War
My Dead Friend Zoe
My Dead Friend Zoe is a film that explores themes of grief, humor, and PTSD through its main character, Merit (Sonequa Martin-Green), an Afghanistan war veteran. The story presents Merit as interacting with the ghost of her deceased military comrade, Zoe (Natalie Morales). This ghost figure serves as a companion and source of dialogue, contributing…
How I Live Now
HOW I LIVE NOW How I Live Now, a 2013 drama romance film, is a small quiet film that tackles a huge problem (nuclear war in Europe) on a small scale (how four kids deal with the war). The film is not too bloody or horrifying, and it is not a children’s film. How I…
Saving Private Ryan
SAVING PRIVATE RYAN Every once and a while, you should watch the epic war movie Saving Private Ryan. I grew up with a dad who glamorized war movies. He and I watched those old black and white patriotic WWII movies. My dad served his WWII duty in North Carolina, not to his fault. My dad…
Shadow in the Cloud
SHADOW IN THE CLOUD Shadow in the Cloud, an action-horror film on Hulu, is a tremendous opportunity for Chloë Grace Moretz, and she is powerful in the role. Most of the film is a one-woman show with Chloe Grace Moretz as Officer Maude Garrett in the bottom turret (Sperry) of a B-17 bomber flying over…
Mulan
MULAN Mulan is a name known in China since the fourth century. Around that time the nomadic Rourans were fighting the Emperor of the Northern Wei dynasty, in power from 386-534. The Ballad of Mulan (Ode to Mulan) came about during this time. The Ballad of Mulan is a relatively easy to read six stanza…
Greyhound
GREYHOUND Greyhound is a tactical war drama known as a dad’s movie. Why? To fully appreciate the impact of the Greyhound engaging U-Boats in the North Atlantic, you must be either elderly (there are less than 300,000 WWII veterans alive out of the sixteen million who served in the US), or have known someone who…
Da 5 Bloods
DA 5 BLOODS Da 5 Bloods is the superb Spike Lee follow-up to BlackkKlansman, the best film I’ve seen this year. Spike could have waited until theaters open to have an even more financially successful film. But he knew the Spring of 2020 is the right time to release this film. Da 5 Bloods is…
The Cranes Are Flying
THE CRANES ARE FLYING The Cranes Are Flying is an obscure but incredible Soviet/Russian film from 1957. This film won the Palme d’Or (Golden Palm) which was the highest prize awarded at the 1958 Cannes Film Festival. Stealing a phrase from a YouTube commenter where the trailer for this film can be found, “This is…
A Private War
A PRIVATE WAR A Private War is a dramatization of the American journalist Marie Colvin’s life from 2001 to 2012 while she was working for the British national newspaper, The Sunday Times. Rosamund Pike (Hostiles, Gone Girl, Hector and the Search for Happiness) is superb as the war time journalist Marie Colvin. This film is…
Padmaavat
PADMAAVAT I was very excited about Padmaavat the grand big screen epic Indian drama. Heard about it since 2016 since it was starring my favorite Indian actress, Deepika Padukone, although at this point I am only aware of two Indian actresses. Set in the 13th Century Afghanistan/Western India. Alauddin Khilji (Ranveer Singh), the Sultan of…