October 12, 2008

Total Eclipse

ave you seen the new film Total Eclipse?

You won't want to miss it! Read the review:

Every so often someone in Hollywood uses his power to break the movie colony's rules. Consider this year's Total Eclipse. Odd as it may seem, this is the first serious American film set against the background of the 1939 Nazi-Soviet Pact, the deal that allied Europe's two totalitarian powers against the West and helped plunge the world into war. With an ally on the eastern front, Hitler sent his Panzers west while Stalin helped himself to the Baltic states and invaded Finland. A film like this could easily have turned out as big a didactic dud as the Rev. Sun Myung Moon's 1982 bomb, Inchon, with Laurence Olivier as Gen. Douglas MacArthur. But this time the verisimilitude of the script, carried by some outstanding performances, is the source of the film's dramatic power.

Dustin Hoffman's persuasive portrayal of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin obviously emerges from his close study of how power and perversity converged in the dictator. Likewise, Jurgen Prochnow sparkles as Hitler's foreign minister, Joachim Von Ribbentrop, and so does Robert Duvall as Vyacheslav Molotov, his Soviet counterpart. Duvall's delivery of Molotov's line that "fascism is a matter of taste" is a key moment, and deserves at least as much admiration as Duvall's famous quip from Apocalypse Now about the smell of napalm in the morning. The Molotov speech has drawn some objections for being over the top, but it was not invented by screenwriter William Goldman (Marathon Man); it's an actual quote.

The sheer unexpectedness of the film is almost as shocking as its content. In one of the film's more chilling sequences, the Soviets hand over a number of German Communists, Jews who had taken refuge in Moscow, to the Gestapo. Modern audiences may find this surprising, but that incident too is taken from the historical record. Indeed, former KGB officials are credited as advisers on the film, whose cast also includes some of their actual victims.

There has simply been nothing like it on the screen in six decades. It has taken that long for moviegoers to see Soviet forces invading Poland and meeting their Nazi counterparts. Audiences would likely be similarly surprised by cinematic treatments of Cuban prisons, the Khmer Rouge genocide, and the bloody campaigns of Ethiopia's Stalinist Col. Mengistu, all still awaiting attention from Hollywood.

Total Eclipse is rated PG-13 for violence, particularly graphic in some of the mass murder scenes, images of starving infants from Stalin's 1932 forced famine in the Ukraine, and the torture of dissidents. Director Steven Spielberg (Schindler's List) deftly cuts from the Moscow trials to the torture chambers of the Lubyanka. More controversial are the portrayals of American communists during the period of the Pact. They are shown here picketing the White House, calling President Roosevelt a warmonger, and demanding that America stay out of the "capitalist war" in Europe. Harvey Keitel turns in a powerful performance as American Communist boss Earl Browder, and Linda Hunt brings depth to Lillian Hellman, who, when Hitler attacks the USSR in September of 1939, actually did cry out, "The motherland has been invaded."

Painstakingly accurate and filled with historical surprises, this film is so refreshing, so remarkable, that even at 162 minutes it seems too short.

Read the whole thing. H/T Instapundit.

Posted by witnit at 9:23 AM | Comments (2)

May 14, 2008

Movie Updates

ust some notes:

IRON MAN: Stay through the end credits to see the final scene that sets up Iron Man 2.

THE FORBIDDEN KINGDOM: Every American teenage boy's king fu fantasy movie.

JUNO: Still the best. Get the DVD.

DAN IN REAL LIFE: Just caught this on DVD and realized that Steve Carell is a truly great actor and Juliette Binoche still makes my putter flutter.

Posted by witnit at 10:50 AM | Comments (0)

March 12, 2007

The First Marines

aw 300 over the weekend. Bloody, brutal, gory, violent, self-righteous...and one cool movie! I saw it this weekend (without the wife...we saw Music and Lyrics last weekend.)

The Spartans were the first Marines, and in this movie you see a fantabulous, architypal, death-before-surrender ethic that you almost don't see any more. And it only made $70 million in its opening weekend with no stars to speak of.

Check out the trailer if you don't know about it. Severed heads never looked so beautiful.

Posted by witnit at 10:16 AM | Comments (4)

November 18, 2006

Best Bond

kay. Nobody seems willing to come right out and say it so I will.

As James Bond, Daniel Craig is better than Sean Connery,

And CASINO ROYALE is the best James Bond movie ever.

There. Someone had to say it.

Posted by witnit at 9:19 PM | Comments (7) | TrackBack

September 29, 2006

Bond...James Bond

INALLY! A James Bond as bad and dangerous as Sean Connery. Timothy Dalton had potential, but they gave him crappy scripts. But Daniel Craig...Holy Shit, Batman! This is one BAAAAD dude. Thank god.

If you haven't seen the trailer, go HERE now!

It's about damn time!

Posted by witnit at 5:25 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

May 25, 2006

Da Vinci Code

ctually, it was quite a good thriller. I read the trashy novel. It's not well-written, yet it is compelling. Dan Brown knows how to construct a plot that hooks you mercilessly. Too bad he doesn't do character development or dialogue well.

Anyway, if you didn't read the book, then I strongly recommend the movie. It's a decently crafted thriller and Ian McKellan once again is great.

Just remember that the whole Da Vinci, Kights Templar, Opus Dei, Holy Blood Holy Grail, Jesus's bloodline, Catholic conspiracy stuff is all fantasy.

No Christian should find this movie threatening. It's mere entertainment, and even manages to distance the Church from the bad things that are done.

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Posted by witnit at 10:01 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 30, 2006

United 93

aw United 93 today. I recommend it if for no other reason than to put money in the filmmaker's pocket for reminding us that we are in a war. Lean, intense, uncompromising and manages to avoid cliches. No one will see it a second time, but it's interesting to see the view from the air traffic folks. The last 15 minutes are all from inside the plane, all the way down. --------

Posted by witnit at 8:06 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack