A Certain Point of View: Writing, Film and Stuff

One of the truly outstanding scores composed for a television series was the late Michael Kamen's music for the 2001 HBO miniseries Band of Brothers , a 10-part adaptation of the late Stephen E. Ambrose's eponymous non-fiction book about E Company, 2nd Battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division. Executive produced by Ambrose, Tom Hanks, and Steven Spielberg, this monumental miniseries follows an elite light infantry unit from its training stages at Camp Toccoa, GA to the 11-month campaign in Northwest Europe, starting from the D-Day invasion on June 6, 1944 to the surrender of Germany and E Company's capture of Hitler's private "Eagle's Nest" in Bavaria. When I finally saw the first episodes of Band of Brothers on the History Channel 14 years ago and heard the strains of the "Main Theme" (Track 1), the credits had not finished rolling, and because the style was similar to John Williams' music for Savin...

Pros: Excellent scripts, great acting, and superb production values makes this WWII true-life drama worth owning. Cons: It's expensive...and lacks English subtitles for the hearing impaired. I couldn’t watch Band of Brothers when it aired on HBO in 2001, so I bought the late Stephen E. Ambrose's book of the same name. It was the tie-in edition with the cover art taken from the miniseries; promotional materials and a new foreword by the author describing the genesis of the miniseries and his praise for executive producers Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg. Ambrose stated that their personal interest and attention to detail were impressive, for they wanted to make sure they got everything right. I did ask one of my best friends if he could tape it for me; he has HBO and a whole batch of premium channels and he does record programs he can't watch while he's at work, but even though I had logged on to HBO.com and gotten the airing schedule for Band of Brot...