Paul’s DVD Reviews: Now with Stars!

When Germans of the current generation face their past, they do it with utter honesty. For all the Hobbesian bleakness inherent in this movie’s subject — “continual fear, and danger of violent death, and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short” — there’s a weak ray of triumph at the end, for life did, and does, go on. A profoundly moving story, brilliantly told.

Jesse Stone: Night Passage (2006)

This was (I think) the first of four made-for-TV Jesse Stone movies. That makes three now (I’m watching them out of order), and I still love these movies. In this one, my only quibble is the use of freeze frames in the spots where they originally inserted commercials. Otherwise, another great story, although (spoiler alert!) the part where the dog dies is a wrenching experience. Tom Selleck has found his AARP stride!

Some call this “a British comedy for people who think they don’t like British comedy.” No. This is an American comedy with a few British actors, filmed in London. British comedy: do the no key/can’t get in joke once. American comedy: do it three times to make sure everyone gets it. Death at a Funeral is a British comedy. A Private Function is a British comedy. I know British comedy. You, sir, are no British comedy.

If you’ve read Jane Mayer’s The Dark Side, you know this stuff already, but it’s still eye-opening, still infuriating. Both works are detailed road maps, showing every crossroads where our civilian and military leaders lost their way, dragging us all along with them. Couldn’t we have gotten out of the car when things first started to go wrong? War crimes trials? Bring ’em on.

My all-time favorite Coen Brothers movie is 1983’s Blood Simple. Burn After Reading is right up there. All the characters were great, especially Brad Pitt as an airhead personal trainer and George Clooney as a self-centered yuppie asshole. The conversations between unnamed senior covert intelligence officers were so like the high-level conversations between generals I used to sit in on, I knew whoever wrote this script had been there. This movie is a tour de force of dry, cynical wit. And I am now officially in love with Frances McDormand.