Posts tagged anti-war films
MOVIE REVIEW: Churchill

Brian Cox one of the most underappreciated character actors in the business today.  He has been an accomplished and terrifically versatile mainstay through all levels and genres of film for over thirty years since turning our heads as cinema’s first Hannibal Lecktor in Michael Mann’s Manhunter.  Cox is a consummate performer, brimming with fervid screen presence.  From Braveheart to Super Troopers, he is never the weak link to any picture.  Churchill offers a rare lead performance from Cox and, like the chameleon he’s always been, he reminds us of his indomitable intensity.

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MOVIE REVIEW: Sand Castle

Wars transform the soldiers that participate in them.  Men and women in combat can be broken down, built up, or both in positive and negative ways.  Because the young tend to serve, their stories, and the films that tell them, can mirror a late-term version of the “coming-of-age” archetype.  The fingerprints of forced maturity appear all over the likes of “The Deer Hunter,” “Platoon,” “Jarhead,” and dozens of other films.  In all honesty, the trope is overused and over-familiar and that’s the first mistake of “Sand Castle.”

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