Tag: history
Seven Classic Historical Epics You Haven’t Seen
Ever since I can remember, I have always been a fan of historical and costume dramas. They often featured battles, sagas that spanned decades, and brought history to life from the pages of books that I had read. At one time, they were the staple diet of my weekly cinema excursions, when almost every film…
Subtitled War Films: International Examinations of Conflict
Ever since I was young, I have enjoyed war films. Whether they were about medieval battles, colonial expansion, or one of the world wars, I found them exciting, inspiring, and enthralling. As I got a little older, I began to look past the glory and the heroism portrayed, and tried to find something deeper in…
American Sniper: Chris Kyle, Clint Eastwood, American Manhood
American Sniper, an account of the life and times of Chris Kyle (Bradley Cooper), the most lethal sniper in American history, bears the classic marks of a Clint Eastwood film. Eastwood’s career, intentionally or unintentionally, has always been deeply entangled with ideas of masculinity – ideas which cumulatively seem to suggest an overarching vision of…
Truth and Moviemaking: Why Jon Stewart’s ‘Rosewater’ Doesn’t Work
A compelling story doesn’t necessarily make for a compelling movie. Such is the case with Rosewater (2014), Jon Stewart’s tedious, heavy-handed film documenting the harrowing detainment and torture of a Newsweek journalist during the tumult surrounding the Iranian presidential elections in 2009. The picture, based on a true story detailed in a book by Maziar…
Reviewing ‘Foxcatcher’: Bennett Miller Does It The Old Fashioned Way
Bennett Miller’s Foxcatcher does not feel like a 2014 movie. The drama chronicling the bizarre relationship that developed between the enormously wealthy and enigmatic John du Pont and a pair of world champion wrestlers, Dave and Mark Schultz, feels much more like a throwback to the late ‘60s/early ‘70s, when films moved at a slower…