Michael DeNobile's Movie Reviews

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 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...