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My brother called me today! I am going to be an AUNT!! He and his wife are going to have their first baby! I am so happy!
We talked and he was telling me he saw Ladder 49- cause he is a fireman, and he went with a huge group of firemen, and he said they all bawled the whole way through the movies.
I remember he went with me to see Backdraft and he didn't like it-cause he said it was not realistic at all, so he said I might actually like this movie, he said it is very sad, but John Travolta rocks in it.
So now I gotta see it this next weekend!!
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Congrats on the future niece/nephew Isis. Here is a cool review on this movie. Sounds promising, I may have to check it out as well.
Review:
"Who snuck a camera into my fire station?" I asked myself that several times. The hard work, the hard play between calls, the family life. Ladder 49 seemed less like a feature film and more like a documantery. Call me biased (and many will, I'm sure) but I gave the film the grades I did because they got it right.
The story centers on one firefighter and his two families-the one at home, and the one in the fire station. It is told through flashbacks against the framework of Jack's (J. Phoenix) fellow firefighters work to rescue him at a high-rise fire. The scenes are well scripted, the characters and their actions quite believeable (especially the practical jokes and the way firefighters work and live together), and the attention to detail is almost perfect. Yes, there will be times firefighters will say, "I can't believe they did THAT!", but it doesn't distract from the movie like previous films.
The actors went through training at the Baltimore Fire Academy, and their hard work shows. Sounding a roof, throwing ladders, tagging hydrants, all the actions we perform on a daily basis looked smooth, like they'd been doing this for years. Everyone did their best to get it right. The portrayals of the family and the stresses and fears they must deal with are just about perfect mirrors of real life (after the private screening, one firefighter was heard joking, "Nope, the wife's not going to see this one.")
Being this is Hollywood, some parts of the visuals couldn't be completly real. While you see a good example in one scene of the stratification of smoke layers in a room, you still can see much better than in the real thing. The nosepieces are left out of the SCBA masks so you can see the actors faces, but at least they are wearing them when needed in this picture. On the whole, however, the minor omissions and changes needed to make a movie don't detract from the show. Firefighters and fire buffs will barely notice them, and everyone else won't.
Overall, I have to give Ladder 49 the high grade. The cast and crew did an outstanding job.
Posts: 180 | From: Nor. Cal 510 | Registered: Feb 2004 | Site Updates: 0
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It sounds good. My brother didn't like Backdraft cause Kurt Russell runs in to a fire with no mask on, and he said it was too unrealistic.
My Dad was a Fireman for 42 years, and there were times when I was a kid we were really scared that he wasn't coming home. Once, there was a field fire, and it came over our scanner that a fireman had been electrocuted, and my mom thought it was my Dad, but it was the guy right in front of my Dad.
They were out in the field, and an electrical wire had fallen, and they didn't see it, and the one guy was right in front of my dad, and he tripped on it, and it killed him, and my Dad had to run for help, and I remember him saying how horrible it was.
He risked his life so many times for people. There was always a ton of fires in our little town. I remember when a big hotel burned down, it was really old, my Uncle was the Fire chief, and we were down there watching it, it was so heart pounding to watch your own family running in to a burning building.
We grew up across the street from the Firehall, so my brother kind of had it in his blood, and was so excited about hanging out with all the "guys" and sitting on the truck as a kid, and they would all let him come over and help wash it, and take him for rides.
We use to go every year to the Firemen's picnic at a park in our town, and I knew everyone there, we played Volleyball, it was a ton of fun.
I am definately hoping the movie is in this weekend.
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I watched it last night, and I did like it. It kind of dragged at the beginning, and it was pretty predictable. But, I did like the characters, and the whole thing with the life of being a fireman is very personal to me.
Those guys risk their lives for barely any money, and some who are volunteers do it for nothing, and I think they deserve so much respect.
I liked that all the guys were pretty good friends in it, and looked out for each other.
Has anyone else seen it yet, and what did you think??
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I saw it. I thought it was a very well-done drama, with some amusing moments in-between. It was very sad as well, but it had heart to it. It really made me appreciate what firefighters do a lot more.
Posts: 1830 | From: Land Under the Bed | Registered: May 2004 | Site Updates: 0
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The girl that plays Jack's wife in Ladder 49, I knew I saw her somewhere in something a long time ago, and could not remember who she was. I know her first name is Jacinda, and she turned out to be on one of the very first Real World shows on MTV, she was a model from Australia. I remembered her because I think she took pilot lessons back then, and the Real World was not a total mess as it is now. But, I was shocked to see she has actually been in quite a few movies in the past couple years.
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