Michael DeNobile's Movie Reviews

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 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 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 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...