ChristyLeskovar

I predict Emmys for best limited series, best actress (Emily Blunt), best actor (Chaske Spencer), maybe best supporting actor (Stephen Rea), writing, cinematography, and score. The story is poetically and artfully told. There is genius behind it. Horrible violence, and there is a lot of it, is off screen - you see the reaction of people hearing it, knowing it-or it is in silhouette or at a distance. There are good people to root for. Emily Blunt delivers a beautiful soliloquy about her baby, profound writing delivered by an exceptional actress. It is visually stunning, showcasing the expansiveness and vastness of the plains of the American West. The story unfolds delicately, and in the end left me with a sense of well being. Why? After all the badness, there is goodness--people making self-sacrificing decisions for others.

Streaming on Amazon.

There are not sufficient superlatives to say how fantastic this show is. It is so well done. This young director/screenwriter Dallas Jenkins is a genius! The pacing, the editing, the acting and especially the writing, are flawless, impeccable, especially the writing. The writers often use modern expressions, and it really works. I've seen this done in other period pieces where it is clunky and distracting. In The Chosen, it is perfect. It makes the story more relevant. When the Roman soldier says, "We have a situation," it works. Also, the use of humor is delightful. The Chosen Season 1 gives the backstory on Our Lord's disciples, namely the Apostles and Mary Magdalene, and also Nicodemus and the political peril he faced. The dialogue, the characters are so real. Granted much of it is fictional. We don't know anything about the interchange between Simon-Peter and his wife Eden. We don't know about the relationship between Nicodemus and his wife. We don't know about connections between those who were healed by Our Lord, but the connections depicted make sense and provide for smoother story telling. Everything in the show makes sense. The show is well researched, I thought of the novels by Taylor Caldwell about St. Paul and St. Luke. The cultural and physical attentions to detail are exquisite. It is clear that the writers have a deep and broad understanding of scripture and the historical context. The flashbacks to Old Testament times are brilliant. I am blown away by the talent of those who made this. It is a TV series, eight episodes. The pilot is a short called The Shepherds, about Christmas. Very powerful. Be sure to watch that too. The series was financed by crowdfunding. Season 2 is in the works. I am sending them money. We need more like this. You can watch it on the free app The Chosen. Download the app onto your smart TV. If that doesn't work on your TV, download the app onto your phone or tablet or laptop, connect that to your TV with an HDMI cable, and you can watch it on your TV. You can also watch it on YouTube. Or you can buy the DVDs.

Quite a movie-a simple story masterfully done that told a much larger story, and that was the tragic futility of the First World War. It is art rather than entertainment or history. Having done exhaustive research on the war for One Night in a Bad Inn, many visual details were familiar. I don't remember being so affected by a movie since the Passion of the Christ. I think seeing it on the big screen amplified the intensity. We saw it in XD. I also can't recall a movie in which the music was this effective in amplifying the drama; the music sweeps you into the scene. I found it remarkable that the leads were played by unknown actors while three A list actors played cameo roles. Though the director's grandfather was in the war and one of his stories was the inspiration for movie, the story line was fictional as were the characters. Telling the details of history was not the point of the film. Telling the broad truth of a war that was one the greatest tragedies in history was. I suggest sitting toward the back of the theater. The dialogue included R rated language that I can always do without. If you are familiar with the First World War, put all that out of your head. I was distracted thinking where are they, which battle, . . .? That's not the point. Just watch it. Having seen only one other best picture nominee, this definitely deserved to win.

If you missed this, it is now on Netflix. Delightful movie. Well worth seeing. It is about Walt Disney convincing the author of the Mary Poppins books, P.L. Travers, to allow him to make Mary Poppins into a movie. She did not want Disney to make a Disney movie out of Mary Poppins, but that's the only kind of movie Walt Disney made. She needed the money. She was even more difficult to deal with in real life. Terrific cast, Tom Hanks as Walt and Emma Thompson as P.L. Travers. Something left out of the movie - Travers had script approval rights but not film editing rights. Clever man that Walt Disney.

This documentary uses actual film footage from the First World War, footage that has been cleaned up and enhanced and colorized by the tenaciously meticulous Peter Jackson (Lord of the Rings) and his incredibly talented colleagues. We saw it in 3D. It makes the war come to life. Some of it was very difficult to watch. I thought of my grandfather Peter climbing out of the trench to save that man while under fierce artillery and machine gun fire. The documentary chronicles what life was like for the average British soldier from the time he enlisted, to training, shipping off to the Western Front (France and Belgium), life in the trenches, the battles, life behind the lines, the end of the war, and going home. Peter Jackson provided a narration after the film, a mini-documentary about the making of the documentary, which was fascinating. The lengths he went to in his dedication to accuracy were astounding. I highly recommend it. If you can see it in 3D, do it.

This movie is hard to watch history. The acting and story-telling are excellent. It is not entertainment. It takes place during the First World War. It is about infantry officers in a company in the British Army in the days leading up to the German attack on the Somme in March of 1918. It is based on a play written by an officer who was in the war. I think the particulars of the people are fictionalized, but based on my research into the war, the context is accurate, painfully accurate. This is the battle in which my uncle Denis was taken prisoner and Uncle John was wounded. The movie gives a vivid picture of what it was like for those soldiers, the shell shock, the implications of questionable orders from senior officers. The movie is not about the battle per se but anticipating battle. Some context, including knowing what happened in the battle, will help to understand the movie. Those soldiers (except one) had already been through the wringer and knew what was coming. To that end, here is the portion of One Night in a Bad Inn (p. 227) that describes the battle. (Uncle Denis and Uncle John were in the 16th Irish Division):

"The war was supposed to be over in months. It has lasted years. There is no end in sight. The French army is demoralized. Soldiers mutiny. What is next? French General Petain answers: We will wait for the Americans.

"German General Ludendorff does not wait. In March of 1918, he attacks the British Fifth Army at the Somme. They have not yet recovered from the Third Battle of Ypres, also called Passchendaele. German gunners hurl one million shells on the British lines, one fourth of them gas shells, including mustard gas. It is the fiercest artillery bombardment thus far. Hours of brutal, relentless, accurate artillery and gas wipe out the British front line. Storm troopers wielding ferocious flamethrowers pour out of the German trenches and bound across no man's land. The 16th Irish Division counter-attacks but is horribly outnumbered-several German battalions against a single British company. The British Fifth Army collapses. In only days, the Germans take seventy thousand prisoners and inflict almost two hundred thousand casualties."

This is a well done allegory about the existence and danger of evil. People see something, it is presented as familiar to be beguiling, and it makes them kill themselves. To live, people must stay inside with the windows blacked out. Outside they must wear blindfolds. To look upon evil is to die. The only way to live is to not look upon it. A segment of the population is drawn to evil, it is evident in their eyes, and they try to force others to look upon evil and die. It is a very powerful allegorical thriller. Sandra Bullock delivers another Oscar-worthy performance. This is a Netflix movie. There are many excellent productions with tremendous writing being produced by Netflix and Amazon. I wish they weren't littered with foul language. It is not necessary to the story telling. I could understand the terror and anger without it.

Great movie! Excellent well-rounded story telling, nuanced depiction of the characters, in particular McNamara, possibly Spielberg's best movie. Even though I knew how it ended, Spielberg managed to build suspense. Very valuable telling of an important chapter in our history. I remember hearing about the Pentagon Papers as a child, but I never knew what they were until I saw the Ken Burns Vietnam War series. In 1966, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara had a study done chronicling all of the executive decision making regarding Indochina/Vietnam going back to the Truman administration. It covered 1945-1967, the reports were marked classified, and filed away. Then in 1971, when those reports were leaked to the press, it became known as the Pentagon Papers. I didn't realize, until the movie came out, that this was a historical record, several years old, not current. It was about the Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson administrations. None of the leaders covered in the Pentagon Papers were still in power.

I did some fact check and context sleuthing of the story and found these tidbits. The leaker first went to several congressmen with the information. None wanted to get involved. This was not in the movie, but the movie was not about the leaker. I wondered who Judith was, who was mentioned at the beginning. She was Judith Martin, whom now we know as Miss Manners. Events at the end of the movie appear compressed but weren't. Here is the timeline. The Pentagon Papers started appearing in the press in June of 1971. The burglary was in June of 1972. Nixon was re-elected in a landslide in November of 1972. The conversation on the phone took place in December of 1972. What I missed in the movie were the words "except press conferences." The ban applied only to social events.

One aspect of the movie I found particularly interesting was the cozy relationship between journalists and the leaders they were covering. Can journalists do honest reporting on close friends? At the same time, it's easier to vilify people one has never met.

All you need to know is that Benedict Cumberbatch plays Richard III. I saw that, and I knew I wanted to watch it. He is superb, I dare say even the Bard himself could not come up with words to say how incredibly he captured this role. Season 2 is about the War of the Roses, using Shakespeare's Henry VI Parts 1 and 2 and Richard III for dialogue. It is different from other film versions of Shakespeare's plays that I've seen which are movie versions of the plays. This is essentially a series of three movies using Shakespeare's dialogue, so when action can replace dialogue, that is what happens. I don't think I've ever heard Shakespeare delivered so realistically and effectively. Though Benedict Cumberbatch plays the meatiest role, everyone in it is outstanding. After each episode, I looked up the real people to find out how much was real and how much fictional. Another powerful role is Henry's wife, Margaret, played by Sophie Okonedo. One of the most dramatic parts, I figured was fictional, was factual. In some parts, I wondered, did Shakespeare actually write it that way? I looked it up. Yes, he did. The dream sequence at the end is really something. It's still in my head. The battle scenes and murders are very gory, at least they sounded gory, I hid my eyes at those parts. I was disappointed that it ended, the story not the gore. I wanted it to go on. Then I found out there is a Season 1! I can't wait to watch it.

For anyone who knows the history of this period, there is no spoiler in this review. I checked spoiler alert for those who might not.

This is excellent, an outstanding series about Queen Elizabeth II. It begins with her intended, Philip, played by Matt Smith, being given the necessary titles to marry her. Season 1 focuses on the difficulties faced by the young queen with her marriage, with learning her job as queen, and with her sister's wish to marry, which Margaret was free to do if she gave up her title. I assume that anything depicting the intimate details of the personal lives of the royals is fictional, but it is easy to see how hard it must have been for the dashing Philip to live under the shadow of his wife who was also his sovereign. Had Elizabeth's uncle Edward not abdicated, had her father not died relatively young, had she become queen when she and Philip were older and their children grown, all could have been easier for them. But that's not what happened. The show is pretty close to flawless. Claire Foy's portrayal of Elizabeth is so real. John Lithgow is superb as Churchill at the end of his career advising the young queen. The challenges Elizabeth had in dealing with him was one of the more fascinating parts of the story. It's on Netflix. I highly recommend it. I can't wait for season 2.

This started slowly. I lost interest and didn't stick with it. Then I started watching season 2 and got hooked and went back to season 1. The story begins in the early days of personal computer development. By the end of season 3, we are at the birth of the world wide web. The story centers on the lives of four techies. As in Breaking Bad, an important part of the story shows how lying destroys relationships. Mark Johnson produced both shows, both on AMC. There were a few tawdry scenes I could have done without, otherwise, I find the show fascinating, both the tech side and the personal lives of the characters. The acting is excellent. I'm going to miss Cameron and Donna and Gordon until they come back for another season, and I suppose Joe too. Everyone is conflicted about Joe.

"Breaking Bad" is something we rarely see these days, and there is a hunger for it – the well-done morality play. This one was brilliantly done. The show demonstrated, often in surprising ways, that actions have consequences, and how lying destroys relationships, and how deadly is the fine art of rationalizing immoral actions. Even when we didn't know where the story was going, no matter how unpredictable, it always made sense from that character's point of view – a bit like O. Henry in that regard. No need to suspend disbelief. It was literary in the quality of the writing and artistic in how it was filmed–the unusual camera points of view, taking advantage of the vivid colors of the southwest, the dark humor. The casting was perfect, the acting was perfect, the end was perfect. The last scene was one of the best I've ever seen on film, possibly the best. I watched it more than once.

What a great movie! It will make you laugh and cry and think. It takes place during World War II. Pepper/Little Boy is sad that his father has gone off to war, and he resents the only Japanese person in town, an older man named Hashimoto. Little Boy and his much older brother, London, try to vandalize Hashimoto's house. London is arrested. Little Boy's mother, played by Emily Watson, marches him to church to go to confession. Little Boy wants faith great enough to move mountains and bring his dad back from war. Father Oliver, played by Tom Wilkinson, gives him an ancient list and tells him, if he does all the things on the list, it will help grow his faith bigger. The list is the corporal works of mercy. Father Oliver adds one more: Little Boy must befriend Hashimoto. It is a heart warming and poignant story with many layers of meaning, beautifully filmed. It does look like Norman Rockwell on film. An amazing performance by Jakob Salvati, who plays Little Boy. How the director, Alejandro Monteverde, pulled such a performance out of a young child is truly remarkable. It is a movie for the entire family. Art illustrates beauty, truth, and goodness. "Little Boy" is art. I watched it on Netflix. It was filmed in Mexico.

This is laugh-out-loud funny. Clever hilarious dialogue, zany story. The students of a boys' school in 19th century England are told that their parents have enrolled them in a tontine. Each family put a sum of money into the tontine, and the last member alive will get the whole kitty. It's sort of like The Last Man's Club of which my grandpa Peter was a member with his First World War chums, but that was for a bottle of whiskey. The story then shows the very bizarre ways the members of the tontine meet their demise until only two are left, who are brothers who haven't spoken to each other in years. A young Michael Caine plays the grandson of one of the brothers. The rest of the movie is a madcap chase for the tontine. Peter Sellers has a small part as a drunk, dishonorable doctor. No matter how small the part, Peter Sellers is always unforgettable.

From the title, "North & South," I thought this was about the American Civil War, but it is not. It is based on the novel by English author Elizabeth Gaskell, published in 1855. A minister and his wife and daughter, Margaret, leave rural southern England and move to the industrial north, to a mill town. The story is about their difficult adjustment, their friendship with cotton mill owner Mr Thorton, and Margaret's friendship with mill worker and union organizer Nicholas (played by Brendan Coyle, Mr Bates on "Downton Abbey") and his daughter Bessie, who is sick from "too much fluff in me lungs" (played by Anna Maxwell Martin, Esther in "Bleak House" and Elizabeth in "Death Comes to Pemberley"). The story is nuanced, and realistic, in that it shows the difficulties of running the mill as well as the hardships of the workers. The characters are three dimensional, not one side all good, one all bad. Richard Armitage is tremendous as Mr Thorton. Everyone in it is great. It is well done, but it is a very, very sad story until the very end. I haven't read the book, so I don't know how faithful the mini-series is. I watched it on Netflix, using closed captions most of the time, the regional accents can be difficult.

Excellent movie, based on a true story, a cold war spy thriller. Very well done and worth seeing. It's about a Polish army officer who spies for the CIA. It's a Polish movie, with subtitles. The Americans are played by American actors, so those parts are in English. His CIA handler is played by Patrick Wilson (Lou in the current season of Fargo). The actor who plays Jaruzelski you'd think was Jaruzelski. Some of the Polish dialogue goes by so fast it's difficult to read it all, so it's nice seeing it on TV so you can go back. I saw it on Netflix. The opening scene is horrible, I didn't watch. There's a bit of bad language, but not a lot.

This is based on the memoir of Vera Brittain who left Oxford to volunteer as a nurse during the First World War, while her brother and her fiancé were in the army at the front. I read the book while researching the First World War for One Night in a Bad Inn, and I quoted a passage from it on page 248. I thought the movie was a well done adaptation, for the most part. The blow up with her parents over going to Oxford wasn't in the book. Her father was reticent to spend money on her education. It was a visit from a family friend that helped change his mind. Some parts about her brother were not in the book, and considering how detailed the book is, I assume were fictional. These diversions from the book did not improve the story. The screenwriter left out one of the most dramatic parts of the book. I never understand why a screenwriter wanders off into fiction when the true story is so dramatic and cinematic. The depictions of the field hospitals, the trenches, the mud, the miserable conditions, were quite accurate. One other diversion from the facts – the Spanish Flu was not at the beginning of the war, but at the end. All in all, it is a good movie. Bring Kleenex. It is a sad story.

Normally I wouldn't recommend a show after only the first episode, I'd wait until it was over. But this new series has the makings of another well-done morality play. Not many of those these days. It's "Frankenstein" meets "Fahrenheit 451" meets "The Boys from Brazil." Lesson–just because we can do something, doesn't mean it's a wise thing to do. The perils can be legion and often unpredictable. The story begins with an overwrought dad buying a synth, which is a synthetic human, to be their housekeeper. His wife is none too pleased when she comes back from her business trip. He is played by Tom Goodman-Hill (Mr Grove on "Mr Selfridge"). His wife is played by Katherine Parkinson (Pauline on "Doc Martin"). William Hurt plays an older man who can't come to grips with the fact that his synth, whom he treats like a son, is wearing out. You'll want to watch it in order. It's a tele-novel. Catch up with On Demand or online. I find that with AMC shows, if you watch the airing prior to 10pm, it is cleaned up as far as language, nudity, etc, if there is any.

A fairy tale with Charles de Gaulle as the Big Bad Wolf. By 1962, France's war in Algeria was getting expensive. De Gaulle's solution was to bully Monaco into imposing income taxes and give that tax money to France. He was angry that French businesses were relocating to no-income-tax Monaco. The opening says inspired by real events. The part about the dispute between France and Monaco really happened; however, the war in Algeria ended before events in the movie culminated. Apparently the Grimaldis were unhappy about the movie. It's a Weinstein movie and was not released in theaters. I saw it on Netflix. Nicole Kidman plays Princess Grace. The movie is longer than the story, some scenes come off as contrived, but it's a nice story and a nice movie. Not many of those around these days.

This is laugh-out-loud funny. A French movie, with English subtitles, about a young overzealous chef in Paris, who keeps being fired because of his overzealousness. By bizarre happenstance, he becomes known to one of the great chef's of Paris. It pokes fun at molecular cuisine, something he must master or risk losing a star. It's hilarious. Don't know if one has to be a foodie to appreciate it. And on the same weekend I perfected my carrot soup recipe! C'est formidable, mais ce n'est pas molecular, mais c'est un peu foamy. I watched it on Netflix. You'll recognize one of the leads, Jean Reno, from Mission Impossible. The other lead actor I did not recognize, but he was formidable!

"The Assets" is about the CIA hunt for the mole who turned out to be Aldrich Ames. Fascinating story telling–parallel plot lines of Ames selling secrets to the Soviets, and his CIA colleagues discovering they have a mole in their midst and trying to figure out who it is. It is based on the book written by two of the women on the CIA team tasked with finding the mole. One of them, Sandra Grimes, was a writer on the mini-series. Very well done. It made me want to read the book ("Circle of Treason"). When all this came out in the media back in the '90s, I thought Ames came across as an arrogant narcissist. That isn't how Paul Rhys (Welsh actor) played him. Even so, from the first episode when he walks into the Soviet Embassy, I couldn't wait for this guy to get caught. The last episode is a documentary about the case, so you get to see and hear from the actual people, which I really liked. The show was also a window into FBI methods. I watched it on Netflix.

"Two Lives" is one of the best movies I've seen in a long time. I watched it on Netflix. It's a German movie that takes place in Norway shortly after reunification of Germany. Part of the story is about a woman, played by Liv Ullman, who fell in love with a German soldier during the war and they had a daughter. After the war, such women were shunned and the children sent to orphanages in Germany. To say more would give away too much. It's a masterfully written screenplay about fictional people, but such events did happen. One small part I could have skipped, otherwise an excellent portrayal of a sobering story. It's the kind of movie where you watch all the credits roll by at the end because you can't turn it off.

This is about the danger of malicious gossip. We have the naive young wife, played by Laura Fraser (Lydia in "Breaking Bad") who has just moved to London with her husband. A friend of her father, played by the ever mischievous Bill Nighy, comes to visit–daily. Her husband overhears gossip about the relationship and sinks into paranoid despair, made worse by a cynical private detective played by Ron Cook (Mr Crabb in "Mr Selfridge"). One of the side stories is about the hapless vicar "in want of a wife" played by David Tennant, whose facial expressions alone are worth the price of admission, so to speak. This mini-series was adapted by Welsh screenwriter Andrew Davies from the Anthony Trollope novel. I haven't read the book so don't know how closely Mr Davies kept to it. I enjoyed the mini-series.

Until the end, very well done, David Lean-esque wide screen vistas, a very cinematic sweeping score, also Lean-esque. There is terrific dramatic writing on cable TV these days. What made "Fargo" different was that there were actually nice people in it, which made it all the more intriguing. We had good people to root for as a counter to the menacing, charming villain played by Billy Bob Thornton. Some of it was quite gory; however, what could have been the most gory scene was not gory – very artfully and cleverly done. I liked that the dialogue was not heavily peppered with profanity. All of the acting was tremendous but especially Martin Freeman – the quirky character that he created in Lester. My only fault was with one part of the end that I wish they'd have done differently. I read that the next season will have a whole new cast. This viewer will miss Molly and Gus.