Category Archives: War

Fury review — Blood, mud, and tanks

October 18, 2014 flawintheiris

Written and directed by David Ayer Ayer is what I call a macho director. I bet he's seen every single one of Sam Peckinpah's movies. He wrote U-571 , The Fast & The Furious, and Training Day, he wrote and directed End of Watch and Sabotage. He knows about guys, guns, and sweat, and that's what…Read More

The Wind Rises (Kaze Tachinu) review

March 9, 2014 flawintheiris

Written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki If this is to be Miyazaki's final film with Studio Ghibli—which, despite many false retirements, he says it will be—a romantic, historical drama about an engineer is an unorthodox subject matter to go out on. That said, it still has plenty of the fantastic and surreal whimsy he's become…Read More

The Monuments Men review

February 7, 2014 flawintheiris

Directed by George Clooney Written by Clooney and Grant Heslov, adapting a book by Robert M. Edsel and Ben Witter I get that George Clooney has a love for some old-timey movies, the sort that move at a more leisurely pace and rely a great deal on the charm of the actors. He showed that…Read More

The Book Thief review

December 4, 2013 flawintheiris

Directed by Brian PercivalWritten by Michael Petroni, from the novel by Markus ZusakThe Book Thief is a movie I'd like to slam unreservedly, because it takes what could be a genuinely moving story of people surviving through the horrors of World War II and instead frequently delivers material of maudlin schmaltz. But I can't condemn…Read More

Zero Dark Thirty review

January 12, 2013 flawintheiris

Directed by Kathryn Bigelow Written by Mark Boal In the opening scenes of Zero Dark Thirty, following the text that the film is "based on first-hand accounts of actual events," Jason Clarke's CIA agent, the single-named Dan, is interrogating a prisoner at some Black Site, an American ops location without an address, somewhere in Pakistan. They're…Read More

War Horse review

January 7, 2012 flawintheiris

Directed by Steven SpielbergWritten by Lee Hall and Richard Curtis, from the book by Michael MorpurgoSitting in a mostly empty movie theatre watching Spielberg's new epic movie, I playfully imagined what War Horse would be like as directed by Terrence Malick, probably because I just reviewed 2011 and Malick's The Tree of Life featured prominently.…Read More

Captain America: The First Avenger review

August 2, 2011 flawintheiris

Directed by Joe Johnson, Written by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, adapted from comics by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby In 2011 we've had five big budget superhero movies, going back to January's Green Hornet and including Thor, X-Men: First Class and Green Lantern in order of release. It's understandable that one might be feeling a little Powers Fatigue, a condition…Read More