[7] Daniel Day-Lewis (My Left Foot, There Will Be Blood) won his third Oscar for his convincing portrait of America’s 16th president during the final months of the Civil War. Lincoln is a decades-long pet project for director Steven Spielberg, who chose Angels in America scribe Tony Kushner to make Doris Kearns Goodwin’s book Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln the foundation …
[7] Errol Flynn plays General George Custer in this romantic (though not very historically accurate) panache of the accomplished Civil War general who met a celebrated fate at Little Big Horn. Despite the liberties taken in the script, it’s a fun mini-epic of a movie with a lot to offer the Gone with the Wind crowd. Flynn gives one of his better performances here, opposite Olivia …
[7] In one of his better westerns, Errol Flynn leads a ragtag team of Confederate soldiers west to do Robert E. Lee’s bidding. Along the way, he rescues a damsel in distress from marauding Indians, only to learn she’s betrothed to a Union officer whose troops are on the lookout for her. Think Lifeboat on a mountainside. I enjoyed the relationships between the Union and …
[7] It’s the third Captain America movie, but since most of the Avengers cast is reunited, it feels more like Avengers 3. Not that it matters — these movies all start to feel the same anyway. I like how this one starts, dealing with the aftermath of all the cataclysmic damage the Avengers team has accidentally caused in various countries while battling all their supernatural …
[7] Anthony Minghella (The English Patient, Talented Mr. Ripley) adapts Charles Frazier’s book about a Civil War deserter trying to get back to his lover. The film goes back and forth between the soldier’s story and the sweetheart’s story. My main issue with Cold Mountain is that these two characters, played by Nicole Kidman and Jude Law, barely know each other at all before they …
[7] Hollywood’s most celebrated melodrama is still entertaining today. Vivien Leigh does a remarkable job playing one of the most volatile heroines in film history. Scarlet O’Hara begins Margaret Mitchell’s story damned spoiled, and I’m not sure she ever really learns her lesson, but Leigh renders a subtle transformation while always remaining true to character. My other favorites are Olivia de Havilland (sweet in everything …
[9] The Beguiled is a period suspense drama that spirals into claustrophobic horror. Clint Eastwood plays against type as a dying Union soldier rescued by a little girl who brings him to her finishing school in the Confederate south. The Beguiled has all the makings of a sweet drama or light comedy as several of the young women become infatuated with Clint during his convalescence. …
[9] Silent-screen star Buster Keaton plays a train engineer who gets rejected by the Confederate army because his job is too important to leave vacant. But he gets his chance to serve the South when Union soldiers steal his beloved locomotive, ‘The General,’ with his girlfriend (Marion Mack) onboard. The General is non-stop comedy and excitement as Keaton single-handedly pursues the kidnappers, rescues his train …
Copyright © 2024 | Theme by MH Themes