BRIDGE OF SPIES RECALLS A TENSE PERIOD IN THE COLD WAR New York insurance attorney James B. Donovan (played by Tom Hanks), having earlier participated as an assistant prosecutor in the Nuremberg Trials, is identified early in the film as a sharp negotiator. When Rudolf Abel (Mark Rylance), a Soviet spy, is arrested in New […]
BRIDGE OF SPIES RECALLS A TENSE PERIOD IN THE COLD WAR New York insurance attorney James B. Donovan (played by Tom Hanks), having earlier participated as an assistant prosecutor in the Nuremberg Trials, is identified early in the film as a sharp negotiator. When Rudolf Abel (Mark Rylance), a Soviet spy, is arrested in New
Political Film Review #490 Read More »
DOMESTIC PARTNER BENEFITS ARE HELD UP IN FREEHELD New Jersey voted for domestic partnerships in 2005 but left a loophole for survivor benefits in government union contracts. Freeheld, directed by Peter Sollett, focuses primarily on a true story involving Laurel Hester (played by Julianne Moore) and Stacee Andre (Ellen Page). Not long after Stacee
DOMESTIC PARTNER BENEFITS ARE HELD UP IN FREEHELD New Jersey voted for domestic partnerships in 2005 but left a loophole for survivor benefits in government union contracts. Freeheld, directed by Peter Sollett, focuses primarily on a true story involving Laurel Hester (played by Julianne Moore) and Stacee Andre (Ellen Page). Not long after Stacee
Political Film Review #489 Read More »
OLVIDADOS LINKS AMERICA’S OPERATION CONDOR WITH TORTURE OF LEFTISTS When Olvidados begins, soldiers from six dictatorships in Latin Americas are being trained at an American base in Panamá to engage in Operation Condor, which aimed to eliminate the supposed threat of Soviet communist efforts to overthrow military regimes during the 1970s and 1980s. The film
LABYRINTH OF LIES REVEALS INCONVENIENT TRUTHS The last Nuremberg Trial ended in 1946, convicting 133 persons (not 15, as a title in the film pretends). Courts of various countries soon convicted other war criminals, including two in German courts who had been found not guilty at Nuremberg. When the postwar occupation of Germany ended
LABYRINTH OF LIES REVEALS INCONVENIENT TRUTHS The last Nuremberg Trial ended in 1946, convicting 133 persons (not 15, as a title in the film pretends). Courts of various countries soon convicted other war criminals, including two in German courts who had been found not guilty at Nuremberg. When the postwar occupation of Germany ended
Political Film Review #488 Read More »
THE KEEPING ROOM IS UNKEPT Touted at the beginning as an anti-war film, the plot reveals what happens when soldiers have guns and drink too much—violence for the hell of it. The black-and-white film is set in 1865, around the end of the Civil War. The soldiers, from the North, evidently believe that their mission
SICARIO IS TRANSLATED AS “HITMAN” The secret “drug war” is featured in Sicario. Although audiences learn how to translate “sicario” into English through opening titles, they do not learn the identity or motivation of the hitman until the end of the film. When the action begins, FBI agent Kate Macer (played by Emily Blunt)assigned to
PAWN SACRIFICE REVEALS THE LIFE AND DEATH OF BOBBY FISCHER From the age of 4, Bobby Fischer (played by Toby Maguire) was obsessive/compulsive about chess, which was self-taught. Pawn Sacrifice, directed by Edward Zwick, follows his career up the day when he became world champ in 1972, defeating Boris Spassky (Liev Schreiber). Sheltered by his