Sword of Gideon is a fascinating movie. It is based on a true story and I think it should be watched because it is about fighting terrorism, a major American and global issue of our time.

The movie takes place in the seventies or eightees. Sword of Gideon was a famous covert operation of the Mossad, the Israeli secret service, to find and kill terrorists hiding in various European countries who were responsible for previous terrorist attacks that killed civilians, particulary the attack on Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics in 1972.

A group of agents, led by an IDF officer named Avner (played by Steven Bauer), is sent to Europe to locate and kill the terrorists. The terrorists are hiding throughout different cities including Rome, Paris, and others. Each of the agents has special skills. One is an expert in making explosive devices, another in creating documentation, another is a former race car driver (getaway expert), and another is a good agent for securing the scene.

At first, the mission is going well but as time goes on, the agents are somehow being discovered and also killed off one by one while also killing the terrorists.

At the end, relations between Avner and the Mossad deteriorate as the issue is raised: was all the bloodshed worth it.

June 20th, 2007
Categories: Drama . Author: DavidFreydkin . Comments: No Comments
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Popi is about a Puerto Rican widower named Abraham (wonderfully played by Alan Arkin) living in Manhatten with his two sons Junior and Luis. They live in an impoverished high-crime neighborhood. He works 60 hours a week doing blue collar jobs and gets 5 hours of sleep per night. He wants to get his sons out of the neighborhood with a plan of faking their arrival on Miami Beach as escapen refugees from Cuba, hence getting nationwide attention and potential adoption to wealthier families. Once his sons get cruelly bullied by fellow neighborhood kids, Abraham finally decides to implement his plan. It works at first and all eyes in the US are on the two boys. But at the end, they virtually throw all possibilities of adoption and a better life away and reveal their identity to stay with their Popi, their father.

This is a very warm yet emotionally confusing movie. It is both sad, happy, and funny in one. The ending is one of the most funny, sad, and happy endings I have ever seen. In the movie, you sympathize with Abraham for living in impoverished conditions with his kids, working his fanny off, and just wanting a better life for them. Yet, at the end, the movie proves one of the most important messages in life: no money in the world can replace the love of family.

June 19th, 2007
Categories: Uncategorized . Author: DavidFreydkin . Comments: No Comments
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Ben (Perry Shen) is an overachieving high schooler with the one aim of getting into an ivy league school. He gets straight As, learns a new word every day to score perfect on his SATs, works part-time in a fast food joint and warms the bench on the JV basketball team to strengthen his college application.

However, there is another side to his life very different from that of the model student. Together with his friends Virgil (Jason Tobin) and Han (Sung Kang) he steals from electronics stores by fraudulent use of bar codes, merchandise, packaging, as well as credit cards. Things get worse when the trio get involved with Derek (Roger Fan), the ultimate model student, president of every school club and standout on the varsity tennis team.  They get involved in selling cheat sheets and drugs throughout the school as well as Ben becoming addicted to cocaine.

Ben is attracted to a classmate by name of Stephanie (Karin Anna Cheung) but does not approve of how her boyfriend Steve (played by John Cho from American Pie) is neglecting and cheating on her. The plot reaches its peak when Steve asks the four of them to rob his parents’ house, whom he feels are too neglectful of him. With Derek as their ringleader, the group decide not to rob the home but give him a good beating which results in his death.

Better Luck Tomorrow (directed by Justin Lin)  is really a suspenseful coming-of-age drama about identity and finding your role and place in society loosely based on a true story. The characters are multi-demensional and each has his/her own issues in dealing with the pressure of success and the boredom of American suburbia. The issues and plots are complex and often difficult to understand, nevertheless an entertaining watch.

June 13th, 2007
Categories: Drama . Author: DavidFreydkin . Comments: No Comments
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Summer Catch is a summer love movie between a working class guy and an upper middle class girl bringing back memories of other rich girl goes for poor guy and vice-versa movies such as Pretty in Pink and Titanic.

Ryan Dunne (played by Freddie Prinze Jr.) lives and works with his father on the northeastern coast mowing lawns. However, being a talented pitcher, he is aspiring to make it into the major league. This summer is his big chance as he was chosen to compete for a high level cape league team. If he performs well, he may catch the eye of one or the other major league scout.

At the same time, Tenley Parrish (played by Jessica Biel) is vacationing in the same town. The two get to know each other in a bar and immedietely fall in love. Ryan, who has a history of self-doubt and self-defeat, must find the courage and confidence to compete well in the ball games this summer. Tenley also has her issues with her domineering father who wants her to pursue a career in the financial field which she doesn’t desire to do. Also, her father does not approve of her dating blue collar kid Ryan, whose father mows his lawn.

Can the two of them find the strength and courage in one another to succeed and choose the path they believe to be best? That is the main concept in Summer Catch. The movie is a good mixture of drama with some scenes of comedy, particulary with the addition of team catcher and Ryan’s closest teammate Billy Brubaker (played by Mathew Lillard). It may not have done too well in the box office, but it is a good movie to watch with your date.

June 11th, 2007
Categories: Drama . Author: DavidFreydkin . Comments: No Comments
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Ali: Fear eats the Soul is a German movie filmed in the 1970s by the famous Bavarian director Rainer Werner Fassbinder. As many of Fassbinders movies, this one criticizes German society, particularly alleged racism amongst Germans.

Emmi is a 60-year-old janitor who lives in an apartment building in Munich. She walks into a bar one evening and dances with Ali, a 40-year-old immigrant from Morocco. He walks home with her and they end up sleeping together. Believing that they are in love, the two get married and form an unlikely couple not only due to the age difference, but due to Emmi, a German woman, marrying a foreign immigrant, a taboo in much of European society in the 1970s.

As soon as people learn Emmi married Ali and had him move in with her, they begin treating both of them horribly. Her children disown her, her neighbors and co-workers begin igoring and gossiping about the couple, the local shop keeper refuses to communicate with Ali when the latter shops in his store. Emmi is almost driven to madness by this.

However, the tide turns as people begin treating Emmi better, but only for selfish reasons due to needing her help. The shop keeper begins acting friendly towards her to get her business back, her son visits her because he needs her to watch his children, the neighbors are nice to her so they can use her storage space, and her co-workers begin speaking to her again to form an alliance against a new co-worker, an immigrant from Bosnia-Herzogovina. Eventually Ali, who is homesick and cheats on Emmi, needs to be hospitalized for an ulcer.

Ali: Fear eats the Soul is not a bad movie, however, probably not one of Fassbinder’s strongest. Katzelmacher, another production by the Bavarian director, is also about prejudice in German society, but is a better made production.

June 6th, 2007
Categories: Foreign Films, Subtitles . Author: DavidFreydkin . Comments: No Comments
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