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...

 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...

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 ...

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 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 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...