WINTER IN WARTIME PORTRAYS THE HEROISM OF A TEENAGER Winterin Wartime (Oorlogswinter) focuses on 13-year-old Michiel (played by Martijn Lakemeier), the son of the mayor of a small town in the northern Netherlands (though most filming is in Lithuania) who fights the Nazis in January 1945, when Nazis had cut off food supplies to the […]
SPEECH THERAPY FINDS VOICE IN THE KING’S SPEECH Fear is the primary cause of stuttering, according to Lionel Loque (played by Geoffrey Rush) in The King’s Speech. Loque, an Australian, learned how to be a speech therapist by working with his World War I comrades in Britain who had post-traumatic stress syndrome due to the
JOHNNY DEPP IS A NERD AGAIN IN THE TOURIST With magnificent cinematography in Venice, The Tourist takes filmviewers on a journey, with director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck hoping to dupe us so that we will fall for the narrative and not grasp the convoluted plot. Elise Clifton-Ward (played Angelina Jolie), dolled up as usual, evades
THE COMPANY MEN DEPICTS THE ANGUISH OF GREED-DRIVEN CAPITALISM When The Company Men begins, the soundtrack replays the audio from television coverage at the beginning of the economic crisis of September 2008. GTX Corporation, in response to a lack of sales, soon begins to downsize while its CEO (played by Craig T. Nelson) retains his
DECOLONIZATION’S UGLINESS IS EXPOSED IN WHITE MATERIAL White Material, directed by Claire Denis, follows the format of French realism (cinema verité), leaving filmviewers passive observers of unexplained if paradigmatic events. For Denis, who was born in Paris but as the daughter of a French diplomat grew up in Cameroon, Senegal, Somalia, and Upper Volta (now
WAITING FOR “SUPERMAN” IS BASED ON A MYTH The documentary Waiting for “Superman” is based on a false premise. Directed by Davis Guggenheim, the film focuses on applicants for admission to charter schools who pin their hopes on being accepted so that their lives will be forever transformed. The film, scathingly reviewed by Diane Ravitch
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TO BREATHE OR NOT TO BREATHE—THAT IS THE QUESTION IN INHALE Inhale, directed by Baltazar Kormákur, begins and ends with factual titles about organ transplanting. In the United States there is 1 organ donor for every 10 organ seekers. According to Organs Watch, some 15,000 organs are traded annually. As the film develops, filmviewers learn that
ALTIPLANO CLUELESSLY PORTRAYS THE CLUELESS VICTIMS OF MINING IN THE ANDES A mercury spill within the village of Choropampa during 2000 from a silver mine in the Andes is carried downslope to those living immediately below, producing blindness and other forms of sickness. In Altiplano the event is portrayed within a fictional Turubamba, Perú, where
OLIVER STONE INVESTS IN WALL STREET: MONEY NEVER SLEEPS Taking a leaf from Alfred Hitchcock, director Oliver Stone directs and acts as an anonymous investor in Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, a film aimed at explaining that reckless ambition and greed are alive and well, while victims are demoralized, impoverished, and even die. Economists differ
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LONELINESS AND MONEY ARE AT THE ROOT OF THE SOCIAL NETWORK The main focus of The Social Network is who profited from Facebook. Director Peter Fincher rushed to film Aaron Sorkin’s screenplay adaptation of Ben Mezrich’s The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook, a Tale of Sex, Money, Genius and Betrayal (2009), assured that millions
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