Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989)

Woody Allen's treatise on how the wicked go unpunished while the good live difficult lives - also a question as to the existence of God. The film is a masterpiece mainly due to its ability to pose (and attempt to answer) very difficult existential questions while at the same time making you laugh until your abdomen hurts.

A powerful and wealthy doctor tries to cover up his affair through murder while at the same time a geeky documentary film maker tries to flirt with other women hoping for an affair. The two of them suffer different consequences.

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Bobby Fischer Against the World (2011)

Chess legend Bobby Fischer's rise to the game's crest is tragically undergirded by his own unaddressed mental illness. This documentary juxtaposes Fischer's fame with his perceived antagonism by his handlers, the chess establishment, and ultimately by his own country.

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Etz Limon (2008)

A government official moves to the edge of one of Israel's borders with Palestine. One the Palestinian side, a lemon grove grows right to the border of the back yard and this is seen as a security risk by the Israeli government as a sniper could easily hide in the grove and harm the official. So the grove is ordered to be cut back with significant impact to the grove's owner, a Palestinian widow.

This David and Goliath battle happens in the press and in court.

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Hannah and Her Sisters (1986)

Woody Allen's masterpiece! Here we get a sense of the struggle of man without any moral direction juxtaposed with a man searching for eternal answers (albeit comedically, and perhaps facetiously). A man is attracted to his wife's sister. Another sister laments her loneliness and inability to find success at the level of her sisters (in life and love). And finally, Hannah, who lives a virtuous life is being attacked on all fronts because of her virtue - poor thing!

Woody Allen plays Hannah's ex-husband who thinks he's dying and seeks an answer to life's great mystery: Is there life after death and if so, how should I live to best situate myself?

Quite an enjoyable film.

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The Trotsky (2009)

An upperclass Jewish Montreal high school student believes he is the reincarnation of Leon Trotsky, a Russian revolutionary, and that his life's calling is to bring revolution to Canada. He leaves private school to attend public school for his final semester where he immediately begins to challenge the established authority garnering attention from the press and the woman he believes must be his future wife.

The film is fun and the actors perform well, and while I did enjoy it, it bears a clear taste of Canadian cinema which Canadian films can't seem to escape - a neediness to be different.

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A Serious Man (2009)

The Coen brothers present another masterpiece - this time on the subject of God and mystery.

Professor Larry Gopnik is living the American dream in the midwest when things start to crumble. His wife wants a divorce. A student is threatening him with a defamation lawsuit. His brother is getting into trouble. His kids are always fighting and demanding either money or immediate results. His doctor wants to talk about the results of some tests. And his neighbour is pushing the property line into Larry's land. Through all of this, Larry wants to do the right thing and be a good person with the help of several rabbis.

The entire premise is based on how so much of what happens to us can not be explained, but our response to these situations is truly how the remarkable and miraculous can express itself.

I love this film! The bar mitzvah scene is one of the most poetic and beautiful and hilarious scenes I have ever seen.

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Invincible (2001)

Werner Herzog tells true stories very well. He doesn't let his protagonist become overdramatic thus allowing for the story to be central and the character becomes greater by being less than the issue at hand.

Zishe, a young and simple Jewish blacksmith in rural Poland, becomes famous for his unbelievable strength. He is recruited to come to Berlin where he can be featured as a strong man at a posh night club where singers, dancers and magicians perform. His boss is an occultist who is on the inside with an up and coming National Socialist German Workers' Party. Zishe has to choose whether he will stand against the rising anti-semitism or embrace the fame he quickly achieves.

Sometimes, Herzog, who also wrote the screenplay, seems to be forcing his own interpretation of the story onto the screen than should be allowed, but it works nonetheless. Invincible is a poignant and very unique film, its simplicity being its strongest asset.

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Inglorious Basterds (2009)

This is the biggest surprise I've had in a long while. Because of the marketing surrounding Quentin Tarantino, I thought the film was going to be an ultraviolent blood bath. It wasn't! Instead, I found brilliant dialogue, intense cinematography and some very funny characters.

In occupied France, a Nazi becomes so notorious for his ability to sniff out hiding Jews that he is nicknamed the "Jew Hunter." In reply, an American platoon composed entirely of Jews terrorizes the German army by ambushing small groups of soldiers and brutally killing them. But this is really just the back story. A Jewish girl hiding out in Paris running a cinema plots her own vengeful massacre of the German high command.

As I mentioned the dialogue makes this film a winner. I loved that Tarantino didn't use the English language as a crutch - half the film is spoken in French and German. The final scene is the most brilliant and the most disturbing - well almost.

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Little Odessa (1994)

Little Odessa is a dark film centering on the consequences of one's actions and the inevitable entanglements that come with relationships.

Returning to a Jewish-Russian enclave on Coney Island, hitman Joshua tries to avoid reconnecting with his estranged family as he plans for another job. His little brother, his mother, his ex-girlfriend can't stay away and he ends up deep in family drama and deep in conflict with a local gang.

The film pays off with its gifted acting and explosive ending, though it does drag on for the first hour.

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Bikur Ha-Tizmoret (2007)

The Band's Visit is a beautiful contrast of Arab and Jewish culture, urban and rural life.

Tewfiq is the leader of the Alexandria Police Orchestra a 10 piece band on a trip to Israel from Egypt. Some miscommunication about place names guides the band to a remote Israeli town where they must spend the night before catching the next bus. A diner owner named Dina offers them hospitality and the cultures relax together.

When the culture is set aside, we see the humanity bleed through the uniforms and the prejudices and the common struggles and desires are exposed. When we finally hear the band play at the end however, we can see that culture is beautiful too.

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Year One (2009)

Harold Ramis (a Ghostbuster and former SCTV member) directs this ridiculous comedy which blends biblical early history with cavemen.

Jack Black and Michael Cera are banished from their cave men tribe and journey to the end of the world (a nearby cliff) only to discover characters from Genesis (Cain & Abel, Adam & Eve, Abraham and Isaac, the city of Sodom, etc.). Every opportunity to weave in some sort of sexual deviancy (which isn't necessarily out of place in the Genesis story) is taken in this farce.

There are some wonderfully funny moments in the film, but it is still a "dumb comedy" and the few times when they try to make a great point, it has little meaning against its dopey backdrop.

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RKO 281 (1999)

Liev Schreiber plays a great Orson Welles in this true story about the making of Citizen Kane.

When William Randolph Hearst ran the newspapers in the United States, there were few people that would dare question, let alone insult him. Orson Welles, with his writer friend Herman J. Mankiewicz, decide to make a film loosely depicting Hearst's life, but they have to do so secretly in order to avoid persecution from Hearst's empire. RKO 281 is the code name for what becomes Citizen Kane.

The film tells the story well and not without a little bittersweetness at the end.

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Crossing Over (2009)

In the tradition of Traffic, Babel, and Crash, Crossing Over takes on the issue of illegal immigrants from the perspective of several characters. This one doesn't quite measure up though.

So and so doesn't have a work visa, so should she sleep with an immigration officer? Another appears to be a Muslim extremist, so will she get deported? A woman is sent back to Mexico, but leaves her son behind in L.A. Another little one is discovered to have been a victim of child trafficking, what will happen to her? A Korean family is going to be sworn in as citizens, as long is junior does join a gang. And on and on and on. . . Of course they are all intertwined and we get some happy endings and some tragic.

It's not that the acting is horrible or the plot lines implausible, the story simply caters to a subject rather than real lives (reminds me of how unmoved I was by Rendition).

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Die Fälscher (2007)

The Counterfeiters is another holocaust film. It won an Academy Award for Best Foreign Film and thoroughly deserved it. 

A master counterfeiter is imprisoned in Nazi Germany and put into a concentration camp during the war. Along with other Jewish prisoners who have expertise in printing and bank notes, he is conscripted by the German army to produce foreign currency to fund the war and as a weapon against other countries by generating inflation. The dynamics within this small team of counterfeiters is the focus of the film as they work for their tormentors for an end they despise while at the same time doing so in order to survive.

The lead actor, Karl Markovics, deserves a nod for his stoic performance as one who can not lose as everyone around his loses.

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Brüno (2009)

Sacha Baron Cohen brings a second satirical character to the big screen with Brüno, an Austrian homosexual model with aspirations of being überfamous.

There isn't much point in writing a plot as the movie didn't have much of one nor did it need one. Similar to its first cousin Borat, the film is done in a documentary style with Brüno inciting his interviewees with outrageous comments, flagrant sexual depictions and come ons, and exposing America for what it truly is: homophobic, capitalistic, fame crazed, and cannibalistic. Cohen goes further by drawing the viewers into the film and shocking them into repulsion.

I have no intention of ruining the film by sharing the funniest/most disgusting parts, so I'll stop my analysis there, though I didn't find the film as compelling as Borat.

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Every Time We Say Goodbye (1986)

This is a unique tale of forbidden love set in Palestine during World War II. 

An American airman serves in the British forces as the Americans had not yet joined the war. He is stationed in North Africa and goes to British controlled Palestine during his leave. He meets and falls in love with a Jewish woman whose family is dead set against the relationship - for several reasons.

The film isn't really shy about even admitting that this relationship isn't really meant to be: he's lonely and homesick, she's fascinated with this foreign character. There is even a side story of their friends who marry and split during the tale. But it seems to be a realistic depiction of war time love as that was the norm as service men left many pregnant women or well-intentioned engagements unfulfilled. 

Nothing beats a good love story though.

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The Merchant of Venice (2004)

This is a wonderful film production of Shakespeare's meditation on mercy. It helps that the play is a masterpiece to begin with.

As anti-semitism is widely practiced in 16th century Venice, a Jewish money lender called Shylock sees no problem in making a deal with a gentile business man, Antonio, that the cost of default on the loan would be a pound of his own flesh. Of course there is romance in Shakespeare's play and this is played out with Shylock's daughter eloping with a Christian which only firms Shylock's hatred of the Christians and then there is Antonio's protogé Bassanio who borrows the money in order to seek the hand of the princess Portia.

The romantic side stories and Portia's antics actually diminish the greater drama played out between Shylock and Antonio, though Portia's own role at showing mercy to her husband echos that of the courtroom.

The acting and set design are exquisite, but nothing beat the fact that I wanted justice as much as Shylock did and I actually rooted against mercy in all cases causing much reflection following the film - Why do I prefer justice over mercy when I have been shown so much mercy?

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11'09''01 - September 11 (2002)

This is a collection of eleven films of 11 minutes 9 seconds 1 frame each all on the subject of the terrorist attacks of 11.9.01 in NYC. Each film is from a different country and by a different director.

This film really deserves 11 reviews, but I'll highlight all the shorts here:

The British one is my favorite - a documentary of a Chilean immigrant who also remembers another September 11, one where the United States was the aggressor in Chile. Burkina Faso and Iran emphasize the innocence of children and the amazing waste of money used in warfare when there are so many other needs. Mexico forces us to use our sense of hearing and gives us sounds from the actual attack - truly horrifying against a black backdrop with infrequent frames of people falling from the towers. India retells a heartrending story of Pakistani immigrants in NYC. Israel contrasts the attacks with its daily struggle against terrorism, while Bosnia Herzegovina also contrasts the memorial of the recent deaths with the 9/11 attacks. France and United States show that good can come out of such tragedy. Japan tells an odd moral tale about holy wars. Egypt gives supernatural perspective on terrorism.

Having all of these perspectives are truly a treasure.

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The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1965)

This is a stark black and white film with an even bleaker ending. John Le Carré wrote the book the film is based on. 

Leamas, a British spy, gets his last field assignment to go after an East German counter-intelligence spy. The film routinely stays one step ahead of the viewer, but after watching many films which were no doubt influenced by this one, we can make some decent predictions.

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De Tweeling (2002)

A tragic film of twin German sisters who are separated in childhood when their parents die. It proves a study in humanity and the brotherhood and sisterhood that exists among all people, but the sad reality that we allow things like nationalism to separate us.

The girls grow up on opposing sides in World War II, one in poverty in Germany, the other in an affluent Dutch home. They are reunited on three occasions in adulthood, but bitterness keeps them separated. We get an intimate view of both sides of the war. An S.S. officer who only joins because he can be decommissioned earlier and a jew sent off to Auschwitz form the romantic sides of the sisters. These traits alone prove to be divisive despite expressed support of the sisters reuniting and seeking understanding.

Twin Sisters is told very well, blending memory with three pairs of terrific actresses to represent the sisters during different epochs.

Truth: If we lay down our own pride and seek to understand who our enemies are, we may find that they are our brothers and sisters.

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