Washington DC—We are a very divided nation and according to world history we must have unavoidable periodic wars since the beginning of time. We never learned from our mistakes and politicians never quit trying to become tyrants. I thought this movie was going to come with political views, and then it would be easy to choose a side to support.    That however, was not the case.     But we did have two separate groups intent    on killing each other This Alex Garland film is from the points of view of two unlikely female combat print photographers played by Kristen Dunst along with her unintended, young, novice sidekick, played by Cailee Spaeny.    Essentially the film shows constant danger, the inability to determine the good combatants from the bad ones.    In other words, you didn’t know who was going to kill you.    One of the things that happens during war is prisoners are somehow brought out of every prison and they o...

Los Angeles, CA—I love German films because they helped me learn the German language when I was a young Army medical corpsman serving in that great nation.  Today German films and TV series are simply terrific!   Toni Erdmann is a favorite and the shoe-in for the Best Foreign Film Oscar Award. It's in German, Romanian and English.   Of course The film is sub-titled in English.   I had to see what the major film festival's buzz was all about. I won’t spoil it for you but will tell you it’s about a somewhat lonely old curmudgeon, Winfried Conradi aka Toni Erdmann (Peter Simonischeck) who refused to grow up.   Our aging protagonist is never at a loss for a prank or joke and he longs to bring his successful and beautiful role model daughter, Ines Conradi, (Sandra Huller) back into his life.  Our hero invades his daughter’s life as she is working hard on an Important business trip to Romania.  Needless to say the complications pile up in ...

Los Angeles, CA —Most of my visitors know that I’m an actor, writer, and video producer in addition to being a private investigator.  Along the way I have found some wonderful friends involved in German filmmaking and funding.  I’ve got two film projects of my own in development.  With a lot of luck maybe something will yet see production.  Let me begin by letting you know a little about Germany’s partnering with American film producers .   Germany is no small player in making top quality English speaking films.   For well over a year I’ve been hearing buzz about this film produced by the prolific American producer Scott Rudin and Berlin’s Studio Babelsberg .   Germany is dead serious about making terrific and in recent years given generous film grants to producers to make the magic happen. Some recent past productions funded by the German government are some of my favorites such as Black Book, Valkyrie, Inglorious Bastards and The Book Thi...

Matthew McConaughey and  Jared Leto Los Angeles, CA —This screenplay languished in Movie Purgatory for years before it broke out and was finally turned into a feature film.   It’s the biographical story of rodeo cowboy, electrician and small time hustler Ron Woodroof .   In the early 1980s Woodroof was a homophobic that practiced unsafe heterosexual relations and abused drugs.  After getting diagnosed with HIV and soon AIDs,  he began serious research into the experimental drug therapies.  They were all experimental then, because drug protocols had not yet been developed to combat this deadly plague.   Because of the incredibly slow action and outright obstruction of the FDA Woodroof began importing and distributing the non-narcotic drugs himself.  Rather than sell the drugs he circumvented the law by forming The Dallas Buyers Club and selling memberships. Woodroof proved to be e hero to those suffering from HIV and ...

Los Angeles, CA —I was recently lamenting the lack of films worth the admission price in recent Hollywood history. Amazingly a very entertaining film is currently in our local theaters, Rise of The Planet of the Apes . I won’t spoil this with much information other than to say you will be rooting for the apes over most of the humans you will meet in this adventure. The entire cast is solid and believable in their respective roles. Let me predict that Apes will take best Picture and a bunch of other awards at the Kodak Theater this year. I predict Andy Serkis will take the Best Actor Oscar for his role of Caesar, a precocious and loveable chimpanzee.

Berlin, Germany —Okay, I confess a great love for this city and its people. Berlin , has old world charm, modern elegance and non-stop excitement. Coincidently I will be there in a couple of weeks intoxicating my senses with this incredible metropolis. Liam Neeson is terrific as usual playing the lead character who arrives in Berlin only to become involved in a spectacular accident and wakes up after a four day coma to find his identity apparently stolen. By circumstances Neesen is paired up with the incredibly sexy German actress Diane Kruger who plays an accidental hero of epic proportions. My favorite German actor Sebastian Koch plays a scientist attending a Bio-Tech engineering conference held at the historic, Five Star, Adlon Hotel . Yep, it’s the same place where Michael Jackson dangled his new baby out the window to a large street crowd several years before he died. This grand hotel is a centerpiece for the movie along with many familiar Berlin locations. The action is ...

Hollywood, CA —I just finished watching another great Henry Hathaway , film noir classic, The Dark Corner (1946) starring Lucille Ball, Mark Stevens and Clifton Webb . Mark Steven’s plays a recently paroled private eye trying to rebuild his life and business. Ball plays the private dick’s new secretary. After the PI is targeted and endangered in a somewhat convoluted scheme, Ball’s clever character comes to his rescue at every opportunity. This film is available for instant play if you’ve got a Netflix account. As a long time real life PI, I can’t imagine the luck of having a secretary like that in a million years. Together they overcome amazing odds and in case you’ve never seen the film I won’t spoil it be revealing the ending. In The Dark Corner, Ball was a stunning 35 year-old looker that appeared much younger. Her grace, charm and acting were terrific. This is amazing in spite of the fact that Ball left, The John Murray Anderson School for the Dramatic Arts in New York Cit...

Chicago, IL —This was a true story about the December 9, 1932 murder of 9th District officer William Lundy , 55 inside a delicatessen located at 1226 S. Ashland Avenue . Two unknown men entered the store and soon the 29 year police veteran was shot dead. 1932 was a tough year for Chicago that recorded 364 murders. Eight of the victims were Chicago cops. The police stars they wore hang in the lobby of Chicago Police Headquarters today. Some 18 years later in 1948 a classic movie was made of this compelling tale starring Jimmy Stewart, Richard Conte and Lee J. Cobb . This film is available at Netflix. The locations used in Call Northside 777 are all very real including the old Cook County Jail, Criminal Court Building, a Chicago police district station, Stateville Prison and Tribune Tower. The Chicago police uniforms with the authentic stars and shields of that day were used by the filmmaker and director Henry Hathaway . The relatively new pseudo science of lie detection through the...

Los Angeles, CA —I first wrote about this great 2006 film only last August in a review. I caught the film by accident on the Encore Network one night. What a treat it was! If there is a God of all film directors I’d have to call him, Paul Verhoven (Basic Instinct, Robo Cop,Total Recall and Independence Day). His other films are pretty good to say the least but he hit a Grand-slam Homerun with Black Book . I have a serious problem. I can’t stop watching this film, over and over. If you’ve not heard of this film that perhaps because it’s filmed in Dutch, German and only a bit of English. Don’t worry it’s subtitled in your language. The acting is so superb you will become part of it. This film is based on a true story of a sexy and beautiful Jewish cabaret singer, played by Carice Van Houten , hiding out in Holland for the duration of the war and Nazi occupation. Van Houten’s character, Rachel Stein aka, Ellis de Vries is drafted into the Dutch Underground and spends the last year of the...

Munich, Germany — Sophie Scholl , a German girl of 21 became an unlikely hero along with fellow students after they became aware of Nazi atrocities. During military service the young men in the group known as the White Rose had personally observed mass murders of Russian POWs and Jews. These brave kids knew their duty to their fellow countrymen was to stop Aldolph Hitler and National Socialism . Their weapon was a primitive mimeograph machine that enabled them to crank out several thousand leaflets. They mailed and distributed their information wherever they could. Their effort ended when Hans Scholl and Sophie Scholl were caught at their university distributing leaflets. Later, young Christop Probst was entangled into the Gestapo investigation. The kids were arrested and the White Rose was smashed but not silenced. A trial was held and presided over by infamous Nazi Judge, Roland Freisler . Freisler was A Communist who converted to National Socialism. This fiend in a judi...

Los Angeles, CA —I don’t know how this film escaped my notice until I caught it on the Cable channel, Encore . Perhaps distribution and marketing was limited because most of the film is in Dutch and German with English subtitles. Black Book (2006), is based on a true adventure during World War Two. Director Paul Verhoeven (Basic Instinct, Robo Cop and Total Recall) directed this film with a superb ensemble cast led by the stunning Carice Van Houten . This is a spy thriller about a beautiful young Jewish singer, played by Van Houten that is trapped in Nazi occupied Holland who joins the Dutch underground out of sheer necessity to survive. Van Houten’s character suffers every unimaginable threat as she becomes tangled in a plot of Nazi criminals even worse than Hitler’s closest henchmen if that was somehow possible. The actors playing the bad guys were as good as they get. The acting, costumes and historical detail were impeckable and second to none. The script was a masterpiece. I ha...

Click on picture to enlarge! Tucson, AZ —I was lucky enough to get a DVD of legal scholar, David T. Hardy’s two-hour film about the origin and over two-hundred years of interpolation of American gun rights. The film was copyrighted in 2006 before the Supreme Court ruled on the Heller case that held that the Second Amendment was an individual right rather than the right of state governments or a collective right. Unless you have a love for law, the courts and lawyers explaining and arguing the law, don’t try watching this film alone at home. For me it was as good as it gets. Hardy’s film took the scattered court rulings on gun rights juxtaposed to the located writings of the framers of our freedom and liberty. For lawyers that defend Americans accused of weapons possession related charges this film is a must. The same is true of people who make laws. Hardy has not failed to cover the ugly side of gun control that targeted African-Americans from the day slaves were freed until tod...

Westwood Village, Los Angeles, CA —Okay so I’ve been a Clint Eastwood fan all the way back to those Spaghetti Westerns of the late 1960s. How can an Eastwood fan not see any film he both directs and stars in? Gran Torino is about a retired Michigan autoworker and aging Korean War vet, Walt Kowalski who just lost his wife. He’s now finding that he has to make some serious social adjustments to today’s new society. He is about to embark on adventures we’d all like to avoid. Kowalski’s most important prized possession is a mint condition Ford Gran Torino. Kowalski can’t seem to connect with his two adult son’s or their families. I met Kowalski many times in this life. He’s a composite of so many older military veterans that have returned to an ungrateful nation. Along the way Kowalski has to deal with thugs in a way that made Eastwood’s films so popular. Torino offers a lot more to than vengeance and curbside justice. Walt Kowalski has to deal with the next door neighbors who happen to ...

Westwood Village, Los Angeles, CA— Being a history buff and having a special bond with Germany and its people seeing this film was mandatory for me. After serving as an Army medical corpsman(1968-1970)in Germany, I nearly stayed there to live. I should at least obtained employment with a government or company that would have given me equal time on both sides of the Atlantic. I also have a special bond of sorts with actor and Valkyrie star, Tom Cruise . His “mother”, Janet Caroll , from the Film, Risky Business is my friend. Janet’s father was a Chicago Police officer and district secretary. She also has several police bosses in her immediate family. Janet was successfully acting and singing in both Los Angeles and New York. Janet has recently returned to Los Angeles where she has made a second life for herself as an ordained minister helping others. Operation Walküre was a German government plan for martial law in event of a breakdown of law and order or revolt during World War Two...