This documentary doesn’t quite live up to its name. Filmed entirely in black and white, it combines photographs and films to tell the story of revolutionary Che Guevara. At little less than an hour, “Che Guevara: Where You’d Never Imagine Him” covers the high points of Guevara’s life as a rebel. Director Manuel Perez shows […]
This film is, at times, difficult to watch. Producer/director Michael Verhoeven employs the use of graphic images of atrocities that make one squirm or want to turn away. It is this liberal use of disaster pornography that drives home the idea of how Jews were treated by the Nazis in World War II. The central […]
This documentary is brutal. It depicts the torture that took place in places like Bagram, Afghanistan, Abu Ghraib, Iraq and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba by US forces. It starts with telling the story of an Afghan taxi driver named Dilawar who was mistaken for a terrorist and who died from the severe beating he took while […]
This film, which tracks the journey of revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara through South America, is a subtle examination of revelation. The story begins in 1952 when Guevara and a friend set off on a beaten up motorcycle to see the continent. The pair leave from their native Buenos Aires, Argentina and set a course for […]
"The Counterfeiters" has characters who have to answer tough questions. They are Jews who have been set aside in a Nazi concentration camp for their skill in forging currency. The Germans are looking to create enough false pounds and dollars to sink the economies of Britain and the United States. Because of their usefulness to […]
This film is gentle, touching and warmly humorous. It centers around a young man and his family living in East Germany. The man's mother, a true believer in socialism, falls into a coma soon before the Berlin Wall falls and the country runs at breakneck speed toward unification. Her coma lasts six months. [kml_flashembed movie=”http://www.youtube.com/v/i7EB47ENNV0″ […]
"Mongol" is solid for what it is: a portrayal of the young Genghis Khan in 12th century Mongolia. With landscapes that provide stunning backdrops of just about every scene, this movie is easy on the eyes. The problem, however, is with what the film leaves out. [kml_flashembed movie=”http://www.youtube.com/v/28OLBrW6PSM” width=”425″ height=”350″ wmode=”transparent” /] The life of […]
"Osama" is the story of a 12 year-old girl living in Afghanistan during the rule of the Taliban. When the girl and her mother lose their jobs at the local hospital because of the Taliban crackdown on women's rights, she must cut her hair and pretend to be a boy so she can work. The […]
This film is as much about empowerment for women as it is a slice of life in post-Taliban Afghanistan. It is about several women from the United States and Britain who come to Kabul after the fall of the Taliban to teach women how to be beauticians. One interesting aspect is the way in which […]
"Bringing Down a Dictator" is a testament to the human spirit. It chronicles the actions of a grassroots movement called Otpor! (Serbian for "Resistance") that miraculously brought Yugoslav dictator Slobodan Milosevic out of power. The organization of Otpor! was ingenious because there was no central command, no official leaders. What they accomplished in a year's […]
[kml_flashembed movie=”http://www.youtube.com/v/Z39tD1wK6wA” width=”425″ height=”350″ wmode=”transparent” /] What James Longley has attempted in "Iraq in Fragments" is to provide a documentary without narration. He tries to let his subjects tell their stories in a way that is both revealing and intimate. However, on the whole, the film fails to illuminate for the audience what is happening […]
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