Gladiator

2000 Paramount Pictures

Rated: R

Length: 2 hr 28min

Action ~ Adventure ~ Drama ~ Epic ~ History

Starring: Russell Crowe, Joaquin Phoenix, Connie Nielsen, Oliver Reed, Derek Jacobi, Djimon Hounsou, and Richard Harris.

“I will win the crowd, I will give them something they’ve never seen before.”

Russell Crowe stars as the Roman General Maximus Decimus Meridius, leading his army to victory in Germania in 180AD. The dying Emperor Marcus Aurelius (Richard Harris) tells Maximus that his son Commodus (Joaquin Phoenix) is unfit to rule as his successor and wants Maximus to become the new Emperor. Commodus does not take that news well and strangles his Father claiming he simply died of natural causes, “He ran out of breath.” He then asks Maximus for his loyalty but Maximus refuses. This angers Commodus and he has Maximus taken prisoner back to the battlefield to be killed, and orders that Maximus’s family be slain.

Upon arriving at the battlefield and just about to be executed, Maximus is able to turn on his captors and kill them all. He rides horseback to his family home trying to stop the murder of his family, but arrives too late. The Commodus’s men had raped Maximus’s wife, and then crucified and burned both his son and his wife. Maximus buries them and then collapses at the foot of their graves. He is found by slave traders who sell him to a former Gladiator named Proximo (Richard Harris). Proximo keeps and train slaves worthy enough to fight in the Gladiator Games. Commodus organizes 150 days of Games in the Roman Coliseum to commemorate his father’s passing.

Proximo takes his Gladiator troupe to Rome to fight in the Coliseum games. Which is exactly where Maximus wants to be, he desires nothing more than to get close to Commodus and exact vengeance for his family. And to restore the balance of power to the senate like Emperor Marcus Aurelius desired before his death. “The General who became a slave, the slave who became a Gladiator, the Gladiator who defied an emperor. Striking story! Now the people want to know how the story ends.” It is the story of Maximus’s journey to take down Commodus, exact revenge and set the Roman Empire right, while he battles in the coliseum, fighting for his life.

I have to mention Commodus’s sister Lucilla (Connie Nielsen) and her son Lucius because they factor into Gladiator II. Lucilla and Maximus were lovers in the past before Maximus met his wife. Maximus’s son is eight years old, the same age as Lucilla’s son Lucius. Lucius and Lucilla both show a liking for Maximus in Gladiator, for reasons that become apparent in Gladiator II. Directed by Ridley Scott it is truly an epic film about the Roman times and The Gladiators who fought for their lives in the Coliseum. Fight or die, Kill to live. It was a highly successful film in 2000 winning multiple awards: Best Picture, Actor, Visual Effects, Sound, Costume Design, Director, Original Screenplay, Supporting Actor, Original Score, Cinematography, Art Direction and Editing.

I remember watching it a long time ago but didn’t really remember the whole movie. With Gladiator II out, I had to go back and watch Gladiator first. Streaming Movie Night tonight is Gladiator II and I can’t wait to see Denzel Washington . He is one of my favorites and I am excited to see how he factors in to The Gladiator story, and how the story plays out. Obviously I Highly Recommend Gladiator, especially before Gladiator II, as the story line continues where the first one ended fifteen years later

Two Thumbs Up!

Greyhound

2020 Sony Pictures

Rated: PG-13

Length: 1 hr 31min

Action ~ Drama ~ History ~ War

Directed by: Aaron Schneider

Starring: Tom Hanks, Stephen Graham, Rob Morgan, and Elisabeth Shue.

“The only thing more dangerous than the front lines was the fight to get there.”

Tom Hanks stars as US Navy Captain Ernest Krause commanding his first ship, The USS Keeling Destroyer codenamed “Greyhound”. The year is 1942 and Greyhound is assigned as an escort to a convoy of 37 merchant and troop ships headed for Liverpool, England. They have aircraft escorts as well, but they can only fly so far before they reach the point they have to fly back before they run out of fuel. Same thing on the other side of the Atlantic, the British escort fighter planes can only fly out to meet them so many miles. The middle of the Atlantic between these two Airplane boundaries where there is no Air protection from the Nazi U-Boat Submarines was called “The Black Pit”.

The Nazi U-Boat name was short for the German word “Unterseeboot”, meaning Under Sea Boat, shortened to U-Boat. It is the German term for Submarine. It was in The Black Pit where the German U-boats took advantage of the Convoys lack of air cover to hunt ships in the convoys. Without air support they were easy targets. They would typically travel in packs referred to as Wolfpacks to better hunt and sink Allied convoy ships. “Greyhound” details the 40 hour journey across the Black Pit by Captain Krause and his crew aboard the USS Keeling. As one of the four escort ships they encounter numerous U-boats and fight to destroy them and keep the convoy safe.

It is a stress filled, adrenaline fueled 40 hours fighting off ruthless U-boat attacks from every direction. There is little time for eating and no time for sleeping during the highly dangerous passage. Tom Hanks does an excellent job of portraying the Captain on his first mission across the Black Pit, displaying all the various emotions a first time Captain put into that precarious situation must have felt. The loss of men and ships weighing heavily on the man assigned to keep losses from happening. Stephen Graham also does a good job of portraying Lieutenant Commander Charlie Cole. You might remember him as “Baby Face Nelson” in Public Enemies(2009) or as “Tony Pro” Provenzano in “The Irishman”(2019), he has been in a lot of movies.

Elisabeth Shue plays Captain Krause’s girlfriend but you only see her in the very beginning of the movie before he departs out to sea. I thought it was a really great depiction of what it must have been like to cross the Atlantic during WWII. It is a nail-biter that will keep you on the edge of your seat as U-boats seem to come out of every direction to hunt and kill. It is based on the novel The Good Shepherd by C. S. Forester. Although not a true story, it is a pretty accurate account of the crossing by hundreds of Convoys during WWII. During the course of the war there were 3,500 ships carrying millions of tons of cargo sunk. 72,200 souls were lost forever on those ships.

Definitely worth a watch, but it is a war movie portraying a sea battle, it may not be for everyone. But it is a damn good movie in my opinion.

Two Thumbs Up!

Oppenheimer

2023 Universal Pictures

Rated: R

Length: 3 hr

Biography ~ Drama ~ History ~ True Story

Directed by: Christopher Nolan

Starring: Cillian Murphy, Robert Downey Jr, Emily Blunt, Matt Damon, Florence Pugh, Josh Hartnett, Casey Affleck, Rami Malek, Jason Clarke and Kenneth Branagh.

“Prometheus stole fire from the Gods and gave it to man. For this he was chained to a rock and tortured for eternity.”

Cillian Murphy stars as J. Robert Oppenheimer, a Theoretical Physicist in charge of The Los Alamos project and one of the pioneers of the first atomic bombs built during World War II. It follows his life and education leading up to chairing the project to create the world’s first atomic bomb, and his life and career following the first Atomic bomb test. It also chronicles his personal battles dealing with the responsibility of being the man that changed the world with an atomic weapon, and his guilt that he may have ultimately laid the foundation for the destruction of our world.

The movie starts with the 1954 security hearing orchestrated by The Atomic Energy Chairman Lewis Strauss (Robert Downey Jr). It was a kangaroo court orchestrated by Strauss with the express purpose of destroying Oppenheimer’s reputation and credibility, mainly due to Strauss’s jealousy and paranoia regarding Oppenheimer. There is a scene where Oppenheimer is having a conversation with Albert Einstein within eyeshot of Strauss, and Strauss is convinced that Oppenheimer is bad mouthing him to Einstein. But in reality Oppenheimer was discussing with Einstein his fear that in creating the atomic bomb he might have started a chain reaction that could destroy the world.

The movie centers on the 1954 hearing and the 1959 Senate Confirmation Hearing for Strauss where it is revealed how Strauss tried to undermine Oppenheimer and his work. It flashes back and forth between the hearings and the events in Oppenheimer’s life that led up to the first atomic bomb test (which is quite impressively depicted in the movie), and the events after as he grapples with the fallout personal guilt he has. There are a lot of stories going on here and it can be a little difficult to understand and follow. Especially as it flashes back and forth to different times and events, some being in black and white.

One of the main stories of this movie is the power struggle between Oppenheimer and Strauss as Strauss seeks to undermine his influence with the Atomic Energy Commission. Christopher Nolan, the director, uses color and black and white to differentiate between the two men. The Black and white scenes are used to show Strauss’s point of view and thinking, while color was used to represent Oppenheimer’s. That alone is a fascinating viewing if you know that and view the movie with that knowledge.

There is a lot of star power in this movie:

Cillian Murphy as J. Robert Oppenheimer
Emily Blunt as Oppenheimer’s Wife kitty
Robert Downey Jr. as Atomic Energy Chairman Lewis Strauss
Matt Damon as US Army Colonel Leslie Groves who oversaw The Los Alamos Project
Florence Pugh as Jean Tatlock, a psychiatrist, Communist Party USA member, and Robert Oppenheimer’s romantic interest
Josh Hartnett as Ernest Lawrence, a Nobel-winning nuclear physicist who worked with Oppenheimer at the University of California, Berkeley
Casey Affleck as Boris Pash, a US Army military intelligence officer and commander of the Alsos Mission
Kenneth Branagh as as Niels Bohr, a Nobel-winning Danish physicist, philosopher and Oppenheimer’s personal idol
Rami Malek as David L. Hill, a nuclear physicist at the Metallurgical Laboratory.
Jason Clarke as Roger Robb, an attorney and future US circuit judge who served as special counsel to the AEC at Oppenheimer’s security hearing.

It is a fascinating look at the man and his accomplishments, his relationships and his guilt at having orchestrated the potential demise of the world. I’ve watched it three times mainly because it took two to fully understand all the stories going on, and then a third to appreciate it with the knowledge and understanding of everything going on. It is well acted by everyone involved, and the cinematography is outstanding.

Some fun facts:

It grossed over 976 million worldwide, the third highest of 2023
It won 7 Academy Awards: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best supporting Actor, Best Film Editing, Best Cinematography and Best original Score
And 5 Golden Globe Awards
And 7 British Academy Awards
And was named one of the top ten films of 2023 by the American Film Institute

An excellent movie obviously but it is a long one coming in at three hours.

But it is a fascinating three hours.

Two Thumbs Up!!

First Man

2018 Universal Pictures

Rated: PG-13

Length: 2 hr 21min

Biography ~ History ~ Drama ~ Adventure

Directed by: Damien Chazelle

Starring: Ryan Gosling, Claire Foy, Jason Clarke, Kyle Chandler, Corey Stoll, Christopher Abbott, and Ciarán Hinds.

“That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”

Ryan Gosling stars as Neil Armstrong in this first person account of his journey to become the first man on the moon. Claire Foy plays his wife Janet Armstrong. It is the riveting story of the raw early days of Space exploration and how he went from piloting the Air Force x-15, to joining the Nasa’ Gemini program, and ultimately Commanding The Apollo Mission 11 that landed on the moon.

Nasa’s goal of putting a man into space and landing on the moon took more than twenty years. It also cost the lives of dozens of pilots, crew men and astronauts in their race to beat the Soviets into space. It was a journey unknown and untested without a text or a guide book. The bravery of putting their lives at risk to accomplish the goal of being the first in space is well portrayed in the movie. As well as the effect it had on the families who were left at home to wonder if they would be coming back.

Ryan does an excellent job of portraying Neil Armstrong. You feel like you are right there with him along the journey. From being in the cockpit in the X-15 and bouncing off the atmosphere in one very bumpy ride, to being strapped into the Apollo 11 capsule on top of a rocket holding 203,400 gallons of Kerosene and another 318,000 gallons of liquid oxygen. Go ahead and light that up.

I had seen this when it first came out in 2018 and I just watched it again last night, new on Netflix. Absolutely riveting. What a journey that must have been to be the first man on the moon. Well done Neil Armstrong and Ryan Gosling!

I highly recommend this one. An important slice of our history brought to life for us to experience.

Excellent Ride!

Two thumbs Up!

Till

2022 Universal Pictures

Rated: PG-13

Length: 2 hrs 10min

Drama ~ True Story ~ History

Directed By: Chinonye Chukwu

Starring: Danielle Deadwyler, Jalyn Hall, and Frankie Faison.

“This was my boy….Emmett Till. He just didn’t understand how different things were in Mississippi. The lynching of my son has shown me that what happens to one of us anywhere in the world, had better be the business of us all.”

Danielle Deadwyler stars as Mamie Till, a single Mother and Teacher in Chicago, Illinois raising her 14 year old son Emmett. Mamie puts Emmett on a train south to visit with relatives in Money, Mississippi. Before she takes him to the train station she stresses to him how different Mississippi is for Black folk. “Be small…..don’t draw attention to yourself.”

Emmett is picked up at the train station in Money, Mississippi by his Uncle Mose “Preacher” Wright and his cousin Wheeler Parker. The next day he joins his Aunt, Uncle and cousins as they pick cotton, being sharecroppers on a Plantation. After picking cotton Emmett and his cousins stop at the white-owned Bryant’s Grocery and Meat Market. Emmett enters to buy some penny candy and tells Carolyn Bryant behind the counter, “You’re pretty…….you sure look like a movie star.” As he leaves he whistles at her.

That was the wrong thing for a black man to do in 1955 Mississippi, whistle at a white woman. Carolyn Bryant’s husband and half-brother hunt down Emmett and take him to a barn where they lynch him, beat him mercilessly, shoot him in the head, then dump his body into the river. Mamie hires a lawyer and, after finally retrieving his body from Mississippi and seeing how horrific he died, decides to display him in an open casket for the whole world to see.

Mamie Till made it her duty to crusade on Emmett’s behalf for justice for the racially motivated brutal killing of her son. She never gave up, even after the trial in Mississippi where The Bryants were found not guilty of murdering her son. She made it her life’s work to become an activist for Civil Rights and her determination played a pivotal role in The Civil Rights Movement.

This is a True Story about a very important and pivotal moment in our country’s history in The Civil Rights Era. It took Emmett’s brutal racially motivated death, and Mamie’s fierce determination to not let this happen to anyone else ever again, to incite change.

I love the true story movies. This true story is a nauseating, revolting look at our troubled past as a Nation. The pure blatant disregard for a fellow human beings life based solely on the color of his skin is disgusting, a child nonetheless……

As hard as parts of it are to watch, I think you need to watch it. Just as Mamie thought that the whole world should see Emmett’s disfigured body in the open casket, we need to witness the mistakes of our past so that we can be a collective whole moving forward.

It’s a must see. A well done portrayal of an important part of our history.

Highly Recommended.

Two Thumbs Up!