Michael DeNobile's Movie Reviews

A REFLECTION ON SEASON 6 OF GAME OF THRONES Homecomings are bittersweet. While they bring us to a place of relative safety and security, they remind us of what we have lost and what we can never attain once again. Time is a commodity that, while gaining value over time, cannot be reimbursed once it is passed. Sometimes we can only go home for the weekend because we are not the person we once were. Our family just doesn't get it; we cannot be who we once were or we cannot be who they want us to be. And so, you must leave to set out on the next chapter. Other times, going home isn't a homecoming at all, empty of any sentiment, cold as dragonglass or Valyrian steel. Either way, home becomes a larger concept: home is where you love. In other words, that which you love the most becomes the place where home is. Recently, I was speaking with a Brazilian preacher from Rio de Janeiro who went back to Rio on a trip. He grew up there and had been living in the United States for a fe...

A REFLECTION ON SEASON 5 OF GAME OF THRONES We humans are stupid. We squabble over things we feel is of vital importance: power, pride, property, loyalty. Granted, individually these things can be seen as sacred, but when they distract and divide us, what good are they? They are nothing more than pillars of ash we struggle to hold on to. Institutions meant to uplift us can in their most radical forms harm us. Religion and economics, for example, can be uniting forces or they can destroy us from the inside out, until forces beyond our control decide our fate when it is too late to realize our faults. We fight wars amongst ourselves, pitting ourselves against one another for the most ridiculous of reasons: where and how one was raised, occupations, ideologies, whom we choose to love. We create value systems for who we feel is worthy and worth saving, condemning, ostracizing, uniting. Someone steals our toys, and we're plotting revenge before we are even certain we know who ...

A REFLECTION OF SEASON 4 OF GAME OF THRONES All we have as human beings is our words--promises kept, promises broken. You know the mettle of men and women by how they keep their promises, and when they must break them for the greater good. That's why a good name for a sword is Oathkeeper, for that's what a good sword does. The holder makes a promise to bind themselves to another's cause, and a good knight stays true. Marriage is a promise of two people becoming one, whether your betrothed is someone you want to be with or not. When an honorable man is forced to marry a woman who both know does not want to be in said marriage, his watch so begins, because of the promise. We make promises to our family, to right the wrongs of the past, to avenge their honor, or to progress the family name by any means possible. Sometimes our family may not be in blood but in a fraternal unit, and sometimes in order to do right by that fraternity, we must break our vows in order to fur...

A REFLECTION OF SEASON THREE OF GAME OF THRONES  There are times in our lives when choices come into focus. And that choice, right or wrong, though difficult, bubbles up to the forefront as the only choice one can make. When you're alone in unknown territory and fall in love, and the one you love shoots arrows into you: you climb. When all seems lost, your family dead, and all you have is hate and a list of names to avenge your family name, one of which is your captor: you climb. When you're not taken seriously, maybe because you're a woman or a child or have some perceived disability: you climb. When you are forced to marry someone instead of the one you love: you climb. When you endure the death of your father, the abuse of someone you thought was good, and the loss of your ancestral home: you climb. When you are captured and tortured: you climb. When you are thrown in a pit with a bear: you climb. When the snow is deep and the wall is tall, and the only w...

A REFLECTION ON SEASON TWO OF GAME OF THRONES In a room, a king, a priest, and a rich man sit while a sellsword of common birth and common knowledge stands. Each of the three great men command the sellsword to kill the other two: The king commands with the authority of law. The priest commands with the authority of the divine. The rich man commands with the authority of wealth. So, who lives and who dies? One might first side with the sellsword, for that seems logical. Does the sellsword side with duty, faith, or temptation? But that would mean that those with swords hold the power, and we all know that that's not true. Power is a shadow of a thought, a pall where we each individually think it covers. Some believe there is power in titles and blood, differentiating between common names and family names. Power lies in birthrights and laws, whether they are just or unjust. Others believe power lies in the heavens above and the realms below. Here, power lies in faithfulne...

A REFLECTION OF SEASON ONE OF GAME OF THRONES Secrets beget secrets like bastard children of a king. And for the record, lies are not the cousins of secrets--for secrets are nothing more than truth that has yet to see the light of day. The cousin of secrets is deception, the bastard child of lies, for deception is nothing more than the full truth rather than pure lies in a crucible. And when winter is coming, and the light of days dwindles, the secrets in the crucible spark revelation, and those revelations spark wars, fires so hot that only those with dragon blood in their veins can withstand the flames. And in the burning light of revealed secrets, one has a choice to make. As a man of honor, do you swing the sword if you passed the sentence and take the sword when the sentence is passed on you, even when you know you are innocent? Or as a man of dishonor, do you create debts to always be paid, only to slime your way to living another day? Either way, identify with who a...

A REFLECTION OF SEASON 1 OF THE GOOD DOCTOR This is my first reflection of a television series, but it won't be the last. Not very often does a TV show capture the rawness of being human. Not very often does a TV show get real with its audience. TV has been ruled by the sitcom since the 1980s, situational comedies that ultimately fall short of capturing the complexity and authenticity of the human experience. They give us a laugh and they have their place, but where they fall short is continually challenging us and the way we see the world around us. When a show gives us insight in a realm of our world that is meant to be unemotional, nonhuman, and insensitive with morally ambiguous characters we wish we could know personally in our lives, it becomes a buffet of entertainment in our binge watching hulu universe. When celebrating diversity isn't a cheesy Saturday morning cartoon and when they present both sides of controversial situations, that type of show draws you in...

Originally published December 2012. MY REFLECTION OF LINCOLN Steven Spielberg does it again with Lincoln , Daniel Day-Lewis giving an awe-inspiring performance of Honest Abe and Tommy Lee Jones giving one of his finest performances as the quick-witted Thaddeus Stevens. While Sally Field looks a lot like Mary Todd Lincoln, I personally felt that casting the actress who was 20yrs older than Ms. Lincoln at the historical time period of the movie removed elements of consistency (it's easy to age an actor; it's much harder to make them look younger). Another Oscar is in the future for Steven Spielberg and Daniel Day-Lewis. Movies like these remind us how human the players of history really were--full of imperfections and shortcomings as we are. We take for granted when we read our history books that the passing of the 13th Amendment meant that our nation just came to terms with slavery and then got sidetracked with Reconstruction. If you don't like C-SPAN, scenes drama...

Originally published December 2013. Movie seen at AMC Port Chester 14 in Port Chester, NY, during the film's last weekend run. AFTER READING AND WATCHING THE BOOK THIEF The Book Thief is a must-read story and a must-see movie. I had high expectations for the movie version but I must say, I am satisfied with the theatrical rendition of the movie. Set in Nazi Germany, The Book Thief is the story of Liesel Meminger, a young German girl and daughter of a communist who is adopted by poor Germans the Hubermanns who live on Himmel (German for "Heaven") Street, and is narrated by Death. Haunted by the death of her brother Werner and the abandonment of her parents, Liesel learns of the power of words in reading and writing--two things she didn't know how to do before meeting the Hubermanns. I was told this was another stereotypical Nazi movie--I mean, after Schindler's List, there's not more you can do about the Holocaust. The Book Thief, however, both book an...

Originally published October 2014. A REFLECTION ON CLINT EASTWOOD'S FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS (2006) "War . . . is always a defeat for humanity." ~Saint Pope John Paul II From the greatest generation to millennials, we have been generations shaped by war. We have seen global conflicts make it to our own soil, the blood of our sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers, and grandfathers spilled for this cause and that one. From ending tyranny in all of its forms, to protecting our God-given liberties to fighting one's own demons, we have seen ethereal numbers march onto the battlefields under the banners that it is truly, truly honorable to die for one's country. Yet, we try to avoid war at all costs, whether it be with ourselves or foreign combatants, because we know there is no victory in war. No matter whose flag is raised in the end, whether literal or figurative, when the dragons that lurk in the bowels of humanity are released, and the...

Originally published in February 2015. AFTER WATCHING BAND OF BROTHERS (2001) AND THE PACIFIC (2010) Although I never served in the military, I feel there is at least an ounce of understanding from necessary projects such as Band of Brothers  and the Pacific . While I am grateful and hope I never feel what it is like to be in a muddy foxhole or hold the wooden grip of a military rifle, smell the sea's salty foam or the gunpowder from hot bullets during battle, I cannot help but pause in appreciative awe at what it must have been like and continues to be like for those who have. I cannot claim to understand war, but from my study of film and reading of primary accounts, I feel safe in my estimate that the greatest casualty of war is the loss of one's humanity. We get caught up in measuring the greatness and valor of a warrior by particular sacrifices, usually physical in nature, ranked by decorative medals and special honors, but it seems the value of a soldier is i...

Originally published in December 2015. THE TORCH HAS BEEN PASSED: ROCK SERIES CONTINUES WITH CREED, AND IT'S MORE THAN A BOXING LEGACY Last summer, I bit the bullet because I knew at the age of 30 that having not seen all of the Rockies was a travesty. I mean yeah, Rocky V was a bit of a horror movie, but the series as a whole in my humble opinion is sheer genius on the part of Sylvester Stallone. Down on his luck much like the character Rocky, Stallone had hit rock bottom. He was a bit of a failure as an actor, having only performed in softcore pornos in the late seventies, where he earned the nickname the "Italian Stallion." But along the journey of the six Rockies, you soon realize you're watching more than a bunch of movies. You're witnessing the creation of American mythology: the quintessential hero who rises from the dustbin of life to the heights of glory. Nearly forty years after a young punkish Rocky entered the ring, the son of Apollo Creed...

Originally published in December 2015. IN THE HEART OF THE SEA: A FAMILIAR STORY RESURRECTED FROM THE DEPTHS OF TRUE DARKNESS I must admit I never read Herman Melville's Moby Dick , heck not even the abridged version but near excerpts of the grand epic. Truth be told, though I'm an English teacher, I prefer writing to reading. A few years ago when I contemplated earning my second masters degree, I started in Hunter College in Manhattan to pursue a degree in literature, but after a semester I realized I didn't like studying other people's work. I wasn't a spectator but an actor. Not the receiver of magic but the magician. So very quickly I found myself wandering the halls of Manhattanville College earning an MFA in creative writing. With that in mind, I have always been fond of the image of a storm at sea. The vastness of this earth we live on is majority water, and that of the salty kind. The life of the writer is very much a life at sea, spending most of o...

Originally published in January 2016. Movie seen at Teaneck Cinemas in Hackensack, NJ. 13 HOURS OF UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES After visiting an old friend buried in Hackensack, NJ, I decided to take in a matinee at Teaneck Cinemas: 13 Hours . It's very clear that Michael Bay will have a handful of unintended consequences once this film lodges itself into Hollywood history. The Left will complain that it perpetuates conspiracy theories and promotes propaganda, while the Right will criticize that it does not go far enough. Michael Bay has already stated that the movie is apolitical. Unfortunately for Mr. Bay, all art is political, whether the artist intends it to be or not. Oscar Wilde noted in his preface to the Picture of Dorian Gray that all art is "useless" if the artist intends on using art for an agenda. Art's purpose for Wilde is for art's sake. Mythology, which most people don't really understand, is another art form that will shed light on 13 ...

Originally published March 2016. Movie seen at Oswego 7 Cinemas in Oswego, NY. A REFLECTION AFTER WATCHING THE MOVIE MIRACLES FROM HEAVEN Michael DeNobile reviews the 2016 drama Miracles From Heaven, and its themes of religion, illness, and family. Why would a benevolent God allow His people, especially innocent children, suffer? Michael DeNobile admits that he has struggled with this very question since elementary school. When you're nine years old and faced with death, a parent, grandparent, or in Michael DeNobile’s case, a great-grandmother, the first cut is the deepest. As life goes on the wounds pile up: you discover your parents are not infallible superheroes, you are bullied, you heart is broken the first, second and third time, good friends from college die young, your dreams are deferred, your cousins who are not that much older than you are diagnosed with cancer and one dies while one struggles to survive, your 15yo student is struck and killed by an SUV, you watch ...

Originally published May 2016. A REFLECTION OF THE MOVIE BEFORE WE GO (2014) Here's a bit of free existential advice: life is complicated. We are often caught between trains at the station, missing one and thinking that that was the mistake. But the mistake was thinking that thought to begin with. One decision, one night can change the course of history, whether it is big history like the story of America or small history, like you missing that train. Things happen for a reason; it's wisdom to just swim through it and let it happen. Fall in love more than once. The first time will teach you what kind of person you really are. The second time will let you know it is possible to love again. Never regret a broken heart; only regret if you run away from it. When all else fails, check yourself into a hotel room to find a warm, safe place to put things into perspective. Fill out the review with full-throated honesty, but leave the "Are you likely to return?" lin...

Originally published in May 2016. A REFLECTION OF THE MOVIE LISTEN TO YOUR HEART (2010) Music is one of the most powerful forces on earth, aside from love. I remember in an old encyclopedia I had when I was a kid, the entry for music was so awesome because the words were printed in the shape of a heart, each line curling upon itself, describing the emotions circulating within the words and instruments of different compositions of melody and lyrics. Music is a strange things; it's physical as sound and yet it's more than that. It's ethereal; it's spiritual, and I don't necessarily mean in a religious sense. It existentially connects the human spirit in its craft, shifting our moods, defining our identities, healing us in times of great crisis, and uplifting us in moments of triumph, glory and joy. New Wave British band Squeeze, infamous for "Tempted (by the Fruit of Another)" and "Pulling Mussels (from a Shell)," sang in "If I D...

Originally published in May 2016. A REFLECTION ON THE MOVIE STUCK IN LOVE (2012) "I could hear my heart beating. I could hear everyone's heart. I could hear the human noise we sat there making, not one of us moving, not even when the room went dark." ~Raymond Carver, What We Talk About When We Talk About Love Writing is something I love. It is a thing of beauty, and in the verisimilitude, an opportunity to represent life as art. Writers draw on what they know, creating pictures with the emotions on their palette, exhuming from deep within the darkest parts of their lives, their hopes, their dreams, their joys, their most painful sorrows. Writers see trees where others see forests, thinking and overthinking moments, ready to squeeze--nay, suck--the marrow out of life. It is in this art, this verisimilitude, this fiction that reality can truly become alive, where nations rise and fall, hearts shatter and mend, dreams defer and are realized. And in this hu...

Originally published in June 2016. A REFLECTION ON THE MOVIE THE WALK (2015) Life can be like a circus act. We perform for people who don't deserve our talent. But we don't do what we do for audiences... No, we perform for the selfish idea called "passion." Passion drives us to step out onto the void and walk across cable wires. French Finance Minister to King Louis XVI is noted for saying in his collection so tales entitled "Domestic Anecdotes of the French Nations" (1794), "The difficult we do immediately; the impossible takes a little longer." The key to understanding acts of impossibility is three letters: YET. Something denoted as impossible simply means no one had the wherewithal, the patience, the knowledge, the wisdom, and especially the passion to figure it out YET. This past week, Tony Hawk accomplished a skateboarding trick deemed impossible. But he conquered it. And now countless others will try to do it. They will get hur...

Originally published in June 2016. REFLECTION OF THE MOVIE THE QUEEN (2006) We expect much as a people who look up to--or secretly hope for the demise of--those in authority. We want them to play by our rules, demonstrate the optics we want to see, and manhandle them to our whim. We the People tend to forget the institutions set behind such individuals, the centuries of evolution undergone to create the fragile shell of a human we see before us today, with the imperfections and dignity one brings to one's office. In the age of instant media, from daily papers to cable and satellite news, to the Internet, our expectations of optics have skyrocketed. We want domestic and foreign dignitaries to behave as we want them to, not necessarily as we would want ourselves to in the same situation. We want them dragged through the mud of the public eye, a circus act, a show for the masses, to entertain our vainglory desire to feel better about our own lives. We want bloody noses and...

Originally posted June 2016. REFLECTION ON THE MOVIE THE FREE STATE OF JONES Man's natural condition is freedom and to fight tyranny and oppression. Unless man is otherwise conditioned to be complacent and accept a state of slavery and even to the point, as Newton Knight put it that, "Everybody is just somebody else's nigger." As a student of multiculturalism, philosophy, and religion, I have come to the conclusions that mankind chooses over and over again to be stupid. We have made up these rules over the centuries of who is better, who is worthy of the mantel of humanity, and who gets to reap the benefits. No man is a slave except by choice. I have studied countless individuals that even in states of servitude and slavery, they are more free than those without chains. There are the blind that have more sight than those with seeing eyes. War is more than guns, guts, and glory. The wars begin when the weapons are laid down, even generations hence. Blood mu...

Originally published in July 2016. A REFLECTION ON INDEPENDENCE DAY: RESURGANCE Twenty years ago, they nearly annihilated us, but we banded together like never before. Then, we got content. We got lazy. They promised they would be back, but we let our complacency get the best of us. And they struck at the very heart of who we are, showed no mercy for the most vulnerable among us, and won't stop until they take all that which we hold dear. And so, we have but one choice. We must band together and bring holy hell upon them, go to them and bring them the war they wished upon us. Because if we don't, if we allow the giant to sleep and complacency to reign over the land once again, it is only a matter of time until extinction will be knocking at our door. ~Michael DeNobile

Originally published September 2016. MY THOUGHTS ON ME BEFORE YOU Me Before You was a really good movie, and I get the whole point of the ending. I understand why Will made his choice and I understand why he didn't want to be a burden on Louise. I get it--unless I am in a situation like him in that type of excrutiating pain... But--I don't know--call me a hopeless romantic fool, if I found the love of my life, my soulmate, someone who finally made me feel alive after months of feeling, so, well, dead...I would've taken Louisa's offer. Again, it's just my opinion, but a love like that is worth all the pain and suffering in the world necessary just to hold on for just one more day. So, Will, yes I know you're a fictional character and that your note at the end there was heartfelt...but if it's love, you wouldn't have been an anchor or a regret...it would have been a life worth living, not like before, not like the old Will, but a different Wil...

Originally published in December 2016. Movie seen at Oswego 7 Cinemas in Oswego, NY. A REFLECTION ON THE MOVIE COLLATERAL BEAUTY Film enthusiast Michael DeNobile discusses 2016 film Collateral Beauty and its themes of Love, Time, and Death. Love. Time. Death. Ultimately, these three are everyone's hauntings as we shuffle through this mortal coil, a coil as fragile as dominoes: taking a painful amount of Time and Love--risking even Death--that by a mere act of the smallest bit of kinetic energy, and they all fall down, breaking and shattering on the ground. But when they do all fall down, as they always do, how exactly do we find our way back? Michael DeNobile asks audiences, is it even finding our way back to the path or merely finding a way back to some path or another? In any case, in terms of Love, Time and Death, we seem to always settle for denial. We hide behind our excuses, addictions, lies that become truths, and blame everyone else but ourselves, enslaving our very s...

Originally published in December 2016. Movie seen at Oswego 7 Cinemas in Oswego, NY. A REFLECTION ON THE MOVIE PASSENGERS Michael DeNobile discusses themes presented in the 2016 sci-fi/romance Passengers, starring Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Pratt. A man said to the universe: “Sir, I exist!” “However,” replied the universe, “The fact has not created in me A sense of obligation.” ~Stephen Crane We are but specks of dust raging through space on a blue and green ball of chaos. We demand so much of the universe as we waste time through our day to day living. We expect to be thanked for the little we do for others. We expect others to present us with titles and awards attesting to this self-avowed greatness. We expect acknowledgement from the cosmos and dare God Himself to bow down before us as we struggle to be sinking ships adrift on a sea of stardust. And then some of us wake up too soon. We are forced to rise above the mundane and realize our insignificance, to stand on the...

Originally posted in January 2017. Movie seen at Oswego 7 Cinemas in Oswego, NY. A REFLECTION ON THE MOVIE PATRIOTS DAY Michael DeNobile discusses the 2017 box office hit, Patriot’s Day and provides insight regarding the film’s ethical questions. This isn't a conservative thing or a liberal thing. It isn't a Republican, Democrat, Independent, Green Party, Libertarian Party, Whatever Party thing. This isn't a Christian, Jewish, Muslim thing either. It's not a white, black, brown, yellow, red thing. This isn't a gay/straight thing. This is a human thing. And until we realize that, the war will never be won. Some deny that the war even exists. They walk through this world thinking their bubble is the way of existence, they go to work, pay the bills, support a family. Everything is under control. Until the moment when the explosions shatter that security, or bullets rip through flesh, or the body of an eight year old lies under a sheet on a cold sidewalk for hou...

Originally posted in March 2017. Movie seen at Oswego 7 Cinemas in Oswego, NY. A REFLECTION ON THE FILM THE SHACK Michael DeNobile discusses the 2017 box office hit, The Shack and provides insight regarding the film’s ethical questions.  To where shall we go to lay down the burdens of this life?--for the yolk is heavy, and I am weary that I will not finish the work. Time and time again, man is faced to reconcile himself to suffering, of the presence of evil on this side of Paradise. Ideally, goodness and joy would be the absence of pain, a world where we individually get to judge what is right and what is wrong, to decide who gets to be put asunder in Hell and who gets a Golden Ticket to the top floor of the Observation Deck. However, Michael DeNobile notes that if we get to judge others by the way they treat us, where shall we go when others judge ourselves? Will we be worthy of a Golden Ticket or will the elevator be sent to sub-level 4 of the Seventh Circle? In the age o...

Originally posted November 2017. A REFLECTION ON THE FILM A MONSTER CALLS When life gets too real, where can we summon the courage to face these realities? When we cannot reconcile how there can be paradoxical truths in this life, from where can we find the knowledge and wisdom of this world to solve these conundrums? When death robs the color of our worlds, when people rob us of our dignity, when our halos are broken and our wings folded, where can we learn to fly once again? Monsters exist in reality. Their mission is to steal us of our sanity, our peace, and our happiness. And there is only one way to compete with these real monsters, and that is to call upon imagined monsters to sojourn with us, to walk beside us, that in our imaginations we may find what is necessary to summon the courage to face reality, to call ourselves to action and to speak the truth: that we have the dignity that others deny us, that we are sometimes our worst enemies, that we don't kn...

Originally posted June 2017.  A REFLECTION OF THE MOVIE FLASH OF GENIUS (2008) I have been meaning to watch this movie for years, putting it off like a leaky faucet. You know, eventually you'll come around to it. Meanwhile, you've wasted all that water. We spend our whole lives learning and teaching universal and objective truths of right and wrong, justice, fairness, equality, opportunity, always fight the good fight. We embed them into our very being and as we grow old, we seem to pass them on like ove r-used hand-me-downs, under-valued yet over-priced. We hold on to them because we want to truly believe that every man will have his day in court, that all will be right, and that all that we have--our word and our name--will be valued for what it's worth. And then, twelve years can go by in the blink of a windshield wiper during an incessant thunderstorm, and you can start to wonder if you've been sold a bill of goods. Are the demarcations of right and wrong...

Originally posted July 2017. Movie seen at Oswego 7 Cinemas in Oswego, NY. A REFLECTION OF THE MOVIE DUNKIRK (2017): Michael DeNobile shares his thoughts on the groundbreaking historical movie, DUNKIRK. ...we shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end, ... we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this Island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded ... would carry on the struggle, until, in God's good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old. ~Winston Churchill to the House of Commons, June 4, 1940, a...