Purely Joyful Movie!

Expected more

If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

Well done, as television movies go. There seems to have been a substantial budget and an awful lot of research behind it. There are times when points and characters are overstated, but it's an improvement over "Judgment at Nuremberg." This film puts the Nazi leaders on trial and finds most of them guilty of crimes against humanity, while others are sentenced to prison. "Judgment at Nuremberg" put the entire nation of Germany on trial, handed the thankless task of defending Germany's role in World War II to Maximilion Schell, and found every German who ever breathed to be guilty of every sin that's ever been committed in the history of humankind. The scriptwriter, Abby Mann, accepted his Academy Award "in the name of all intellectuals everywhere." This modest production fills in many of the blanks that are missing from the public's understanding of the Nuremberg trials. Where, for instance, did the prisoners and staff of the trials find housing in Nuremberg, an ancient city that had been flattened by Allied bombing and in which there were still hundreds of decomposing bodies beneath the rubble? And did all the four major powers -- the US, Britain, France and Russia agree on the format and the procedures? Answer: No, the Russians and the French, who had suffered most under Nazissm, wanted summary executions of all the bigwigs. The subject is dead serious but the program has its quietly amusing moments -- the brash, ugly Russian representative trying to persuade the horrified French representative that he should lace his fine wine with a good belt of vodka. It has the limitations of most commercial productions. The Russian guy really IS ugly, and almost all the Germans are played by men with names like O'Keefe. There are many choker closeups, a technique that befits the small screen.The Nazi leaders of course are villains of the worst sort but they're shown as humans too. After the surrender, an ebullient Goering, Brian Cox, unexpectedly drives up to an American Air Force base with his wife and child, dismounts from his chauffeur-driven car, and formally hands over his sword to an astounded General Spaatz -- "one airman to another." After being feted publicly, the victors soon round him up and place him in a cell, as had been done with the other prisoners. An American lieutenant, Tex Wheeler, is posted as Goering's personal guard. Scott Gibson gives a convincing performance. Wheelis will play a larger role in Goering's fate later.Alex Baldwin is Robert H. Jackson, who more or less runs the show. His assistant Jill Hennessy is a fox and the rest of the cast is quite good. There are too many airy conversations about moral superiority and the viewer is urged to want Baldwin to treat Georing on the stand as the despicable, conniving swine he is. Should he? How does the word "disinterested" differ from "uninterested"? The most chilling testimony comes from the Commandant of Auschwitz, who describes the camp's activities precisely and dispassionately -- showing neither indignation or remorse.Unfortunately, the prosecution insists on presenting not just documentary evidence but witnesses too, in order to deliberately heighten the drama behind the trial. It's pretty sickening, naturally, and to many adults it's repetitive. We know about the medical experiments in which Jews were kept in freezing water until they died. And so we sit through the familiar revolting images of the charred skeleton in the oven, the walking cadavers, the old man praying as he lies on a stretcher, the waxlike naked bodies piled on one another in mounds, the bulldozer shoveling them into the empty pit. I doubt that anyone needs to be REMINDED of what happened. But maybe it's just as well that we go through it all again because I'm not sure how much of this material has faded from our collective memory. One in six English youngsters thought Auschwitz was a World War II theme park, and one in six thought Hitler was a football coach.And, at that, there are some insights into what has always been a blank at least in my mind. Goering was head of the Luftwaffe. So? What did he have to do with the treatment of the Jews and other devalued minorities? Simple. The experiments that froze subjects to death in ice water were undertaken at his request in order to discover how Luftwaffe crew might best survive if shot down in northern waters. Except for a few, the defendants all seem like unregenerate Nazis. Well, except for Rudolf Hess too, because he was nuts. It may seem like a mistake to have Julius Streicher portrayed as a rabid anti-Semite, pounding the table, ranting against Jews, his features in a cataleptic sneer. But that was the kind of guy he really was. He wasn't a military man but his railing against the Jews amounted to paranoia. He combed the pages of the Talmud and the Old Testament in search of passages that painted Judaism as harsh or cruel, rather like some of us are now doing with the Koran. It's easy.Some of the prisoners, like Albert Speer, the architect who became Hitler's Armaments Minister, admit their guilt. Others rely on the rationale that they were only following orders. This excuse is always dismissed by civilized people but mistakenly in my opinion.Not in this case, perhaps, but for "only following orders" substitute "doing what I was expected to do," and we're all guilty, even if the "orders" are sometimes unspoken, in which case they're known as "command pressure" or "peer pressure" or "keeping up with the Joneses." One doubtful ex-Nazi, Hans Frank, puts it this way: "I wanted to keep my job." Suppose, instead of "job", we substitute "public opinion" or "the respect of my community"? From a sociological point of view, the intricacies are myriad.

There can be no doubt that subjects such as the Nuremberg trial or the enormity of Nazi war crimes are of tremendous gravity. But, it does not follow that depictions of, and productions about, those subjects automatically make the production itself excellent. Indeed, and as "Nuremberg" demonstrates, historical import is no guarantee of a film's quality. Among other things, there still must be a logical plot, a compelling screenplay, intelligent dialogue, fine acting, and appropriate casting. Nuremberg fails to deliver on most of these.What could the screenwriters have been thinking when they gave the (rather vapid) affair between Justice Jackson and his secretary so much screen time? That contemporary audiences still require a subplot revolving around sex to keep their interest? Yet, that story line is included. And emphasized. Repeatedly.And was the director not aware that Christopher Plummer's character's deep tan would appear ludicrously incongruous in a movie set in post war Germany? Along the same lines, did the director feel that audiences would relate better to a female protagonist of the 1940's whose mannerisms and demeanour are more typical of a "modern" woman of 2000? Any film about the Nuremberg trial automatically starts off with credibility. The subject matter guarantees it. And any film about Nuremberg automatically contains the crucial elements required to move audiences, to stir their emotions. It is not just ironic, but sad, then, that Nuremberg squanders those inherent pluses; that it fails to deliver and that, ultimately it fails to move us. And that is tragic for many many reasons.

A rather nondescript cast of celebrities give way to - if anyone - Brian Cox. What reviews one finds of this movie one sees mostly polarity and nothing else. And if anything else, one sees criticism of the movie according to what the (re)viewer expected the movie to be - not what the movie makers intended it to be.From a more impartial POV the movie does do justice to what it sets out to do - namely show that unspeakable crimes of atrocity happen on all sides. The movie is of course in no way a defence of Nazi Germany - if anything (and this might take a bit more historical knowledge) it shows that the issue is extremely deep, perhaps in the way Mississippi Burning asks similar questions.For it is not the scapegoats at the trial who are culpable - it is the entire nation. Rabid ideas were implanted in the minds of children at a very young and extremely impressionable age. You don't know about this? Then ask any educated and enlightened Jew to point you in the right direction. Ample examples of this type of propaganda are archived all over our Internet. See it and not quite believe it.Is this any better for the scapegoats at trial? No of course not. But the movie attempts to show that the atrocities of WWII were not the doing of an exclusive elite but a symptom of a greater, more deeply rooted evil. And that evil exists on all sides and perpetrates even to this day.You cannot go into this movie with prejudices. On the other hand, you can't come out of it with anything less than utter shock and horror at not only what happened but why and how it happened - in other words hopefully with a bit of insight, and so better prepared to do your bit to see things like this stop happening everywhere across our beautiful planet.This is not an easy movie to see. It's not a popcorn movie and it's not a mates movie and it's definitely not a chick flick. But people will need to - will want to - have something a bit more profound to think about from time to time. It can't really hurt - after all, these things really happened and we must continually be on our watch they stop happening.It's hard to see how anyone can come away after these three and one half hours not a better person. A bit bored perhaps - it's tedious at times, perhaps a lot of the time - but important issues are bravely presented here.As movies go - as made for television movies go - it's not going to be a big winner. It doesn't have extraordinary entertainment value. Not much time or effort is devoted to developing characters - only to expounding ideas, to asking questions. Yet there might be no better way to do this one. 6 out of 10. Anyone who's 'human' will do the same.

"Second Nature" is the kind of movie that makes me long for the great motion pictures of the past 50 years. Allow me to be as redundant about this movie. "Second Nature" is a really badly written and badly made movie. I say this with over a thousand motion pictures on my shelf as a collector and "movie buff" for the last 50 years. I know of which I speak. If you have two hours to waste, do some exercises or volunteer to help someone who needs help, but don't waste your two hours including commercials, watching what is a really bad movie. Fortunately, I recorded it and watched it twice to make sure before I wrote this, and then regretted the waste of all that time.Alec Baldwin is a better actor than one who had to do a script like this. He must have made someone very angry in the motion picture business. A line from "Tootsie" is applicable here when Sidney Pollack as Dustin Hoffman's agent says to Hoffman, as Michael Dorsey, "No one will hire you, you're too much trouble,..." Has Alec Baldwin become too much trouble? If not, I can't understand why he's not doing better scripts and making better motion pictures. In the first picture I saw him featured in, "The Hunt For Red October," I saw a very good, new actor. His not making the second Tom Clancy motion picture, "Patriot Games," secured Harrison Ford's position as ‘the' major actor born after 1940. I hope Baldwin was paid well for this abysmal remake of all the so called adventure films made for TV recently. I hope Mr. Baldwin understands I'm not trying to only be critical of him, but would like to see him in good movie or better, good motion picture. I'm awaiting the arrival of "Nuremberg" and hoping it's a better work than "Second Nature." I hope Mr. Baldwin shares this with his present agent.