I really love this movie. Great Military Action, great actors all around and awesome music ("The Boys are Back in Town" performed by Bon Jovi)
This is a movie I remember seeing when it came out, on video. I've seen this at least 5 times over the years. Recently picked it up on Blu-Ray!
About the Movie:
The movie is about "The Teams", groups of Navy Seals organized by President John F. Kennedy to handle guerrilla-type operations on Sea-Air-Land, hence SEAL. The movie depicts the Seals training regimens and a couple of missions leading up the final mission to Beirut, Lebanon to destroy American built Stinger Missiles that have fallen into the terrorist's hands. For a more detailed summary and review of the Blu-Ray disc see the High-Def Digest and/or Amazon.com.
The Actors:
Micheal Biehn, a very good actor which never made it to the A-List despite being in some of the biggest hits of the 80s! Most known for his roles in The Terminator (James Cameron), Aliens (James Cameron) and The Abyss (James Cameron), see a pattern developing? Also for this flick, Navy Seals, K2: The Ultimate High, The Rock and Tombstone! A very underrated actor who always turns in a great performance.
Charlie Sheen, a good actor who did hit the A-List with many, many films to his credit. My favorites of Sheen's are: Young Guns (w/ Emilio Estevez), Red Dawn (w/ Patrick Swayze), Major League, Men at Work (w/ Emilio) and Cadence. Also, a very memorable scene in Ferris Bueller's Day Off with Jennifer Grey (who was also in Red Dawn)! Spoofed military movies in Hot Shots along with one of his most famous roles in Wall Street with his father Martin Sheen, one of the best scenes in that movie.
Rick Rossovich, who is most remembered for Top Gun and Navy Seals. Checking the IMDB, I see he was also in The Terminator, which I have no recollection of him in that movie. Bill Paxton was also in The Terminator for a brief scene.
Bill Paxton, most remembered for Aliens, Navy Seals, and Titanic. Paxton has probably been the most successful actor from this film, with Sheen being the only exception. Has been in U-571, Tombstone, True Lies, Apollo 13, Twister, Vertical Limit, and Weird Science ("CHET"). Paxton is a great character actor who is always great in every film he's in.
Dennis Haysbert, best known now for 24 (President David Palmer) and The Unit (Jonas Blane "Snake-Doc"). He was also in Major League (w/ Sheen) as Pedro Cerrano. Ironic that he returns to the special forces for four seasons in the Unit 15 years after Navy Seals.
S. Epetha Merkerson, most known for her long-running role on Law & Order. I also know her from Mann & Machine where she also played a police captain. Also in Terminator 2 as Mrs. Dyson.
My Comments:
I love this movie as I love most military-themed films. I enjoy this even today for the excellent cast it had. Every actor did an honorable job in portraying the best of the best of America's Special Forces. I have always been a fan of Biehn since Terminator and this movie.
My favorite scenes are by far the Training sequence, the "Kill Room" and final sequence starting with the HALO (High Altitude Low Opening) jump. This movie, despite its problems, is still enjoyable to watch and surprisingly still topical!
Highly recommended movie. The Blu-Ray contains the film, a trailer and a second disc with a DVD-copy of the film. Extremely worth the purchase if you can get it for about $10, which you can from Amazon.com on sale.
Saturday, October 3, 2009
Saturday, September 12, 2009
Glenn Beck - The Citizen Journalist!
I believe that Glenn Beck is a true citizen journalist. Beck does not have a degree from Harvard or Columbia's prestigious journalism school, so how is it that he has broken more news in the past three years than ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, and MSNBC combined?
By asking questions, that most of Americans are asking for which the elites in Gov't and Media don't want us to ask. As Walter Cronkite said, "I don't report the news, I makes the news" [paraphrasing].
When Glenn started on TV in 2006 on CNN Headline News (not a conservative network by any means), he wasn't railing against Barack Obama, he was railing against George W. Bush and the liberals in Congress. Glenn enthusiastically supported Bush for re-election in 2004 as being the better of two bad candidates. Bush did protect us on 9/11 as he said he would and had the creditability that if re-elected he would continue to do so. Up until 2004, he was pushing a semi-Conservative agenda.
But then Bush started changing after 2004, and he started expanding the Government's control over everything. On the one issue where Bush had the most support, the War on Terror, he betrayed the people. How does one betray the people while fighting two wars? By leaving the homeland unprotected while you are doing it. If you are going to protect the country and get the support of Congress, who passed a bill to build a fence on our southern border, you don't work against the people and the law by ensuring a fence never gets built.
Beck railed on Bush and Johnny Sutton almost daily on the fact that the Border Fence was not being funded or built when Bush could have cut the bureaucratic red-tape to get it done. Meanwhile an Attorney General he appointed puts in jail two Border Patrol Agents who were protecting us from Drug Runners, not the nicest people in the world, because one of them shot a drug runner in the but. The State of Texas' star witness against the Border Patrol was a known drug runner who was bringing drugs into this country after Sutton gave him a free pass to cross the border at will. Sutton made sure that the Jury didn't know that this fine upstanding individual had just been arrested, again, for bring in a truckload of Marijuana into the country.
In the old west, when the patriarch got up a posse to hunt down the marauding indians, they didn't leave their wives and children home alone with unlocked and unbarred windows. No, they "battened down the hatches" and left them weapons to shoot anyboy attempting to enter that was not known to them.
If the border issue wasn't bad enough, Bush was supporting legalizing the Illegals who are here now. Bush also stopped the raids being conducted by ICE when they were proving successful, because we certainly cannot have a Gov't agency be good at what they're supposed to do. This proposed Amnesty caused more illegals to cross our porous southern border, as many as 10,000 daily.
Now Beck is on Fox News and Obama is in the White House and Beck is still asking questions. Why can't we call Obama a Marxist when all of his dear friends and advisers or Marxist and Communists? Van Jones, anyone? There are at least two more openly Communist Czars in Obama's Administration and probably many more Communists who are not open and honest about it.
Argue all you want about Beck the Conservative, but you can't argue the facts. The facts are still the facts. I know Glenn Beck will keep asking questions and Arguing with Idiots as long as it is still free to do so, which may not be for that much longer.
By asking questions, that most of Americans are asking for which the elites in Gov't and Media don't want us to ask. As Walter Cronkite said, "I don't report the news, I makes the news" [paraphrasing].
When Glenn started on TV in 2006 on CNN Headline News (not a conservative network by any means), he wasn't railing against Barack Obama, he was railing against George W. Bush and the liberals in Congress. Glenn enthusiastically supported Bush for re-election in 2004 as being the better of two bad candidates. Bush did protect us on 9/11 as he said he would and had the creditability that if re-elected he would continue to do so. Up until 2004, he was pushing a semi-Conservative agenda.
But then Bush started changing after 2004, and he started expanding the Government's control over everything. On the one issue where Bush had the most support, the War on Terror, he betrayed the people. How does one betray the people while fighting two wars? By leaving the homeland unprotected while you are doing it. If you are going to protect the country and get the support of Congress, who passed a bill to build a fence on our southern border, you don't work against the people and the law by ensuring a fence never gets built.
Beck railed on Bush and Johnny Sutton almost daily on the fact that the Border Fence was not being funded or built when Bush could have cut the bureaucratic red-tape to get it done. Meanwhile an Attorney General he appointed puts in jail two Border Patrol Agents who were protecting us from Drug Runners, not the nicest people in the world, because one of them shot a drug runner in the but. The State of Texas' star witness against the Border Patrol was a known drug runner who was bringing drugs into this country after Sutton gave him a free pass to cross the border at will. Sutton made sure that the Jury didn't know that this fine upstanding individual had just been arrested, again, for bring in a truckload of Marijuana into the country.
In the old west, when the patriarch got up a posse to hunt down the marauding indians, they didn't leave their wives and children home alone with unlocked and unbarred windows. No, they "battened down the hatches" and left them weapons to shoot anyboy attempting to enter that was not known to them.
If the border issue wasn't bad enough, Bush was supporting legalizing the Illegals who are here now. Bush also stopped the raids being conducted by ICE when they were proving successful, because we certainly cannot have a Gov't agency be good at what they're supposed to do. This proposed Amnesty caused more illegals to cross our porous southern border, as many as 10,000 daily.
Now Beck is on Fox News and Obama is in the White House and Beck is still asking questions. Why can't we call Obama a Marxist when all of his dear friends and advisers or Marxist and Communists? Van Jones, anyone? There are at least two more openly Communist Czars in Obama's Administration and probably many more Communists who are not open and honest about it.
Argue all you want about Beck the Conservative, but you can't argue the facts. The facts are still the facts. I know Glenn Beck will keep asking questions and Arguing with Idiots as long as it is still free to do so, which may not be for that much longer.
Friday, July 3, 2009
Red Fox: Stand Watie's Civil War Years - Quick Review
I have just finished reading the book, "Red Fox: Stand Watie's Civil War Years" by Wilfred Knight. This book was published in 1987 by The Arthur H. Clark Company.
Stand Watie was born in Rome, Georgia on December 12, 1806. He was the second son of a half-blood Cherokee mother and a full blooded Cherokee father. He is remembered largely due to the fact that he is the only Native American to achieve the rank of Brigadier General in either army during the American Civil War. Furthermore, he achieved that rank in the Confederate Army overcoming the racism of the time.
Most officers in the Confederate Army achieved rank through the attendance of the US Military Academy at West Point or through political influence. During the war, The Confederacy promoted many officers due to heroism in combat. Stand Watie earned his commission at the head of Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, and Seminole Indians fighting for the Confederacy. Eventually, these units were brigaded together under Stand Watie as the Indian Brigade.
The book written by Wilfred Knight is sometimes a dry read, but largely an interesting look into a little know part of the Civil War. Normally, information about these back-water theaters are hard to come by, but Wilfred Knight has managed to collect a lot of information on the political infighting and history of the Cherokee people from their original home in Georgia through the Trail of Tears to the Indian Territory of Oklahoma.
Knight provides a well researched book that provides the first full biography of Stand Watie. The campaigns are easily laid out for the reader to follow. It is very interesting reading about these engagements where the counts of the dead and wounded are so low, often 5 to 10 are killed in each engagement, while 20 or so are wounded. Where, in the east armies of thousands are engaged and hundreds are killed or wounded, here in the west units of 400 to 2000 battle it out. This is largely because there was so much territory to protect in the West with very few troops and supplies.
In a War where all the action took place in the East, history says the war was won/lost in the West, depending on your point of view. In the West, the War was more complicated than just Blue versus Grey.
If you have any interest in the actions that Indians took part in the Civil War, this book is a great place to start.
Stand Watie was born in Rome, Georgia on December 12, 1806. He was the second son of a half-blood Cherokee mother and a full blooded Cherokee father. He is remembered largely due to the fact that he is the only Native American to achieve the rank of Brigadier General in either army during the American Civil War. Furthermore, he achieved that rank in the Confederate Army overcoming the racism of the time.
Most officers in the Confederate Army achieved rank through the attendance of the US Military Academy at West Point or through political influence. During the war, The Confederacy promoted many officers due to heroism in combat. Stand Watie earned his commission at the head of Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, and Seminole Indians fighting for the Confederacy. Eventually, these units were brigaded together under Stand Watie as the Indian Brigade.
The book written by Wilfred Knight is sometimes a dry read, but largely an interesting look into a little know part of the Civil War. Normally, information about these back-water theaters are hard to come by, but Wilfred Knight has managed to collect a lot of information on the political infighting and history of the Cherokee people from their original home in Georgia through the Trail of Tears to the Indian Territory of Oklahoma.
Knight provides a well researched book that provides the first full biography of Stand Watie. The campaigns are easily laid out for the reader to follow. It is very interesting reading about these engagements where the counts of the dead and wounded are so low, often 5 to 10 are killed in each engagement, while 20 or so are wounded. Where, in the east armies of thousands are engaged and hundreds are killed or wounded, here in the west units of 400 to 2000 battle it out. This is largely because there was so much territory to protect in the West with very few troops and supplies.
In a War where all the action took place in the East, history says the war was won/lost in the West, depending on your point of view. In the West, the War was more complicated than just Blue versus Grey.
If you have any interest in the actions that Indians took part in the Civil War, this book is a great place to start.
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
Rebuilding the World Trade Center Towers!
Welcome to my blog!
For my first blog post, I had a difficult decision to make, what would my all-important first blog post be?
For the first blog posting, I decided to do one about the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center. September 11th occurred four days prior to my sister's wedding in 2001, and is now the deadliest day American History.
In 2002, plans for rebuilding at the World Trade Center site was commissioned to replace the office space in lower Manhattan. These plans immediately met with controversy.
The new buildings were not going to be as tall as the previous towers! The "Twin Towers" had 110 floors, and was 1,368 ft (1,727 ft with the antenna).
In my opinion, the designs proposed were hideous, with not one restoring the New York City skyline to what it once was. The winning design has a single smaller tower and a "Freedom Spire" that would stand 1,776 ft, the year American Independence was declared from England. The spire resembles a stick, made of twisted steel, sticking out of the ground.
Being a native New Yorker, I truly dislike this design and want to see a restored version of the "Twin Towers" and the return of the New York Skyline. The popular opinion in NY agrees with me that two towers should be built. Thankfully, there is a plan out there for a new Twin Towers, called "Twin Towers II". The entire details of this plan can be found here! This alternative plan has also been endorsed by Donald Trump!
The alternative design would be the taller due to a large antenna, which would provide better communication services for Lower Manhattan, including better cell phone service. The original footprints of the Twin Towers are kept untouched and made into a memorial park. This alternate plan is better in every way the design chosen.
Imagine the following:
It is September 11, 2011 and the new World Trade Center & Memorial Park are being officially dedicated and opened to the public. Among the attendees are the President of the United States, and former NYC Mayor, Rudy Guliani; George Pataki, Governor during 2001; former President George W. Bush; current NY Governor Eliot Spitzer; and the current NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Imagine the cameras panning the New Twin Towers, towering over the NYC skyline once again, and the memorial displays in the existing footers where the original towers stood. Then visitors can walk through the restored tower lobbys of WTC 1 and WTC 2, and stopping at the museum dedicated to the original Twin Towers, 9/11, and the rebuilding of the current Twin Towers and the Memorial Park, with the obligatory gift shop!
Isn't that better than going to the top of a spire and viewing the city and not seeing Two Towers, or standing on the observation deck of the Empire State Building and seeing a steel toothpick at Ground Zero rather than Two Towers? Wouldn't it be fitting that the current Tallest Building in NYC be surpassed by the Twin Towers, Again!
For my first blog post, I had a difficult decision to make, what would my all-important first blog post be?
For the first blog posting, I decided to do one about the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center. September 11th occurred four days prior to my sister's wedding in 2001, and is now the deadliest day American History.
In 2002, plans for rebuilding at the World Trade Center site was commissioned to replace the office space in lower Manhattan. These plans immediately met with controversy.
The new buildings were not going to be as tall as the previous towers! The "Twin Towers" had 110 floors, and was 1,368 ft (1,727 ft with the antenna).
In my opinion, the designs proposed were hideous, with not one restoring the New York City skyline to what it once was. The winning design has a single smaller tower and a "Freedom Spire" that would stand 1,776 ft, the year American Independence was declared from England. The spire resembles a stick, made of twisted steel, sticking out of the ground.
Being a native New Yorker, I truly dislike this design and want to see a restored version of the "Twin Towers" and the return of the New York Skyline. The popular opinion in NY agrees with me that two towers should be built. Thankfully, there is a plan out there for a new Twin Towers, called "Twin Towers II". The entire details of this plan can be found here! This alternative plan has also been endorsed by Donald Trump!
The alternative design would be the taller due to a large antenna, which would provide better communication services for Lower Manhattan, including better cell phone service. The original footprints of the Twin Towers are kept untouched and made into a memorial park. This alternate plan is better in every way the design chosen.
Imagine the following:
It is September 11, 2011 and the new World Trade Center & Memorial Park are being officially dedicated and opened to the public. Among the attendees are the President of the United States, and former NYC Mayor, Rudy Guliani; George Pataki, Governor during 2001; former President George W. Bush; current NY Governor Eliot Spitzer; and the current NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Imagine the cameras panning the New Twin Towers, towering over the NYC skyline once again, and the memorial displays in the existing footers where the original towers stood. Then visitors can walk through the restored tower lobbys of WTC 1 and WTC 2, and stopping at the museum dedicated to the original Twin Towers, 9/11, and the rebuilding of the current Twin Towers and the Memorial Park, with the obligatory gift shop!
Isn't that better than going to the top of a spire and viewing the city and not seeing Two Towers, or standing on the observation deck of the Empire State Building and seeing a steel toothpick at Ground Zero rather than Two Towers? Wouldn't it be fitting that the current Tallest Building in NYC be surpassed by the Twin Towers, Again!
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