The sun sets on the British Empire in Zulu (1964), an historical epic built around a legendary colonial battle of the late 19th century. Legendary to British history, that is. The Battle of Rorke’s Drift in South Africa would be all but unknown in the U.S outside of historical societies were it not for Zulu. […]
The African desert, WWII, and romance… no doubt about it, The English Patient (1996) is a Casablanca for the 90s, directed with sweep, elegance, and grand passions by Anthony Minghella from his screenplay adaptation of Michael Ondaatje’s novel. Ralph Fiennes, scarred by fire and buried under bandages like an Egyptian mummy, is the mysterious patient […]
“There are over 550 million firearms in worldwide circulation. That’s one firearm for every twelve people on the planet. The only question is: How do we arm the other 11?” The opening line of Andrew Niccol’s Lord of War (2005) captures the film in a phrase: it’s serious, it’s sardonic, and it has both a […]
Here’s what’s new and ready to stream now on Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, HBO Now, Showtime Anytime, FilmStruck, video-on-demand, and other streaming services … Chris Pine stars in Outlaw King (2018, R) as Robert the Bruce, the 14th century Scottish nobleman who claimed the crown of Scotland and rallied his country to battle the occupying […]
Anthropoid (2016) isn’t the first film to dramatize the real-life operation to assassinate SS-Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich, the architect of the Final Solution and Hitler’s third in command in the Nazi hierarchy. That honor belongs to Fritz Lang, who made the highly fictionalized and highly charged Hangmen Also Die in 1943, barely a year after the […]
“This story is true. I give it as it is, without embellishment.” That’s an understatement of an opening remark. A Man Escaped (France, 1956) is a mesmerizing meeting of opposites: a prison escape thriller directed by the austere, introspective Robert Bresson. Based on the memoir by Andre Devigny, a member of the French Resistance imprisoned […]
Akira Kurosawa Ran (Japan, 1985), the story of an aging warlord who hands power to his sons is loosely inspired by the story of sixteenth century warlord Mōri Motonari, who conquered his rivals and extended his kingdom with the help of his three sons. The script is firmly built on King Lear, with sons taking […]
Lawrence of Arabia (1962), David Lean’s epic adventure based on the true-life story of T.E. Lawrence (played by Peter O’Toole in a compelling, complex performance), is the most beautiful big screen film ever made, which means it’s grandest attributes suffer on video no matter how big your screen is. It’s also a fiercely intelligent drama […]
After Saving Private Ryan in a single mission, Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks teamed up to produce a chronicle of the European theater of World War II from a soldier’s-eye view on a vast canvas. The resulting made-for-HBO ten-hour miniseries Band of Brothers (2001), based on the non-fiction book by historian Stephen Ambrose, takes us […]
Filmmaker Christopher Nolan called in his favors from Warner Bros., where made the hit Batman / Dark Knight trilogy as well as Inception and Interstellar, to make Dunkirk (2017), a big-budget World War II drama that would never have been financed on the scale Nolan envisioned without his clout behind it. Warner may have been […]
