HBO miniseries originally aired in 2001. It follows 'Easy' Company during WWII (from D-Day to the end of the war), and especially their (at the beginning of the series) XO, Dick Winters (Damian Lewis). It's brutally accurate with all the horrifying details of war, heart-wrenching and emotional at times, and absolutely awesome to watch. The acting is quite possibly the best I've seen, I can't remember one bad performance. I recommend it to anyone who's interested in WWII and war-films, it's definitely as good as Saving Private Ryan. It is (like I mentioned earlier) quite brutal and gory at times, so if you're squeemish about violence this probably isn't for you. Personal favorite episodes are Breaking Point (7th episode), Why We Fight (9th ep.) and Points (10th ep., series finale). It was kinda funny to recognize some of the actors in the opening credits: "Yay, Charlie (of Life), lulz, Ross 8D (Friends) O.o Creepy blond guy from s.5 of Desperate Housewives, WTF ZACK FAIR?!?!?! 8DDDDD" Anyone else seen this?
I haven't seen all of the episodes, but I did see a few when they aired the series on the History Channel. It was a marathon, so I really only had time to watch I think two or three, but the ones I saw were good. David Schwimmer kind of threw me off a bit (Ross being the tough guy does not compute). It's very well done; it captures the brutality of WWII excellently. I'd still prefer watching Saving Private Ryan, but this series is still great. :'D
I've seen most of the episodes, but I remember one scene that haunded me for days. When the Major shoots a young German centry. He's seemingly innocent and happy when he first sees the Major, until his simile melts into a dropped jaw when he realizes the Major is on the enemy's side. It gave me shivers. Only few movies and television shows can make me do that. So I applaud it for brilliant directing.
If you ever get the chance, watch the second half of the series, in my opinion it's a lot stronger than the first half (apart from the 8th episode, maybe). I was rather thrown off too, I remember thinking "Ross, you're not supposed to curse on natio- Oh yeah..." Although I kinda started to feel sorry him later in the episode Dx I remember being freaked out by it too, and they kept flashing back to that part so often ;_; I was sorta relieved when I found out that it didn't exactly happen that way in real life, but it's still an excellent scene. I'm a bit more affected by the shelling scenes in Breaking Point, especially the third one when one of the guys is trying to get into a foxhole and keeps falling over and when he's finally getting closer to one and it gets blown up right infront of him with two of the other guys still in it... *shudders* And the Concentration Camp scene in Why We Fight was so hard to watch, the great acting/directing just made it so much worse...
