5 comments about Born on the Fourth of July (Widescreen Edition).

1. I like this movie! Born on the Fourth of July was written in Santa Monica, California during the fall of 1974 in exactly one month, three weeks and two days. It tells the story of Kovic's life growing up in Massapequa, New York, joining the Marines going to Vietnam, getting shot, finding himself wheelchair bound, and eventually starting a new life as an anti-war activist.



2. Born on the Fourth of July is based on the life of Ron Kovic. A Veitnam vetran. Starts with his childhood and the mindset of many in that generation. After he nearly looses his life in action, he returns to America after loosing the use of his legs. Showing the terrible conditions of the military health care, and the treatment many soldiers were subjected to on their return home. Showing his transformation into an anti-war leader in the process.
   
   Also shows the resistance that mainstream America had for the "Hippy" generation.
   
   This is a great drama. Not a feel good movie. Good dramas rarely are.
   
   The picture is the best availible. I would say it is best that can be achieved with the source material. This film was made to show the times as if you were watching him through a camera of that decade. So, needless to say, it wont compare to Blade Runner. But it wasn't supposed to. Just as Saving Private Ryan was filmed. Though not that washed out. Colors are very vivid, bright and sharp. Super clean, and free of dirt and scatches on the film itself. Great restoration. Blacks are nice and hold true.
   
   Sound was good, not much more than that. Voices were very clear. As was the music score. There is not that much action in the movie, so don't expect Platoon. Worth buying if you love a good drama. Very depressing, but great movie.



3. The controversial filmmaker Oliver Stone copped an Best Director Oscar for his true story about Vietnam veteran Ron Kovic's rebirth as a peace activist. Also Cruise scored an Oscar nod for his fine performance as Kovic and he's ably supported by a fine cast which includes a very young Kyra Sedgwick as his first love, Tom Berenger as a Marine recruiter, and Wilem Dafoe as a fellow parapalegic vet. The story concerns Kovic's change from a patriotic young man to a battle scarred parapalegic, disillusioned Vietnam vet to finally a committed peace activist. It's quite a journey and this may well be Cruise's best performance to date alongside his best supporting performance in "Magnolia". Forget about his off screen antics and his Scientology posturing and check this one out for his fine performance. I really think that Stone should also have received a Best Picture for this film too. By the way, the HD copy is a winner also.



4. I'm no fan of Oliver Stone (see my 1 star review for Platoon) or his politics, and even though this film's ultimate "message" is overtly political (Vietnam was a worthless cause, based on lies) and somewhat mendacious in pushing that left-wing agenda (it was the Republicans' fault), I still rate it highly based solely on its portrayal of Ron Kovic's personal story. This movie depicts with heartbreaking realism the experience of an All-American boy who comes home from the Vietnam War paralyzed from the waist down. Surely it can't be considered political to tell that story, can it? That would be the specious and self-interested argument of your typical neocon warmonger, who would like to keep the cameras away from Walter Reed, where the 19 and 20 year old victims of their phony war learn to cope with life without arms or legs or recognizably human faces. I think it's a good thing for the flag-waving public to understand the consequences of their jingoism and see what soldiers have to sacrifice. This movie makes that lesson quite clear. It can be raw and explicit, but so is getting your spinal cord snapped in two. Tom Cruise gives a fantastic performance here, the supporting cast is first rate, and the extraordinary attention to visual detail combine to create a moving and powerful film. My one complaint is that it doesn't really explain Kovic's conversion from super-patriot to anti-war activist, and represents him as a singularly inarticulate spokesman, at that. It seems to present his argument as amounting to nothing more than "I'm mad" and "The government lied!". Perhaps the real life Kovic had a more cogent position, but I didn't get that from the movie. In any case, it's an emotional and powerful look at one soldier's ordeal of tragedy and recovery.



5. Everybody and their brother thinks this is a war film classic. I don't. I grew up in Massapequa, knew Ron Kovic (slightly), hung out at Arthur's Bar, got my hair cut at Sparky The Barber's, I played in Sally's Woods as a kid, and watched God knows how many holiday parades down Broadway. Growing up, they occurred on every major holiday except The Feast of The Assumption.
   
   Massapequa's the kind of place you love and hate at the same time. It's a fly in the amber. The schools are excellent. Businesses like All-American and Krisch's Ice Cream Parlor have been there since 1955 and remain surprisingly unchanged. The town's underlying values remain intact, mostly because the kids that grew up there in the Fifties inherited their parents' houses and have passed them on to their kids now. On the Fourth of July the smoke from "illegal" fireworks is so dense that spy satellites can't penetrate it (this is a documented fact). There's been a spate of new construction, if you can consider a spate to have lasted 25 years, but beyond that, it's still home as I remember it.
   
   So the ersatz Massapequa (a town in Vermont that they dressed up) in this film was a little disconcerting to me: "Lemke Hardware wasn't even on the same street as Krisch's, and Krisch's is Krisch's, not Boyer's!"
   
   Hollywood.
   
   And this wasn't even the original film. The original BORN ON THE FOURTH OF JULY by Brian DePalma starred Al Pacino and was made, or partly made, in 1978. The Internet Movie Database tells me that the "financing fell through" but I can recall the Pequa Theater marquee showing "Love Story" during some filming. They were actually going to use Massapequa to represent Massapequa in that version.
   
   Actually, the sets don't bother me half as much as Tom Cruise. Pacino would have made this movie a TRUE classic. Cruise is real good at playing the teenaged Ronnie Kovic, but he utterly blows the role once Ronnie Gets His Gun. Cruise spends most of the movie overacting shamelessly, like yelling "Penis, penis, penis!" in a badly-acted "drunk" scene, and turning the heart-rending bitter anger of Ron Kovic's searingly sad book into something like pablum for the ease of audience digestion. We needed grit and despair in this movie. We got Tom Cruise, and not the Tom Cruise of A FEW GOOD MEN or THE LAST SAMURAI, we got the Tom Cruise of Jumping On Oprah's Couch Tom Cruise.
   
   War is hell. It should be presented as such. And so should it's hellish consequences. Like the Massapequa it presents the Ron Kovic of this film is not the real deal.

1 comments about Charlie Rose with David McCullough (July 4, 2002).

1. McCullough talks about his highly praised work on John Adams. Adams is in a sense the kingmaker of the Revolution. He nominated Washington to be head of the Continental Army, suggested Jefferson as right one to write 'Declaration of Independence'. Adams is a passionate humanist, and fierce American patriot. His close relation with the remarkable Abigail Adams strengthened him throughout his life. They wrote thousands of letters in the course of their many years together and apart. Adams was a prime example of the Founding Fathers' dedication to the public cause, willingness to sacrifice his own personal convenience for the public good. McCullough says that in Revolutionary America there were few outlets and career opportunities for men of genius, and so they tended to devote themselves to politics and public work. He still however is astounded that from such a small population such a remarkable group of great men and minds, including Adams.Franklin, Madison, Jefferson, and Hamilton should have emerged. McCullough talks Adams relationship to Washington, his recognition of the great leader, a man of Virginia's power to unite the Colonies, lead the fighting men even when most of those came from New England.
   McCullough speaks with great warmth about the whole subject of revolutionary America, and how it came against impossible odds to break off the yoke of English rule. He speaks with special admiration for the Adamses , who he considers extraordinary figures not only in their own time and for America but also for humanity in general.

No comments about When Every Day Was the 4th of July/The Long Days Of Summer.

1 comments about Charlie Rose - In Memoriam: Beverly Sills (July 4, 2007).

1. Charlie Rose does these memorial shows especially well. Here he has a great subject, Beverly Sills. Both as artist and as personality she stands out. He shows clips of her operatic performances, and of his interviews with her over the years. She speaks not only about her singing and career in this but about her career as head of Lincoln Center. She has always been a person filled with life and optimism, extremely pleasant to see and hear.
   In the final segment Rose speaks beautifully of his friendship with her, and the way she related so encouragingly to all who knew her. The last musical excerpt is a particularly effective one.
   The thought I had at the end of the show is how blessed humanity is by having certain ' great people'. These are the people of some extrarodinary talent or ability whose performances bring us to another level of feeling entirely. Sills was such a person.
   Her description of her one supreme performance the one in which she did everything right, the one she could never repeat - is instructive and inspiring. Especially memorable at least to me was her description of the kind of confidence and certainty she had before a performance. She knew she had what to give- and she gave it.

No comments about Liberty's Kids: The First 4th of July (Readers Digest Young Families series).

No comments about Summer Holiday Survival.

No comments about 60 Minutes - Kinkade (July 4, 2004).

3 comments about Liberty's Kids - The First Fourth of July (Vol. 3).

1. .....but the DVD collections turned out to be horribly disappointing. My rating is not directed at the show. It is directed at the DVD series itself. Someone really dropped the ball on what could have been a fabulous dvd collection.
   
   So far there are Volumes 1, 2 & 3. Each volume includes five "playing cards" of George Washington, Phyllis Wheatly, Abigail Adams, John Paul Jones & Ben Franklin. This is a fabulous idea..BUT the problem is that the five playing cards are all the same in each volume. So now my daughter has three sets of the same cards. This makes absolutely no sense...
   
   As far as the episodes, each DVD Volume includes three episode but the episodes are not set up the way they are on television. The episodes cut out the "Liberty News", "Now & Then" & "Continental Cartoons". Not having them including in each episode takes away from the show. Instead of having them in the show the way they should be, they are included as bonus features.....And the Continental Cartoons segment where you "Guess This Person". You have to use the DVD remote to access the three clues....But the problem I am having is this "game" doesn't work correctly and out of the three clues, I can only access the first one. Leaving the other two clues inaccessible.....?
   
   VOLUME 1 - The Boston Tea Party (The Movie)
   
   This DVD included episodes The Boston Tea Party, The Intolerable Act & Shot Heard Round the World. There is no "closing credits" to the first episode, no "intro & closing credits" to the second episode and no "intro" to the third episode. All three episodes run together like a "movie". And of course do not include the Continental Cartoons, Liberty News & Now & Then.
   
   VOLUME 2 - Give Me Liberty
   
   This DVD includes episodes Liberty or Death, Common Sense & Not Yet Begun To Fight. These episodes were not set up like a "movie" such as the first volume. And each episode actually has the introduction and closing credits for all three episodes. But or course it lacks the Continental Cartoons, Liberty News & Now & Then.
   
   VOLUME 3 - The First Fourth of July
   
   This dvd includes The First Fourth of July, New York, New York & One Life To Live. All episodes are set up the same way as Volume 2. But the problem with Volume 3 is that somewhere between Volume 2 & Volume 3, other Liberty's Kids episodes are missing. I have no idea how many they skipped going from Volume 2 to Volume 3. That BIG flaw prompted me to write a review of this DVD collection...For Shame DIC. The Liberty's Kids series deserves far better then what you have done with it in the DVD collection...
   
   General Mills cerel came with a free DVD of two Liberty's Kids episodes. The Midnight Ride & The Turtle. BOTH of these episodes were issued on the DVD the way that they were televised on TV. Both episodes had the Continental Cartoons, Liberty's News & Now & Then. Which should have been the case with these volumes but was not. Where is the COMMON SENSE DIC.



2. Liberty's Kids is a good show. It's telling you what it would be like liveing in the 1700's .The first DVD is telling you about 'the shot heard 'round the world' , the Boston Tea Party,and The Intolerable Acts. The second DVD is about 'Common Sense'(by Thomas Paine ), also the battle between The Serapis and John Paul Jones' ship Bonhomme Richard and also his famous saying ''I have not begun to fight'', and Patrick Henry's Speech ''Give me liberty or give me death''.The third DVD is talking about the Declaration of Independence ,also Nathan Hale's speech ''I only regret that I have but one life to loose for my country'',and the signing of the Declaration of Independence.



3. Why is A 60-minute DVD $40 ?? Liberty's Kids are great! Make these available to the masses -same as aired in television saturday mornings- at a reasonable cost- so that our families may enjoy them! Soon!!
   
   Amendment 10/06: These can now be found inexpensively. Highly recommended, excellent and easy way for children to learn History by all-star character voice actors.

No comments about Four Days in July.

5 comments about Born on the Fourth of July.

1. I like this movie! Born on the Fourth of July was written in Santa Monica, California during the fall of 1974 in exactly one month, three weeks and two days. It tells the story of Kovic's life growing up in Massapequa, New York, joining the Marines going to Vietnam, getting shot, finding himself wheelchair bound, and eventually starting a new life as an anti-war activist.



2. Born on the Fourth of July is based on the life of Ron Kovic. A Veitnam vetran. Starts with his childhood and the mindset of many in that generation. After he nearly looses his life in action, he returns to America after loosing the use of his legs. Showing the terrible conditions of the military health care, and the treatment many soldiers were subjected to on their return home. Showing his transformation into an anti-war leader in the process.
   
   Also shows the resistance that mainstream America had for the "Hippy" generation.
   
   This is a great drama. Not a feel good movie. Good dramas rarely are.
   
   The picture is the best availible. I would say it is best that can be achieved with the source material. This film was made to show the times as if you were watching him through a camera of that decade. So, needless to say, it wont compare to Blade Runner. But it wasn't supposed to. Just as Saving Private Ryan was filmed. Though not that washed out. Colors are very vivid, bright and sharp. Super clean, and free of dirt and scatches on the film itself. Great restoration. Blacks are nice and hold true.
   
   Sound was good, not much more than that. Voices were very clear. As was the music score. There is not that much action in the movie, so don't expect Platoon. Worth buying if you love a good drama. Very depressing, but great movie.



3. The controversial filmmaker Oliver Stone copped an Best Director Oscar for his true story about Vietnam veteran Ron Kovic's rebirth as a peace activist. Also Cruise scored an Oscar nod for his fine performance as Kovic and he's ably supported by a fine cast which includes a very young Kyra Sedgwick as his first love, Tom Berenger as a Marine recruiter, and Wilem Dafoe as a fellow parapalegic vet. The story concerns Kovic's change from a patriotic young man to a battle scarred parapalegic, disillusioned Vietnam vet to finally a committed peace activist. It's quite a journey and this may well be Cruise's best performance to date alongside his best supporting performance in "Magnolia". Forget about his off screen antics and his Scientology posturing and check this one out for his fine performance. I really think that Stone should also have received a Best Picture for this film too. By the way, the HD copy is a winner also.



4. I'm no fan of Oliver Stone (see my 1 star review for Platoon) or his politics, and even though this film's ultimate "message" is overtly political (Vietnam was a worthless cause, based on lies) and somewhat mendacious in pushing that left-wing agenda (it was the Republicans' fault), I still rate it highly based solely on its portrayal of Ron Kovic's personal story. This movie depicts with heartbreaking realism the experience of an All-American boy who comes home from the Vietnam War paralyzed from the waist down. Surely it can't be considered political to tell that story, can it? That would be the specious and self-interested argument of your typical neocon warmonger, who would like to keep the cameras away from Walter Reed, where the 19 and 20 year old victims of their phony war learn to cope with life without arms or legs or recognizably human faces. I think it's a good thing for the flag-waving public to understand the consequences of their jingoism and see what soldiers have to sacrifice. This movie makes that lesson quite clear. It can be raw and explicit, but so is getting your spinal cord snapped in two. Tom Cruise gives a fantastic performance here, the supporting cast is first rate, and the extraordinary attention to visual detail combine to create a moving and powerful film. My one complaint is that it doesn't really explain Kovic's conversion from super-patriot to anti-war activist, and represents him as a singularly inarticulate spokesman, at that. It seems to present his argument as amounting to nothing more than "I'm mad" and "The government lied!". Perhaps the real life Kovic had a more cogent position, but I didn't get that from the movie. In any case, it's an emotional and powerful look at one soldier's ordeal of tragedy and recovery.



5. Everybody and their brother thinks this is a war film classic. I don't. I grew up in Massapequa, knew Ron Kovic (slightly), hung out at Arthur's Bar, got my hair cut at Sparky The Barber's, I played in Sally's Woods as a kid, and watched God knows how many holiday parades down Broadway. Growing up, they occurred on every major holiday except The Feast of The Assumption.
   
   Massapequa's the kind of place you love and hate at the same time. It's a fly in the amber. The schools are excellent. Businesses like All-American and Krisch's Ice Cream Parlor have been there since 1955 and remain surprisingly unchanged. The town's underlying values remain intact, mostly because the kids that grew up there in the Fifties inherited their parents' houses and have passed them on to their kids now. On the Fourth of July the smoke from "illegal" fireworks is so dense that spy satellites can't penetrate it (this is a documented fact). There's been a spate of new construction, if you can consider a spate to have lasted 25 years, but beyond that, it's still home as I remember it.
   
   So the ersatz Massapequa (a town in Vermont that they dressed up) in this film was a little disconcerting to me: "Lemke Hardware wasn't even on the same street as Krisch's, and Krisch's is Krisch's, not Boyer's!"
   
   Hollywood.
   
   And this wasn't even the original film. The original BORN ON THE FOURTH OF JULY by Brian DePalma starred Al Pacino and was made, or partly made, in 1978. The Internet Movie Database tells me that the "financing fell through" but I can recall the Pequa Theater marquee showing "Love Story" during some filming. They were actually going to use Massapequa to represent Massapequa in that version.
   
   Actually, the sets don't bother me half as much as Tom Cruise. Pacino would have made this movie a TRUE classic. Cruise is real good at playing the teenaged Ronnie Kovic, but he utterly blows the role once Ronnie Gets His Gun. Cruise spends most of the movie overacting shamelessly, like yelling "Penis, penis, penis!" in a badly-acted "drunk" scene, and turning the heart-rending bitter anger of Ron Kovic's searingly sad book into something like pablum for the ease of audience digestion. We needed grit and despair in this movie. We got Tom Cruise, and not the Tom Cruise of A FEW GOOD MEN or THE LAST SAMURAI, we got the Tom Cruise of Jumping On Oprah's Couch Tom Cruise.
   
   War is hell. It should be presented as such. And so should it's hellish consequences. Like the Massapequa it presents the Ron Kovic of this film is not the real deal.