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CYRANO

March 19, 2022 By Leave a Comment

CYRANO

Joe Wright has a genius for taking the stories we know all too well and making them feel like a delightful new discovery. Seek no further than his take on ANNA KARENINA (interview here), which, pace fans of Garbo and Leigh, is my favorite adaptation of Tolstoy’s classic. Is it absolutely true to the source… Read More »

Tagged With: midget, stage to screen, unrequited love, war

MEGAN LEAVEY

July 5, 2017 By Leave a Comment

MEGAN LEAVEY

There is nothing more endearing that the story of a dog and its loyal owner, and this is eminently the case with the fact-based MEGAN LEAVEY. Usually the stuff of sentiment of the most syrupy nature, these stories usually inhabit a special sub-genre of family-friendly flicks designed to reassure the intrinsic goodness of the family… Read More »

Tagged With: based on a true story, bomb-sniffing dogs, Iraq, Iraq War, K-9 corps, loyalty, Marines, military, war

THE OTTOMAN LIEUTENTANT

March 10, 2017 By 1 Comment

THE OTTOMAN LIEUTENTANT

THE OTTOMAN LIEUTENANT is a slight but eminently humane story, lushly filmed, and richly romantic.  It follows the classic tropes of the romance genre, enhanced with nuanced performances that elevate what might otherwise be stock characters in a plot with few surprises. The biggest surprise being that it is so satisfying as entertainment, and as… Read More »

Tagged With: 1914, Anatolia, Armenian Genocide, Hagia Sophia, romance, travel, turkey, war

THE TAKING OF TIGER MOUNTAIN (Zhì qu weihu shan)

March 19, 2016 By Leave a Comment

THE TAKING OF TIGER MOUNTAIN (Zhì qu weihu shan)

THE TAKING OF TIGER MOUNTAIN has blood, guts, and sentiment.  Based on actual events, and on the novel by Bo Qu, it’s a sweeping epic of a war film set in northwest China just after World War II has ended, when the government has collapse into corruption, bandits are terrorizing the villages, and the People’s… Read More »

Tagged With: 1940s, bandits, China, Chinese Civil War, People's Liberation Army, war, warlord

WHISKEY TANGO FOXTROT

March 4, 2016 By Leave a Comment

WHISKEY TANGO FOXTROT

WHISKEY TANGO FOXTROT is being sold as a comedy and that shortchanges everyone. Based on the memoir by Kim Barker, “The Taliban Shuffle: Strange Days in Afghanistan and Pakistan,” about her time in the early 2000s as a war correspondent in Afghanistan, it is a trenchant look at media, politics, and the separate reality that… Read More »

Tagged With: Afghanistan, based on a true story, book to screen, journalism, network news, war, war correspondent

TANGERINES (Mandariinid)

May 14, 2015 By Leave a Comment

TANGERINES (Mandariinid)

There are films that tear you limb from limb with their shrill bombast and flagrant moralizing, and then there are films like TANGERINES, that quietly break your heart with the folly of humankind. This year’s Oscar™ nominee for best foreign language film from Estonia is an anti-war statement of the first order, and one that… Read More »

Tagged With: anti-war message, Caucasus, Chechen, Elmo Nuganen, Estonia, Georgia, Giorgi Nakhashidze, Lembit Ulfsak, Mikheil Meskhi, Oscar(tm) nominee, TANGERINES, war, Zaza Urushadze.

THE HURT LOCKER

October 21, 2014 By 1 Comment

THE HURT LOCKER

Among the many arresting images in THE HURT LOCKER, the one that may be the best at putting the audience in the position of the American army bomb squad fighting a futile war in Iraq, is also one of the most quiet. It’s during what started out as a routine mission to gather up bomb-making… Read More »

Tagged With: Anthony Mackie, army bomb squad, bomb defuser, Iraq War, Iraqi Occupation, Jeremy Renner, Kathryn Bigelow, narrative, THE HURT LOCKER, war

DAUGHTER FROM DANANG

October 21, 2014 By Leave a Comment

Gail Dolgin and Franco Vicente’’s heartrending documentary DAUGHTER FROM DANANG shows not only the long-term effects of the Vietnam War in very personal terms, but also looks at how fragile the bonds of blood and family can be. Both insights are disturbing, but in the able hands of these filmmakers, the story of one family’’s… Read More »

Tagged With: adoption, adoption vietnam, baby lift, Daughter From Danang, family reunion, family ties, Gail Dolgin, Heidi Bub, Vicente Franco, Vietnam war, war

Gail Dolgin & Vincente Franco Introduce Us to the DAUGHTER FROM DANANG

September 1, 2014 By Leave a Comment

There are moments in Gail Dolgin and Vicente Franco’s superb documentary DAUGHTER FROM DANANG that are like kicks in the gut. As we watch American homemaker Heidi Bub, who left her homeland in the Vietnamese baby lift 22 years earlier, visit a family who are strangers to her, the emotions are so overpowering and the subjects are… Read More »

Tagged With: adoption, baby lift, Daughter From Danang, family reunion, family ties, Gail Dolgin, Heidi Bub, Vicente Franco, Vietnam war, war

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