Coming up Friday at your local cinemaplex is the new Cold War thriller Bridge of Spies, which marks the eleventh time that Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks have worked together – both of them Hollywood legends by their own rights.
Spielberg produced two early Hanks pictures, The Money Pit (1986, also featuring Shelley Long) and Joe vs. the Volcano, released in 1990. He also directed Hanks in Saving Private Ryan (1998 with Matt Damon), Catch Me If You Can (2002 with Leonardo DiCaprio) and The Terminal (2004 with Catharine Zeta-Jones and Stanley Tucci).
The two have also paired up as co-producers for two television miniseries, Band of Brothers (2001) and The Pacific (2010). In addition, Hanks has done some narrating for Spielberg productions, providing the voice over for We Stand Alone Together, a World War II documentary concerning the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 101rst Airborne Division, also known as E-Company (or the Screaming Eagles), which gave rise to their nickname “Easy Company.”
This weekend is the highly anticipated release of Bridge of Spies, written by Matt Charman and the Coen brothers, Ethan and Joel.
The story concerns the prisoner exchange between the United States and the Soviet Union to secure the freedom of U-2 spy plane pilot Francis Gary Powers in the peak of the Cold War in 1960. Powers’ plane was shot down by the Soviets and he was held for two years until a famous prisoner swap that took place on the Glienicke Bridge in Berlin on February 10, 1962.
The movie also features performances by Mark Rylance, Amy Ryan and Alan Alda.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cO9f237Tf_8