Wordiezett So much average

Exoticalot People are voting emotionally.

Contentar Best movie of this year hands down!

Freeman This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

Michael Neumann After a long cycle of dramatic fictions the true voice of the Vietnam experience is restored to those who knew it best: the veterans themselves, both living and dead. There may be a built-in flaw behind the idea of quoting letters out loud on camera (because on paper the written word has a silent voice that speaks to the reader directly), but director Bill Couturié does what he can to minimize this drawback by hiring an ensemble of professional actors to help articulate the emotions locked on each page: confusion, bitterness, terror, rage, sorrow, and irony. Viewers can play the guessing game of celebrity voice identification, but after a while the words seem to fade away beneath the horror of the imagery itself, a compilation of TV news stock, home movies, and other footage, including rare scenes from inside a North Vietnamese prison camp. The letters are arranged chronologically, and as American military presence increases so too does the viewer's emotional involvement. Some of the correspondence is more effective than others, but every letter is an eloquent reminder of the loneliness of the common soldier, and of the importance of that vital link through the mail between home and hell.

Neil Turner Dear America is an HBO documentary derived from the book of the same name. If you have not had the privilege of reading the book, I heartedly recommend it.When I see and read the newscasts daily of young soldiers being killed in the Middle East, it reminds me of this book and film.The film offers readings by celebrities of letters from soldiers serving in Vietnam to friends and relatives back home. In the film, the letters are certainly poignant, but needless-to-say, are far more shattering in the book.The thing that gives the film its extra punch is that all videos are actual recordings of the time, and it is filled with news broadcasts of the time. The most haunting newscast comes early in the film in which President Johnson is stating his justification for increasing the forces and activity in Vietnam. If you substitute "terrorists" for "Communists" and "Iraq" for "Vietnam," Our President Bush could have given the speech word for word. Obviously, this proves that those in power cannot learn from history and that is the bent of bilious, old politicians to send young soldiers off to be slaughtered in places of no consequence for any justifiable reasons, and these are certainly bipartisan sins.The film ends with a reading by Ellen Burstyn written by the mother of William R. Stocks on February 13, 1984 - fifteen years after his death - that she placed at the Vietnam Memorial. It is wrought with emotion but so eloquently states the mindset of both soldiers and those who wait at home in fear that one cannot help to be affected by the message.If you are too young to remember Vietnam, this film is a great history lesson. If you lived during that era, this film is a sober reminder. Watch it, learn, or remember.

ccthemovieman-1 Letters and film footage from actual soldiers and nurses who fought in Vietnam are read aloud and shown in this "documentary." The letters are read by famous actors and actresses.It turns out to be a sometimes-powerful moving saga of Vietnam through the eyes of those who were there but, remember, it's the filmmakers deciding what letters are read. That means you get an anti-Vietnam War bias, but it's not as blatant as one might think.There is some good footage of bombings and nothing really gross, injury-wise, to view, most likely because this was made-for-TV.The most moving part of the show was the last letter, from a mom to her son who had died 15 years earlier in Vietnam. That letter is a real tear-jerker. Overall, an excellent documentary, one of the better ones of its era.

arensgirl My Dad I and watched this film when it first came out on HBO, I have always been interested in watching documentary's about Vietnam war because my father was there. This movie touched my heart in so many ways because it gave me an insight to what my father went through but, halfway through the movie their was a picture of my father with his other buddies, he was so jazzed to see himself in this movie and I was excited that he was in the movie. To this day Letters home from Vietnam is the best documentary ever made. thank you for letting us see a portion of what the men and women went through and the men and women who gave their lives so I could be free today.