The Book Thief (2013)

World War II drama “The Book Thief” is not for me. It is intended for teen girls familiar with fantasy and romance, not familiar with the Holocaust. “Thief” -- based on a YA novel -– wants tragic and magic as it follows every crushing blow -– death, illness, bombing -– with an immediate balm, often so fantastically out of place, it made me laugh. In disbelief. It is narrated by “Death” (why?) in a voice not different than Gandalf or Dumbledore, assured words pouring bright magic over the terror of Hitler’s Germany. The titular character is Liesel (Sophie Nelisse), ferried to rural Germany to live with childless peasants (Emily Watson and Geoffrey Rush). On the way, Liesel’s brother dies. Cry not. Rush’s new poppa is Mr. Rogers kind. Liesel steals a “criminal” book from burning, and is seen by the wife of the head Nazi. Fear not. Kind frau lets the girl steal books from her own home. The town is bombed. Scores die. Fear not. Liesel is found, adapted, loved, and saved. In two minutes. I know “Thief” must speak gently to and not horrify its young audience, and I get that, but I still cringed. Sage narrator, gorgeous cinematography. Cringe. C-

Ida (2014)

Polish-made “Ida” is quiet, brief at 80 minutes, and shot in a square black and white format that predates widescreen thrills, with only two main characters, mostly in a car. But it’s powerful, and settles in slowly. Agata Trzebuchowska is Anna, a young woman living inside a nunnery, about to take the oath that will “marry” her to Christ. Before commitment, Anna visits her only living relative, an aunt (Agata Kulesza) who only just now has acknowledged the relation. Wanda, drunken, aloof, a Stalinist judge on her way down, tells Anna three truths: Her name is really Ida, her parents were murdered in World War II, and she is Jewish. The words rock Anna-now-Ida, who commits to finding the graves of her family to bless them. In the name of Christ. Shredding road-trip cliché, “Ida” is emotional and harsh, without judgment or cruelty. The ending is beautifully realized as Ida finds balance between the life she ought to have had, the life she was given, and the life she wants. Pawel Pawlikowski films his characters at the very bottom of the frame with a vast sky or ceiling looming above, as if the weight of the world is crushing everyone. A-

Lisa (1962)

“Lisa” is a movie I watched and wondered, I’d like to read the book; I bet it’s better and bolder. Not to trivialize this drama set in post-World War II 1947 about an Auschwitz survivor seeking entry into Palestine, that is, what we now call Israel. Dolores Hart is Lisa, and her passage is set by a Dutch inspector (Steven Boyd) who comes to love her, yes, but is more driven by his failed actions during the war to save his fiancée from the Nazis. This is all vital, especially Lisa’s grim suffering at the hands of Nazi doctors, but it’s also played way heavy-handed with dialogue smothered by Hollywood orchestra music that feels misplaced. And as great as Ms. Hart -– now a nun -– is, Boyd is played so square-jawed stiff, you just want to pop coins off the guy. A sea of horror lurks at every step, political, religious, sexual, but, every time it comes a boil, someone -– studio, director, test audience? –- slams the lid shut, cues up the music, and wants us to concentrate on pretty faces and scenery. There’s much missing. B

The Debt (2011)

A smart thriller of morals, ethics, and revenge among a trio of Mossad agents played out during the 1960s with Sam Worthington, Jessica Chastain and Marton Csokas, and then in the 1990s with Ciarán Hinds, Helen Mirren, and Tom Wilkinson. The 1960s mission: Capture an ex-Nazi hiding in East Berlin as a gynecologist, and bring him to trial. The 1990s mission: Ensure the tale of what really happened never sees light. When “Debt” focuses on the mission, Jewish anger, and guilt, it is damn exciting. See, Chastain’s agent must kidnap the decrepit Nazi during a pelvic exam, half naked and her feet in stirrups. It’s a riveting scene from director John Madden, who made “Shakespeare in Love.” Yet, the past and present tug-and-pull hardly holds, Worthington becomes Hinds, and Csokas becomes Wilkinson, and the paired men look so vastly different, I kept getting hopelessly lost. To worsen matters, Worthington’s Israeli accent vibes to distraction with the actor’s native Australia cadence. Add in a Hollywood OTT ending, and this remake of a 1990s Israeli film (which I have not seen) suffers. B

The Pawnbroker (1965)

Sidney Lumet’s “The Pawnbroker” – photographed in a stark black and white – is merciless, poignant, unsettling, and packs a devastating finale. It was the first American film to deal with the Holocaust from the perspective of a survivor. Rod Steiger – in arguably his greatest role – is that survivor, Sol Nazerman. Once a professor with a wife and children, Sol now runs an East Harlem pawnshop that plays front to a local mobster (Brock Peters). The shop offers dry cleaning, but only launders money. Sol loathes his customers, and everyone around him. They are “scum” and “creatures,” hate has bred more hate. As a devastating anniversary looms, the brick wall that Sol has built up and over his human shell cracks. Sol either will be reborn, or will get the death he longs for. Lumet inter-cuts long memories and quick violent images from Sol’s past: Subway cars become death trains, while a half-naked woman recalls his ravaged wife. The images are startling. “Pawnbroker” is dated in portions, some portrayals of African-Americans and Hispanics skate close to stereotype, but this is one hell of a film. Lumet’s genius is on display throughout. Steiger beautifully plays several ages and bursts with grief and God-hating rage. A

Defiance (2008)

Director Edward Zwick (“Glory”) has an amazing true story in “Defiance.” In 1939, two Belarusian brothers named Bielski (Daniel Craig and Liev Schreiber) lead a gun-and-blade rebellion against Nazi invaders, while shepherding hundreds of fleeing Jews deep into the dark forest to hide. At first only a handful of Jews come. Then hundreds arrive. For three years. The masses have much else to fear with disease, inner-rebellions, winter and matter-of-fact starvation hovering constantly, also promising death. Those are glorious origins, haunting and heroic, but Zwick still doesn’t trust this story enough. He plays Whack-a-Mole with war movie clichés, including an eye-roller scene where Mr. Bond rides a white horse (!) before his followers, bellowing aloud a maudlin “Braveheart” speech. My face turned blue. An “Exodus”-like retreat ends with our heroes using rifles to battle a full Nazi tank division, and thus history is truncated for “Red Dawn” stunts and action. C+

Inglourious Basterds (2009)

The last line of Quentin Tarantino’s “Inglourious Basterds” has a Southern hick-accented Brad Pitt -- with the utmost confidence and swagger -- exclaiming: “This may be my masterpiece.” He makes this brag staring directly at the audience. The screen goes black. It pauses. Then the now-legendary orange-font credit rolls; “Written and Directed by Quentin Tarantino.”

Wow. Only the man who made “Pulp Fiction” and “Reservoir Dogs” – two of the most defining movies of the 1990s – could have the nerve to end a film like that. And, yet, “Basterds” (the misspelling is on purpose) goes one further: **SPOILERS AHEAD** It literally re-creates history. In this World War II film, not only are there no gun battles or tanks or dogfights, but the entire Third Reich is slaughtered, blown up, and set on fire by the film’s end. By Jewish soldiers. Dig this fellow History Channel junkies: A young Jewish-American soldier (played by Eli Roth, director of several horror films) literally takes a machine gun to Hitler’s face, and blows that toothbrush mustache to bloody, chunky bits. In up-close gory detail. This is a fantasy film, by Yahweh. (Roth has said as much in interviews, saying countless Jewish boys have wished they could personally kill the Fuhrer.) When you enter Tarantino’s world, he is God. And the projectionist.

Oh, and David Bowie is on the soundtrack. Of a World War II film. Again, wow.

Despite all this, “Basterds isn’t quite Tarantino’s masterpiece. But damn close. It’s climax has a few creaky spots as we get a few dozen repeated shots of 300-plus Nazis laughing and cheering at a propaganda sniper film made by Joseph Goebbels. (He dies, too. The way he should have.) Move on, already. As well, there’s not much depth here. Tarantino progressed in the second “Kill Bill” film with some emotional baggage that ruled over the groovy soundtrack, visuals and blood. This is brownie-deep entertainment. (I love brownies. Eating one right now, in fact. I may have two.) Lastly, Mike “Austin Powers” Myers has a WTF cameo that is laughable, but not in a good way.

Still, “Basterds” is pure Tarantino adrenaline and wonderful word play. I loved it. It’s also more seeped in Italian and European film genres then the typical American World War II action film, like say “The Dirty Dozen” – which this film directly pays homage. And for that, I also love it. The credits begin “Once upon a time in Nazi-occupied France…”, and sets off on some Sergio Leone (“Once Upon a Time in the West”) cues of enemy soldiers slowly coming up a dirt road, long but fascinating conversations, side quests that dead end, and furious bursts of shocking violence. The music of the great Ennio Morricone is sprinkled throughout to further the effect of its Spaghetti Western origins. This really is a foreign film, with the French, German and Italian languages taking up most of the 150-minute running time.

Pitt, billed as the lead, is not the film's focus. That crown, arguably, belongs to Christoph Waltz as Hans Landa, an uber-suave and giddy Nazi who’s Sherlock Holmes as re-imagined by Satan. Landa makes drinking a glass of milk as evil as anything seen on screen in years. Man deserves an Oscar. He owns this film. Landa (and Waltz) speaks four languages fluently, a gift which will thrash the final mission of our titular heroes.

“Basterds” opens with a quiet scene that has Landa visiting a French dairy farmer, and after an insanely long interrogation, he fingers the man for harboring a Jewish family. The secreted family is killed where they hide, except for the daughter (Melanie Laurent), who escapes in a frantic, blood-soaked mess. She runs off screaming in a scene that brings to mind Wyeth by way of Dante’s Inferno. Damn straight she’ll turn up again. We then get introduced to the Basterds, a group of American and German Jews in occupied France who drill their way through the Third Reich during a three-year tour. Pitt is Aldo Raine, the lead Basterd and Southern American hick who demands 100 “Nah-zee” scalps from his motley team. Roth plays the “Bear Jew,” a baseball-bat wielding Ted Williams fan. All these players, and Waltz will meet at film’s end. Along with a spastic Hitler that would make Mel Brooks proud.

“Basterds” is a film of dialogue. Tarantino is a jackpot writer. In a scene that kills off several off several main players, he has Americans, Brits, and Germans in a basement bar playing “Guess Who?” over drinks. Tarantino draws the scene waaaay out like taffy, until it becomes unbearable. The audience is waiting for something, anything, to happen as “King Kong” and good Scotch is discussed. At just the point where the scene grows almost tedious, guns are drawn, and a blink and you miss it bloodbath ensues. I want to watch the film again just to see how Tarantino manages to pull off these hat tricks of suspense, film worship, and comedy.

And hands down this is Tarantino’s funniest film, despite the backdrop of World War II and the Holocaust. In a highlight scene of suspense and comedy, Landa meets up with Raine, two Basterds, and a German actress/spy (Diane Kruger) at a cinema owned by none other than Laurent’s vengeance-seeking runaway. Attempting to pass as Italian filmmakers, our heroes’ accent mangling sends Landa – and the also audience – into uncontrollable laughter. Landa keeps asking the men to repeat everything they say three, four times. “Graht-zeee,” Pitt says, sucking in his lower lip. Unaware he’s been busted.

On top of all the capital “T” Tarantino moments, the keen kick-ass joy of “Basterds” is its re-writing of history. This is the first World War II film that I have ever seen where I did not know the ending. This is thrilling, nasty, and often funny ride into an unknown past that should have been. Like this year's "Star Trek." Hitler popped himself in an underground bunker? How dull. Why not shot the fucker down. The last scene is gory as hell, and hilarious.

“Inglourious Basterds” won’t recreate cinema the way “Pulp Fiction” did in 1994. It’s not that great. But it’s one of 2009’s best films, for sure. I hate that Tarantino – known for creating strong female characters - kills off his leading ladies in gruesome detail. But he worships these women nonetheless. Against a churning, writhing snake’s head of deathly smoke, Laurent’s dead cinema owner screams from the grave to the dying Third Reich that she is the face of Jewish anger and vengeance. Pretty damn glorious to me. A

The Reader (2008)

***SPOLIER ALERT*** The post-Holocaust drama "The Reader" is good-looking and well-acted, but the film never fully addresses its dark secrets or sparks to life despite its heavy subject matter: A German teenager named Michael Berg (David Kross) begins a sexual relationship with a mid-30s trolley worker named Hanna Schmitz (Kate Winslet). Then one day, she is gone from her apartment, and Michael is left shattered.
Several years later in his mid-20s and a law student, Michael sees Hanna again. She is on trial as a former prison guard for Hitler's SS, charged with mass murder.

Whoa, right?

The film also cuts to a mid-40s Michael (Ralph Fiennes) as he traipses around unable to trust another woman.

I'm not keen on all the acclaim "The Reader" is getting. We never get inside Hanna's head or soul, despite a fantastic performance by Winslet. She remains an enigma that Michael can't unravel. Nor can the audience. Her past is never shown. Unbelievably.

The problems comes from our distance to Hanna, we are denied access to her thoughts and feelings. And her final act smacks of writer's cop out rather than truth. OK, screw it. She offs herself. But why??? I'm no prude, I took an art class in college that centered on pornography for weeks on end, so no sex scene will shock me -- but we get scenes of countless sexual encounters between young Michael and Hanna, and, err, bathtub fun, but nothing deep as far as Hanna's soul is concerned.

The film dawdles as screenwriter David Hare and director Stephen Daldry push Michael to a point of self-understanding. The catch: He's not that interesting and Fiennes has done "emotionally dead" almost as much as Morgan Freeman has done "wise mentor." The best sections come in the long discussions about morality, making for some strong complex scenes. A law student exclaims at one point that the entire German population should have committed suicide over its crimes against the Jewish population. It's a heart-stopping moment. It's a shame the rest of the film isn't as bold.

As in "The Hours," by the same writer/director team, "The Reader" had fantastic promise, but it remains untapped. A final serious of question: Why don't we ever get to see Winslet's murderous acts? Why did she become a Nazi? How'd she kill? Did she feel remorse? Why should we feel sorry for her? Because she can't read? Untapped. Untapped. Untapped. All of it. C+

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas (2008)

I've never wanted a movie to end more than "The Boy in the Striped Pajamas," a distinctly original film about the Holocaust. By distinctly original, I mean it's the first film to reduce 6 million dead to mere cliches while targeting children as its core audience. What the fuck?

Written and directed by Mark Herman ("Little Voice"), "Boy" follows German grade schooler Bruno (Asa Butterfield) as he moves just outside the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland with his family. There, daddy (David Thewlis) happily runs the camp, while mom (Vera Farmiga) is kept in the dark. Soon Bruno sees a "farm" behind the new house, with odd-looking people in "stripped pajamas" living there. Are you laughing yet? Bruno soon befriends one of the odd "farm" boys (Jack Scanlon) who's so sad behind a mysterious electric fence. Before long they're playing checkers. Cute, eh?

I have no doubt that the intentions behind this film are honest, but did anyone bother to ask why any parent would want to show his or her child a film about the Holocaust? Or why that fence remains unguarded all day for months, or why it's so easy for a child with no arm muscles to dig his way under the barrier unnoticed in minutes? The film's most grievous sin, though, is to reduce an entire murdered population to two pitiful characters with little voice and no resolve. Even the Nazis are cut-and-paste, including a bully youth straight out of "The Sound of Music." Taking a simplistic ABC After School Special view of the most heinous crime of the 20th century, "Boy" is the anti-"Night and Fog." The finale is heartbreaking for sure, but by then I was looking for the exit. D-

The Counterfeiters (2008)

"The Counterfeiters" won the Oscar for Best Foreign Film at the 2008 Oscars, and with good reason. The Holocaust drama from Austria plays against type by portraying a petty criminal, Salomon 'Sally' Sorowitsch (Karl Markovics), swept up in the Nazi death machine. Sally is no saint ruined by evil. He's a damn crook.

Told in flashback style, we see Sally post-war at a seaside casino and then quickly rocket back to early 1930s Berlin as the Nazis gain power. Sally boozes, womanizes and makes his living through counterfeiting and forgeries. With Jews and others fleeing Nazis, business is quite good. A long night of sex (which he trades in order to forge a woman's passport) leads to him sleeping late at his cramped apartment/hideout, and the arrival of Nazi police and his capture.

Sorowitsch, ever the player, soon uses his artistic talents to make himself useful - and thereby stays alive - by painting portraits of Nazis and their families. Soon, however, he's tasked into heading the largest counterfeiting scheme in known history, forging the pound and then dollar so Nazi Germany can deal Britain and America deadly financial blow. In return, Sally is treated to shelter, food and clothing far better than any other camp prisoner. He goes with the scheme because keeps him alive, whereas some of his fellow Jewish prisoners/forgers know that success means a German victory. In a twisted twist, Sally seems obsessed with actually seeing if he can actually pull off the pound and then the dollar as mere art. But he knows who his masters are. Markovics constantly registers the internal struggle within Sally, as he must eventually pick a side.

It's a tough film to watch with its violence and depiction of suffering, but it's unforgettable, and Sally is as fascinating and complicated a character as I've ever seen on film. The depiction of the Nazis, including Sally's "boss" (Devid Striesow) also digs deep. In one key scene, the camp commander actually convinces himself that giving his charges a ping pong table as a gift is a blessed event. How Godless is that? It depicts the absolute immorality of the Third Reich -- that a simple ping pong table can make up for dead spouses, torture and suffering beyond compare. Yet, the charges actually use the table for sport. That's the dark beauty of this film, the ways a soul will shift, morph and adopt to the most heinous circumstances in order to survive. What Sally does post-war has some devastating humor and irony. A

Night and Fog (1955)

"Night and Fog" is hands down the most disturbing documentary I've ever seen. It literally shook me to my core in its brief 35 minutes examining and then simply looking -- no words needed -- at the concentration camps of World War II Europe where untold millions of Jews, gays and other people were murdered because they didn't fit into Hitler's new world.

That said, this film should be required viewing of every man, woman and child on earth, if I had my way (and I usually don't). Using a mixture of on-location shooting in color and archival black and white footage and photographs, director Alain Resnais spares nothing -- horrific, graphic footage of the dead and near dead is shown in detail -- in his laying out of fact. Living skeletons, skulls smashed apart, heads laying in piles, charred, burning corpses -- "Night and Fog" shows us the absolute reality of absolute evil.

And its writers tell us flatly that they only are skimming the surface with this documentary, that the true horror of life and death under Nazi Germany can never fully be explained or filmed. Absolutely horrifying, absolutely heart-breaking, absolutely unforgettable ... it's a shame humanity seems to have not progressed. A+