Brad Pitt seems to be finding a bit of a new niche as a WW-II guy.  Here as a Canadian pilot-turned British spy-pretending at start to be French.  Cotillard is pretty good throughout, but I kind of would like to see the story told entirely from her perspective.  As it is she really only gets to do some heavy acting right at the end.  I also would ( Read more... )

Despite the always excellent Helen Mirren and the generally good Ryan Reynolds, the non-WW2 portions of the movie feel a bit..emotionally flat.  They definitely try and imbue the quest for reparations for stolen artwork with the Austrian government with a heavy meaning.  But I didn't fully buy into the value and strain of the long legal battle ( Read more... )

Benedict Cumberbatch makes a really good Alan Turing.  The movie mostly covers Turing and the others of the Betchly groups breaking of Germany's ENIGMA device.  Framed as a flashback during Turing's post-war arrest for indency, aka getting caught being gay...

A pretty good Canadian WW2 movie, even for people who aren't a sucker for anything with Paul Gross. Though its got all the subtlety of a big heavy thing that isn't at all subtle...

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This Tarantino movie felt somewhat like it was written by Garth Ennis. Just without all the dick jokes. And thats not a knock on the movie, which is possibly Tarantino's best work. The trailers and ads are a bit deceptive, in that it doesn't truly focus on the Basterds. They're almost the B-story at times. And while it has plenty of moments of ( Read more... )

This week's delayed (stupid packing) game is Godlike. A WW2-era supers game. From '36 onward "Talents" begin appearing around the world. Generally just as their country gets involved. The first U.S. Talent The Indestructible Man, for example, shows up Oct 31, 1941. And many of these Talents are hard-core. One of the Axis ones can rob your ( Read more... )

A 1969 French movie about the Resistance in World War II, only released in the U.S. in the last few years. The movie is slow-paced but gorgeously shot. And it takes an honest, if grim, view of the many hard-choices required by the leadership. The lead character is a former civil engineer who becomes one of the chief leaders of the Resistance ( Read more... )

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Lilly is a housewife out at the opera with her lover. Felice spots her while there with her girlfriend, Lilly's nanny. The two are drawn to each other and eventually begin a relationship and fall in love. Of course this is Berlin during the Allied counter-invasion of Europe, with Lilly's husband being a Nazi officer on the Russian front and ( Read more... )