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JEWS CARRY OUT THE HORRORS OF THE HOLOCAUST IN THE GREY ZONE Those who have seen the original film footage of the horrors of the Nazi concentration camps, whether in the 1955 classic Nuit et Brouillard (Night and Fog) or as evidence in the trial of Nazis presented in Nuremberg (1999), may think that they […]

A JEWISH STRONGMAN UPSETS THE NAZIS Directed by Werner Herzog, Invincible is a slow-moving biopic focusing on the last year in the life of Ziche Breithart (played by Jouka Ahola), a Jewish man so strong that he was called a modern-day Samson. The film begins in Eastern Poland during early 1932. Ziche and his young

A GERMAN FILM EXPOSES CLOSET NAZIS, THANKS TO YALE & STANFORD EXPERIMENTERS Why did so many ordinary Germans support Hitler and the Nazi persecution of the Jews? For some researchers, the explanation is rooted in personality factors resulting from childhood socialization. Social psychologist Kurt Lewin, in contrast, theorized that political and social forces impinging upon

BOXING CORRUPTS ABSOLUTELY IN UNDISPUTED Undisputed is primarily for aficionados of boxing, with a lot of time devoted to fights. Film footage even includes Braddock’s knockout in 1937 by Joe Louis, whom one character, Emmanuel “Mendy” Ripstein (played by Peter Falk), regards as the finest boxer of all time. The plot is totally unrealistic, however.

IRAN PRACTICES AFFIRMATIVE ACTION BY BRINGING BALLOT BOXES TO THE PEOPLE Iran has elections every four years in which all citizens sixteen years of age and above are entitled to vote in a secret ballot for two candidates from a list of several presidential aspirants. The current liberalization trend in Iran is due to careful

WORLD WAR III AVERTED IN K-19: THE WIDOWMAKER By 1960 the United States established an offensive nuclear advantage by placing Polaris submarines with nuclear missiles under the Arctic ice cap, in range of Leningrad and Moscow. Not to be outdone, the Soviet Union rushed construction of a similar submarine, named K-19, for operation by 1961.

BUCCANEERS PILLAGE AGAIN IN SUNSHINE STATE Director-writer John Sayles’s pilgrimage across America to uncover conflicts of class and race has taken him to Florida in Sunshine State. The setting is mythical Plantation Island, though the actual filming took place at a resort on Amelia Island, Florida. Using short cuts, we learn how the tragic past

CIRCUIT EXPOSES A MERRY-GO-ROUND RUN BY A BAGMAN When a gay person can no longer stand being trapped in a small town, the opportunities of big city gay life seem overwhelmingly tempting, and the gay migration to Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, and San Francisco has changed the culture of such meccas irreversibly. But gays,

ONE MISSING BOMB NEARLY SPARKS WORLD WAR III IN THE SUM OF ALL FEARS World War III could emerge if a terrorist set off a nuclear bomb in the United States, which in turn became convinced that Russia was behind the plot. That is the premise in Tom Clancy’s novel The Sum of All Fears,

THE BELIEVER CHALLENGES FILMVIEWERS TO LINK GLOBALIZATION & POLITICAL EXTREMISM The Believer, directed and written by Henry Bean, is the most controversial film of the year, so any review is bound to be misinterpreted until the reader sees the film. The story is based on the book One More Victim by Arthur Gelb and A.