Category Archives: War

Full River Red review — A bloody, convoluted historical thriller (and comedy)

March 25, 2023 flawintheiris

Original title: Manjianghong | Directed by Yimou Zhang | Written by Zhang and Yu Chen | 159 min | ▲▲▲△△ | In Cinemas Chinese filmmaker Yimou Zhang is a master of epic period thrillers like The Great Wall, Hero, and House of Flying Daggers, and here is again with a single-location comedy-mystery based on historical fact,…Read More

All Quiet On The Western Front (2022) review — Fresh reminder that war is hell

February 6, 2023 flawintheiris

Directed by Edward Berger | Written by Berger, Lesley Paterson, Ian Stokell, based on the novel by Erich Maria Remarque | 148 min | ▲▲▲▲△ | Netflix I'm familiar with the 1930 original adaptation of the novel, which was released as a silent but also, later, in a sound version, and then the 1979 CBS…Read More

Top 10 New-To-Me Movies of 2022

December 18, 2022 flawintheiris

A few days ago on the hellscape we all know as Twitter, someone posted a list of the older films they'd discovered this year. Movies from the past they'd never had a chance to see before but had sought out or stumbled upon in the past 12 months and were glad they did. Since I'm…Read More

The Woman King review — Epic drama overcomes conventionality

October 1, 2022 flawintheiris

Directed by Gina Prince-Bythewood | Written by Dana Stevens and Maria Bello | 135 min | ▲▲▲▲△ | Crave Watching this romantic epic was accompanied by a sudden and uncomfortable realization of how little I know about African history. I had heard that the female warriors of a pre-colonial African empire inspired the Dora Milaje…Read More

Operation Mincemeat review — A thrilling piece of wartime history

July 12, 2022 flawintheiris

Directed by John Madden | Written by Michelle Ashford, based on a book by Ben Macintyre | 128 min | ▲▲▲▲△ | Netflix Sometimes a genre picture, otherwise conventional in many ways, can excel just via its commitment to the material, stylish choices in the direction, and a collection of unimpeachable performances. That's what's happened…Read More

Top Gun: Maverick review — A vertiginous victory, just

May 28, 2022 flawintheiris

Directed by Joseph Kosinski | Written by Peter Craig, Justin Marks, Ehren Kruger, Eric Warren Singer, and Christopher McQuarrie | 131 min | ▲▲▲△△ If you remove the Mission: Impossible series from the equation, Tom Cruise has never made a sequel to any of his hit movies. Given his 40+ years in the Hollywood spotlight…Read More

Munich: The Edge of War review — Tasteful-to-a-fault wartime spy drama

January 29, 2022 flawintheiris

Directed by Christian Schwochow | Written by Ben Power, based on a novel by Robert Harris | Netflix | ▲▲△△△ Here's a thriller so handsome, so well appointed, it's practically constipated. It's the kind of movie that's so dedicated to being an unabashed anachronism — so unlike anything resembling a film made in the past…Read More

#FIN2021 Reviews — Wife Of A Spy, The Worst Person In The World

September 19, 2021 flawintheiris

Wife Of A Spy | Directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa | Written by Kurosawa, Ryûsuke Hamaguchi, and Tadashi Nohara | 115 min Kobe, 1940. The military presence in Japan is cracking down on free thinking merchants and amateur filmmakers like Yusaku Fukuhara (Issey Takahashi), who heads to Manchuria with his nephew on a business trip. Is…Read More

The Mauritanian review — Injustice exposed in post-9/11 thriller

February 25, 2021 flawintheiris

Directed by Kevin Macdonald | Written by Michael Bronner, Rory Haines, and Sohrab Noshirvani, based on the book Guantanamo Diary by Mohamedou Ould Salahi | 129 min | Crave With this film following 2019's The Report and Official Secrets, Hollywood is still mining stories from the ways in which the American military industrial complex overreached…Read More

Greyhound review — Wartime thriller delivers cracking suspense

July 13, 2020 flawintheiris

Directed by Aaron Schneider | Written by Tom Hanks, based on the novel, The Good Shepherd, by CS Forester | 91 mins | Apple TV Plus Lets talk about where we are with CGI in 2020 for a second. For your average fantasy blockbuster a good FX house can deliver enough support to make us…Read More