The words “Never forget” are inscribed in a Paris memorial honoring the victims of the “so-called ‘government of the French state’” during World War II. The memorial rests on the spot of the government’s most notorious act of villainy, the infamous Vel d’Hiv roundup of July 1942. On July 16, French police under Gestapo orders lockedthousands of Parisian Jews in the Vélodrome d’Hiver sports stadium for days, in horrible conditions, then transported them to the Drancy holding camp before finally sending them to their deaths at Auschwitz. There were almost no survivors. 

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Released last week in Los Angeles and New York City, and this weekend in select cities nationwide, the 2010 French film “Sarah’s Key” brings that tragedy to the screen. “Sarah’s Key” is based on author Tatiana de Rosnay’s New York Times bestseller by the same name, and follows two lives, decades apart, connected by a long-kept, horrible secret. Sarah (Mélusine Mayance), a young Jewish girl taken with her parents to the Vel’ d’Hiv, fights to return to Paris where her brother is locked away in a secret closet in their apartment, hiding from the police. Years later, in modern day Paris, American journalist Julia (Kristin Scott Thomas) begins to research Sarah’s story while struggling with the decision of whether to keep or abort her baby – a baby that her husband does not want. 

The film, like the book, flips between 1942 and modern-day France and New York, defying traditional World War II films, since over half of the story takes place in the 2000s. Co-writer and director Gilles Pacquet-Brenner added a few scenes to flesh out Sarah’s history, and streamlined Julia’s relationship with her husband and fellow journalists, but left the bestselling story largely intact. 

Young Sarah, played by a brilliant French actress named Mélusine Mayance, has haunting eyes and maturity beyond her years. As Pacquet-Brenner says, “She’s a great actress. She’s not a child who acts.” Coupled with the stunning, mysterious Charlotte Poutrel playing a grown up Sarah, Pacuqet-Brenner presents an unforgettable character who endures almost incomprehensible tragedy. Kristin Scott Thomas also delivers a moving performance as the journalist Julia, and between Thomas and Aidan Quinn, they keep an emotional ending from becoming melodramatic. 

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Fox News:

Filmmaker Oliver Stone has apologized after critics slammed him for making comments that were interpreted as anti-Semitic in an interview last Sunday.

While promoting his documentary “South of the Border” with The Sunday Times of London, Stone not only defended Hitler, but also downplayed the Holocaust. …

Later, he complained about the “Jewish domination of the media,” saying, “there’s a major lobby in the United States. They are hard workers. They stay on top of every comment, the most powerful lobby in Washington. Israel has f**ked up United States foreign policy for years.”

On Monday afternoon, Stone issued the following statement in an attempt to appease the situation: (more…)

In 1981, there was a film called Chariots of Fire. The movie is based on the true story of two British athletes competing in the 1924 Summer Olympics in Paris. Englishman Harold Abrahams (Ben Cross), who is Jewish, overcomes anti-Semitism and class prejudice in order to compete against the “Flying Scotsman,” Eric Liddell (Ian Charleson), in the 100 meter. Abraham wins and Eric then goes on to win the 400 meter.

I was deeply moved and inspired by this Best Picture winner. The soundtrack by Vangelis was beautifully stirring. It haunted me and I started to vocalize the main theme which eventually led me to put words to the music. Now indulge me, and remember the theme to the film as you read the lyrics:

I speak to the children, the ones who are pure, for they are the future, the key to it all

Our vision has darkened, our way has been lost, it’s they who must lead us, back on the course

Imagine a world of love and hope, a world without hate

A world where nothing separates the spirit of man

No national boundaries, invented by greed

The world is awaiting, for love as the creed

I speak to the children, I speak to you all, join hearts and your voices, let love rule us all

I take the lyrics, go into a recording studio and sing the song in Italian and English. It was a moving and rousing experience, and I then come up with the idea for a world movement called “An Evening in the Celebration For The Spirit of Man.” I get a small group of followers going — about 30 people or so that are on fire with the idea. One was a writer, Vanna Bonta, who translated the lyrics into Italian for me. She’s the granddaughter of Luigi Ugolino, an Italian poet. (more…)

I was in grade school when The Gathering first aired in 1977 — right in the middle of that second Golden Era of television that within a few years produced Rich Man Poor Man, Roots, The Night Stalker, Holocaust, Jesus of Nazareth, and Salem’s Lot. And while I missed the Emmy winner for Best Drama back then, twenty years later my intense dislike for Ed Asner’s obnoxious politics almost caused me to miss it again during a rare broadcast late one evening right around the holidays when I couldn’t sleep. 

What a mistake that would’ve been (and after “Up” Asner can now do no wrong). The Gathering kept my full attention until almost dawn and made such an impact that I made sure to grab the first opportunity to catch it on VHS a couple years later. Which is a good thing because for some inexplicable reason one of the best television films ever, and most certainly the best Christmas television film ever, hasn’t been available on home video for years, was never has finally been released on DVD, and only rarely broadcasts on cable anymore.

That’s the long way of saying, keep your eye out because this one’s special and hard to find… (more…)

“That’s the best song ever written,” Judy Garland said of “Over the Rainbow” in an interview with Barbara Walters on March 6, 1967, almost three decades after she captured countless hearts as “Dorothy” in “The Wizard of Oz,” featuring that magical song.

So, too, “The Wizard of Oz”—released 70 years ago today—is, perhaps, the best film ever made.

Or, at least, the most quintessentially American—in terms of our struggles, hopes, aspirations, dreams, and, ultimately, unshakable confidence, that “somewhere over the rainbow… dreams… really do come true.”

MGM had purchased this highly popular and imaginative children’s book written by L. Frank Baum, and published in 1900, for $75,000, specifically for Judy.  During development, the silver shoes became ruby, thus undercutting Baum’s apparent allegory to “bimetallism”—currency backed by silver, replacing “the gold standard” and favoring rural farmers; in contrast to the worthless “greenbacks” some say Emerald City represents.  (more…)

So another Rambo flick is on its grimy, sweaty way and this time the villains are human traffickers and drug lords. To make them even more despicable, they’ve kidnapped a young girl and are probably ignoring her strict vegan needs.

Look, I applaud Sylvester Stallone’s heroic stance against human traffickers and kidnappers – for I know there will be quite an outcry especially from the large and very influential human trafficking and kidnapper lobby.

Of course, this movie comes on the heels of two other edgy ventures: The G.I Joe flick – which turned a gritty American icon into an airbrushed Benneton ad, and “Inglourious Basterds” a fantasy that has average Jews hacking Nazi soldiers to pieces.

These three movies have two things in common:
1) They avoid present, real danger in the world and instead choose villains that are not just safe, but politically correct to hate. You’d think it would be easy for Quentin Tarantino to find a present day enemy for the Jews (like, say, a terrorist group that denies the Holocaust and wants to wipe Israel off the map), but maybe none exist! And what of those guys who flew planes into the World Trade Center? I suppose in the era of the “unclenched fist,” we must be more sensitive to “backlash” than barbarism. (more…)

During the Cold War, a slew of movies came out that dealt with the possibility of a nuclear exchange with the Soviet Union. This is not surprising since the atom and hydrogen bombs were the most powerful weapons ever devised by man. Well, almost.

I’ll get to that somewhat nervy assertion in a bit, but first a little background.

Among the cinematic slew released during those years of cold, are two of my favorite films, Dr. Strangelove and Fail-Safe. Both dealt with strikingly similar themes, unintentional nuclear holocaust, yet in entirely different tones.  But cold war themes weren’t that varied by their very nature, since inevitably the worst case scenario was the best case plot device and nothing brings down the house like bringing down the house.

With that said, still, there’s so much similarity between the two stories that law suits were indeed filed and production schedules slowed. This worked out to Stanley Kubrick’s advantage as his Dr. Strangelove: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb was released almost a year ahead of Sidney Lumet’s Fail-Safe. In my opinion Kubrick’s is a better film than Lumet’s and not due to slowed schedules, either. But both are magnificent, and because of their approaches to the topic, very different  and essential part of the genre. (more…)

I have been a proud conservative Republican my entire life. My father and Jimmy Carter saw to that. My first vote ever was for Ronald Reagan in 1980, and I have never voted for a Democrat. Ever. Even today, the reasons for my being so have not changed, despite the media’s and liberal Democrats’ tireless efforts to discredit my belief system. Though the times may change, core principles never do. I have also served this nation proudly in uniform for six years, and don’t regret a minute of it.

In the early 1980s, my military service brought me to some of the darker corners of the world. I spent time in South Korea and Marcos’ Philippines when both countries were under martial law. Knowing I could be shot just for being in the wrong place at the wrong time really woke me up to what exactly it is we have here in America. Seeing a thousand Vietnamese Boat People pulled out of the South China Sea in one day only reinforced my belief in America, Sweet Land of Liberty.

Today, the Party of Lincoln and Reagan appears to be in political disarray, which is why I am writing this OpEd now. Yet many promising developments, along with some huge mistakes by Congress and the Obama Administration, have opened many new doors for us. If only we will enter. (more…)

The film The Boy in the Striped Pajamas is just out on DVD this week, and I confess I was eagerly anticipating its release, having missed its run in theaters. I rented it and watched it Wednesday evening.

Based on the children’s novel of the same name by John Boyne, it tells the story of eight-year-old Bruno, whose father is a high-ranking Nazi. Dad is transferred from his post in Berlin to head a work (read: final solution) camp, and the family is uprooted to the countryside. Bored out of his skull after a few weeks of little to do and no one to play with but his older sister, Bruno defies his mother’s orders to stay in the front yard and sneaks out back to explore. He comes upon the camp, which he thinks is a farm (Bruno is sheltered from the realities of his father’s work) and meets Shmuel, a boy his age on the other side of the fence, wearing what Bruno thinks are “striped pajamas.” Despite being separated by electrified barbed wire, the two boys strike up a friendship that holds fast despite the obvious adversity and future problems that arise. (more…)