I love going to the movies over Christmas vacation, because that’s when all the good stuff comes out. I saw five movies in the last week and a half:
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button — I fell in love with this movie. It’s big and beautiful, with a sweeping story. Also very long — 2 hours and 47 minutes. At times I felt like I was watching a director’s cut. David Fincher, the director, really indulged himself here. But I truly loved this movie. Fincher also directed my favorite film of 2007, Zodiac, which, like Benjamin Button, sucked me completely into its world.
Revolutionary Road — Jesus Christ, what a depressing film. Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio (reunited from Titanic) play an unhappy suburban couple in the 1950s. It was impossible not to think of Mad Men — if Pete Campbell were married to Betty Draper — except it doesn’t draw attention to its time period as Mad Men sometimes does. It’s a good movie, and Kate Winslet is terrific, but we never quite understand why her character is so unhappy.
Doubt — So entertaining. Meryl Streep is spot-on, Amy Adams is great as Sister James, and Philip Seymour Hoffman does a nice job as Father Flynn. Viola Davis is good as the fourth main character, the mother of a young boy, but I would have liked to have seen Adriane Lenox play the part — she was stunning in the role on Broadway.
Frost/Nixon — I’m a political/presidential junkie, so I enjoyed this alot. In fact, I think I liked it even better than the Broadway play, maybe because I could actually see Frank Langella and Michael Sheen up close on screen instead of from a theater mezzanine. Or maybe it just works better as a movie, because you can actually show the sets. Langella is terrific as Nixon.
Valkyrie — Given all the bad press during production, this turned out surprisingly well. Actually, it was pretty great. It’s two hours long but goes by quickly — particularly the second half, which is unrelentingly tense and suspenseful, even though you know how it ends. I wonder how the movie plays if you don’t know?
There are one or two other movies I still want to see, including Slumdog Millionaire. I have no desire to see Gran Torino or The Wrestler — Clint Eastwood has never really done it for me, and I don’t want to stare at a broken-down Mickey Rourke for two hours.
Finally, I do not need to see the trailer for the Julia Roberts/Clive Owen spy movie ever again. Five times was enough. Hell, once was enough. I think I can recite the whole thing from memory. “Appletini.” “Well that sounds good!”
Valkyrie was good, and I knew about the Wolf’s Lair plot, but the whole takeover of the government by the reservists was a bit new to me, even though I’m a WW2 junkie. So I looked up the history, and the movie was fairly faithful to the facts.
Of course, had the plot succeeded, it would not have mattered, much. Even if the Western Allies made a separate truce, the USSR was such a juggernaut of a production war machine that even a one to one slogging match would not have gone well for Germany. The most Germany would have bought was a year, at most.
So, this discussion takes us back to, why did Germany lose?
1) In 1940, the German air offensive switched from RAF fighter command to The Blitz. While bad for the citizens of London, this gave RAF fighter command breathing room to recover.
2) Germany attacked the USSR before securing a British defeat and without Japanese support from the other side. Of course, the British and Germans were effectively in a stalemate, but turning against the USSR assured a two front war. Having Japan’s support would have at least allowed for a diversion to allow the Germans a prayer to get to the Urals to destroy the Russian production juggernaut. Taking Moscow would have mattered little. The other thing, if Germany had been merciful to the local peoples of the region, that would have assured victory for Germany with local allies rising up beside them.
3) The US entering the war was just the final straw. By 1944, the US, alone, was outproducing the combined Axis production capacity, so there wasn’t a prayer, by that point.