Simply Perfect

This is a gorgeous movie made by a gorgeous spirit.

The acting in this movie is really good.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

The summary is great fiction and great imagination.I believe that must seen (by most people who likes science fiction movies.)I haven't read the novel(by Kurt Vonnegut)yet but I think about that. Time, love, war, hate,religion,place.. These are you'll think about while watch movie...Congrats toMaster director George Roy Hill. Cast is very rich and act is enough well. Nowadays we can hardly find original stories and ideas. I wish i could gave sample movies to compare with it but I can't.I liked this film because it is... This movie is evergreen. Maybe Wecan see remark of it. Less it deserves 8.5 and over ratings.

Slaughterhouse-Five (1972)Slaughterhouse-Five, by Oscar Award-winning director George Roy Hill, does a beautiful job of visually depicting the incredibly bizarre, guiltily comical, and thought provoking work of its literary counterpart by Kurt Vonnegut. Billy Pilgrim, a nothing-out-of-the-ordinary World War II veteran played by Michael Sacks, recounts his, and subsequently Vonnegut's, experiences from the war, particularly the horrific fire bombing of the German city of Dresden. The characters of Pilgrim's overweight wife Valencia (Sharon Gans), son Robert (Perry King), and daughter Barbara (Holly Near) all help to create the idea of a normal American family, unmarred by the atrocities of war. Billy's seeming lunacy is a stark contrast to their normalcy. Both the film and book travel through different times of Billy's life, due to his obsession with the Tralfamadorian concept of time, and also his attempt to cope with traumatic experiences by revisiting past events. Although dramatically "time-tripping" through three general periods of time, the movie does manage to convey a chronological progression of happenings, escaping from past stressful or violent circumstances to dwell in more peaceful or happier times in the present. In the war, Billy, then serving as a chaplain's assistant, is captured behind enemy lines during the famous Battle of the Bulge, and becomes a prisoner of war. He and the fellow P.O.W.s, including fatherly Edgar Derby (Eugene Roche), vulgar Roland Weary (Kevin Conway) and bloodthirsty Paul Lazarro (Ron Leibman) are shuffled into a German prisoner of war camp, and then packed like animals into train cars bound for Dresden, Germany. Once in Dresden, they are introduced to their new home, and the novel's namesake, Slaughterhouse-Five, an abandoned slaughterhouse sixty feet underground. Throughout the movie, one may observe that much of the music used is upbeat classical music, a stark contrast to the brutal background of war. The entire soundtrack consists of six pieces by Johann Sebastian Bach, which created what felt to me like an ironic tone. The music helps to transfer over Vonnegut's feeling of uncomfortableness that he creates in the novel. Also in the movie there are scenes where the sounds from one scene of Pilgrim's life are imposed on or intertwined with the sounds from another time. One instance of this is near the very beginning of the film when Billy sits at a typewriter, documenting his experiences on Tralfamadore. Each plunk of his finger on a key reverberates as a sharp gunshot and as he continues to type the sounds transform into an entire war scene and we have time-tripped into Billy's past. Right off the bat, I was wary of a film version of such a hauntingly strange novel, but after watching it I feel that George Roy Hill really managed to accurately create an incredible film based off an equally incredible book. Superior acting, a beautiful sound track, and thought- provoking characters and situations all combine to create a film like no other.

What a weird yet compelling movie, it made me laugh how Juvenalian satire it is about life, death, and the time we have as humans. It doesn't take itself so serious, but the movie is so full of symbolism, imagery, and allegory that not only does the main character Billy Pilgrim (Michael Sacks) feel tripping, but the audience watching this film as well. Slaughterhouse-Five directed by George Roy Hill is based on the Kurt Vonnegut's novel also known as Slaughterhouse Five and the Children's Crusade. Vonnegut loves the film as well calling it a flawless harmonious translation. The entire prologue in which Vonnegut decides to name his story 'The Children's Crusade' is omitted from the film to focus more on the film first-person narrative from the point of view of Billy Pilgrim, who becomes "unstuck in time" and experiences the events of his life in a seemingly random order, such as the alien planet of Tralfamadore, Dresden during World War II, and life in Ilium, New York. The movie jumps around scene by scene between them, which at first doesn't make any sense, until the end. Still it can be a bit confusing, if not paying attention. It's hard to analysis the film as we don't know if Billy is time-tripping or suffering from post traumatic stress disorder due to him having survive two major disasters. The first disaster was surviving the Dresden firebombing by the Allies during the war. The firebombs were meant to destroy German morale. Kurt Vonnegut's slaughterhouse debates if the bombings were right or unmoral. The second is a plane crash that the film suggest cause Billy to lose his mind. The movie like the book is just of series of guesses. The book sequence in the novel where Pilgrim watches a movie about a bombing mission in World War II forward and then backward is also omitted from the film due to time constraints of the film would be nice to see why he thinks he time-trips. Several other elements of the novel are missing from the film. Kilgore Trout is a failed science fiction writer from the novel Breakfast with Champions who Billy meets. His visit with Billy might explain why Billy believes in Tralfamadore and aliens due to his sci-fiction background. Since the film doesn't mention him, the whole Tralfamadore idea comes out of nowhere and seem out of place with the WWII scenes. We the audience learn so much from them about time's relation to the world, as a fourth dimension, and death's indiscriminate nature. Tralfamadorians appear in several Vonnegut novels. Other Vonneguts novel characters are also guest stars in the film like Howard Campbell, Bertram Copeland Rumfoord and Eliot Rosewater with minor roles. Still, the film does keep some of the very interesting characters that made the book famous such as funny manic dog killing Paul Lazzaro, crazy driver wife Valencia Merble, and pornstar Montana Wildhack. The film does well in imagery as in one scene, Billy sees a pornographic film with Montana and later Montana happens to be taken by Tralfamadorian for him to mate with. He might have 'dreams' up Montana being with him due to his sex-less marriage with Valencia. In another scene Billy helps some of his buddies to collect a huge grandfather clock and get buried under the clock. Although the image created by this scene (the pressure of time on Billy Pilgrim) fits nicely into the plot, this part is also not found in the novel. In my opinion it's better than the famous Poo-Tee-Weet bird in the novel. Slaughterhouse-Five debates fate, free will, and the illogical nature of human beings. By naming the unheroic hero Billy Pilgrim, Vonnegut contrasts John Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress" with Billy's story. Billy's solution to the problems of the modern world is to "invent a heaven, out of 20th century materials, where Good Technology triumphs over Bad Technology. His scripture is Science Fiction, Man's last, good fantasy". At its heart Slaughterhouse Five is the story of Billy's search for happiness. The film completely shatters the mold of traditional storytelling, and isn't restricted by a beginning, middle and end structure so in a way, it's works for this film. Check it out if u want, and you find yourself pilgrimage throughout your life asking the same thing.

.Iconic author Kurt Vonnegut falls in a similar category as other well known authors who's novel gets adapted from movies and leaves critics wondering if they will keep up with what was written in their novels. Vonnegut's novels are provocative in the sense that which we utilize our cognitive state of mind as we challenge the madness behind mankind's ways of thinking. Surely not suited for audience members to go to theaters just to be entertained.Such experiments of trying to bring a qualitative novel to the big screen has been a victim of utter failure over the years (like "Slapstick" for example). But with the dedicated skill and bravery of competent director George Roy Hill, it is safe to say that "Slaughterhouse-Five" was given life to the screen without anyone feeling any sense of insult or humiliation and leaves its audience the freedom to draw their own conclusions of what was revealed here. Overall it was a pleasant compliment to Vonnegut's work and deserves all the praises it's been given to fans and critics. The characters in the movie were everything that I expected from the novel Theperformances were just as special in bringing the novel to life.Michael Sacks was really believable in his performance as Billy Pilgrimand Sharon Gans was convincing as his rotund and domineering wife,Valenica Pilgrim. Billy has become withdrawn with his time, shiftingback and forth of his life From the catastrophic events of World War IIto the generic struggles of married life, the film succeeds in shiftingthe radom events chronologically way up where we find Mr. Pilgrimlocated on the nearby planet of Tralfamadore along with a scantily cladMontana wildhack (Valerie Perrine). The accuracy speaks volumes towardsthe numerous supporting characters that was well complimented fromVonnegut's novel.Novice Vonnegut fanatics might be turned of by the unsettling narrative, but the detail that was taken into consideration might even flabbergast the average moviegoer after this equally poignant Vonnegut movie adaptation..