Land of Bad
Land of Bad may look and sound like your average combat action flick, but it’s actually much more thrilling and intricate than that surface assumption.
War
Golda
Golda kicks off a season of “Oscar bait”, movies that try very hard to make an impression towards the members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. As much as Guy Nattiv’s film may have been conceived from a good place, with the movie’s heavy use of make-up and prosthetics to transform Oscar-winner Helen Mirren into Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir, it’s hard for viewers to dismiss this possible pandering.
Escape Through Africa
Ted Betz’s directorial debut, Escape Through Africa, is an ambitious action romp – but a limited budget and unpolished script make for a tedious viewing experience.
Cherry
Cherry is, at least, three different movies – a romantic drama, a war movie, and a crime thriller. Despite how off-kilter it is as a genre-bender, it may have worked had the filmmakers been interested in the story or characters. Instead, Cherry is an indulgent vehicle for its filmmakers to flaunt their bold experimental choices and test their boundless clout.
Battle Scars
I don’t think it’s always required for a filmmaker to have an opinion about war if their movie is about war. Sometimes, the movie simply exists to entertain or educate about a significant historical event. But, if a filmmaker was to tell a story about the effects of war (primarily the long-term psychological impact), I feel like the filmmaker should use the platform to send a message about the value of combat.
Wylie Writes’ Two-On-One with Samuel Gonzalez Jr. and Arturo Castro
Directed and co-written by veteran Samuel Gonzalez Jr., Battle Scars confronts the long-term effects of war through acts of of desperation by a disoriented young soldier learning how to piece his life back together. During the film’s festival run, it picked up awards at the San Diego International Film Festival (Best Military Film), the Orland Film Festival (Best Screenplay), and the Cinema on the Bayou Film Festival (Best Feature).
The Outpost
By: Jolie Featherstone Based on a true story, as told in the best-selling non-fiction book The Outpost: An Untold Story of American Valor, Rod Lurie’s The Outpost is a striking tribute to the U.S. soldiers of Troop 3-61 Cavalry, who went on to become the most decorated unit in the war in Afghanistan.
A Hidden Life
Terrence Malick is a fascinating oddity of cinema. After making two highly acclaimed features in the 1970s, he disappeared for two decades before returning sporadically until the 2010s, when he suddenly completed six features at a rapid-fire pace. This sudden burst of productivity did have a negative effect however. When a new Malick film was reviewed every handful of years, his visionary filmmaking style was exciting. However, getting a new one every year makes the…
Midway
By: Jessica Goddard Full disclosure: I am bad at watching war movies. I watch war movies out of some (likely misdirected) sense of duty – if actual human beings lived these horrors, I should be able to stomach cinematic recreations of them, is my thinking. But, I find it very hard to watch people die (which I’ve chosen to attribute to a smug overabundance of empathy) even if it’s only a performance. For this reason,…
