And Alan Alda has finally left adolescence behind.
Just took him 50 years longer than most people.
"There are four types of homicide: felonious, accidental, justifiable, and praiseworthy." -Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
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Kommander
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Re: Bridge Of Spies

Post by Kommander »

Did Alda actually go conservative or is he simply taking a few roles that are conservative. Perhaps he's having fun playing the "bad guy"?
Aesop
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Re: Bridge Of Spies

Post by Aesop »

I don't think he left the Democrat party so much as the Democrat party left him. He's a 1950's liberal, not a 21st century frothing communist.
He's also 79 (80 in January), been married to the same woman for 58 years, and happy to be working at all given his age, let alone on an A-list movie.
It's not like he's going to be a doing a lot more of those.

By Hollywood standards he's a far right-winger.

Not to mention his part in this flick is about as substantial and pivotal as Harrison Ford's was in Apocalypse Now.
"There are four types of homicide: felonious, accidental, justifiable, and praiseworthy." -Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
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First Shirt
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Re: Bridge Of Spies

Post by First Shirt »

Been married to the same woman for 58 years??

I hereby retract the nasty things I've said about him for all these years.

I won't live long enough to be married to the same woman for 58 years.
But there ain't many troubles that a man caint fix, with seven hundred dollars and a thirty ought six."
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skb12172
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Re: Bridge Of Spies

Post by skb12172 »

Hell, a few of us would qualify as 1950s Liberals. I know I would.
There must be an end to this intimidation by those who come to this great country, but reject its culture.
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HTRN
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Re: Bridge Of Spies

Post by HTRN »

Kommander wrote:Did Alda actually go conservative or is he simply taking a few roles that are conservative. Perhaps he's having fun playing the "bad guy"?
The latter. I saw him on one of those godawful daytime shows recently, and he was running his mouth about socialism in all but name.
HTRN, I would tell you that you are an evil fucker, but you probably get that a lot ~ Netpackrat

Describing what HTRN does as "antics" is like describing the wreck of the Titanic as "a minor boating incident" ~ First Shirt
BDK
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Re: Bridge Of Spies

Post by BDK »

skb12172 wrote:Hell, a few of us would qualify as 1950s Liberals. I know I would.

I really doubt you'd be pro-Soviet.
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