Tag: Historical Drama

REVIEW: ‘One Life’ earns credit for dramatizing extraordinary effort

The World War II era was a period with many stories of bravely doing what’s right, on and off the battlefield. This film centers on one of the latter stories.

Anthony Hopkins portrays British man Nicholas Winton, who’s cleaning out paperwork in his home office and finds several old documents that he’s kept over the years. The documents are from his time with a British committee tasked with evacuating refugees from Czechoslovakia.

The film then goes back to a younger Winton in the late 1930s where he is portrayed by Johnny Flynn. The movie shows the effort by Winton and others in the committee who worked night and day to get political refugees and Jewish children out of the area as the German invasion grew closer.

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REVIEW: Despite strong filmmaking, ‘Ferrari’ is largely unfocused

Sometimes even the most meticulously-made movies fall short.

That’s the case with director Michael Mann’s new biographical film centered on Italian car-maker Enzo Ferrari (Adam Driver). The movie is set in 1957, with Ferrari gearing up for the annual Mile Miglia, or Thousand Miles. The Italian race event is another opportunity to show off his brand.

While this is happening, Ferrari’s company is  is in a difficult situation financially. To turn things around, a suggestion is made to merge  with another company, but it’s complicated because Ferrari’s estranged wife Laura (Penelope Cruz) owns half the shares. Their relationship has been strained since their son’s death and is even more so lately as Ferrari is having an affair.

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REVIEW: Story of ‘Rustin’ is important, but told without cinematic flair

Sometimes a film comes along that does something positive by shining a light on a hidden figure, but doesn’t do so in extraordinary fashion.

This movie is an example. It tells the story of Bayard Rustin (Colman Domingo), who was the lead organizer for the March on Washington in 1963. The event is now most well known for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech and a subsequent meeting with President John F. Kennedy.

Getting to those historic moments took an immense amount of planning and mobilization, though, and Rustin was at the center of it all. The film dramatizes this, as well as Rustin’s experience as a gay man during a time where he had to keep his relationships hidden.

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REVIEW: Despite strong filmmaking, ‘Zone of Interest’ loses momentum

During the Nuremberg Trials, Rudolf Höss admitted that well over a million people were killed while he was commandant at Auschwitz. As this film shows, he had no issue maintaining a regular life next door.

Set in 1943, “The Zone of Interest” follows Höss (Christian Friedel) not inside the infamous camp, but rather at home with his family. While he was in charge of the camp, his residence was right beside it, only separated by a high concrete wall.

As the film demonstrates, the proximity to a place of extermination did not hinder the Höss family from living an average life, where the patriarch went off to work in the morning while his wife tended to the children and kept busy with a garden. They did all of this all while hearing the sounds from the camp.

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REVIEW: ‘Napoleon’ is a considerable, but incomplete portrait of French ruler

Ambition is something leaders of nations should have. However, when that ambition is only self-serving, it can end in disaster, as Ridley Scott’s “Napoleon” shows.

The film picks up right in the midst of the French Revolution, with Napoleon Bonaparte (Joaquin Phoenix), then an army officer, in attendance for the beheading of Queen Marie Antoinette. From there, the film follows how he built popularity with military accomplishments and used political maneuvers to gain power in France.

The film then explores his military campaigns as Emperor of France while also dramatizing his relationship with his wife Josephine (Vanessa Kirby).

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REVIEW: ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’ is a powerful, meticulously made historic epic

Martin Scorsese has once again returned to the crime drama genre, focusing on a series of murders known as the “Reign of Terror.”

“Killers of the Flower Moon” centers on a conspiracy to murder members of the Osage Nation and steal their wealth and land. In Osage County, Oklahoma, members on the reservation received rights to royalties from oil production that was taking place on their land. The finances they inherited, unfortunately, made those with rights targets to others.

Scorsese’s film centers on these events, mainly through the eyes of Ernest Burkhart (Leonardo DiCaprio). A World War I veteran, Ernest arrives in Osage to work with his uncle William Hale (Robert De Niro) as the murders are picking up. During this time, Ernest himself marries a woman with rights to oil wealth herself, Mollie (Lily Gladstone).

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REVIEW: Nolan’s ‘Oppenheimer’ is an immaculate cinematic achievement

Scientific breakthroughs can be great things, leading to new discoveries and improvements in quality of life. They can also create terrifying, destructive power.

Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer” captures the latter, and the impact it had on the figure that helmed such a breakthrough.

The film mainly revolves around J. Robert Oppenheimer’s work on the Manhattan Project, what led him to his involvement, and subsequent investigations into his character during the Red Scare. To do this the movie goes back and forth between three time periods.

Most of the movie takes place during the time where Oppenheimer was becoming a scientist and his work in Los Alamos. However, the movie also includes moments from Oppenheimer’s security hearing in 1954, as well as scenes in 1959 when Lewis Strauss’ hostile relationship with the physicist was brought up in commerce secretary nomination hearings with the Senate.

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REVIEW: ‘Chevalier’ gives insight to important musician, but does so generically

A story during the era of the French Revolution that’s gone largely untold is given a spotlight in this film.

It’s an admirable effort, although there’s a feeling it could have been stronger.

The movie centers on Joseph Bologne, the illegitimate son of an African slave and a French plantation owner who was raised to become a great violinist. Because of his skills, he finds himself in France’s high society, and is named Chevalier de Saint-Georges.

The movie picks up with Queen Marie Antoinette (Lucy Boynton) giving Joseph the opportunity to lead an opera house via a competition with another composer, to see who can write the best one. During that process, Joseph begins an affair with a married woman, Marie-Josephine (Samara Weaving). As this is happening, there are rumblings of revolution, and it will all come to a head.

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REVIEW: ‘Western Front’ features a heartbreaking perspective of WWI

“All Quiet on the Western Front” is definitely not the easiest watch of 2022, but it is one of the better movies of the year.

Based on the famous novel, “All Quiet on the Western Front” tells the story of Paul (Felix Kammerer), a young man who enlists in the German Army in 1917, a year before World War I ended. He enters the war filled with enthusiasm, driven by messages of nationalism during his enlistment.

That enthusiasm dissipates quickly, though, as Paul is thrust into trench warfare. As the war drags on, Paul sees his friends regularly killed in action while facing constant danger in the muddy trenches.

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REVIEW: While flawed, ‘Till’ is a creditable effort

A horrific moment in America’s history followed by awful injustice is featured in the emotionally charged “Till.”

Danielle Deadwyler portrays Mamie Till-Mobley, whose son Emmett (Jalyn Hall) was killed during a visit to Mississippi in 1955. The movie dramatizes the events that took place in Mississippi where, in a racism-fueled action, Emmett was abducted and murdered in the middle of the night.

It then documents how Mamie showed Emmett’s body to the press, revealing the brutality of the attack and the subsequent trial against the individuals responsible. It also details the overall impact the moment had on the Civil Rights Movement.

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