To End All
Wars 2001 117 minutes
It’s not The Bridge on the River Kwai, but it’s pretty good. Some of the prisoners hold it together and
some drift away. It doesn’t end well for
the Japanese guards.
.
Ghost 2010
115 minutes This is a Japanese remake of
an American film with Demi Moore, only this time it’s the wife who gets killed
rather than the husband. There’s some
great scenes of Tokyo and its corporate offices. There are a lot of better choices for your
time, unless you’re a Japanophile like me.
.
Glorious 39 2009
125 minutes We get a look at
life on a country estate just before the outbreak of WW II in 1939. It seems there were some Brits who were not
eager to take on Hitler and some took this in the direction of treason.
.
Good 2008
95 minutes Viggo Mortensen plays
a basically apolitical German professor who writes a book promoting
compassionate euthanasia and comes to the attention of the Nazi Party. Gradually he is seduced by attention and
drawn in to such extent that he becomes a reserve officer in the SS. He ends up tasked with preparing an
evaluation of the camps in the east and when he goes there he sees his
previously close friend and confidant, now a Jewish prisoner.
The film is not a justification for what he did, but it does give an idea
of how essentially decent people were sucked into the Nazi nightmare.
.
High Anxiety 1977
94 minutes This is a silly movie
with a silly plot but you just can’t go wrong with Mel Brooks and Madelaine
Kahn.
.
Jar City 2006
An Icelandic detective mystery.
The plot is fairly complicated and the detective competent, but the
whole scene from the landscape to the weather to the scumbags we encounter
makes it rather depressing. Not
recommended unless you want a look at Iceland at its worst.
.
The Legend of Sleepy
Hollow 1999 91 minutes
This TV adaptation of Washington Irving’s short story seems quite
faithful to the original text, maybe too faithful. I didn’t like it.
.
Lions for Lambs 2007
92 minutes There are three
parallel story lines: Robert Redford as
a political science professor trying to work with a brilliant student who has
more or less copped out; Tom Cruise as a
Republican Senator and a rising star in the party giving an interview to Meryl
Streep, who plays a 57 year old TV news person with 40 years experience in the
business; and finally two G.I.s who had
given up fellowships to make the commitment to serve in Afghanistan. Cruise is trying to sell Streep on a new
strategy in Afghanistan that is going to change everything for the better. Streep isn’t buying. The two G.I.s are killed in the first efforts
to implement the new strategy. There’s
no real resolution in any of the three story lines. We are left with questions about commitment. A real mind bender.
.
Man of the Year 2006
115 minutes Robin Williams plays
the irreverent host of a political talk show who decides to run for
President. His strategy is to tell it
like it is which is unprecedented and comes out very funny for all
concerned. He wins or maybe he
doesn’t. Did a computer glitch give him
the election? It’s fun.
.
Safe House 2012
115 minutes Denzel Washington
plays Tobin Frost, a rogue CIA agent who has a
microchip compiled by Mossad as a means to get leverage on key officials
in CIA and its European counterparts from Moscow to London. The data is a record of illegal
operations. Naturally CIA sends a team
to capture Frost and get the chip. They do catch him and take him to a safe
house and start water boarding him to find the chip. A team of assassins breaks in and kills
everyone except Frost and the “housekeeper,” Matt Weston, who escape, Frost as
Weston’s prisoner. Weston intends to
bring Frost in but Frost escapes and Weston has to recover him and he does, although
Frost is somewhat wounded in another attack. During the rescue Weston kills most of the assassination team and learns from
one of them that the team was also CIA. Weston
does turn Frost in at a safe house but he is now wary. When the housekeeper attacks him, he manages
to kill him, but is badly wounded.
Before the last assault comes, Frost gives Weston the chip. Frost is killed when Weston’s boss
arrives. Weston survives and is
commended for bringing in Frost, but there is still the question of the chip. After Weston leaves CIA, the documents are
printed in the New York Times and arrests
follow. If you like action, this is it.
.
La Scorta 1993
95 minutes This is an Italian
thriller based on a true story. When a
judge is murdered in the Sicilian town of Trapani, four cops are assigned as
bodyguards for the new judge. There are
daily threats of car bombs and ambushes and what this story is about is how the
team held together despite the pressures. Gritty but interesting.
.
The Secret World of
Arrietty 2010 94 minutes
This is another wonderful Japanese film for children. Arrietty is a “borrower,” a member of a
family of tiny persons who live between the walls of our houses. Somehow she becomes friends with a human boy,
although all such contacts are forbidden by her parents and considered
extremely dangerous. Everything is o.k.
until the maid starts poking around and calls the exterminator. The boy helps Arietty and her family
escape. What’s interesting is the
imaginative ways the illustrators have shown how the little people get around
the house, climb the furniture and “borrow” a little sugar or whatever.
.
Shrink 2009
104 minutes Kevin Spacey plays a Hollywood psychiatrist
to the stars, who, after his wife commits suicide, becomes a slovenly, uncaring
pothead, uninterested in and unable to help his patients. It takes a pro bono case of a young Afro-American
girl referred to him by his father to bring him out of his funk. Part of the plot involves a young guy doing
odd jobs who wants to write for the movies.
He does a script about the life of the girl and sells it.
.
Swordfish 2001
99 minutes John Travolta plays a rogue agent who wants
to get his hands on $9 billion stashed in a secret DEA account. He kidnaps Hugh Jackman and forces him to
hack into the system to steal the money.
Halle Berry plays an ambiguous role.
It’s hard to know where she is coming from. The three stars are nice to watch, but it
just sort of O.K.
.
Two Women (La
Ciociara) 1960 99 minutes
You watch this and you understand why Sophia Loren is a star. She plays a shop keeper in WW II Rome who flees
with her early teenage daughter to her home village in the mountains to escape
the bombing in Rome ( I thought Rome was an open city and wasn’t bombed). The
journey there is dangerous and difficult and so is life in the mountains. When the Germans are in retreat, she and her
daughter set out for Rome. Both are
raped by Morrocan troops. It’s one of
the most devastating scenes I’ve ever seen on film. Vittorio De Sica directs this classic.
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