Michael DeNobile's Movie Reviews

THE BANALITY OF EVIL: A REFLECTION ON THE FILM HANNAH AREDNT (2012) AND THE BOOK EICHMANN IN JERUSALEM (1963) Michael DeNobile reviews the 2012 film  Hannah Arendt  and Arendt's 1963 moral political thesis Eichmann in Jerusalem and their moral implications. I am, of course, as you know, a Jew. And I’ve been attacked for being a self-hating Jew who defends Nazis and scorns her own people. This is not an argument. That is a character assassination. I wrote no defense of Eichmann. But I did try to reconcile the shocking mediocrity of the man with his staggering deeds. Trying to understand is not the same as forgiveness. I see it as my responsibility to understand. It is the responsibility of anyone who dares to put pen to paper on the subject. Since Socrates and Plato, we usually call thinking to be engaged in that silent dialogue between me and myself. In refusing to be a person, Eichmann utterly surrendered that single most defining human quality, that of being able to th...

THE PURPOSE OF LIFE: A REFLECTION ON THE SECRET LIFE OF WALTER MITTY (2013) Michael DeNobile reviews the 2013 film  The Secret Life of Walter Mitty  and its moral implications. To see the world, things dangerous to come to, to see behind walls, draw closer to find each other, and to feel. That is the purpose of LIFE. One day, we may wake up and realize that we have not been or done anything noteworthy or mentionable. We get caught up in the mundane of our lives, time passes, and we allow it to slip away. We forget that we are truly unique—that no one of our chromosomal make up, born in the exact time and place we were, with our parents, friends, and family, thinking the exact thoughts when we thought them, experiencing the experiences when we experienced them, has ever, is, or will ever walk this earth, and because of that, by virtue of science we possess a unique place in the universe. And that we have this wonderful gift of a planet for us to discover, explore, experience, e...

 Movie seen on September 15, 2021, a return to Alamo Drafthouse (Yonkers) since the pandemic. TILTED: A REFLECTION ON THE FILM THE CARD COUNTER (2021) Michael DeNobile reviews the 2021 film The Card Counter and its moral implications. Movie seen at Alamo Drafthouse in Yonkers, NY. The last time Michael DeNobile went to his favorite theater (Alamo Drafthouse in Yonkers, NY) was to see Disney’s Onward in March 2020, the week before the world locked down due to the pandemic. It’s good to be back at the Alamo. Life can be unfair. While we must be responsible for and own up to our own choices, when our superiors condone and create an environment for those choices to flourish, it is unfair when only we are punished and not them. In fact, it is even more unfair when they are rewarded in the long run. The odds are always in the house’s favor, regardless of the game. And if you are able to count cards and stay under the radar, you can create a sense of harmonic justice in the universe if yo...

Movie seen on August 12, 2021 at Oswego 7 Cinemas in Oswego, NY. THE IMPORTANCE OF GREATNESS: A REFLECTION ON THE FILM THE GREEN KNIGHT (2021) Michael DeNobile reviews the 2021 film The Green Knight and its moral implications. Michael DeNobile wishes to ask his audience, how is it that something written over six centuries ago still has relevance today? Not only that—but how can something written by a poet we know nothing about have intimate relevance so many centuries later? Is goodness enough? Or must we strive for greatness? Michael DeNobile challenges this: why can’t it be both? What if the keys to greatness, glory, honor, courage, renown, lie in simple acts of mundane goodness? The keeping of a promise? Giving without expectations? Loving another without conditions? Companionship and hospitality, whether for another human being or for an animal? Michel DeNobile acknowledges that life is ever fleeting; its transitoriness makes every choice we make that much more important...

  Originally watched on July 6, 2021 WHAT DOES SUEÑITO MEAN?: A REFLECTION OF IN THE HEIGHTS (2021)  Michael DeNobile reviews the 2021 film In the Heights and its historical significance. "What does sueñito mean?" In the iconic Washington Heights community, what happens to a dream deferred? Join us as we sing along to the dreams of the barrio of a tale as old as time yet told in a new and exciting way. If you've ever struggled to attain a dream, this is the movie for you! In the Heights is more than a musical, and comparing it to West Side Story doesn’t do it justice for its historical significance. Michael DeNobile believes that it’s more akin to Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather (1972). Here’s DeNobile’s argument: While there were Italian characters in American film prior to The Godfather and even some that depicted the plight and culture of the Italian American experience, it was The Godfather that popularized Italian American culture like no movie...

A REFLECTION ON THE FILM DOWNFALL (2004) Michael DeNobile reviews the 2004 German film Downfall, and its historical significance.  "For me, the terrifying thing is that he [Hitler] was human, not an elephant or a monster from Mars. If he had been a monster rather than a man, it would take the guilt away from other people--from his millions of followers. A monster is capable of anything, but everyone knows that one man could never have puled it off alone."  ~Bernd Eichinger, producer of Downfall History can get dirty. It's painted in shades of ambiguous grey, not black and white. Sometimes the stories are difficult to tell. Oftentimes, is can be uncomfortable to share. Michael DeNobile asks readers, how does one share one's own uncomfortable history, parcelling out the condemnation of what was wrong while salvaging pride in one's own culture and history? As an American, Michael DeNobile recognizes that telling stories of the Civil War, especially if you're some...

It's been over two years since Michael DeNobile’s last movie reflection. He apologizes for being away so long. This isn't an excuse but an explanation: life happened and then the pandemic (which you would have thought would have given him more time but it actually didn't). However, he is back and is going to do a COVID series of many of the things he binged while in quarantine. But let's come back with a bang... A REFLECTION OF (WHAT WILL HOPEFULLY BE SEASON 1 OF) DISNEY+'S BIG SHOT Michael DeNobile provides a reflection of season one of Disney’s new series, Big Shot. Sacrifice. If there's anything the last year has taught us, it's what we have and are willing to sacrifice. It has also put life into perspective. Survival. Both literally and metaphorically, the last year has also taught us about survival, as human beings, as families, as communities, as a society. Strength. It's more than just a Kelly Clarkson lyric, what doesn't kill you truly does m...

The Game of Thrones Collection Game of Thrones: All 6 Seasons These are quick links to my reviews of all 6 seasons of Game of Thrones: Season 1 Season 2 Season 3 Season 4 Season 5 Season 6 ~Michael DeNobile

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...