Change Your Image
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Reviews
White Like Me (2013)
Inversion Therapy
If you read the book Black Like Me, or saw the movie of the same name dating from the 60s, you got a taste of a white man trying to examine and experience what it was like to be a black man in America. Here is an interesting inversion of examining internally what it is like to be a white person in America. The personal introspective side is well augmented with facts and data.
If we are white, we tend to accept our experiences as normal, and accept our interaction with the world to be the norm for all. This film cracks open the door a bit and lets us look at a 3D "selfie". Self awareness is the beginning of wisdom.
Old Man River (1999)
A Touching and Personal Social Justice Story
I was quite affected by the artfully acted and told story of a complex man who was strongly affected by one of the worst instances of abuse of human rights in the racist history of the United States. It is much more personal than "The Manzanar Fishing Club" and "The Searchlight Serenade" and almost as thought provoking as "Conscience and Constitution." The one woman stage performance is augmented by stills and video that unwind the complex story in a way that brings both awareness and tears, and adds notes, chords, and discords forever to the song Old Man River. The additional material maps the story into the enemy combatant discrimination and prejudice against those suspected of being Muslim following the 911 attack.
Children of Armageddon (2008)
A gripping human story of nuclear bomb testing and radiation effects.
I have seen a number of documentaries on nuclear weapon use and the resulting radiation effects. Much of this information has been has been hidden from public awareness by government classification of the information as secret or top secret. Many of us would more comfortably ignore such information. While many of the documentaries are excellent, such as "White Light, Black Rain," the "Children of Armageddon" is the best I have seen in helping to cross national boundaries and showing the stories of the U.S., British, and French testing effects. Nationalistic arguments are much weakened by showing this as a global problem. The wonderful people of Japan and the Pacific islands are seen as the immediate victims, but the true victims are seen as the children that all humankind hopes to have in the future. Other world changes have affected our social structures, our longevity, our ways of life, but the movie shows how nuclear weapons and excess nuclear radiation affects the very genetic structure of our human existence.
Recommended viewing. Excellent for showing in a group and having a discussion.
Joyeux Noël (2005)
One of my favorites
The director and cast have created a work of art movie dedicated to those soldiers of World War I who overcame the hate propaganda and trauma and deaths of trench warfare to declare a spontaneous truce on Christmas eve to band together in no-man's land in friendship and mutual protection.
It portrays the power of music in overcoming barriers between people. It displays the very best and the very worst of religion in a time of war.
Almost all the details in this movie are true, and are woven into a work of art.
The DVD contains director's comments, and a version with director's commentary over the whole movie which are enlightening on the history of the events, and of the artistic and personal emotions of making the movie.
Ten years into US wars, it is a poignant movie for Christmas, and a call for a common humanity.