Winter in Wartime
How To Make WWII Uninteresting Starring: Martijn Lakemeier, Yorick van Wageningen Review by Robert Patrick Filmmakers continuously draw from the monochrome pool of barbed history that is World War II. It’s a repetition compulsion fueled by an acrimonious past that binds us all together. The timeline of atrocities finds itself wrapped around the wrists of every continent; the history of this great tragedy cakes our emotions and...
The King’s Speech
Colin Firth: The New Whimsy Starring: Colin Firth, Geoffrey Rush Written by Robert Patrick I wanted the title of this review to be “Colin Firth is Adorable; Makes Doe-Eyed Expressions”, but then I thought I could also go with “English People Look Regal; Walk Around Haplessly”. I decided against both, but managed, despite it being entirely inconsequential, to shoehorn them in the actual review. Typically films dealing with historic...
Client 9
The Fantastic Mr. Fox Written by Robert Patrick George Fox aka Client-9 aka Eliot Spitzer has more pseudonyms than a cold war spy. These politicians, day traders and wall street moguls are so colorful they make a rainbow look monochrome. I think of comic-book characters like Two-Face and Kingpin, snickering and gallivanting around these crosshatched and seedy looking cities, wearing pinstriped suits that look like barcodes made out of...
Fair Game
More Watery Eyes Than a Benedryl Ad Starring: Naomi Watts, Sean Penn Written by Robert Patrick When I saw the press screening of this film, nearly a month ago, I had taken a chisel to my hippocampus to make sure I remembered everything I needed to remember when swinging my fingers around on my keyboard and writing this review. I watched the film in a pose not unlike The Thinker, a statue by Auguste Rodin. The story was an...
Hugh Hefner: Playboy, Activist and Rebel
Robe > Snuggie Starring: Hugh Hefner, Gene Simmons By Robert Patrick Hugh Hefner’s name is synonymous with so much and yet so little. The impresario, cloaked in his now obligatory robe, is like a messiah atop a mystical mountain of excess and intrigue. How can a man whose face is so universally known have a soul so devastatingly enigmatic? In Brigitte Berman’s documentary, Hugh Hefner: Playboy, Activist and Rebel, the poobah of...
Flame & Citronen
How to Make a Cartoon Out of History Starring: Mads Mikkelsen, Thure Lindhardt By Robert Patrick Danish director, Ole Christian Madsen, races his fingers across the creased, water-stained pages of history to pluck the story of two resistance fighters, Flame and Citron, who stood as central pillars in the underground movement against Nazism in Denmark. And while Madsen’s directorial hymn to the fallen heroes of World War II is full of...
Il Divo
Government Corruption: Cute! Starring: Toni Servillo, Anna Bonaiuto By Robert Patrick Il Divo might be an adult contemporary band in the United States and England, but to the people of Italy, the moniker Il Divo refers to the country’s often disparaged former prime minister, Giulio Andreotti. When you look at the doddering Andreotti, you may question where the diabolical nickname came from. The former Prime Minister of Italy, with his...
Che
Earnesto Goes to Bolivia Starring: Benicio Del Toro, Franka Potente By Robert Patrick At the time of his death, Earnesto “Che” Guevara was not a student of popular western history. If the revolutionary had been, he would’ve known to never ride into Bolivia with guns blazing – Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid had tried this a good number of years earlier to no avail. Instead, Che found himself muscled in on by the Bolivian...
Frost/Nixon
Richard Milhous Nixon, forever imbued in American minds with his dog-eyed features and syrupy drawl, will be remembered as a presidential charlatan; someone too concerned with his own fears to adequately run the country. Someone who, in the minds of political scholars and average citizens, will have his image washed away by the petulant waves of Watergate. In Ron Howard’s Frost/Nixon, we see the former president, so commonly...
The Duchess
Tribulations in 18th Century England are Boring Starring: Keira Knightley, Ralph Feinnes By Robert Patrick In modern day education, Georgiana, the Duchess of Devonshire, is but a small footnote in the voluminous history of Europe. Back in her time, though, the high-ranking noblewoman was known for her flamboyant attire and rumored infidelities. Married to a narcissistic, unforgiving Duke, she encountered severe emotional...
