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THE DICTATOR REVIVES POLITICAL FILMS Presidential election years usually are crammed with political films. Not 2012. Since our latest review (on March 1), nervous cinema barons have pandered to spring fever films—those focusing on relationships, trying to capitalize on young people seeking date nights in dark theaters, before the deluge of summer kiddie films. Now […]

MADONNA DIRECTS A FRAUDULENT W./E. Madonna clearly wants filmviewers to understand that Mrs. Wallis Simpson “gave up a lot” in marrying King Edward VIII. After all, the cliché about Edward’s abdication is that he “gave up the throne for the woman he loved.” But did Madonna have to misportray the entire affair? W./E. is a

MISS BALA IS A PAWN IN THE DRUG WAR Titles at the end of Miss Bala inform us that 36,000 persons have died in the Drug War in México over the past six years, while $25 billion in profits have been made. The film proceeds to introduce 23-year-old Laura Guerrero (played by Stephanie Sigman) as

DECLARATION OF WAR IS A WINDOW INTO FRENCH CULTURE AND HEALTH CARE The French film La guerre est déclaréé is about a young couple who meet, marry, have a child, but agonize as their baby’s malady turns out to be brain cancer. The only war in the film is the battle with cancer and how

BIG MIRACLE BRINGS RUSSIA TO THE AID OF AMERICA Journalist Adam Carlson (played by John Krasinski) happens to be in Barrow, Alaska, when he learns that three whales are trapped in ice, with only a small opening for air, five miles from the open sea. When he tapes the story in early 1988, world attention

A SEPARATION PROVIDES A SLICE OF LIFE IN IRAN THAT SHOULD DISPEL MISCONCEPTIONS Although A Separation focuses on how the foibles of adults impact children, non-Iranian audiences will marvel at several elements: Devotion to Islam establishes important moral boundaries, especially the need to be truthful. The wheels of Iranian justice are people-oriented rather than adversarial.

Although fictional, The Flowers of War (Jin líng shí san chai) provides yet another glimse of the horrors of the rape of Nanjing, this time literally. Based on the novel of the same title by Geling Yan and directed by Zhang Yimou, the film begins amid the carnage and chaos of Japan’s attack on China’s

A DANGEROUS METHOD IS THE MOST INTELLECTUAL FILM OF THE YEAR Sigmund Freud (played by Viggo Mortensen) and Carl Jung (played by Michael Fassbender) debate but have private lives, too, in A Dangerous Method. Accordingly, the biopic would be incomplete without attention to Sabina Spielrein (played by Keira Knightley), who graduates from patient of Jung,

RAMPART IS ABOUT A COP-TURNED-VIGILANTE, NOT THE RAMPART SCANDAL For those expecting a drama about the Rampart scandal that affected Los Angeles in the late 1990s, Rampart is not that. Instead, the film is about what happened to Dave Brown (played by Woody Harrel-son), one of those corrupt cops, as his career ends in 1999.