Saving Private Ryan

This for me is what irredeemably sinks the film. What sticks in my mind is something William Goldman pointed out in The Big Picture, which is that the movie is supposed to be portraying war at its basest, most chaotic level, and yet there's a symmetry present, from the bookend scenes (which are almost unbearable) to the reveal that the German soldier who ultimately kills Hanks is the same one he let go after Wade was killed. That second one is something I just can't get over if ever I see it. In its own indirect way, it goes against what you're made to believe is the driving principle of the film.

Still, the film's filled with great single moments, from Adam Goldberg's quiet death to the shot where the rain on the leaves blends in with footfalls. It also has one of my favorite Spielberg moments ever, when Diesel gets sniped and falls against the piano, and that discordant note strikes out. That was a fucking brilliant moment.

Good point on Williams' score. I love the film, but the score is so mawkish it drills the more sappy bits into my mind. Still, besides the obviously amazing battle scenes I'm a big fan for the character moments, and despite the 3 hour runtime the pacing has never been an issue for me. Private Ryan is still probably Spielberg's best direction too.

A personal favorite, but not one I'm going to bother arguing with cineastes because I happen to agree with most of the complaints. I think my reaction to the film is almost purely visceral.

"Hymn to the Fallen," like its British counterpart "Elegy for Dunkirk", is one of those movie score pieces that I like a lot more removed from the film rather than in the movie itself.

I watched this again recently and found that I still liked it quite a bit. Obviously I agree with most of the complaints, but it does feel to me like this is Spielberg's SEARCHERS. I agree, the quiet and smaller moments are what make this one stand out. And Hanks. Hanks is so good.

Also, I'm not one to praise the book adaptation, but Max Allan Collins' adaptation of this is pretty good.

Maybe, but "Hymn" isn't in the movie. It's only heard during the end credits.

Yeah, but the main bits of it are heard throughout the movie. Maybe not necessarily the whole choir thing, but still.

Rath, no man, it's not in the movie, not even just the main bits. Not trying to bust your balls here, just repeating what Williams said around the time the film came out. It was a conscious decision he made when writing the score. "Hymn" was always meant as a standalone piece. The other motif heard throughout the movie is similar (if for no other reason than orchestration) but distinct.

Great single moments, and great performances.

My favorite performance in the film is Damon's. The scene where Hanks & co. find him is classic. The breakdown when he learns of his brothers' deaths. The conviction, and way he sells it, of not wanting to leave his comrades; to stay and fight, moves me everytime.

I became a fan right there.

I should have known better than to argue with you. I am, once again, Kevin Spacey sized wrong.

Like most of Spielberg's films after Schindler's List, Ryan is a movie full of great moments, but lacks cohesion. Spielberg's work after the 80s has had this annoying trait, where he seems so caught up in individual scenes, he ignores the whole and that's why it's hard for me to sit down and watch some of his movies from start to finish...I just find myself skipping to the good scenes, marveling at how well directed they are, then turn the TV off. As opposed to something like E.T., where each scene's power is directly fed into the whole of the narrative, so the film is a complete masterwork, as a whole. Which is what good filmmaking is about. Today's Spielberg has more in common with music video directors than other film auteurs.

Ah, hope I didn't come off too much like a douche.

While I fully agree with the idea that Spielberg often gets in his own way, I just can't agree with the thought behind this statement. The idea that he's so enamored with his little technical flashes of brilliance that story falls by the wayside doesn't hold up in view of his latter day films like MUNICH (arguably his best film), A.I. and MINORITY REPORT (despite that awful, awful ending). These are fully realized stories, not just eye candy intoxicated with their own whizzbang technical artistry. Not saying the guy's without fault, but your comment should be directed at Michael Bay or Stephen Sommers, not The Beard.

Great points: I think Empire of the Sun is the last Spielberg movie that works as one integrated whole. I do think Catch me if you can is the only movie of his 90's-2000's catalog that I can watch as a complete movie vs moments of greatness.

Another great point. One of the things that really bugs me about this movie is the sense that Spielberg is really selling us on the idea of "The Greatest Generation". Fuller shoes you what he experienced, plain and simple (haven't seen Kimov). The scene where Vin Diesel gets shot because he's holding the little girl rings completly hollow for me: It's Spielberg saying "See audeince, in war you can't afford to be compassionate or you'll die! Get it? Get it? Huh? huh? huh?"

The next biggest fake moment for me is the amazing reveal that Hank's is (OMG!) a school tecaher.

It's like what Spielberg was trying to make was a really awesome gritty Discovery Channel special.

I'm disturbed by the whole "Greatest Generation" meme: WW II was a world wide catastrophe for the human race, not a spur to ra ra jingoism.

In lieu of OUT OF SIGHT being nominated, this really did deserve Best Picture 1998. Say what you will about it, but it's really impressive. And SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE is a piece of shit. I'm still reeling from that decision!

This is probably why, despite my love for Private Ryan, The Pianist resonated with me a lot more.

Interesting that you mention E. T., as I just re-watched it with the folks last night and was struck at how the tone of the thing is all over the map. Especially in the third act: it's jarring when Mike discovers E.T. in the creek, suddenly deathly ill, because aside from some throwaway ADR there's been no foreshadowing of his condition. The crazy thing is that this irrationality works in the film's favor-- if Spielberg didn't actually intend for the six-year-olds in the audience to turn to Mom or Dad and ask "What's wrong?", only to get "I don't know" as an answer, he couldn't have planned it better.

Sorry for the hijack, but maybe this plays into the criticism of symmetrical plotting.

I'm so glad to see disgruntlement here on CHUD about this movie.

Especially what Cylon Baby said about the film being a "ra ra" for war. It really felt like that to me. It did seem like it was "ra ra", not just for war, but for war crimes in the name of a Great Good. Spielberg using the death of Ryan's brothers as an allegory for the Holocaust, suggesting that the War, and all the soldiers dying was God's way of saving the "good people" like Ryan and the surviving Jews of Europe ... I found that really really offensive. Without the allegory it's still offensive for the soldiers to think "saving Ryan makes it all worth it", as if it was less noble for them to make it out alive themselves. There's this insistence that Ryan really is MORE good than the cynical war-sick people who rescue him, and that the people he's standing in for allegorically are "more good" as well (the whole "God's Chosen People" assumption). It twists what World War II was really like, for the soldiers. I don't think most soldiers had this cynical attitude about what they were fighting for. They were told, and believed, they were fighting to protect their country from Evil, and didn't need any Cause other than that. Survivors of the Holocaust may personally believe that God used America to save them, but for Spielberg to actually suggest this is what actually happened, and that American deaths were justified by God acting through them, for this goal, is obnoxious.

And Spielberg's addressing of atrocities committed by our side seems to be justifying those as well. The whole film plays in cycles that begin with graphic gory suffering by the Americans, and then a period of satisfying revenge. There's the slaughter of G.I.'s on the beach, and then Spielberg insists on showing the fighting immediately after they get off the beach as one-sided in the slaughter of Germans (even though there was sure to have been tit-for tat killings on both sides ongoing). The little-girl-loving episode is the same ... watch the eeevil sniper kill the little-girl-loving G.I., and then cheer as the U.S. sniper shoots the bastard through the eye. And the whole scene is forced and artificial. WHY in God's name would any parents hand their kid over to strangers and ask them to "take her down the road". It was nonsense, just to force a kid into the situation to make the German sniper seem more evil, and his victim more Good. The whole film has that entertaining structure. Suffering, revenge, suffering, revenge. It's only interrupted when they have mercy on that German, which delays the "revenge" part until after that German shoots Tom Hanks.

And I was also horrified by the whole "You can't show mercy to Germans" angle of the film, when that German prisoner is let go, only to return and kill Tom Hanks. It seems that Spielberg loved that so much that he echoed it when he (according to the writer) personally inserted the episode about the German soldier stabbing the Jewish soldier to death, while the pacifist (who let the soldier go who ends up killing Hanks) stands frozen in fear, and then is bypassed by the German in contempt. That's supposed to be another Holocaust allegory, about the late entry of America into the war, due to isolationism/pacifism, failing to prevent Jewish deaths. (that's arguable, historically ... quite possibly staying out of the war might have saved Jewish lives because a triumphant Germany might not have needed scapegoats so badly, or have neglected their concentration camps so hideously). But it's an example of Spielberg Making a Point at the expense of narrative clarity .. many people I've talked to about this film were confused about this second German soldier who stabbed the Jewish soldier ... they thought he was the same guy who was let go at the beginning, who shows up to shoot Tom Hanks.

And those bookends.... so hideously treacly. And the bookends don't even make sense. At the beginning, we focus on the old man's eyes, and fade back to the landing at Normandy. Tom Hanks is there, and as far as we know, we've been told that this old man is remembering landing at Normandy, and is in fact Tom Hanks, because he's the main character. Then at the end we find out it's Matt Damon's Ryan, who has apparently been remembering events he didn't participate in ! Utterly senseless.

And no war film that calls on God all the time and claims God's hand in the events is a genuine and honest war film. The U.S. sniper praying as he shoots Germans, the scenes in the Church. I believe Saving Private Ryan was made around the time of the Bosnian intervention (a war that used Genocide prevention as it's justification). I actually read that Spielberg got to hobnob with President Clinton around that time. I see SPR as a propaganda film for War, justifying it as Genocide prevention (and rewriting history to suggest that WWII was justified by being Genocide prevention as guided by God).

P.S. Does anyone understand the purpose of the "fucking the ugly girl" story that Ryan told? Was this supposed to endear us to the character? Very bizarre. It was supposed to be a heartwarming reminiscence of brotherly hijinks, when it seemed to highlight that they were a bunch of cruel bastards (to me, at least).

A "ra ra" war film? The Irish Ryan brothers as an allegory for Jews and the Holocaust? "Satisfying revenge"? What the fuck film were you watching? 'Cause it sure as hell wasn't Saving Private Ryan.

They were both pieces of shit. But at least "Shakespeare in Love" was kind of harmless, other than being a grating pretentious piece of noise. And it did have Gwynneth Parltrow beautifully naked. SPR was pro-war propaganda (even though it seems to be pro-war by addressing war's misery and then trying to say that war is worth it anyway).

Dickson can be wrong sometimes, but yeah. If you think Upham offing the German is a moment of triumph, you're on another planet.

Your God problems are kind of brought crashing down by the 'Berg's brutal dismissal of the big cheese with Barry Pepper's spectacular death. God wasn't there for him - he was just a good shooter whose luck ran out.

I think that that "getting caught up in individual scenes" at the expense of the whole indicates, possibly, that an agenda is being hammered at, and attention to a work as a "whole" is secondary to the agenda. If a scene that hammers home a point needs to be made (in the artist's eye) it doesn't MATTER if it violates the work as a whole, because the point is all that matters. It may simply be laziness that is the motivation. I keep hearing from actors who work with him how FAST he works on many of his movies. I heard this about Saving Private Ryan, which amazed me after all the hype about how much he supposedly cared about the flick. Stuff about him shooting one take and moving on rapidly. I think it shows.

Speilberg works fast because he previzzes the crap out of everything he does, not because he's slapdash about what he's doing. Your point - clarity and quality being neglected in service of the Big Message - is not without irony, as all your posts seem to make asinine points in a desperate attempt to show Spielberg in a progressively worser light.

It's not a "moment of triumph" but a mean spirited moment of revenge as entertainment. It's also a dismissal of Upham's pacifist/idealist principles as naive, that his previous mercy towards the German was short sighted, and he's finally correcting his mistake.

He went out in a blaze of Glory after SUCCESSFULLY shooting a whole pile of Germans? That was what he was praying for (successs in offing Germans), not his own survival. That was no dismissal of God.

Okay, yeah, you are stupid. Not one character in RYAN goes out in a "blaze of glory".

Did I miss this guy's original trolling period when I was gone for a few months? You're not JohnShade, are you? Nah. He was smarter than this.

YOU were the one who called the U.S. sniper's end "Spectacular". And what about Tom Hanks' glorious death, shooting at an approaching tank that blows up miraculously? That was pretty spectacular.


Jesus Christ. Does any idea that challenges pre-conceptions about a film end up being called "trolling"? Can't it just be a different, and possibly worthwhile way of seeing a film, not some devious attempt to annoy you?

If that were intended as a "God is great" message, Hanks would've died with the impression that he had performed a miracle, not that he had just gotten lucky enough to face down a tank as the air support swept in.

Also, "spectacular" does not equal "blaze of glory".

I wouldn't call it trolling if I hadn't just gone and slogging through your wilfully obtuse and bullheaded Spielberg-bashing session in the now-defunct CRYSTAL SKULL DVD thread. You're not up for a discussion - you simply twist your argument into ever-more bizarre forms whenever you're faced with a counterpoint that knocks down your off-base nonsense.

You are blatantly misrepresenting a piece of cinema in order to further some weird personal vendetta against Spielberg. Saying "this guy dies, ergo x equals y" ignores the presentation of the action, the musical choices, the acting, everything. Upham isn't doing what's right when he shoots the German - he's falling to their level. His murder of the German makes a mockery of him, not his beliefs. He was too weak to hold onto them faced with the reality of war.

But please, continue.

It could, if you didn't have a big anti-semitic axe to grind with the Beard. And a totally romanticized, homogenized and unrealistic view on how WWII soldiers viewed war. And a pretty wacky view of what the violence in the film indicates. And a bizarre notion that pacifists should or can pass through war unmolested.

I'll give you the bookends, though. They are treacly and misleading.

So, in your mind, only ACTUAL miracles are considered guided by the hand of God? You aren't aware of any people, anywhere, who look at coincidences that act in their favor as God's will? Spielberg does let us, and Hanks, feel that something miraculous has occurred before we see the actual cause. That impression remains, even after we see the actual cause, and it doesn't negate the idea that God had a hand in that cause.

It's just another word for the same thing. A spectacular ending makes the guy who ends in that way seem special. It's part of the cinematic language.

If you've got a counterargument, you should give it, not shout "trolling" or claim "wilful obtuseness" as if you could read my mind and motivations. If you don't have the time or energy to respond, just don't until you do have the energy. Don't be making false and unjustified claims about my motivations.

No, I do NOT have a "personal vendetta" against Spielberg. Perhaps you feel I must because you have a personal affection for many of the movies he's made. I understand that, because so do I. JAWS, RAIDERS, E.T. But, like you, I've paid extra attention to his films because of those films I've loved, and so I've noticed things that I don't quite like creeping into his films as the years go by. So I've something to say about it. If you want to discuss it, discuss it, but don't resort to accusing me of insincerity because you don't have the time to address the discussion properly.

As for the Murder of the German ... I think that perhaps the WRITER might have intended what you suggest, but since Spielberg PERSONALLY wrote and inserted the scene where the Upham, due to his cowardice, allows Mellish, the Jewish soldier, to die slowly and cruelly at the hands of that German, it paints a different picture of him. It's painting a negative view of his ideals as having deadly consequences for Mellish. So whatever might have been intended by the writer (and you aren't wrong to see it that way) I feel Spielberg is manipulating the film towards feeling contempt for Upham for being weak, and tying his moral principles to his weakness. Any hint of morality as being "weak" really raises my hackles.

Do NOT call me "anti-semitic". If Spielberg makes Judaism an issue in his films, it's legitimate to address what he seems to be trying to say about it. If he weren't concerned with it, then pretending he is would be "anti-semitic". He is concerned with it, and he does say things about it, and it's open for discussion.

Spike Lee also is concerned with black issues and makes them an issue in his films. Those are open to discussion as well. The issue is not whether he or Spielberg brings up those issues, but what they say, or seem to be saying about them.

Also, I do not have a "romantic" view of how American soldiers felt about being in the war. I'm sure they did feel cynical. What's false about the movie is suggesting that they would feel less worthy of surviving than some dopey guy who is just like them, or suggesting via allegory that we should value the lives lost in WWII more because of the Holocaust.

And make no mistake, Spielberg, on the DVD has a special introduction that SPECIFICALLY talks about how our fighting in WWII saved Jews from the Holocaust. It's what he really feels, and when I see that as a message in the film, I'm not nuts for seeing it.

Four brothers dying in a war they volunteered to fight in (based on two real-life cases) compares to the millions of innocents killed in the Holocaust? We're really supposed to draw that conclusion?

Spectacular = spectacle, which can be good or bad. I don't think Pepper's character being spread all over the sky with not a damn thing he can do about it is any kind of "blaze of glory".

Bingo. There's a whole lot more to that moment than Upham bagging the German who killed Tom Hanks.

And I still defend the bookends -- it's Spielberg asking the question have we as a country earned the sacrifice of those who died in WWII. And I still point to the washed-out way the flag is shot at the beginning and end as him saying we haven't.

Spielberg's working out some weird guilt issues in this one. He's often said if he were any character, he would be Upham.

He's not making it overt, but he's aiming at two audiences, the general public and the Jewish audience. Since there is no real life case where soldiers were sent on a mission to save a surviving brother, the "real life cases" this was based on has no significance... it's already diverged from "real life". I think Spielberg is making the parallel deliberately, and the proof of that is in the mini allegory when Upham FAILS to save Mellish (the Jewish soldier) from the stabbing German. Failure to save, vs. Success in Saving. He's trying to draw a pretty blatant parallel.

I don't think the washed out flag means anything. It's just meant o suggest a patriotism of the past washed out by time, in danger of being forgotten, I think. But Ryan's questioning of whether he really is a "good man" is answered in the affirmative by his wife, and, really, if he weren't a "good man" would he be having such doubts? It just proves how good he is, to be able to have such doubts.

Looking for the Holocaust allegory ebcause of something SPielberg said in an interview, when the film barely touches on that angl, is just wrongheaded. The film is about the sacrifices the soldiers made for America itself - here embodied by Damon - and whether or not America was - and is - worthy of those sacrifices. Spielberg isn't trumpeting Judaism, he's wringing his cap as a wealthy, liberal American citizen.

And it's already been reinforced, but Pepper's death is CLEARLY a denunciation of the "miraculous soldier" notion. He stands, lost, as a tank clunks its turret towards him and utterly obliterates him. Pepper is set up as the righteous Hand-of-God stereotype. When he gets blown up, it's a painfully obvious denunciation of his belief in the protection of religion.

Also, comments about the film subtly being aimed towards the "ethnic Jewish audience" don't help the anti-Semite accusations.

I think you're anti-semitic because you're really reaching to cram Holocaust-shaped pegs into movie-trope sized holes. The level on which SPR is about the Holocaust is that it's about men in WWII trying to find some tangible good that comes from all the chaos and bloodshed they're surrounded by. Saving Ryan is about the only concrete thing they can cling to in order to justify what they're going through. Blow that up to the national scale, and stopping the Holocaust is roughly analogous But of course, the big question of the movie is "is it worth it?", and I think its much more ambiguous on that note than you give it credit for. Speilberg clearly admires the men, but I think that admiration prevents him from being as "ra-ra" about their sacrifices as you portray him to be.

As to revelling in revenge, war is a cycle of killings and reprisals. I don't think the film is ever satisfied in this.

As to the idea that the arrival of air support is a miracle sanctioning the soldiers' actions, it's called a dramatic reveal. God is only an active participant to the proceedings if you bring that perspective to the film yourself.

As to the "Hitler probably would've got bored with killing Jews anyway" argument, it's fantastically, impressively stupid.

As to the film being an apologia for the Bosnia war, that's quite a stretch. If Speilberg were really as myopic in his view of world history as serving the cultural destiny of the Jews, why would he be so concerned with the extermination of Muslims?

You are correct that Spielberg isn't making the Holocaust a forefront issue, but he does make it an issue. Mellish crying over the Hitler Youth knife, Mellish taunting German Prisoners "Juden, Juden", and finally the mini-allegory where Mellish is stabbed to death while Upham/America stands by in temporary cowardice. That's not cramming the Holocaust into the movie, it's recognizing it where it was placed in the movie. It was placed there to be noticed.

I think that's false ambiguity. False doubt. It's a question raised but with the intent of answering it in the affirmative. If as the film suggests, their sacrifice prevented a furthering of the Holocaust, do you think the answer is going to be NO (particularly to Jewish audiences). Of course not. It's ambiguous to non-Jewish audiences because we really don't like Ryan that much, or think he's that good, though the script clumsily tries to make him seem loveable with that "ugly girl" story. And surely that scene where Ryan refuses to leave his "family" of soldiers paints Ryan as especially Good and Noble, doesn't it? And who gets the final word on the issue? His wife, who says he IS good, and he's surrounded by his cinematically perfect Norman Rockwell family to nudge us in that direction.

I think it is. Spielberg said he originally intended the movie to be a "kick ass WWII flick for my dad", implying his original intention was to make it an entertainment, but that research led him to deal with the material and situation with more respect. That entertaining "kick ass" element still remains, and was intended to be entertaining. I've seem plenty of reaction to the film that appreciated it on that "kick ass" level.


Ah, I don't think Spielberg is quite that myopic, and I didn't say so. But supporting Good Wars (to fight Hitler, to save Muslims, or protect Israel, or protect the U.S. from terrorism) are all tied together. The common thread, it seems, is being willing to be militarily (violently) active against Evil. It's a simplistic and stupid view. I think Spielberg is a rather simple minded person. I don't think he's a very BAD person, but he has a certain power as a maker of films, and he's using that power to support military agendas, for simplistic and sentimental reasons.

"A Walk in the Sun"

I haven't seen a huge amount of WWII, or war films, but "A Walk in the Sun" seems to me to be one of the most true as far as depicting what war would really be like. Devoid of any sentimental bullshit.

As I said in another post, Mellish crying over the Hitler Youth knife (which makes no sense ... the extent of the Holocaust wasn't known till after the war) Mellish taunting the German soldiers "Juden, Juden" and the mini allegory involving the stabbing of the Jewish soldier (which the film's writer says Spielberg deliberately inserted into the film) point toward deliberate intent on Spielberg's part to MAKE the whole Ryan mission into Holocaust Allegory. (Saving the surviving member of a family / surviving members of the Holocaust).

How is Pepper's death a denunciation of the Hand of God? People are constantly depicted as having acted with God's help, even if they die in the process of completing God's mission. And he wasn't "lost", but steadily picking off the Enemy while he prayed. Why do you assume he was praying for protection, and not for help in doing God's work? As far as the film tells us, he's Godly because he prays, and that makes his actions Godly. You can't pretend that someone dying while doing heroic things in God's name is usually seen as proof that God was not with that person.

Mellish isn't crying over the knife, he's crying because he's finally had time to stop and process the sheer hell he's just been through and it overwhelms him.

Why are you guys wasting your time arguing with NoDiggity..I mean, flindip... er, I mean, Wolfie?

And why has NoDiggity not been banned for posting under multiple accounts?

You talked with Mellish, and he told you that, did he? You really don't think putting a Hilter Youth Knife in the hands of Jewish soldier, and having him cry was intended to suggest that it was NOT about Hitler and Jewishness?

The first time I saw the movie, that was my first clue that Mellish WAS Jewish. "Why is he crying, is he Jewish and upset about Hitler and the Holocaust?" So I can't take your suggestion seriously. It turned out Mellish WAS Jewish. This was the film's way of telling us.

Why is it that nearly every time Wolfie posts, he has to follow it up immediately with two more long-winded posts that amount to absolutely nothing?

I'm sure it's because no one has notified Eileen yet.

Please, just shut the fuck up.

Oh come on, if we're going to play that game, neither did you.

I did.

I was tying to figure out how anyone could so spectacularly misread a soldier's emotional breakdown after storming the beach at Normandy, then I read this. Not realizing Mellish is jewish the second you see him is mishegas.

Seriously. If Mellish was any more of a Jew, his special attack would be decapitating nazis by throwing DVDs of The Nanny around.

I think he just reported my post as offensive.

Wolfie/Diggity, do the world a favor and kill yourself.

Isn't that like almost the first time we see Mellish? Are you really claiming the film wasn't trying to tell us he was? That it's just a big coincidence that he's crying over a Hitler Youth Knife? Come on. The film was using the knife and the crying to tell us about the character. It can't do that and then be claimed to be actually portraying battle fatigue that has nothing to do with the Hitler Youth Knife or the persecution of his people. And why can't it be a combination of battle fatigue and response to the Hitler Youth Knife?

And once you understand that his grandfather was a knife-maker who probably made that very knife, it all becomes perfectly clear.

If there were still rep around, Bob and Gaybe would be getting some love.

You know how you know Mellish is Jewish? He's played by the Hebrew Hammer.

But seriously folks, I actually think the moments with Mellish's character are among the best in the film. Not just the crying, but the moment where he tells the German prisoners (and I never saw it as taunting, more of him trying to confront the Germans with what they'd done, or something) that he's a Jew, and his final fight in the attic.

Also, Ed Burns is really good in this. I don't think I've liked that guy in anything else, but he's perfect for his role. This is certainly a well-cast movie and all the actors do a phenomenal job. I can even get behind the "oh hello thar Ted Danson/Paul Giamatti/Dennis Farina/Malcolm Reynolds" cameos, although that last one doesn't really count.

If I hadn't been told by the film, I'd have thought he was a Brooklyn Italian.