Just saw the trailer for Spike Lee's most recent film Miracle at St. Anna and thought I should pass this along. I had heard of the book and this movie seems really interesting. I love Spike Lee and will surely check this out.
I love all his movies so I'll definitely check it out, I've got his movie box set collection at home.
Oh what jamaican_youth? A movie box set? That sounds fabulous. Ya, this movie is getting great reviews, just read this review where they said "Toss in a dash of magic and a hint of miracle, and you’ve got this oddball epic that may be one of his messiest narratives, but also one of his most technically accomplished films overall…Even when I don’t love his films... and make no mistake, I think MIRACLE AT ST. ANNA is pretty damn good... I know that there is always something new and worthwhile in store when I sit down for A Spike Lee Joint."
I saw this movie this past weekend and I thought it was really incredible. The young cast really stood out and did a fantastic job. I felt myself getting goosebumps during the war scenes! Loved the movie and now I wanna read the book too!
Miracle at St. Anna Movie Blurb by Shale September 29, 2008 I almost didn't see this movie for a couple of reasons. One - it is 2 hours and 40 minutes long. There is no reason why a movie can't tell a story in a couple of hours. Whether you are Stanley Kubrick or Spike Lee you need to do some editing. And as with all these long movies, I personally could have edited it down to a much tighter movie that would have had all the necessary elements of the story. The other reason is that I do not like war movies. Platoon was the last war movie I saw. I find them too disturbing (as was this one). But, I had the day off, appointments got cancelled so I went to the movies and this one did look interesting. The movie starts with violence at a New York Post Office in 1983, when mild mannered, about to retire postal worker Hector Negron (Laz Alonso in some convincing old man makeup) apparently goes postal and shoots a man at his window, point blank in the chest with a German Lugar pistol. In the old man's apartment it is discovered that he is a WWII veteran who received the Purple Heart. Also discovered in his closet is an antique marble head from a bridge in Tuscany that was believed destroyed by the Nazis. From here, at the prompting of a reporter interviewing Negron in the prison psych ward, we begin the flashback to the all black 92nd Infantry Division or Buffalo Soldiers in Italy in 1944. The group of black soldiers was sent by their racist white captain to draw out the Nazi fire and sustained heavy casualties in a river crossing. The only four survivors were Staff Sgt Aubrey Stamps (Derek Luke) now the leader, Sgt. Bishop Cummings (Michael Ealy) with hardened attitude about the white man's war, Corporal Hector Negron (Laz Alonso again young) a Puerto Rican translator who could speak Italian, and PFC Sam Train (Omar Benson Miller) a large, somewhat simple guy who believed in spiritual magic and was lugging along the marble head as a good luck talisman. Four Survivors Now stuck behind German lines our four black soldiers are looking for a place to hide. The very large Pvt. Train rescues an injured Italian boy, Angelo (Matteo Sciabordi) in a bombed out building and they bond despite the language barrier. The boy calls Train his "chocolate giant" and Train thinks the boy who talks to his invisible friend Arturo is charmed somehow. Chocolate Giant and Angelo In the event you want to see this movie that is about as far as I can take you. The four Buffalo Soldiers continue their wartime adventures in the village with helpful people, treacherous people, resistance fighters and Germans. All the elements eventually come together, though the "miracle" of St. Anna was lost on me. One of the faults of this movie (which may have corrected the other fault of being too long) is trying to focus on too much. It could have been an exploration of mysticism in time of war or it could have been an exploration of heroism of black men fighting for a country that did not give them full freedom but it seemed to be bogged down by both. Of course Spike Lee explores the racism of the day with this movie and what would possibly motivate black men to fight in the European/American white people's war when they were treated as the under class in America. While the racism was real, some of it appeared a little too over the top and clichéd. There was the scene where these soldiers experienced the common racism of the time in Louisiana where they, in U.S. Army uniforms were not allowed to eat in a diner where German POW's were eating. There was "Axis Sally" sending out quite honest messages to the black soldiers alluding to this very real racism. (While failing to mention that the Nazis had their own final solution for black people). There were the propaganda posters put up by the Nazis, probably quite real and themselves overly exaggerated. Also our black soldiers discovered that the Italians did not see them as inferior as did the white Americans. This alone could have made a movie, without getting into the distraction of mysticism with the strange boy and the marble head.
Hm, that's interesting. I didn't find the length of the movie to be a problem. I enjoyed the story and plot and like I mentioned earlier, the cast really did a great job. To each their own, I guess. I am one of those people, who would rather just see the movie on my own b/c if not..I will just wonder about if I would have liked it or not.
I saw it today, and it really made an impression on me... not so much on the black equality standpoint as on the point it made about war in general. i think the combination of the very graphic war scenes, the characters involved, and the dynamics between the four soldiers and their circumstances/surroundings really highlighted the uselessness of war and the importance of personal relationships. The length of the movie did not bother me a bit, because it was always interesting and touched on so many interesting topics.
