A personal journal of film and documentary reviews, and reviews of anything else that intrigues me.
Samuel Maoz, “Foxtrot” (2017) Divided into three parts, with the first and third parts dominated by the same actors and sharing the same setting (an apartment),…
Eastern European Films, German and German-language Films
Nick Baker-Monteys, “The Final Journey / Leanders Letzte Reise” (2017) The plot may be a familiar one – aged pensioner Eduard Leander (Jurgen Prochnow), recently widowed,…
Middle Eastern Films, North American Films
“The Jimmy Dore Show: Interview with Carla Ortiz” (23 April, 2018) A most unexpected surprise from what I would have considered the least likely medium surfaced…
“Imperialism on Trial – Eva Bartlett” (London, 31 January 2018) Canadian journalist Eva Bartlett was invited to speak at an anti-war protest meeting in London about…
Roman Polanski, “The Pianist” (2002) Polanski has been a very significant director capable of making very moving and epic films with a strong message about the…
North American Films, Southeast Asian Films
Phillip Noyce, “The Quiet American” (2002) A beautifully made film with much atmosphere, even if it is slow and unassuming in style, and its acting uneven,…
Erik Poppe, “Kongens Nei / The King’s Choice” (2016) As a straight history lesson or even as a conventional war-time drama, this film doesn’t succeed: audiences…
Stanley Kubrick, “Paths of Glory” (1957) A simply and tightly made film with a powerful message about honour, duty and how war degrades men and masculinity,…
“What the Media Won’t Tell You about Syria” (ReallyGraceful, 2017) Among other news and facts that the Western mainstream news media ignores about Syria and its…
There’s a climactic scene in Dunkirk (Warner Bros, 2017) where some of the exhausted British soldiers are pulling in to station on a train. Suddenly one…