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Old (2021)
Interesting but not one of MNS's best
I normally love his movies but this one wasn't that great. I felt it was much longer than it needed to be and at times it was boring. Some of the scenes with the kids were creepy and uncomfortable. Two of the kids now aged at around 11/12 seemed to know what sex was, have sex, and the girl gets pregnant and gives birth. The son's character was also kind of odd. He seemed like he was on the spectrum at his youngest age but when he aged to 11/12 he didn't seem to be on the spectrum anymore? "Mid Size Sedan (Lol...) should have had a larger role. I thought the overall idea was interesting and I liked how it was part thriller and part drama. I didn't really see the "lesson" of the movie until I read peoples' reviews on here. Wouldn't watch again because it was kind of boring and was too long.
Dirty Grandpa (2016)
Truly one of the worst movies I've ever seen
I'm all for slapstick comedies, potty humor, sex humor, etc but Dirty Grandpa was just stupid. The only funny scene was the bumble bee scene. Nothing else made me laugh or smile. I'm amazed RDN agreed to do this. His character was gross and disgusting and unrealistic. The sex talk between him and AP was too gross to find funny. The character of Pam was also stupid.
Things that made no sense (yeah I know it's just a movie):
-Jason met the photographer girl when they were in college and now he's I'm guess early 30s but she's still in college?
-Jason dumps his fiance at the altar for a woman he just recently met (they had no relationship whatsoever when he was in college)? I know it's a comedy but do people do this?
Ridley Road (2021)
First time I've seen movie/miniseries better than the book...
I watched the miniseries and then read the book (book was completely different and boring). It's clear the miniseries took liberties to make it match the politics of what has been happening in the UK and the US along with trying to do some virtue signaling.
I thought the acting was very good from everyone including the supporting staff. Some reviews are saying how bad the main actress was. The character is supposed to be a mousy, shy, timid girl and she did that. To me though the writers made the Jewish characters very stereotypical which I found strange due to wanting to avoid stereotypes.
One of the reviewers here mentioned that it made no sense was Vivian would have had the Bible with her given that she ended up infiltrating Jordan's group but she moved to London, she didn't know she would be doing that. (In the book the landlord is a middle aged Jewish woman).
I liked that the miniseries was definitely exciting having real people from history in it but they should have kept things more true to what we actually knew about them (Jordan had no child and the wife was banned from the UK). There were also quite obvious "how convenient" parts like Vivian having her business card in her pocket where the nosey housekeeper found it as Vivian denied that the card was hers. This was dumb because when the housekeeper went to the salon, no one said that Jane was a stylist there, however Vivian left her unusual coat there which the housekeeper naturally saw. What else.... Oh yeah Vivian finding Peter/Jack in London at a rally she just sort of stumbled to. The antifascist crew largely consists of Vivian's estranged relatives where her uncle immediately recognizes her at a distance without seeing her in a number of years.
Parts that weren't explained or simply made no sense:
-How did Jack become involved in the first place?
-Why did Vivian use her cousin's passport to go to Israel?
-Why was Jane even allowed to go to Jordan's secret meetings with neo nazi leaders?
-How long was Jordan aware that Jane was Vivian?
-What was Jordan's plan for Vivian?
-Why did Vivian and Jack go to Israel together?
There's also a number of clips showing London in the 60s which was kind of cool but they were thrown in randomly not really fitting the scene from right before or the scene that followed.
Don't get me wrong I enjoyed it and found it exciting but it could have been much better especially in the last 2 episodes.
Also to give you more of an idea of the book.... In the book you see things from the perspective of Vivian, Jack, and Stevie. Vivian is like Rochelle in Rochelle, Rochelle! Jack is nearly left in a coma but recovers and marries Vivian. Stevie is obsessed with Vivian despite hardly knowing her. Jordan is merely spoken about and none of the characters even meet him. Roza was also a supporting character in the miniseries but there is no character in the book. Also in the book Vivian is an orphan and plays so role in 62 and is honestly a boring character. There's also a lot more character development with the hair stylists that Vivian works with. The book definitely felt more like it was for the YA audience and not adults.
Iosi, el espía arrepentido (2022)
Overall really good but could have been better
I watched it over 2 days that's how good it was....good acting, writing, and story line. The flashbacks imo were needed however they did do them more than they needed to. The story line with Saul however dragged and dragged. The man was involved in shady activity but it focused way too much on him that I don't know why Yosi/Jose bothered to keep recording him and talking to him about what he was doing since he started to realize the Andinia Plan was just bs. It was however clear that he was just a "useful idiot" in that his mission was just really a ploy get surveillance on where the attacks would be rather than the stupid Andinia Plan
Questions I have though that I'm hoping viewers will address....
1. I understand Yosi resented his Jewish stepfather for having an affair with his mother, but what I cannot figure out is if the stepfather was actually his biological father. Was his mother married and then had the affair making Yosi believe that her 1st husband was his father?
2. Why exactly was Victor so important that he had to be set up? His character to me wasn't really needed in the plot.
3. Was Yosi actually in love with Eli? I couldn't figure that one out since she never had any information that would have helped Yosi. It just came out of nowhere that all of a sudden they are into each other when they didn't appear to be more than acquaintances.
4. Why did Eli end up marrying Victor? Was it to just give her son a father figure?
5. Was Aaron a Mossad agent?
6. How did Luis climb up the career ladder so quickly?
7. Why was so much of the focus even on Saul?
I figure in season 2 that we will see more of Yosi's relationship relationship with Eli, Yosi hiding out more trying to repent, as well as Daphne sadly getting murdered.
Other things that were't needed imo:
-Yosi getting sexually assaulted in the first episode. What was the point of having that scene?
-Yosi having a dog and then surrendering it to a kennel/shelter. Again why?
-The storyline of Yosi having Shabbat dinners with the gay rabbi and the poor people
I guess the writers want to make Yosi viewed as an antihero, but the truth is, he's a piece of **** just like everyone else his secretly worked for. I cannot get over him vandalizing the cemetery especially doing it to the stone of the nice old woman he was working for husband.... Broke my heart.
A little history-
Like many countries in Latin america, Argentina has an unstable political climate going from one extreme to the other, with both sides being a bunch of antisemites. The country did very little to nothing at trying to solve any of the crimes involving the 2 attacks as well as claiming an attorney's death as a suicide rather than a homicide (which people seem to know was bs like Epstein lol). Both Argentina and Chile cover up a lot of crimes of when people have gone missing when their families know what really happened to them.
Orphan: First Kill (2022)
Expected it to be bad but it was very good!
The twist in the movie was really good. I initially thought that later on the real Esther would be found but then the twist happened. Overall I enjoyed the movie but could have done without the rat dying from sleeping pills and then going down the garbage disposal :( I kind of thought they would go that direction given that they had an animal in it.
The only scene that didn't make sense to me was in the beginning of the movie with the art teacher. Esther ended up at the art teacher's house before the art teacher had arrived. How? It was implied that Esther snuck into the teacher's car but it didn't make any sense that Esther arrived in her house earlier. Kind of surprise the writers kept that because to me they didn't think that part through.
Beavis and Butt-Head Do the Universe (2022)
Great for fans of the series and of Touched by an Angel!
Everything Beavis and Butthead is good and this movie was no exception. You had humor, violence, intrigue, sex, drama, and romance. It also started a dialogue of white privilege and toxic masculinity. While I am not a man, I am white so I have learned to accept my privilege and to take full advantage of it. All white people should watch this movie to appreciate what we have to fully use it to enjoy our lives. I need tp for my bunghole.
Small Fry (1939)
One of my favorite cartoons of all time
I still want to be a big fry and go to the big fry club, playing pool, getting into fights like Russell Crowe, and smoke with the big fry! Don't you want to be a big fry?
The Impure (2017)
Watched on Chai Flicks (get it!)
Really sad to watch but well executed documentary. I didn't know about any of this in Argentina. What went on then is still occurring today whether prostitution is legal or illegal...the whole industry is immoral and corrupt and not a victimless crime. No woman (or man) wants to be trafficked in order to barely survive. The only thing that would have made the movie better is if they tried to follow up what happened to the pimps after they got arrested. Many were sent back to Europe so I imagine they were murdered during the Holocaust. The majority however I believed stayed in Argentina. Anyway the documentary gave a good explanation of why the Jewish community in Argentina tries to forget about it.... Many people who profited from it have families who never knew what their ancestors did, likewise the women who were trafficked never wanted to let people know what they went through. There was definitely tension at the end when one man being interviewed got into it with the interviewer on what the point was to expose what happened and he made valid points. What is shameful though to me is how no organizations are willing to take care of the cemetery for these women.
Un amour impossible (2018)
More intense than I thought it would be....
I watched this on Chai Flicks (aka Netflix with Jewish themed movies and Israeli ones). Her religion and ethnicity really was irrelevant to the movie. Couldn't figure out if Phillipe was supposed to be but I believe he wasn't.
Phillipe to me is one of the most disgusting villains I have ever seen in any movie. I just expected him to be a snobbish, rich piece of you know what but he's even worse. The abuse to me was not needed and made the movie much more intense than it needed to be. To make things more complex, the daughter Chantel is nothing like the mother Rachel and is exactly like her father in looks and personality. How Rachel was able to live with a reminder of him is beyond me.
Brings me to Rachel. I don't think she was unlikable at all, rather naive. To Phillipe's defense all signs of him being a jerk were there from the beginning. He literally tells her he won't marry her throughout the movie and adds that if she were rich, it could be different (wtf?). Rachel knowingly allows him to have him to send his "seed" inside her. He sees her and Chantel every now and then for essentially a romp in the hay with Rachel mainly to get her off his back. He never financially helps out until he establishes a regular relationship with Chantel when she is a teenager. The sexual abuse imo came out of nowhere. They made him go from being a pig to being a pervert and a creep. Rachel had no idea what was going on until her daughter's much older "lover" tells her to not allow her to see Phillipe due to the ongoing abuse. Phillipe writes her a letter blaming Chantel for him not being able to see her anymore and that he thought she was different (classic narcissist to shame the victim) Chantel seems to have stopped seeing him until he is much older and when she is an adult. The only really unlikable thing about Rachel is that when she realizes that there has been abuse, she doesn't reach out to call the police as well as to warn Phillipe's wife who he has a child with.
Chantel spends years giving her mother the cold shoulder and on and off stops communicating with her. While a teenager, Rachel just thought Chantel was acting out as a teen and resented how her mother was working class and not as cultured as her father. Chantel clearly is messed up throughout the movie once her father reappears regularly in her life. The girl doesn't understand why her mother continues to sleep with him, gets abused by him, and at 14 or 15 has a relationship with a man who is in his 20s and a friend of Rachel's calling him a lover and not a boyfriend. As an adult she appears to be in a loveless relationship and has a child contemplating leaving him.
It's a depressing movie from start to finish.
Jaguar (2021)
I binged watched it. Hope for a 2nd season!
I laugh at people talking about Isabel's one dimensional face. I think she was supposed to look like that given what she went through and having zero family left. Lucerno had the same look going on. The actress is stunning. Perfect bone structure.
The plot was good and I enjoyed the show more than Hunters which was kind of stupid. I do agree with a number of reviews that mention how it started off good but then fell flat. A number of scenes just weren't believable especially when they were action scenes.
I could have done without the horse scene. I knew what was coming so I fast forwarded it. Castro being gay was also totally not needed. I agree that Netflix felt the need to depict an edgy animal cruelty scene along with making a character gay. It was like they just threw those scenes in.
I really liked the music but they often played it louder than it had to be where I couldn't hear dialogue.
Confusing parts. They never show how Isabel learned to defend herself which was pretty important. I also would have liked the show to have shown what the characters did between the 40s-60s with their lives. Lastly (and a review here mentions this), the background implies that people were all well off in Spain when they weren't. There was little mention of Franco who was still ruling over Spain.
Passing (2021)
Disappointing
Was really looking forward to this because the story line seemed interesting and I like "artsy" movies. First like many said, neither actress looked like they could pass. They are beautiful mixed race women but neither looks white. I'm convinced the movie was done in black and white to make them look like they could pass. A review mentioned that Ruth looked like her face was covered in white chalk. Accurate. How your own husband couldn't figure it out when you would be intimate is beyond me. Lots of mixed race actresses who could pass. That said the acting was very good. Alexander sarsguard was totally underutilized though.
Anyway the movie was slow and boring most of the time. The ending was a bit confusing. It looked like an accident with John trying to hit Clare but with Clare falling over the ledge. What I was confused about was did Irene called John to tell him Clare was there?
Why was John in Harlem (I think) in the scene where he sees Irene and a friend of hers? There was no explanation.
In any case they could have done a lot more with showing how both Irene and Clare seemed to resent each other (more so Irene). Clare seemed to have regret living a secret life where she could only be herself "part time", whereas Irene seemed annoyed how Clare came into her life with everyone in her life liking her despite her not living as a black woman. I never got the feeling that Irene's husband was cheating on Irene or that he preferred Claire over her. It seemed to all be in Irene's head. There was a brief scene where they imply that Irene was hung over. There should have been more with that.
Cipher in the Snow (1974)
Best short that i have ever seen but people will write it off due to being lds...
I actually teared up writing this. If you play this to kids and they have no real reaction to it, I'm convinced that have to be a psychopath.
Lots of movies and tv shows about bullying however this one is different. Cliff isn't bullied at school, rather he is ignored (hence the title). No one ever tried making a connection with him. Even victims of bullying get attention but Cliff got nothing....not good or bad. At home he was also neglected and had to deal with comments from his insensitive step father.
The movie gets more depressing and this isn't even 30 minutes.
People won't see this due to the Lds involvement but the lesson in the movie was really one to just compassion and to be kind.
Hate Crime (2012)
WTF did I just watch?
You pretty much have a horror movie designed to look like a snuff film. This was like a really bad student film from a junior college. Looked up the director who is naturally the son of 2 people already in the entertainment industry (like how Jayden smith is an actor and how Lisa Rinna's daughters are both models!)
Let me give you an idea of some of the scenes....
1. The youngest son is killed first.
2. One of the scumbags then rapes the mother and then has the other son have sex with her and then they kill the mother.
3. Another one of the scumbags plays mind games with the daughter that he isnt going to hurt her despite him making her remove most of her clothing (fortunately she stabs him)
4. One of them burns a swastika in the son's face and later removes his eye with them playing catch it it. They then stuff him in the oven killing him which didn't make sense since he was too large.
5. The dad is loose but gets killed (doesnt seem to have called the cops?)
6. Ends with a nice excerpt on hate crimes increasing
Only reason it is 2 stars is because it's short.
A Hidden Life (2019)
You know how Elaine Benes didn't like the English Patient?
A+++ for the beautiful cinematography and acting. Everything else missed the mark for me. This movie did not need to be almost 3 hours long. It felt a lot longer. The storyline dragged and dragged, and the voiceovers were excessive. I also am confused why at times English was spoken, and other times German. When German was spoken, no subtitles either.
Wish I got the 3 hours of my life back.
The House on Carroll Street (1988)
I enjoyed it but yeah there were a lot of coincidences
Years ago I was talking about Operation Paperclip with a coworker and she mentioned to watch this movie which at the time was difficult to find online unless I paid quite a bit given it is an obscure movie. I eventually found it on Tubi accidentally.
It definitely has a Hitchcock vibe to it which I haven't seen for years (even in 80s movies). There was a lot of build-able suspense, the acting was good, and I enjoyed seeing them make NYC look like how it did in the 50s.
Cons of the movie? They didn't explain Stefan's backstory with how he even got involved. I also couldn't figure out why the Nazi scientists were at a Russian (Moldovan?) wedding when America was bringing in Nazi scientists and not Russian ones given the Cold War and the time of course. I also agree with a number of reviews who mention the romantic storyline between Emily and Cochran. It wasn't needed and was predictable. It was also too coincidental that Emily happened to always overhear things, and that the FBI released the names to her that Stefan had in his pocket (that surely saved her time!). The ketchup scene with Mandy Patinkin was also a bit much lol.
All in all I enjoyed the movie. Just wanted to note though that even though Cochran revealed the real names of the Nazis smuggled into the country by our own government, they likely would have escaped charges. They all unfortunately did based on the ones we welcomed into the country.
Lauf Junge lauf (2013)
I hard a hard time watching this :(
I watch many, many holocaust movies but didn't really know what I was getting myself into when I watched this. Hell even the opening scene starts with the kid being beaten by an adult male (Polish...not a nazi) for trying to steal his coat in the winter.
The movie flows well, and you get a good amount of time with the characters told mainly throughout the boy's eyes. What this boy went through is just so depressing....lives in the Warsaw Ghetto, father helps him to escape by getting himself killed in the process, he starts his journey with other kids trying to survive and is the only survivor (the Nazis killed all the rest of them), he goes farm to farm finding people who would feed him getting doors slammed in his face, becomes friends with a dog who someone kills and buries it(I fast forward that...I knew what was coming...), on a few different occasions groups of Nazis try to kill him including one who tries to trick him by going to the a shed to see rabbits (but the boy tricks him), injures his hand while working, scumbag Polish doctor could have save his hand but won't operate on him due to him being Jewish, but later a decent Polish doctor operates but ends up having to amputate his arm because he acted to late.
For every 10 antisemitic scumbags in the movie, like 2 were decent people not expecting anything in return from the boy. There were others who treated him well but to me largely because he came off as a Catholic orphan to all of them (had they known the truth, I doubt they would have been that nice...).I won't forget the line the Polish fisherman says to him, "You people aren't known to being generous" as the kid offers him an apple when he can barely take care of himself (The Polish were just as bad as the Nazis and people forget that after WWII there were still pogroms in Poland which they are trying to get people to forget).
It was just a touching and intense movie about the boy trying to stay alive knowing he probably won't see his family again, along with the pain and anger that comes with it.
Not 10 stars for a couple of things. The dog scene and scenes with animals. It's hard enough watching a movie knowing people will be getting killed on screen, but didn't need to see the animals as well. The other was how there was no follow up with why it took him 30 years to meet up with his sister when the guy from the orphanage knew the sister made her way to Russia. I also was ??? with why all of a sudden the Nazi rabbit shed guy, days later didn't try to kill the kid again when he insisted that the Nazis go after him.
There was one funny line. The kid tells the family that Hitler broke his arm (or something like that). Worth watching but it is too intense to see more than 1x.
Nochnye lastochki (2013)
Really interesting story
I didn't know much about the "Night Witches". I was just looking up WWII stuff on Amazon to watch ad saw this remembering I heard something about this topic.
The acting was good with believable performances. The storylines too didn't drag, and there were definitely red herrings in it (don't want to spoil this).
As far as the cons, I have a few but they aren't really huge cons. There are voiceovers in Russian as the Germans are speaking in German. It was a bit distracting and annoying especially since I was reading subtitles anyway. I also don't know if it was supposed to be funny, but I kept laughing every time a German would say something like "Those DA** witches!". "Get me 1 witch!", and really anything about the witches lol. Additionally some storylines were a bit difficult to follow. That may be due to things getting lost in translation. I also wish that would have given the supporting actresses more of a storyline as the focus was really just on the 2 main actresses. Lastly, the ending just ended. That may be the American in me though who likes closure. I've noticed with non American movies that they just pick a time to end it and it's not all put together nicely. I was just left with what is going to happen to so and so.
Anyway I enjoyed it and binged watched it all in 1 day!
Malgré-elles (2012)
Overall I enjoyed it despite it needing to be 2 or even 3 different movies...
First the American title that was on Amazon was Third Reich Mothers which is completely clickbait as that really wasn't the overall plot.
This should have been 2 or 3 different movies as it was too short to have 3 different things happening.
(the story is being told in what appears to be the 90s by an older Alice talking into the camera for what is her daughter or granddaughter)
Part 1- Alsatian girls are brought to learn how to be a part of the workforce in Germany. Some of the girls are more French, and others are more German (given the location and complexity of Alsace/Lorraine). The two main characters become friends despite being very different. Lizette is a pretty, but a country bumpkin type liking what Germany is doing (though you later start to see her character wise up), whereas Alice has gumption and is smarter and hates what Germany has become. In this part of the movie the girls are in their training that's like a combination of boot camp and a finishing school.
Part 2- The girls are assigned jobs in Germany working at a factory putting together explosives for the war. They have some interaction with Nazi officers here including one who who is in the SS and treats the girls harshly for not being fast enough, and then one guy who is quiet and takes a liking to Alice despite having to keep up appearances. Alice and Lisette are later transferred to a creepy Lebensborn facility by the SS guy and another creepy SS guy due to being blamed for an explosion which appeared to actually be accidental.
Part 3- At the Lebensborn facility (cross between a hospital, elementary school, and brothel) Lisette is being groomed to eventually be a breeder while being a nurse's assistant while Alice just cleans escaping the same fate due to looking too Eastern European and for having short legs (I kid you not). Lisette's character does a 180 here. She realizes that the Germans have kidnapped Polish kids who look "Aryan", trying to get them adopted by "suitable" German families, sees that the women pregnant having babies there, are stupid happy to give up babies for stuff having no minds of their own, gets creeped out knowing that clothing and jewelry that was brought to all of them were stolen by Jewish women (as the pregnant idiots there are happy stealing to women presumed to have been murdered), and eventually gets pimped out by the woman who runs the facility to one of the earlier seen SS officers who sexually assaults her. She gets pregnant (the Nazis planned all of this around their periods to make sure they are likely to get pregnant) and has a breakdown at the facility. She and Alice were planning to escape before her assault, but now plan it full force.
They later escape to a German home where they allow them to use their phone (apparently the German guy here wanted no involvement with the Nazis, but didn't want the girls to stay there). Alice calls up the officer (Steiner) who took a liking to her and he picks them up bringing them to a convent where his aunt is a nun. Lisette has the baby by shortly after commits suicide with all the events being too much for her. Alice decides to take care of her baby and given that she has a bad reputation, Steiner asks her to marry him so that they would be able to take care of the baby.
It ends with now older Alice telling her adopted daughter or granddaughter (I honestly couldn't figure out if that was Lisette's biological daughter, or her biological granddaughter) that she returns to Alsace with Steiner (who wasn't in the SS) and how she was shamed due to being a collaborator (they didn't go into this but they should have).
Some flaws-
1. I couldn't figure out things with the older Alice and the woman recording her. Alice was 17/18 in the movie which I believe takes place in 1942 figuring Alice is born in 1924. Assuming the "current" year was 1995 that would make Alice 71 (older Alice looked older than 71 but French women don't age well so who knows). I had to do the math here because I don't recall the movie saying what year it was in the current scenes. The woman recording her I believe would have been the granddaughter. If Lisette had the baby in 1943, the baby would be 52 in the current scene making me realize she was probably the granddaughter given that she was pregnant and looked maybe mid 30s. Her mother (Lisette's biological daughter) would have had her at around 17-22. There was no explanation with what happened to Lisette's biological daughter who Alice raised (possible I missed that or it didn't get translated). Elderly Steiner makes a scene at the end and is still married to Alice.
2. Movie should have been divided into 2-3 episodes like I've mentioned with the 3rd covering the 3rd part however going more into what life was like once Steiner and Alice moved back to Alsace/after the war.
3. I feel like they made Steiner too much of a nice guy considering all the metals he had pinned to his jacket. He insisted he was not in the SS, and appeared to have been in the German air force. It is not explained exactly what happened to him (other than his wife and daughter getting killed in the night raid) and why he ended up in a higher up position at the factory. A lot was missing here.
4. This part really annoyed me. When Lisette and Alice were at the German home calling Steiner. Alice just had Steiner's phone number? What did she do when she called the factory (I'm assuming she called there)? Say she's his sister calling to speak to him? This whole scene did not seem to fit the context of the time.
5. I honestly don't think the modern scenes were necessary. Given that they covered a lot of things in a short 90 minute or so movie, they should have removed that adding in other scenes since the story was interesting.
TLDR version of the above: Good movie (that could have easily have been better) about 2 teenage girls brought to become a part of Nazi Germany.
Adira (2014)
Project Greenlight?? Really?! Awful movie
To start, if this really was nominated as one of the best movies for PG, their expectations have really gone downhill!
As a Jew I'm drawn to Holocaust movies given my family's history. I watched this very late at night since I was trying to go sleep and wanted a short movie so chose this since it was included in my Prime membership.
I'll start with the few positives. The lead actors (really just Adira and Eric) are okay imo especially given that there is little dialogue in the movie. Likewise her parents are okay since they hardly speak as well. I didn't really mind that her clothing, body, and hair looked clean given that I mean she did have water to clean herself so I'll let that one go. The cinematography was nice of what looks like the midwest and not Germany or even Europe. I also liked the simple scenes of her showing what she would do each day. That's all I got.
On to the bad...
You can tell this was a student film created by students who really knew very little about Jews or even the holocaust...
1- She wears a huge star of David necklace throughout the movie. No Jew is going to wear that in Europe during this time while trying to survive.
2-For the life of me I couldn't figure out how old she was supposed to be. Was she supposed to be like a 10 year old? They have a scene where the Gestapo finds a little doll. I couldn't tell if that was implied to be hers, or a kid that her parents rescued before. The actress looked like she was in her 20s-early 30s. They show her getting her period 3 years later while living on her own. I'd guess the average age of starting your period is 13 and that she was 10 at the beginning?
3- Gestapo...Doesn't even bother to search her house when he knows there is most likely a kid in their judging by finding a doll. The Gestapo were ruthless checking every nook and cranny. It was like he was saying "Meh, there's a movie I want to catch so I won't bother".
4- The two German soldiers...I agree with views I saw on here and on Amazon that it was like watching Monty Python . It's like you know you shouldn't laugh given who they are and what they did, but it's so bad, that you do laugh.
5- Adira ends up spearing animals with a wooden spear she creates bringing out her inner gave woman. Okay...What's even more ridiculous is that when one of the soldiers tries to attack her (he has a loaded gun), she tries to defend herself with same wooden spear. Yeah...that will do it.
6- Eric (paratrooper) says he saw up close people lining up and getting killed in the gas chambers. An English paratrooper would not have actually been at the camp viewing this up close. Ridiculous thing to say and gives Holocaust deniers more reason to think this was a part of a made up conspiracy.
7- Eric leaves a gun with 2 bullets after Adira runs off after he tells her that her family is probably dead. I didn't know if he left that for her to defend herself, for her to end her life, or if he just accidently left it there out in the open perfectly laid out.
8-Her parents were English Jews (father converted) who moved to Germany to help out her mother's family and other Jews. While this did happen, they wouldn't have brought their children with them out of the UK. WTF?
9-She finds a working radio in an abandoned house that still works. I don't think portable radios even were invented at this time.
10. The fact that she runs from the truck barely out of Berlin to the abandoned farmhouse. This couldn't have been in the middle of nowhere but they implied that it was. It took years for Nazis and soldiers to even find the place? No.
Combine that with this trying to be an arthouse style film with her internal dialogue as she lays down in green fields along with an ending similar to The Notebook...
Unsere Mütter, unsere Väter (2013)
I enjoyed it for the character development LONG
First I don't know if I would have found this movie/miniseries controversial until I read about it on Wikipedia as well as the negative reviews on here. After reading them, I see the point with some things people said but sometimes I don't. I have not seen any movies really go into the direction of what the war was like for Germans which is why I wanted to watch this.
Addressing some of these controversies:
Polish Home Army being antisemitic- Most resistance groups as well as partisan groups were big time racists, and this is actually the only movie I have seen that addresses that. These were people defending their countries and not simply to help Jews! Poland has swept a lot of their history on this under the rug, as well as France and Holland.
Not showing concentration camps or death camps-I didn't view this as a holocaust movie so don't look at it as one. To me it was about the lives of 5 mutual friends during WWII. True they could have showed Viktor as being in a camp, and honestly I did expect him to be killed because the odds of him surviving was not in his favor.
Germans being portrayed as "not as bad" as we think- For the most part they were portrayed as cruel and evil as you think. Many in the movie within the German army were shown as being antisemitic. The only difference is that the 2 main characters in it really weren't. I do agree however they did not show how the Wehrmacht worked alongside the Eizengruppen participating in the mass extinction of Jews and other victims of WWII. So many people have this idea that German soldiers were simply soldiers rather than full participates in one of the greatest crimes against humanity. This is similar to what I said earlier about the Polish Home Army. Many were bad however some weren't (it had to do with their leadership).
Americans being "bad" (not using the most articulate words here). This is just based off one of the last scenes where they show how Greta's boyfriend ended up employed by the Americans. The Americans largely did assist Nazis and war criminals with helping them find employment and going on living long and happy lives. West Germany did the same thing as did Argentina, Brazil, Spain, etc. thanks to the Cold War. As I have gotten older, I've read more into Operation Paperclip and how few war criminals were ever brought to justice. it really shames me how America is viewed as wanting justice when in the end, they wanted justice unless you could offer them something they need. The Russians had the right idea when it came to justice, but that's just me.
Russians being "bad"-I feel like every war movie shows them this way whether it's a German movie or an American one. There was though truth with it. Wartime rape was a real thing however again, Russia wasn't the only country doing it, but they are always the ones (aside from the Japanese) that they show doing it. People seem to forget that they liberated a lot of the concentration and death camps which is a pretty big deal.
Overall I enjoyed the miniseries however there were weaknesses in it:
Greta-Don't you feel like in most of these movies that they always have an aspiring actress or singer lol? No real complaints about her storyline other than how did she get her lover's phone number.
Alina-I feel like I missed something here. Why did the Germans put her on the train to Auschwitz? Did she murder the farmer she was talking about? Did she deliberately cut her hair that way to look male in order to survive?
German army hospital- Who was the one stealing the morphine and for what purpose? Brings me to the Ukrainian Jewish doctor who that wench Charlotte betrayed. They showed the Germans arresting her. They would have just outright murdered here (this is where I agree with the controversy). Instead at the end, she is alive and well and appears to he a Lieutenant in the Russian Army leading mainly men.
Wilhem- Antihero, and again the controversy was correct here...To me where I took issue was that he survived after everything. Thought he would have died in battle tbh.
Viktor being setup- I really wished they showed more of this. I figured Greta's lover (I think Dom was his name? Too lazy to open up another window sorry) would do this but the whole thing wasn't that clear. They also seemed to go straight from having the Gestapo arrest him, show him in a interrogation room, and then him next being straight on a straight to Auschwitz. They skip the in between part.
Coincidences-Initially the movie didn't look like it was heading in that direction (World on Fire did this making it unrealistic and more like a soap opera) , but they did go there when they had all the friends somehow interact with each other by being in the same place, at the same time. Would have been a lot more realistic had they not gone there.
Wilhelm and Fredric being in the same platoon- Would any large army regardless of country of origin, have had brothers fight in the same platoon?
To me the biggest strength of the movie was the overall character development especially with Wilhelm and Fredric. I never would have guessed that Wilhelm would have ended up being an army deserter (thought he would have gone full on Nazi TBH), with Fredric becoming the braver of the 2.Fredric's character to me was the most interesting and unexpected. They showed how he started off as a quiet, sensitive young guy who didn't want to be there, but he ended up getting so numb from what he saw and experienced that he totally became desensitized to war altogether. I figured Wilhelm would have been the one who gets killed if not both of them. I also liked how they didn't get all more cliched with Greta's character beyond her being a singer who becomes famous! I thought she full on would have become a part of the resistance but the writing didn't head that direction. They showed her going as the girlfriend who wanted to protect her Jewish boyfriend, but who also was an opportunist not caring about sleeping with the enemy as long as it furthered her career (granted she did seem to end up falling in love with him). I liked how she started to see the physical toll effects on war that it has on people because that's when she did start to turn an angle. Didn't expect her to get executed.
Was it a perfect movie without flaws? No, however I didn't expect a lot of things to go the direction in which they went which I enjoyed, and again good character development.
Secreto bien guardado (2019)
This would totally be on Argentinian Lifetime LOL
Was this one of the best things that I have ever seen? No, but I enjoyed it. I'll admit it made no sense. In the matter of what seemed to be a week, Emmy Rossum's double and a Nazi, had a vacation fling having been intimate once with of course ended up in her getting pregnant. When he finds out she is Jewish , he gets angry with her and she storms off. He ends up having a dream about her shortly later and has a change of heart lol.
In the meantime her other suitor is a cute, nice, Jewish guy well liked by her family, but she rejects his proposal. Blah blah blah, jealous maid keeps a letter he wanted to go to his girlfriend which had his address but she burns it. Why didn't he just give the girl his address and phone number? They could have made it more believable doing that while still having a show LOL.
Anywhoo her father gets angry at her for being pregnant saying that she has to marry his old rich, business partner who would act like he's the baby's father since she brought shame on her family. I know it was 1940, but couldn't she have just left, pawning off jewelry, and waited tables lol? Her family could have just made something up. Better yet no mention of terminating the pregnancy was even mentioned.
Anyway the old man she married basically forces her to sleep with him all the time (I don't know if you could say the r word on here). she attempts to kill him with mushrooms, but has a change of heart. It gets better. That night there is an attempted burglary. He gets shot and dies. she ends up a wealthy widow, and tries to then do the "I'm an independent woman and don't need a man" thing, which doesnt last long.
Around this time, the German ends up back in Argentina doing hard labor after he has deserted the army. He had $$ and could have spent the time looking for her so why bother working when he could find her? He finds her and she gets angry at him even after knowing that he did give her his address (well tried to).
Oh yeah remember the cute Jewish guy? He ends up still being into her, and she agrees to go on a date with him only ending up telling him he's never going to happen (poor guy!). Blah blah blah, the German and her have sex again and they show a clip of them, their son, and her being knocked up again living in some little cottage.
I gave you a summary with stupid storylines. They could have shown them together more in the beginning when they met at the hotel over the summer. The only scenes of them had no depth. They were just kissing, swimming, briefly talking on a bench, etc. They never had any meaningful conversations. I'll admit they had physical chemistry together, but that was it. The hotel scenes focused on her and not really on him. They should have showed his interactions with the nazis more to show how evil he was but they didnt trying to redeem him I guess. It would have been interesting to me if she ended up ditching him realizing how awful he was deciding to start a future with the Jewish guy, but I know they based this on a book and went with that.
Do you remember Danielle Steele movies from the 90s? This was like that except in those movies I feel like they show more of how the woman ended up being independent. The girl ends up having her wealthy ex's company and they never show her working or being independent aside from driving a car.
so many missed opportunities.
Christmas by the Book (2018)
Forget how thin she is...
What I got distracted with were all her growths and her stupid name LOL. The hair didn't help.All the acting was bad, but it's a Hallmark movie so I've learned to accept it. The best of the worst was by the actor playing Ted, and the worst imo was Valerie! The plot again like most Hallmark movies was the same one dimensional plot.
Vienna Blood (2019)
Excellent binge watch!
I paid to watch this on Amazon $1 lol. I had watched the awful show Freud first. The first 2 episodes were really similar to theirs. I haven't read the books so I'm not sure if Freud was based off the same books.
Anyway this show was really well done without the bizarre, supernatural things that Freud had which to me made the show more fantasy/sci fi than anything else.In VB, it was more mystery style with subtle humor.
Only reason I didn't give it a perfect 10 star review is because I found a couple minor storylines confusing and thought they could have been explored more (Max's father's relationship with the rich racist....how did they even become friends? And the antisemitic soldier who continued to pursue Max's fiance despite knowing she's a Jew....just a couple).
Looking forward to the next season.
Freud (2020)
They went more the fantasy/horror route...
A few years ago Discovery put out the miniseries Genius about Einstein which was very good. I thought this was the going to be going in a similar direction, but was mistaken. I realized right away that this wasn't a work of nonfiction lol as this started to feel more like Grim, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Scooby Doo, and Sherlock Holmes with Freud as Holmes.
I finished 5 episodes and it got really stupid to me when they made Fleur a victim of demonic possession.To me it just was a poor direction to go. It was interesting how they combined things like psychics, seances, and theater, with Freud but when it went more the horror direction the series began to lag.
I agree mainly with the reviews under 8 especially when someone mentioned how they made Arthur Schnitzler a big deal in the beginning, but then no mention (he's an interesting figure).
I did enjoy the acting, the costumes, the overall cinematography and most of the campiness. Interesting how there was a ton of full male nudity in this with few women.
Show could have been better imo.
The Beguiled (2017)
I guess I'm just not impressed with Sofia Coppola movies...
This movie started off okay, got better, then got bad. The ending scene was really stupid too with the cameras just facing the girls as they stand there waiting. I also wasn't clear on whose room John went to until reading about it online. Only reason this is 3 stars and not 1 is that I liked their costumes and the overall imagery.