A Voice, a vision and Vietnam

        I saw Heaven and Earth a few nights ago. I don't know how these little gems slip by me. Not my favorite movie but Oliver Stone did a pretty good job. He does have a love affair with Vietnam. The film was released in 1993 and stars Tommy Lee Jones (always so good) and then newcomer Hiep Thi Le, with Joan Chen, Haing S. Ngor and others in a big strong cast.


       Oliver Stone is one of a few exceptional directors. His resume includes Salvador, Platoon, Wall Street, Talk Radio, Born of the Fourth of July, Natural Born Killers and JFK. 

     Movies that snag me fast are those with a great voice. Not necessarily narration, but it usually is a narrated film. Voice-over story tellers and epic tales. Breathtaking cinematography. Some I love are as short as Out Of The Past to Days Of Heaven to Memoirs of a Geisha and The Joy Luck Club (something entrancing about the Asian accented.) Giovanni Riblisi narrating The Virgin Suicides and  Alec Baldwin's telling us about the Royal Tenenbaums. Stacy Keach's marvelous pipes telling of the The Duel.     Nothing can ruin a great movie faster than a bad narrator. (think Sam Shepard in The Voyager). A story, a score and a great voice. The triple crown for movies.

For some of these great epics and film noir see right here.