Illegal Alien
I suggested it, jokingly, when I announced the Misunderstood Blog-a-thon: “Is E.T. really a sophisticated exploration of diaspora?” But the more I think of it, the more it makes sense.
Steven Spielberg
Blowing It
Both Brokeback Mountain and Munich are patient, well-made genre movies that strip most of the politics out of charged subjects. Sadly, both are also botches.
A Failed Corrective
Coming a decade after Schindler’s List, Roman Polanski’s The Pianist seems wholly reactionary, a conscious counterpoint and correction to Spielberg’s popular and important but overly manipulative tear-jerker.
Frustrating History
The Last Days begins with a statement from a Hungarian Jew who survived the Holocaust: As World War II began to slip away from Hitler, the German führer chose to kill Jews with renewed urgency instead of fortifying his battle troops with death-camp soldiers. Why? This documentary never tries to explain. Implicitly, the movie says Hitler hated Jews more than he cared about winning the war. Perhaps that’s the only possible answer. But as glibly as it’s offered here, it’s deeply unsatisfying.
