Mark Herman: Director
Plot: Set during World War II, a story seen through the innocent eyes of Bruno, the eight-year-old son of the commandant at a concentration camp, whose forbidden friendship with a Jewish boy on the other side of the camp fence has startling and unexpected consequences.
Cast:
Vera Farmiga, David Thewlis
Just when I thought I had seen all the World War II sob story films that I ever wanted to see, there is one more well worth the time, the effort. Boy in the Stripped Pajamas is a film so gripping that once it ends the impact of the experience remains in the mind and heart of those who have children and those who don't.
What is striking about the film is the contrast between the world in which the parents live and the world that the child inhabits, albeit in the same house, in the same environment.
The gap between the generation is so striking and yet, watching the film it seems very natural, very understandable but upon thinking about it long after the DVD ended I realized that nothing really made sense. How could there be such profound misunderstanding between well meaning adults and their off springs.
As baffling as it was in retrospect, while I saw the film it all seemed natural; a statement of life during war time where the bizarre becomes the norm
This is a family film in the true sense of the concept, not a feel good film but a film that offers something for everyone who sees it. A poignant film that needs no music to inform on feelings present or anticipated.
I strongly recommend this quiet masterpiece.
Linda Zises
WBAI Radio
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Nixon/Frost on Cable TV now!
Ron Howard: Director
With Frank Langella,Michael Sheen, Sam Rockwell
This film has been talked about on channel 13 Charlie Rose and talked about in the press and talked about and talked about so why see it?
I saw the original TV Frost/Nixon interview. I remember ex-President Nixon and where I was when I saw him, live on TV resigning the Presidency. Why go back there again?
Because this is the guts of history, the moment when we can see into the wheels that turn to create the quality of our lives and here we have another expose on the President and on how television works or fails to work and a close up focused on an intensely lonely man who we all hated because we had notmet up with the likes of George W Bush.
At the hands of Ron Howard, Director and Peter Morgan writer Nixon appears as a tragic historical figure for whom one could almost feel sorry if he had not destroyed so much of what people were taught to believe.
Maybe Nixon did us all a big favor. He appears to epitomize the home grown boy, right out of our everyday life. Just by being Nixon: corrupt, monomaniacal, devious, liar, manipulator.
With these presidents as our hero how can we raise our children to be nothing like Nixon or George W Bush or all the other corrupt politicians who people our World. Their lack of compromise, their failure to invoke the power of negotiation, or attempt to work within the legal boundaries of the system is legendary.
See Nixon suffer. Watch him squirm, watch his face distort with emotion that no one ever thought he had.
Frank Lanella's acting is superb!
Of course you will see this film. The only question is, at what age should children see it.
Linda Zises
WBAI Radio
With Frank Langella,Michael Sheen, Sam Rockwell
This film has been talked about on channel 13 Charlie Rose and talked about in the press and talked about and talked about so why see it?
I saw the original TV Frost/Nixon interview. I remember ex-President Nixon and where I was when I saw him, live on TV resigning the Presidency. Why go back there again?
Because this is the guts of history, the moment when we can see into the wheels that turn to create the quality of our lives and here we have another expose on the President and on how television works or fails to work and a close up focused on an intensely lonely man who we all hated because we had notmet up with the likes of George W Bush.
At the hands of Ron Howard, Director and Peter Morgan writer Nixon appears as a tragic historical figure for whom one could almost feel sorry if he had not destroyed so much of what people were taught to believe.
Maybe Nixon did us all a big favor. He appears to epitomize the home grown boy, right out of our everyday life. Just by being Nixon: corrupt, monomaniacal, devious, liar, manipulator.
With these presidents as our hero how can we raise our children to be nothing like Nixon or George W Bush or all the other corrupt politicians who people our World. Their lack of compromise, their failure to invoke the power of negotiation, or attempt to work within the legal boundaries of the system is legendary.
See Nixon suffer. Watch him squirm, watch his face distort with emotion that no one ever thought he had.
Frank Lanella's acting is superb!
Of course you will see this film. The only question is, at what age should children see it.
Linda Zises
WBAI Radio
Sikivu Hutchinson: Mob Rules: Tea Party's High Noon
...Reveling in nightly PR infusions from the corporate lapdogs of American journalism, the freshly evangelized macho racist right has ensured that its charge of a socialist government expansion is now viewed as a “reasonable” critique of an overhaul that effectively concedes universal coverage to the insurance industry. Mining a deep strain of patriarchal backlash, the Tea Partiers have taken Christian fundamentalists’ language of “moral” panic and used it as a goad to a white nationalist uprising obsessed with the imagery of enslavement...
CONTINUE TO READ ARTICLE at
http://blackfemlens.blogspot.com/2010/03/mob-rules-tea-partys-high-noon.html
Sikivu Hutchinson is the editor of blackfemlens.org, a journal of progressive commentary and literature, and the author of the forthcoming book Mortal Combat: Black Atheists, Gender Politics and Secular America. She is member of the Women Film Critics Circle, a commentator on Pacifica's Some Of Us Are Brave on KPFK 90.7FM, and a reporter for the LA Women's Desk of the WBAI Radio Women's Collective in NY.
Listen to blackfemlens commentaries on Fridays, 6:25pm LA Time, at http://kpfk.org.
Henry Menahem: Examination of an Obituary
"Jewelry Store Clerk, Slain in Robbery"
DATE: Wednesday, Jan. 27, 2010, 12:20 p.m.
LOCATION: 962 Madison Ave., Upper East Side, Manhattan.
The police say the robber who killed 71-year-old jewelry store clerk Henry Menahem Wednesday dumped a Fabrege-style egg in the trash as he fled with $1 million in gems and expensive necklace.."
"The New York Post reported that the suspect entered R.S. Durant Jewelers at lunchtime, brandished a 9 mm pistol and threw two bags at Menahem and a second clerk. They refused to fill the bags."
On the upper East Side, Madison Avenue jewelry stores do not have clerks.
They have employees. Clerks are people who do the paper work, menial tasks that usually deal with paper. But Henry Menahem was a 71 years old man who worked as a salesperson, an employee at a fancy Jewelry store on the upper east side of Manhattans and to refer to him as a clerk is an insult.
71 years old man. What is this all about? Why is he not retired?
If there was any bad feeling, any kind of degrading experience going on in this jewelry store this 71 year old man could have stayed away. He would not have been at the R.S. Durant jewelery store on the day of the robbery.
But there he was, already in possession of his medical insurance from the federal government and social security and maybe, if his employees had been generous, a pension check awaited his retirement.
We will never know the mind set of this financial arrangement because the newspapers which provided the readers with the "information" did not interview the establishment owners to learn and convey to us why this 71 year old man was still working at their store and what the arrangement would have been upon his retirement.
Evidently, Henry, known affectionately by those close to him as Hank, was asked to put the store's merchandise in the bags that the assailant held out to him. Hank refused.
A clerk refused to turn over the merchandise. Who is this man? Who is the employer?
In a jewelry store on the Upper East Side of Manhattan located in a part of town where even the clothing stores which house merchandise far less valuable than the multimillion dollar jewelry store, R.S. Durant, station a guard at the door to protect....... You know him. He is the man who contracts out his life to protect the store and its contents with his Life if need be in exchange for a given amount of money.
That in itself is strange. I can't imagine any money that can compensate for the loss of human life, no matter how common a practice this might be.
We don't know why, but we know that the man appointed to save Henry's life did not do so and as there was no mention of his absence in the article it is safe to conclude, he was not supposed to be there, not paid to guard the R. S. Durant jewelry store. I wonder if the assailant knew that as well.
Why did Henry refuse to comply with the request?
That mystery defies all possibility that Henry thought of himself as a "clerk". If I am a clerk there is sufficient separation between me and my work that upon request made for compliance at gun point I would have handed over whatever the assailant wanted. I would not have thought twice about releasing a set of papers or anything the content of which would have been deemed well beyond my level of comprehension or possible personal possession.
Upon denying the request /demand Henry was shot in the chest, bled profusely and died. The assailant left the store dropping a Fabrege-style jeweled egg into the common trash bin on the street, The egg's worth, well over one million dollars.
So....... in addition to the highly prejudicial articles that appeared in the newspapers void of the human interviews with employer, wife, children grandchildren or friends and neighbors etc. (for which, given the mind set of the reporters is probably a good thing) we know....
There was no guard stationed in the store at the time of the robbery
Henry did not think of himself as a clerk but as an employee.
His opinion of himself at work seems to be shared by his employer because they kept him on the job 6 years after the customary or legal retirement age.
Why Henry was working at the Jewelry store that day is not know and without asking those who do know, we can not know the answer.
But
from our personal experience we know that
if the employer, the owner of the store had been shot dead while trying to defend his precious commodity, his multi million dollars worth of Jewelry this story would go on and on with the fullness of detail, interviews, tears, that would make everyone in the fullness of time tired of reading about it.
Fortunately
Henry's closest friends and family were spared that obsession with the 'truth'
The contrast between Henry giving his life to save his employer's jewelry and the failure of the employer to value Henry's life enough to place a guard in the store at all times to protect him forces the question; who is the stores' owner who values his wealth over people's lives. And who was Henry Menahem?
Henry appears to have been a devoted man, devoted to his menial job and most likely to his family. He lived by the creed of "thou shall not steal".
One can assume, he had self respect, the very sense of self respect that the New York Post and the New York Daily News undermined in their tabloid articles when they referred to Henry as a clerk. He was not a clerk. Henry was a loyal employee, a salesman in a high class, high powered Madison Ave upper east side of Manhattan establishment who gave his life for the possessions of another man. if Henry had complied and said, "here, take it", and filled the opened bags as requested, would he have gained financial reward or remuneration? We don't know, and unfortunately, we never will.
Henry Menahem is likened to a hero as in a Green tragedy. A man who is loyal to a fault, a man who lives by values we should all embrace, a man who seemed to go to work for more reasons than to make whatever little bit of money employees in our society earn.
Henry Menahem doomed by your own intractable virtues which we all strive for but seldom achieve.
May you rest in peace.
Linda Zises
WBAI Women's Collective
DATE: Wednesday, Jan. 27, 2010, 12:20 p.m.
LOCATION: 962 Madison Ave., Upper East Side, Manhattan.
The police say the robber who killed 71-year-old jewelry store clerk Henry Menahem Wednesday dumped a Fabrege-style egg in the trash as he fled with $1 million in gems and expensive necklace.."
"The New York Post reported that the suspect entered R.S. Durant Jewelers at lunchtime, brandished a 9 mm pistol and threw two bags at Menahem and a second clerk. They refused to fill the bags."
On the upper East Side, Madison Avenue jewelry stores do not have clerks.
They have employees. Clerks are people who do the paper work, menial tasks that usually deal with paper. But Henry Menahem was a 71 years old man who worked as a salesperson, an employee at a fancy Jewelry store on the upper east side of Manhattans and to refer to him as a clerk is an insult.
71 years old man. What is this all about? Why is he not retired?
If there was any bad feeling, any kind of degrading experience going on in this jewelry store this 71 year old man could have stayed away. He would not have been at the R.S. Durant jewelery store on the day of the robbery.
But there he was, already in possession of his medical insurance from the federal government and social security and maybe, if his employees had been generous, a pension check awaited his retirement.
We will never know the mind set of this financial arrangement because the newspapers which provided the readers with the "information" did not interview the establishment owners to learn and convey to us why this 71 year old man was still working at their store and what the arrangement would have been upon his retirement.
Evidently, Henry, known affectionately by those close to him as Hank, was asked to put the store's merchandise in the bags that the assailant held out to him. Hank refused.
A clerk refused to turn over the merchandise. Who is this man? Who is the employer?
In a jewelry store on the Upper East Side of Manhattan located in a part of town where even the clothing stores which house merchandise far less valuable than the multimillion dollar jewelry store, R.S. Durant, station a guard at the door to protect....... You know him. He is the man who contracts out his life to protect the store and its contents with his Life if need be in exchange for a given amount of money.
That in itself is strange. I can't imagine any money that can compensate for the loss of human life, no matter how common a practice this might be.
We don't know why, but we know that the man appointed to save Henry's life did not do so and as there was no mention of his absence in the article it is safe to conclude, he was not supposed to be there, not paid to guard the R. S. Durant jewelry store. I wonder if the assailant knew that as well.
Why did Henry refuse to comply with the request?
That mystery defies all possibility that Henry thought of himself as a "clerk". If I am a clerk there is sufficient separation between me and my work that upon request made for compliance at gun point I would have handed over whatever the assailant wanted. I would not have thought twice about releasing a set of papers or anything the content of which would have been deemed well beyond my level of comprehension or possible personal possession.
Upon denying the request /demand Henry was shot in the chest, bled profusely and died. The assailant left the store dropping a Fabrege-style jeweled egg into the common trash bin on the street, The egg's worth, well over one million dollars.
So....... in addition to the highly prejudicial articles that appeared in the newspapers void of the human interviews with employer, wife, children grandchildren or friends and neighbors etc. (for which, given the mind set of the reporters is probably a good thing) we know....
There was no guard stationed in the store at the time of the robbery
Henry did not think of himself as a clerk but as an employee.
His opinion of himself at work seems to be shared by his employer because they kept him on the job 6 years after the customary or legal retirement age.
Why Henry was working at the Jewelry store that day is not know and without asking those who do know, we can not know the answer.
But
from our personal experience we know that
if the employer, the owner of the store had been shot dead while trying to defend his precious commodity, his multi million dollars worth of Jewelry this story would go on and on with the fullness of detail, interviews, tears, that would make everyone in the fullness of time tired of reading about it.
Fortunately
Henry's closest friends and family were spared that obsession with the 'truth'
The contrast between Henry giving his life to save his employer's jewelry and the failure of the employer to value Henry's life enough to place a guard in the store at all times to protect him forces the question; who is the stores' owner who values his wealth over people's lives. And who was Henry Menahem?
Henry appears to have been a devoted man, devoted to his menial job and most likely to his family. He lived by the creed of "thou shall not steal".
One can assume, he had self respect, the very sense of self respect that the New York Post and the New York Daily News undermined in their tabloid articles when they referred to Henry as a clerk. He was not a clerk. Henry was a loyal employee, a salesman in a high class, high powered Madison Ave upper east side of Manhattan establishment who gave his life for the possessions of another man. if Henry had complied and said, "here, take it", and filled the opened bags as requested, would he have gained financial reward or remuneration? We don't know, and unfortunately, we never will.
Henry Menahem is likened to a hero as in a Green tragedy. A man who is loyal to a fault, a man who lives by values we should all embrace, a man who seemed to go to work for more reasons than to make whatever little bit of money employees in our society earn.
Henry Menahem doomed by your own intractable virtues which we all strive for but seldom achieve.
May you rest in peace.
Linda Zises
WBAI Women's Collective
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)