The not so Quiet American

Have I mentioned how much I adore Brendan Fraiser and Michael Caine?  Well, despite some of his past flix (umm…. George of the Jungle) Mr. Fraiser has a set of brains to match his disarming good looks. He’s actually pretty talented too.  He did a great job of playing secretive CIA agent undercover as innocent and charming medical aide worker who falls madly in love with Michael Caine’s mistress.  And Mr Caine, well he manages to take a slightly skeezy guy and turn him into a very sympathetic hero. Yeah, so what if he’s got a wife back in England and he’s at least 20 years older his lover.  He does love her.

In case you’re wondering… check title.  The Quiet American.  I’d never really understood the history of the Vietnam War before this.  In school you’re really lucky to get past WW2.  I do remember one week of Reaganomics and the Vietnam and the Korean War all rolled up in one.  I think that’s going backwards, but most of those weren’t on the AP test so we didn’t put a whole lot of effort into them,  The DVD had a really interesting timeline that explained the events that led up to the war.  And I loved the Anatomy of a Scene that went into great detail of how they completed the bomb scene where we have our first person narrator loop us back to remember the important events of the scene.  I love behind the scenes footage.  I love watching the vision slide away to reveal the machinery.  I was always taking things apart when I was a kid.  I think that habit still sticks with me to this day.