The latest film from Polish director Andrzej Wajda, Katyn, recalls the horrific event of the Soviet-led massacre in the Katyn forest (Circa 1940). This is a dark movie and justifiably so, for in my opinion, there is no other place in this world with a history as violent and gritty as Eastern Europe’s. Katyn is [...]
Read More Andrzej Wajda, drama, DVD, History, Katyn, warI don’t know a whole lot about poetry, aside from the fact that some of it rhymes. But I do know that The Edge of Love, essentially a small slice of the life of Welsh poet Dylan Thomas molded into a cigarette smoke-choked wartime soap opera starring Keira Knightley and Sienna Miller, is one gorgeous-looking [...]
Read More biography, Cillian Murphy, David, drama, DVD, Dylan Thomas, John Maybury, Keira Knightley, Matthew Rhys, R, romance, Sharman MacDonald, Sienna Miller, The Edge of Love, warThough I admit it’s not a film I’ve revisited often, Sidney Lumet‘s 1957 masterpiece 12 Angry Men has had a significant impact on my world-view. I first saw it at the tender age of 14 or so when my 9th Grade Civics teacher, Mr. Pomranka, showed it to us in class. Something of a Ben [...]
Read More 12, 12 Angry Men, crime, drama, DVD, Nikita Mikhalkov, PG-13, thriller, war, willTo simply say that Waltz with Bashir is just another war documentary would be an understatement of sizzler-sized proportions. Writer, director, and fellow interviewer Ari Folman‘s roto-scoped documentary (think A Scanner Darkly) examines painful yet sometimes beautiful accounts of the Lebanese invasion of 1982. The interviews held are all proposed by Folman in his attempt [...]
Read More animation, Ari Folman, biography, blu-ray, documentary, drama, DVD, Jeremy, R, Waltz With Bashir, warDefiance is the story of the Bielski brothers, who after fleeing the Gestapo Death Squads, build a community of Jews hiding in the forests of Russia. Based on a true story, the film stars Daniel Craig as Tuvia Bielski, the oldest brother, with Liev Schrieber, Jamie Bell and relative newcomer George MacKay as his younger [...]
Read More Daniel Craig, Defiance, drama, DVD, Edward Zwick, George MacKay, Jamie Bell, Liev Schrieber, Noah, R, The Bielski Brothers, thriller, war, WWIIWhen one stops to think of exactly how many films in the last sixty-odd years have been made about World War II, it boggles the mind. An encyclopedia that listed each of them, alphabetically, would run thousands of pages, and would still need to be updated every month. Today, we will open that book and [...]
Read More Bill Nighy, blu-ray, Bryan Singer, Carice van Houten, DVD, Eddie Izzard, History, J.D., Kenneth Branagh, PG-13, Terence Stamp, thriller, Tom Cruise, Tom Wilkinson, Valkyrie, war, WWIIWhat happens when you merge the following: Russia’s greatest living director, cellist Mstislav Rostropovich‘s widow (a legendary soprano in her own right), and the ghost of John Ford? Master director Alexander Sokurov‘s Alexandra, that’s what. Sokurov (Russian Ark) here tells the seemingly simple story of a Russian widow visiting her beloved grandson, a Russian Army [...]
Read More Alexander Sokurov, Alexandra, Bruce, drama, DVD, foreign film, Galina Vishnevskaya, warThe latest in a long line of Holocaust dramas, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas is dark, intense, and entertaining throughout its story of a concentration camp commandant’s son and his newfound friend, a Jewish boy on the other side of the fence. This being said, in the end, I felt like I needed more [...]
Read More drama, DVD, PG-13, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, thriller, warThis epic, romantic, action film is set in Australia pre-World War II. English aristocrat Kate (Nicole Kidman) travels to Australia to convince her estranged husband to sell their cattle ranch, come home, and live a proper married life. What she finds is far more than she has bargained for. She meets a rough-and-tumble ranch hand [...]
Read More adventure, Australia, Baz Luhrmann, Brandon Walters, drama, DVD, Hugh Jackman, Nicole Kidman, PG-13, war, westernMiracle at St. Anna is a technically competent but ultimately pointless war flick from director Spike Lee that isn’t nearly as stirring or inspirational as it thinks it is or needs to be. Really, the only thing epic about it is its bloated 160-minute running time. The story revolves around four members of the Buffalo [...]
Read More action, David, drama, DVD, Miracle at St. Anna, R, Spike Lee, war