THE BETTER ANGELS IS ABOUT A MORE HUMBLE USA In a very slow moving, black-and-white film, The Better Angels is a study of how 8-year-old Abraham Lincoln (played by Braydon Denney) is brought up in a log cabin in 1817 within the Indiana backwoods. The two angels are his first mother, who died, and his […]

THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING IS ABOUT HOPE A biopic about the personal life of Stephen Hawking (played by Eddie Redmayne), The Theory of Everything traces his life from 1963, when he was a brilliant Cambridge University physics student until he has an audience with the queen and turns down knighthood. He impresses his professor, Dennis

PREJUDICE REIGNS IN DEAR WHITE PEOPLE The title is the name of a vlog operated by Samantha White (played by Tessa Thompson), a Black student at an Ivy League school (though filmed at the University of Minnesota). A candidate for the presidency of a dorm, she is annoyed by White naïveté toward her race and

FURY HAS SOUND, BUT WHAT DOES IT SIGNIFY? Fury, written and directed by David Ayer, is not designed as an anti-war film. Credits at the beginning note that German tanks were technically superior to American tanks, yet in the film the American tanks do better. Featured is a tank unit commanded by Don “Wardaddy” Collier

SIMÓN BOLÍVAR IS CELEBRATED IN THE LIBERATOR Biopics can provide fascinating personal background information, and The Liberator is no exception. To make the film enjoyable, director Alberto Alvero even has Bolívar (played by Édgar Ramírez) naked a couple of times to stress his charisma with women as well as men, but flashbacks to provide personal

WHATEVER HAPPENS IN FRONTERA DOES NOT STAY THERE In the pre-cellphone age, communications moved more slowly, including efforts of Mexicans to get across the border into Arizona (actual filming is in New Mexico). One such migrant, Miguel (played by Michael Peña), goes along with an amigo and, after crossing the border, is met on horseback

A MOST WANTED MAN IS NOT WHAT YOU FIRST IMAGINE To gain some credibility for the fiction film A Most Wanted Man, based on a 2008 spy novel by John Le Carré, credits at the beginning remind filmviewers that the 9/11 plot was hatched in Hamburg, and then inform that Hamburg is a closely watched

LOVE IS STRANGE IS A STRANGE WAY TO CELEBRATE LOVE When the film begins, artist Ben (played by John Lithgow) and musician George (Alfred Molina) are married in New York City after living together for 39 years. Ben is retired, living on a modest pension. However, George is fired from his position of music teacher

CAN YOU TAKE THE GIVER? In Pleasantville (1998), the supposedly serene but dull 1950s are viewed from the perspective of the liberated 1990s. Based on the novel by Lois Lowry, The Giver presents an image of a more serene future beyond the turbulent present. Something catastrophic has happened in the past, and the new beginning

STRANGE THINGS HAPPEN IN FORT McCOY In 1909, Fort McCoy was established as an army training base.  In 1942, due to a roundup after Pearl Harbor, about 300 aliens of German, and Italian, and Japanese origin were temporarily interned and then sent to other camps to make room in 1943 for the training of some