A Private War [2018]

MPAA (R)  RogerEbert.com (3 1/2 Stars)  Fr. Dennis (4 Stars)

IMDb listing
Los Angeles Times (K. Turan) review
RogerEbert.com (N. Minow) review


A Private War [2018] (directed by Matthew Heineman, screenplay Arash Amel by based on the Vanity Fair article by Marie Brenner [VF] [IMDb]) tells the story of Marie Colvin [wikip] (played by Rosamund Pike) an (American) journalist who covered some of the most brutal dangerous conflicts / civil wars of our time from the Civil War in Tamil Tiger Civil War in Lanka (where she lost one of her eyes) to the Arab Spring inspired Revolution in Libya that deposed Gaddafi to the subsequent Syrian Civil War where she (not really a spoiler alert) she died during Seige of Homs.

This is a harrowing tale of a driven journalist who repeatedly risked her life to tell the stories of innocent people in war zones who otherwise we'd never know about.  Why did she do it?  That's one of the questions that the movie asks viewers to consider.  Yet, whatever her motive, and it was almost certainly mostly pure, we owe her and other journalists like her an enormous debt.  Justice depends on being able to understand what's going on.  She and other journalists like her help us to understand precisely that -- what's going on.   A deep deep thank you for journalists like her.


< NOTE - Do you like what you've been reading here?  If you do then consider giving a small donation to this Blog (sugg. $6 _non-recurring_) _every so often_ to continue/further its operation.  To donate just CLICK HERE.  Thank you! :-) >

At Eternity's Gate [2018]

MPAA (PG-13)  RogerEbert.com (3 Stars)  AVClub (C+)  Fr. Dennis (4 Stars)

IMDb listing
Los Angeles Times (K. Turan) review
RogerEbert.com (B. Tallerico) review
AVClub (M. D'Angelo) review


At Eternity's Gate [2018] (directed and cowritten by Julian Schnabel along with Jean-Claude Carrière and Louise Kugelberg) tells the story, again, of tormented impressionist artist Vincent Van Gogh [wikip] [IMDb] (played in the current film quite admirably by Willem Dafoe).

Why would an artist who _never_ sold even one of his paintings during his life time, who clearly was tormented (he _cut off his ear_ for God's sake in apparently a terribly misguided expression of ... unrequited love) and who arguably committed suicide (though he could have even flubbed that up ... being killed instead by simply random petty thieves) BE SO FASCINATING TO SO MANY PEOPLE (US) TODAY?  Exactly ;-)

It would seem that Vincent Van Gogh was an archeotypical supremely talented but tormented, misunderstood ... LOSER ;-). 

It would seem that his legacy embodies fundamental fears that many of us have of "never being able to make our mark" (though somehow we'd feel entitled to make said mark ;-).  And yes, like Franz Kafka (another tormented soul, never really appreciated in his lifetime) he's been vindicated -- IN SPADES (!) -- since his death, more than a century ago (!).  TODAY we look at his pictures, so many of them SO FAMOUS _now_ and wonder "how it it possible that people didn't see his genius while he was alive?"

SO ... quiet loser in his life time (and again Willem Dafoe plays him really, really well) ... he embodies a hope that "one day" those who don't understand us ... will.

Honestly, GREAT introspective / tormented, and dare one say _impressionistic_ film ;-).


< NOTE - Do you like what you've been reading here?  If you do then consider giving a small donation to this Blog (sugg. $6 _non-recurring_) _every so often_ to continue/further its operation.  To donate just CLICK HERE.  Thank you! :-) >