In John Frankenheimer’s 1964 film The Train, French Resistance hopes to stop a train filled with art treasures without damaging the cargo. In director Dan Friedkin’s The Last Vermeer, former Dutch Resistance fighter Joseph Piller (Claes Bang) roots out the collaborators who stole from Jews to benefit the Nazis as the debris of world war settles.… Continue reading The Last Vermeer
Tag: Historical
Non-Offensive Folk Music “B-Sides” Boxed
It’s a given that Folkways Records’ six-album compilation Anthology of American Folk Music, compiled from the vast collection of eccentric boho Harry Smith in 1952, provided a blueprint for the similar folk, blues, gospel and country music archival collections released in recent years by Atlanta-based label Dust-to-Digital. So it’s rather appropriate that the award-winning company,… Continue reading Non-Offensive Folk Music “B-Sides” Boxed
Resistance
The new wave of Coronavirus Cinema begins with Resistance, which would have benefited from a quick trip to the editing room to get turned into a home-schooling family film about the horrors of WWII. Instead, we get this miserable Nazisploitation as put together by writer/director Jonathan Jakubowicz – who’s somehow found acclaim as a cinematic… Continue reading Resistance
Balloon
Around the world in 80 days? The Strelzyk and Wetzel families just need to stay aloft for 30 minutes to clear the Berlin Wall and reach the West! But with their every step, the secret police for the German DEMOCRATIC Republic, led by the watchful stare of a Stasi Lieutenant (Thomas Kretschmann), are closing in. From the… Continue reading Balloon
The Banker
Apple+ TV originally developed The Banker as their Oscars bid, but the Atlanta-lensed film was derailed after the family of pioneering black businessman Bernard Garrett unloaded some problematics on the son with a co-producer credit. The movie was yanked from the festival circuit, and initial plans for a theatrical release were quickly postponed – which is… Continue reading The Banker
Burden
Michael Burden (Garret Hedlund) is a quiet, blue-collar army veteran living in a small South Carolina town just getting by as a repo man. He soon meets Judy (Andrea Riseborough) and her son Franklin, falls in love with Judy, and starts a new makeshift family with them. Judy finds out that although Mike is almost… Continue reading Burden
Beanpole
(sung to the tune of “Theme from Flipper”): “They call her Beanpole, Beanpole, thinner than twigs, weighs less than guinea pigs…” The aftermath of German blockades lasting three years by war’s end has left the inhabitants of Leningrad traumatized. In particular, Iya (Viktoria Miroshnichenko) who suffers a post-concussive ailment that leaves her awake but motionless,… Continue reading Beanpole
Richard Jewell
An early scene in Clint Eastwood’s Richard Jewell shows Watson Bryant – who would be approached by Jewell to be his attorney several years later, as he’s the only one he knew – asking Richard if he knew the meaning of “quid pro quo.” Filmed in Atlanta over the past summer, before the term became… Continue reading Richard Jewell
The Aeronauts
James Stewart and Audrey Hepburn would’ve probably been Disney’s first picks to play mild meteorologist James Glaisher and daredevil pilot Amelia Wren in a Technicolor pic shot in Cinerama. Instead, we get Edward Redmayne and Felicity Jones in a fabulously old-fashioned throwback about a daring 1862 flight to reach new heights in a hot-air balloon.… Continue reading The Aeronauts
The Report
The main villain in The Report is John Brennan – which means outraged viewers won’t get much schadenfreude from this story of a crusading United States Senate investigator exposing the CIA’s use of torture in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. The titular report won’t stop Brennan from becoming a media darling after serving as President Obama’s CIA director.… Continue reading The Report
Official Secrets
Katharine Gun was a low-level British intelligence translator who spent her free time screaming at the television because she hated that Tony Blair was going to war with Iraq in 2003. Then she got a chance to send some journalists a highly classified document. That would lead to criminal charges and a chance for Keira… Continue reading Official Secrets
Atlanta to Relive Richard Jewell Story
After years of speculation, during which time assorted directors and actors were in talks for the project, the feature film Richard Jewell is finally going forward, with Clint Eastwood at the helm. The true tale of the security guard whose life was upended when he was widely – and wrongly – suspected in the bombing… Continue reading Atlanta to Relive Richard Jewell Story
Best of Enemies
The Best of Enemies is a fact-based account of outspoken black activist Ann Atwater, played by Taraji P. Henson (Empire) clashing over school integration with C.P. Ellis, played by Oscar winner Sam Rockwell (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri), the Exalted Cyclops of the North Carolina Ku Klux Klan. The two who are on complete polar… Continue reading Best of Enemies
Stockholm
Director Robert Budreau’s look at a bank heist in 1973 that’s cited as the origin of the term “Stockholm Syndrome” where hostages developed a psychological connection to their captors. Ethan Hawke plays Lars Nystrom, an American who hopes to bust out the greatest bank robber of the time, Gunnar Sorensson (Mark Strong) by staging a… Continue reading Stockholm
The Invisibles
The Invisibles is an elaborate reenactment of events experienced by four Jewish survivors of the Nazis, who chose, at great personal risks, to hide in Berlin rather than board the extermination trains. No one was sent to the camps to be rehabilitated back into society. There was no attempt at reeducating them to learn to… Continue reading The Invisibles
They Shall Not Grow Old
World War II always seems to steal the spotlight away from World War I. WWII is simpler, sexier, and more interesting to more people for some reason. Maybe it’s easier to dumb down? Well, there is Hitler, Nazis, The Axis Powers, and the bombing of Pearl Harbor. WWII takes up more space in text books… Continue reading They Shall Not Grow Old
Green Book
Director Peter Farrelly’s fact-based Green Book isn’t groundbreaking by any means, but it’s truly one of the most solid films of last year, and ought to be a shoe-in to get those coveted Academy Award nominations in January and wins in late February. However, some of the “powers that be” behind the scenes in nonsensical,… Continue reading Green Book
First Man
Producer Steven Spielberg, director Damien Chazelle (Whiplash, La La Land), and Ryan Gosling have teamed up for “Oscar Bait 2018,” I mean First Man, a fact-based biopic (based on James R. Hansen’s book), about astronaut Neil Armstrong and family’s life leading up to the Apollo 11 mission and Armstrong’s historic first steps on the moon.… Continue reading First Man
1945
August 12, 1945. As Arpad and Kisrozxsi prepare to marry, Japan is being bombed and the Soviets are poised at the Manchurian border. Hungarian postwar trepidation centers on two Orthodox Jews, the Samuels, who’ve returned to the village accompanying two trunks which may or may not contain perfume and cosmetics to restock their pharmacy which, along with… Continue reading 1945
The 15:17 to Paris
Director Clint Eastwood’s homage to heroic inertia must’ve been shaved by an exceptionally dull axe for an event that took place during a train ride from Amsterdam to Paris – all we are privy to is 15 minutes where a terrorist armed with 300 rounds gets taken down by British, French and American passengers. The… Continue reading The 15:17 to Paris
12 Strong
Based on the 2009 book Horse Soldiers by Doug Stanton, Chris Hemsworth stars as Captain Mitch Nelson who previously put in for a desk job but in light of the World Trade Center attack wants to be reactivated for combat. After his Warrant Officer (Michael Shannon) intervenes, their special forces team become the first deployed… Continue reading 12 Strong
The Post
A few basic facts: Richard Nixon, a Republican, ENDED the war in Vietnam even though the anti-war movement prolonged the war by a good seven years by sending the wrong message to Hanoi. Lyndon Johnson, a Democrat, and his Secretary of State Robert McNamara ESCALATED the war, sending 58,000 American troops to their deaths when they… Continue reading The Post
All the Money in the World
Called in at the last moment to reshoot all of Kevin Spacey’s scenes, the flawless editing makes Christopher Plummer (Murder By Decree/The Silent Partner) the perfect choice to play the miserly billionaire J. Paul Getty, who suspects his grandson has perpetuated a self-abduction and refuses to pay $4 million dollars – much less the original… Continue reading All the Money in the World
The Man Who Invented Christmas
Back when I was releasing records, a band would announce, in late October, that they hoped to release a Christmas single, and I would have to walk them through a creative process including how studio time would need to be booked, then the recording must be mastered before being pressed while the sleeve art would… Continue reading The Man Who Invented Christmas
LBJ
The span of three years was to some the pinnacle of western culture that bridged “finding Camelot” to Dealey Plaza! This Rob Reiner film covers the vice presidency of Lyndon Baines Johnson from the time of him being majority leader of a Senate that – once he decides to run against Kennedy for the Democrat presidential… Continue reading LBJ
The King’s Choice
Expecting Norwegian neutrality to accede to German occupation, Berlin orders ships through Norwegian defense and demands surrender after British and French ships mine the water to prevent iron shipments. The constitutionally elected monarch, King Haakson VII (Jesper Christensen, who plays Mr. White in the Bond films) leaves Oslo accompanied by his wife, Queen Maud, and the… Continue reading The King’s Choice
American Made
Whenever communism is confronted or thwarted the American left always cry foul that, whatever the policy, it’s “dirty pool.” Such was the case in the 1980s during what came to be tagged as Iran-Contra where military supplies where funneled into Nicaragua to arm the Contras, an anti-Sandinista force. This movie claims to be “ALL true based… Continue reading American Made
The Fencer
Drafted by Nazis, in post-war Estonia men were identified as “enemies of the State,” causing many to flee the prospect of Stalin’s labor camps. This Finnish/German/Estonian film is loosely based on Endel Nelis, who chose small town employment as a physical education teacher to escape from the watchful eyes of the secret police. When red tape prevents… Continue reading The Fencer