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Damn Yankees Ashore, Johnny Reb Asea
Saturday, July 12, 4:45pm, at the usual place
 FIRST FEATURE: “Glory" (1989, 122 min.) Directed by Edward Zwick; screenplay by Kevin Jarre, based on Lay This Laurel by Lincoln Kirstein, One Gallant Rush by Peter Burchard, and the letters of Col. Robert Gould Shaw; starring Matthew Broderick, Denzel Washington, Cary Elwes, Morgan Freeman, Jihmi Kennedy, Andre Braugher.
The Amazon.com editorial review: One of the very best films about the Civil War, this instant classic
from 1989 is also one of the few films to depict the participation of
black soldiers in Civil War combat. Based in part on the
books Lay This Laurel by Lincoln Kirstein and One Gallant Rush
by Peter Burchard, the film also draws from the letters of Robert Gould
Shaw (played by Matthew Broderick), the 25-year-old son of Boston
abolitionists who volunteered to command the all-black 54th Regiment of
the Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry. Their training and battle
experience leads them to their final assault on Fort Wagner in South
Carolina, where their heroic bravery turned bitter defeat into a
symbolic victory that brought recognition to black soldiers and turned
the tide of the war. With painstaking attention to historical detail
and richness of character, the film boasts superior performances by
Denzel Washington (who won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor), Morgan
Freeman, Cary Elwes, and Andre Braugher. Directed by Edward Zwick
(cocreator of the TV series Thirtysomething), this unforgettable drama is as important as Schindler's List in its treatment of a noble yet little-known episode of history. --Jeff Shannon
DINNER BREAK: Food theme: Seafood & Soul food
SECOND FEATURE: "The Hunley" (1999, 94 min.) Directed by John Gray; written by John Gray & John Fasano; starring Armand Assante, Donald Sutherland, Alex Jennings, Chris Bauer, Gerry Becker, Michael Dolan, Sebastian Roché, Michael Stuhlbarg.
This historical drama won an Emmy for Sound Editing.
The Amazon.com editorial review: Produced for Turner Network Television and originally broadcast in the summer of 1999, The Hunley
is a straightforward, engrossing historical drama focusing on a
little-known chapter of the Civil War: the introduction of the
submarine into American naval warfare off the shore of war-torn
Charleston, South Carolina, in 1864. Writer-director John Gray had
previously helmed the 1998 TV movie The Day Lincoln Was Shot,
and he has a knack for capturing the Civil War era with a heightened
sense of authenticity, allowing for the dramatic license of mainstream
television. Armand Assante plays Lieutenant Dixon, a traumatized
soldier and grieving widower with just the right mixture of bravado and
nihilism to skipper the C.S.S. Hunley--essentially an iron
boiler cobbled into a hand-powered submersible weapon--with a volunteer
crew of nine men who propel the crude sub in an effort to break the
Union's coastal blockade. Donald Sutherland is superbly cast as Dixon's
Confederate commander, General Beauregard, and the film's best scenes
are those between Assante and Sutherland, playing two weary warriors
with one final chance for victory. Otherwise, this is a very
conventional film made with integrity but no particular flair,
faithfully adhering to historical fact while establishing a solid
supporting cast. Assante is guilty of moderate overacting, but he
compensates with enough charisma to make his ill-fated command
dramatically involving. Most effective is the sense of sheer bravery in
the pioneering effort to prove the Hunley as a viable tool of
war; the final scene within the sub is both haunting and dramatically
intense. (Historical note: The C.S.S. Hunley--named after the
drowned captain of a previous test vessel--was discovered intact off
the coast of Charleston in 1995; efforts were later made to raise and
restore this relic of naval history.) --Jeff Shannon
SHORT SUBJECTS: We hope to show "Southern Fried Rabbit", with Bugs Bunny and Yosemite Sam. Other short subject TBA.
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