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Amsterdam (2022)
A Plot That Required Character Development
Smedley Butler was recruited to be a front for a coup to restore the Old Order of pre-FDR. That story would be an 18 minute documentary, kind of like the sinking of the Titanic.
This film changed some names and developed characters who showed up at the climactic moment to tie the screenplay to an actual event.
Great social history woven into a storyline involving superior acting and state-of-the-art prosthetics.
The relevance of the plot to reverse the New Deal by subverting the Constitution is newsworthy because of recent events culminating with the attempted insurrection in 2021.
Anachronism: Telephone cord in doctor's office was not available in the 1930's.
The Savage Peace (2015)
Misery Has A Long Memory
This documentary mainly concentrates on the reprisals of the Czechs against its German-speaking population following the end of WWII. The creation of Czechoslovakia in 1918/1919 from the Australia-Hungarian Empire was a country of Bohemians, Moravians, Slovaks, Hungarians, and Germans. Hitler used the issue of Sudetenland Germans to force the country to cede portions of the country to Germany in 1938, as France and Great Britain reneged on their commitment to protect Czechoslovakia's sovereignty.
Six months later, the Germans invaded the country and created a protectorate, brutalizing its slavonic-speaking population. In 1945, after 7 years of abuse and humiliation, the revenge against Nazis and all Germans was swift, violent, and equally deadly.
The film also refers to the Polish revenge of its German-speaking population as well as the Russian Army's brutality against German civilians, especially women.
Werk ohne Autor (2018)
Art Through The Authoritarian Regimes Of The Third Reich And The DDR
Does an artist exist for the state or for the sake of creativity? This movie exposes the harsh dichotomy of extreme right-wing and left-wing regimes. What they had in common were harsh censorship and the fluidity of bureaucrats who became ardent Stalinists after hiding their prior Nazi affiliations. The movie portrays the challenges "creative nonconformists" faced in those times, and, sadly, still face today in much of the world.
Vice (2018)
The Regency
Thank you, Christian Bale, for reminding us of the tremendous influence Dick Cheney has had on events of the past 45 years.
Take This Waltz (2011)
Sad more than bad
Canadians are entitled to their own culture, regardless of whatever conservative Americans may attempt to proscribe for them. The plot was timeless in that the disposition of the affair was measured more by regret than rejuvenation. This was a film that DISCOURAGED infidelity rather than promoted it. I found the pace of the building action to be too slow in its development, but the quality of the actors to be above that deficiency. Sad ending to a movie with great potential for a dynamic re-write of the screenplay. The use of Leonard Cohen's title song did not fit. Some of the lyrics seemed to work but it seemed a stretch, at best.
To Rome with Love (2012)
Is wincing a form of laughter?
There were elements of humor and delightful wit that were drowned out by periods of bathetic lapses; like being highly sensitive to fingernails on a chalkboard and knowing that that sound is coming again and again. I took special pleasure in the story line about the Everyman who became a media star until his flame burned out. Couldn't help but think about Silvio Berlusconi's contribution to the arts in Italy as I watched. Allen and Davis are a great sparring pair and have a chemistry that complements the other. Allen seemed to "read the lines" rather than act them, and Davis appeared to "live the lines" as if she had been married to him for decades. Recommendation: See the film and (hopefully) find the hidden gems that eluded me.
Hysteria (2011)
Terrifyingly True
Wonderful expose of the long road to sexual, social, and political equality for women. Should be viewed by all who think that progressive movements are ill-fated social engineering. Should be mandatory for those who think that "the good old days" were better than today. One anachronism: Charlotte was riding a 'safety bicycle five years before it was invented (1880 versus 1885). Courtly love is well-covered in the plot in that the virtuous must have certain qualities that make them worthy of proper society. Sixty-five years after Jane Austen it appears that the influence of Queen Victoria continued the tradition. This movie does a great job of dealing with the cusp of two great medical theories extant during its setting: The Four Humors (Humours) and the Germ theories. Additionally, it makes a clear point that Eve and her original sin could be the only explanation for women 'enjoying' sex.
Company Man (2000)
Who Knew?
A municipal judge once sentenced delinquent youths, convicted of disturbing the peace with boom boxes, to sit in a closed room for 8 hours and listen to Polka music. What does this have to do with the movie? Evidently, in this case, excessively correcting one's grammar can cause a seasoned spy to "spill the beans." The idiosyncrasies of Quimp provide an opportunity to throw all kinds of humorous interactions between the characters making fiction much more entertaining than history, regarding Castro and Cuba. Mixed within the lines of the ridiculous comments are the slogans of the true believers. Not a movie to watch with another individual of diametrically opposed political views--the laughs would rarely come at the same time.
Chalk (2006)
This film may make one squirm
Why do we assume that people can walk in off of the street and take charge of a group of young people? Part of the answer is a public perception that teaching is easy and doesn't require much special training; part of it may be that teachers spend years actually believing those things. The best learning environments in schools evolve to a meeting place for ideas and strategies to enhance interests in those ideas. If teachers lack ideas (concepts, facts, interpretations, etc.) and, additionally, a panoply of methods or strategies to encourage students and their various learning styles it should not come as a surprise that the Mr. Lowreys of the teaching profession as in deep water. Imagine yourself or your children in his classroom. Solutions: Begin with what you don't know and work hard to expand; visit other classroom and look for things that may work; and begin each new grading period with new ideas, filling in at the end with lessons that had worked well in the past. One can always tell if a teacher is stuck in the concrete of old lessons and ideas when an unannounced assembly or program breaks up the usual routine: "We can't do that; my third period students will be one day behind the other students." Did CHALK do a good job of communicating education's shortfalls? No. Why? Because there were too few students in the classes. Think in terms of more than thirty students to get an accurate picture, not twelve to fifteen. Yes. Why? Because the film captured the petty interruptions and bickering disagreements outside of the classroom that detract from the basic mission.
National Lampoon's Animal House (1978)
Fiction that resembled fact
Since the movie ended up being filmed in Eugene at a Delta fraternity house, the setting and the events came remarkably close to my experience at a "Delta ___ _____" house on the same campus in the mid-1960's. Even D-Day's motorcycle's trip up the staircase was a dead ringer for Brillo Pad's similar feat. The probation, flying beer bottles, toga parties, and general laissez-faire attitude about everything matched the script. On one occasion, the Eugene Police Department was called to break up a "little disturbance" on the front lawn only to have one of the two squad cars have its keys taken during the time that the police were "policing." After searching the lawn with their flashlights, both officers piled into the second car to return to the station to get a second set of keys for the car. After they left, one of our brothers pulled out the keys from his pocket and said, "Look what I found." He and a buddy drove the car through the campus with the lights flashing and the siren blaring while trying to set a new speed record. They took the car to the police station to report that they had found the keys "in the grass" but were nearly arrested for unauthorized use of an emergency vehicle. I saw Animal House when it was first released and I was in shock with the many similarities of the movie script to my own experiences. I called my frat roommate and when he answered I said in a somewhat quivering voice, "Larry." Before I could say another word, he recognized my voice and answered, "You just saw Animal House, didn't you!?" The epilogue of the movie was humorous as it described what happened to the characters in subsequent years. As it turned out, I became a high school teacher and my experiences (described above) proved to be valuable in defusing classroom behaviors that were heading in the direction of certain Blutarsky-isms.
Good Night, and Good Luck. (2005)
Ageless Dichotomy
Habeas corpus, due process, and guilt by association play a mighty part of our daily news in the Bush administration. It is sadly reminiscent of the "good old days" from other periods of history in our country, notably the period covered by this fine film. Pastor Martin Niemoeller's quote from Nazi Germany is important to the theme of the film, "First they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew. Then they came for the communists and I did not speak out because I was not a communist. Then they came for the trade unionists and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out for me." Murrow was a great American in his time. The question is who carries the burden of the U.S. Constitution's vital safeguards of political liberty today? This writer is having difficulty naming courageous contemporary journalists, too.
C'mon, Let's Live a Little (1967)
Too Much Candy Can Make One Ill
'Art pour l'art' may be a french way of saying that all art is worthy by its very existence, but this film may give future viewers a distorted view of life in the 1960's. I think that the movie is so bad that it is interesting to watch. Bobby Vee's straw hat is a fashion statement in itself---one that didn't catch on, I might add. The year 1967 was a difficult one for the United States with war, urban riots, and voting rights struggles, yet this film must represent what Richard Nixon would later refer to as the "great silent majority" in America: really nice kids arguing about what kind of events should be allowed on a small college campus. Should students be allowed to speak out on the issues of the day? Not if it involves topics that the administration of the campus finds provocative. If the "Miranda rights" an accused presently enjoys were overturned and coercive measures could be used by law enforcement, it wouldn't be necessary to use physical means to gain a "confession" from a suspect. Merely tie the accused to a chair and play this film on a loop for a few hours. Case closed!