Stop Frame

The Holocaust remains an unfathomable atrocity, the unholy benchmark by which all such are measured. Stalin and Mao both make Hitler look like an amateur when it came to sheer body count, yet the Holocaust remains unique. It seems to boil down to two reasons. First, the Nazis were terrifying in their systematic approach to the slaughter of Jews, driven by their ideological belief that they were acting for the greater good of all mankind. And second, they hunted Jews in any land they conquered; the goal wasn't merely to "purify" Germany, but the world. Few films have captured these points as well as HBO's 2001 film, Conspiracy . On January 20, 1942, a group of senior officials of Nazi Germany met at a lovely house in the Berlin suburb of Wannsee. The purpose of their meeting was to determine the "final solution" for the Jews. The Wannsee Conference developed what is referred to as the Wannsee Protocol. A single copy of the document remains. Conspiracy , draw...

Completely disappointing, a failure on many levels, and easily the worst of the Daniel Craig Bond films. Indeed, it is arguably one of the worst Bond films of all time. Am I too subtle? A message from the immediate past sends James Bond (Daniel Craig) on an assassin's errand. The fallout of that unsanctioned action sees him suspended by M (Ralph Fiennes) but with the assistance of Moneypenny (Naomie Harris) and Q (Ben Whishaw), Bond inexorably pursues leads that will bring him face to face with the architect of all his pain (Christoph Waltz). In the interim, women (Monica Bellucci and Lea Seydoux) and henchmen (David Bautista and a parade of nameless thugs) cavort. I felt ridiculous writing that because it's a ridiculous plot. It wants to have twists and turns but really it just meanders from exotic locale to exotic locale. The film starts with a brilliant, long tracking shot during Dia de Muertos in Mexico City. It truly is a marvel. Right after, though, you can feel things fa...

With the video release of Jurassic World , I was finally able to catch up on the latest installment of a franchise that had seemed stalled and left for dead. Then this film came out and made more money than any film not made by James Cameron. Why this is so is one of life's great mysteries. It's been over 20 years since a gazillionaire industrialist funded the technology that brought dinosaurs back to life…with terrible results. But death and horror can't stop progress. Jurassic Park has been rebranded Jurassic World and hosts around 21,000 screaming visitors each day. Screams of delight turn to shrieks horror as things go awry, as they do, and tourists are on the menu. You have to admire a film that so doggedly sticks to a formula. Human + dinosaur = dinotreat, repeat. Actually, it's stupid human releases dinosaur, terror ensues, repeat. Which means it's a stupid guard who releases the new super dinosaur (more on it in a moment), which catapults things into chaos. ...