Archive for the ‘war’ Category
Author: James
Playing for his life
One that I have been meaning to do for some time – without doubt, one of the finest films ever made about the Holocaust and one that, in differing its approach from the similarly superb Schindler’s List (1993), manages to convey the unique horrors of those anti-human times in a way that is peculiarly intimate and personal.
Author: James
Wielders of Mass Deception
Paul Greengrass’s cinematic deconstruction (and destruction) of the reasons why the US went to war in Iraq.
For me, Paul Greengrass fell from favour more than a little with his previous film, The Bourne Ultimatum (2007) – after the slick, high-pitched excitement of The Bourne Supremacy (2004), the gritty, hand-held, POV, faux-documentary approach did not sit well at all with an action franchise drawing favourable comparisons with Bond.
Author: Emma
Love and war
This is my all-time favourite feel-good, feel-sad, feel-just-pretty-darn-emotional movie. The cast of characters is so alive, you’ll be whisked away in seconds to Britain at war and find yourself hanging on every twist and turn in the tales of three American soldiers who fall in love with local girls as they train for their grim deployment to war-torn Europe.
Author: James
Making the difference
A worthy examination of a Nazi who did the right thing.
John Rabe (1882-1950) was a German businessman who is best known for his efforts to stop the atrocities of the Japanese army during the Nanking Occupation (and massacre) in 1937-38 and, failing in those efforts, his work to protect and succour Chinese civilians subsequent to the event.
Author: James
strong>Let justice be done, though the heavens fall
Following the recent return of Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962) to the big screen, Stanley Kramer’s masterful examination of war crimes, Judgement at Nuremberg (1961) is once again showing in cinemas, in a gleaming, remastered print.
Author: James
White magic
“Snow does not fall to cover the hill, but for every beast to leave its trail…”
Director Aida Begic, writes Gerald Loftus, chose the above proverb (Bosnian?) to introduce her film at Cannes 2008, where Snow won the Critics Week Grand Prize. This film treats a subject too seldom covered in movies about war – its aftereffects, especially on the survivors.
Author: James
Fitting tribute
Gerald Loftus returns with his thoughts on a gritty, based-on-fact war story…
The lump that was in my throat during the 139 minutes of L’Armée du Crime, Robert Guédiguian’s dramatization of the ‘Manouchian Group’ story has subsided, but the emotion remains. This is a good, old-fashioned, based-on-fact war story that needed to be told, and in the veteran French-Armenian director’s hands, it has been done justice.
Author: James
The right combination…
Jeremy Slater takes a look at Kathryn Bigelow’s latest – she’s a woman who knows about men, it seems..
The Hurt Locker (2008) is the latest from high-octane director Kathryn Bigelow (Point Break (1991), Strange Days (1995)), and it’s an intense portrayal of a group of elite soldiers who have a very dangerous job to do, namely disarming bombs in the heat of the desert and combat.
Author: James
Quentin’s back to his best
Lt. Aldo Raine: The German will be sickened by us, the German will talk about us, and the German will fear us.
Order has been restored – Quentin Tarantino’s previous film, Death Proof (2007) suffered somewhat from being crap.
Author: James
‘One more person. A person, Stern.’
There are some films that bypass critical carping and can lay claim to being perhaps the greatest ever made. Steven Spielberg’s Schindler’s List (1993) is one such work, and it is my privilege to talk to you about it.
The legend began back in 1982, when Australian author Thomas Keneally finally succeeded in publishing his account of Oskar Schindler, a German businessman who managed to save some 1,100 Jews from the death camps in The Holocaust, or Shoah, as the Jewish race refers to mankind’s darkest hour.
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