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The Sand PebblesRating:
Release Date: 15 May, 2001 Retail Price: $14.98 Sorry, this product is not currently available. Cast: Complete Cast (14 total) |
The Sand Pebbles Reviews
A movie for this day, too
This is one of the greatest anti-war movies to come out of Hollywood, but it is great not only for that. It is blessed by brilliant acting, tight directing, outstanding production design, cinematography and score, all of which got it nominated for eight Academy Awards. In almost any other year The Sand Pebbles would have won several of those, but 1966 was a high water mark for Hollywood, and this gripping epic came away with none. Google 1966 for the Academy Awards and you will see why.
Director Robert Wise got arguably the best performances of their careers out of Steve McQueen and Richard Crenna. Richard Attenborough and Candice Bergen turn in powerful performances, as do the whole supporting cast. The performance of the unknown Mako as Po Han will rip your heart out. This is one of those movies in which you forget you are watching great actors play their roles, where you are gripped by the characters and, without realizing it, you are drawn into their lives and propelled along with them by the Yanktze River and the rising magma flow of rebellion in the chaos of 1926 China. The cinematography is magnificent, huge, epic, in keeping with the sweeping, seething drama. The score is brilliant. The plot has more twists than the Yanktze, and the action scenes are gripping, blood curdling, yet there are quiet, tender scenes full of nuance and subtle undercurrent. There are powerful clashes of personality and of culture. And throughout it all flows a river of horror, of the utter senselessness of war, of failing to understand the other, of pride and prejudice, arrogance and ignorance, and the doom they wreak on the innocent.
I saw this movie for the first time only a few months before I went to Vietnam at the beginning of 1968, and throughout that year in Vietnam I was haunted by The Sand Pebbles redux. It will haunt you, too. But it will fill your senses with its vastness and power. And it will dazzle you with its beauty.
In seeing it again for the first time in many years, I realize The Sand Pebbles speaks to Americans in the world of today as much as it did during the Vietnam War or in China in 1926. And it speaks to all humanity.
You will not watch this movie only once. It will call you back again and again.
mcqueen and wise team up to tell the story of jake holman and the uss san pablo in 1926 china
two time oscsr winner robert wise directs steve mcqueen in his greatest role as jake holman a sailor aboard the uss san pablo in "the sand pebbles".
in 1926 sailor jake holman is stationed aboard the uss san pablo which is cruseing the yangtze river in china. holman is a man who likes to work on his engines than stay above deck with the rest of the crew,but on the san pablo chinaese work and the sailors spend their time training for attacks and such.this is just the first of many things holman dislikes about his boat and there is were the story starts to unfold.mcqueen has never been better and the action ,when it comes is fast and very well done. also in the cast is candice bergen as holman love intrest,richard crenna as the captain who is very by the book and will not bend,richard attenborough is holmans friend and mako is the chinaese worker holman picks to teach about engines.
this is the only film mcqueen did to get him oscar-nominated and it is a real treasure.
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