Drama

Sobibor

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Sobibor
  • IMDb: link

Sobibor movie reviewBased on true events, the Russian film Sobibor tells the story of a revolt and mass escape from the Nazi concentration camp of Sobibor led by Alexander Pechersky (played by director Konstantin Khabenskiy) in Poland during WWII. The film could use a little more nuance from the Nazis (led by Christopher Lambert) and a little less Russian nationalism (constantly playing up the importance of Russian Jews) for a more compelling story. Based on gripping subject matter, the film doesn’t do much in the way to add artistry or historical context to the proceedings. The truth behind the film kept me more interested than the depiction of events. Honestly, I would have been far more interested in seeing a documentary of the Sobibor revolt rather than this dramatization.

Focused more on Nazi brutality towards the Jews than their escape for three-fourths of the film, Sobibor is at times hard to watch. The script also ignores historical context when it may get in the way of the story (such as somewhat fudging the number of escapees, and ignoring the large percentage who were either killed or recaptured by the Nazis).

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Fighting with My Family

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Fighting with My Family
  • IMDb: link

Fighting with My Family movie reviewFlorence Pugh stars as the unconventional Saraya-Jade Bevis in this biopic of a real-life underdog making good. At the time when the WWE was stocking its women’s division with models, the goth indie wrestler from an oddball wrestling family in Norwich, England would seem like a long shot to not only make the WWE roster but excel.

Knowing and trusting his source material, and putting his faith in his young stars, Stephen Merchant allows the stories of both Saraya and her brother Zak (Jack Lowden), who is passed over by the WWE, to unfold. For Zak it’s the struggle of watching his dreams turn to ash while his sister is handed the golden opportunity he’s sought his entire life. And for Saraya it’s struggling to find her place in a larger ring, the one place she has always felt at home but is now full of more obstacles than she ever imagined.

Fighting with My Family is a crowd-pleaser featuring some great supporting performances from the likes of Nick Frost and Lena Headey as Sayara’s parents and Vince Vaughn as the trainer who offers Sayara her chance and pushes her to succeed.

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The Great Films – Unbreakable

/ / Home Video
  • Title: Unbreakable
  • IMDb: link

“They say this one has a surprise ending.”

Unbreakable movie reviewToday’s Throwback Thursday post takes us back to one of my favorite super-hero movies. Overshadowed by writer/director M. Night Shyamalan‘s far more commercially successful first film and his subsequent slide into mediocrity, Unbreakable stands alone as the one film from his catalog that gets better with each subsequent viewing. A perfect origin story, Unbreakable is a super-hero film without any of the trappings of super-hero films. A low-key, slow-paced drama, the story slowly unfolds while staying true to the basic truths of comic book storytelling. If there’s an anti-Batman and Robin, it’s Unbreakable.

The film has everything going for it including a writer who understood his subject manner, stars perfectly cast as real-life comic book characters, a terrific humor, and some of the best shot scenes of any film from this decade by Eduardo Serra whose framing choices help mold and develop each character climaxing in the traditional birth of a hero that remains grounded in reality more than any super-hero movie before or since. It’s a perfect storm that results in an amazing film that holds up as well today as when it was released more than 18 years ago.

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Cold War

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Cold War
  • IMDb: link

Cold War movie reviewCold War, at least for me, brings up an important distinction about the difference between appreciating a film versus liking it. Too often people look at movies and leave the theater believing on a gut level if they liked a movie it’s great and if they didn’t like it the film must be hot garbage (and quite possibly an attack on everything they hold dear including the entirety of filmmaking and good taste). Centering a story around the on-again off-again romance of a dysfunctional couple in post-WWII Poland and France, writer/director Pawel Pawlikowski produces a film that is easy to appreciate. As for liking it… well, let’s just say the film let me cold.

In terms of look, style, the recreation of the time period, and the beautiful black-and-white cinematography by Lukasz Zal, Cold War certainly delivers. It also offers a pair of strong performances by Tomasz Kot and Joanna Kulig as musicians and lovers who are nearly as dysfunctional when apart as when they are together, making one wonder whether we are supposed to be rooting for the pair to end up together or finally break free of each other.

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On the Basis of Sex

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: On the Basis of Sex
  • IMDb: link

On the Basis of Sex movie reviewOn the Basis of Sex examines Ruth Bader Ginsburg‘s (Felicity Jones) road from one of only a handful of women granted entry into Harvard to arguing a landmark decision in front of the US Court of Appeals, while fighting sexual discrimination in some form or another every step of the way.

Broken into two parts, the film examines the discrimination and struggles Ruth went through both in college and as a graduate unable to find any firm interested in hiring a female litigator. While there’s plenty about the woman’s life left untold, such as the span and scope of her career following these events, the film spends quite a bit of time on Ginsburg’s family life and personal struggles which dovetails into the larger themes of the script allowing for the plot to climax in Ginsbrug’s argument before the US Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit in the first case of her career. Jones proves to be the movie’s greatest strength, handling a complex range of emotions over the course of the film leading to Ginsburg’s big moment and, as the film frames it, finding her purpose.

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