Red Inkworks: THE HUMAN SPIRIT THROUGH FILM

A cross section of films celebrating the determination, integrity and strength, of the human spirit,  to both survive and triumph over great odds, including the increasingly dominate influence of the second-hander in America.  
 

ENTERTAINING FILMS OF INTEGRITY AND COURAGE...and FREEDOM

12 Angry Men:  (1957) A dissenting juror in a murder trial slowly manages to convince the others that the case is not as obviously clear as it seemed in court.

300:  (2006) Hollywood tries its best to neglect the heroism of American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan — but it did release this action film about martial honour, unflinching courage, and the oft-ignored truth that freedom isn’t free. Beneath a layer of egregious non-history — including goblin-like creatures that belong in a fantasy epic — is a stylized story about the ancient battle of Thermopylae and the Spartan defense of the West’s fledgling institutions. It contrasts a small band of Spartans, motivated by their convictions and a commitment to their constitutional law, with a Persian horde that is driven forward by whips. I am somewhat amazed that the progressive America-haters investing Hollywood let this one get out to the public. 

39 Steps, The:  (1935) A man in London tries to help a counterespionage agent, and is soon finding himself in one jam after another.
 

Air Force One:  (1997)  A thriller about a steadfast U.S. President who has just told the world he will not negotiate with terrorists. Now, Russian neo-nationalists have hijacked Air Force One and the President is faced with a nearly impossible decision: give in to terrorist demands or sacrifice not only the country's dignity, but the lives of his wife and daughter.

Apollo 13:  (1995) True story of the moon-bound mission that developed severe trouble and the men that rescued it with skill and dedication.

 

Big Heat, The:  (1953) Tough cop Dave Bannion takes on a politically powerful crime syndicate.

Braveheart:  (1995)  Forget the travesty this soaring action film makes of the historical record. Braveheart raised its hero, medieval Scottish warrior William Wallace, to the level of myth and won five Oscars, including best director for Mel Gibson, who played Wallace as he led a spirited revolt against English tyranny.

Brazil:  (1985)  Vividly depicting the miserable results of elitist leftwing utopian schemes, Terry Gilliam’s Brazil portrays a darkly comic dystopia of malfunctioning high-tech equipment and the dreary living conditions common to all totalitarian regimes. Everything in the society is built to serve socialist government plans rather than people. The film is visually arresting and inventive, with especially evocative use of shots that put the audience in a subservient position, just like the people in the film. Terrorist bombings, national-security scares, universal police surveillance, bureaucratic arrogance, a callous elite, perversion of science, and government use of torture evoke the worst aspects of the modern mega-state.

Cinderella Man:  (2005)  James J. Braddock (Russell Crowe), an Irish-American hard-nosed boxer, formerly a light heavyweight contender, is forced to give up on boxing after breaking his hand in the ring. As the United States enters the Great Depression, Braddock works at a variety of menial jobs to support his family, but still dreams of somehow returning to boxing and making it big. Thanks to a last minute cancellation by another boxer, Braddock gets a second chance to fight but is put up against the number two contender in the world by the promoters who see Braddock as nothing more than a punching bag. Braddock stuns the boxing experts and fans with a third round knockout of his formidable opponent. Fighting with permanent injuries to his hands, Braddock continues to win and before long he comes to represent the hopes and aspirations of the American public coping with the Depression. A true hero.

Casablanca:  (1942)  Rick Blaine, a callous nightclub owner in a wartime way-station, has his world turned upside down when his lost love, Ilsa, returns.

Count of Monte Cristo, The:  (2002) A young man, falsely imprisoned by his jealous "friends," escapes and uses a hidden treasure to exact his revenge.

Dangerous Beauty:  (1998) An incredibly well-acted romance, offering a compelling story of one woman's triumph over the forces of the Roman Inquisition.
 

Death Wish:  (1974) Paul Kersey is an architect, who is a peaceful man. But when his wife and daughter are attacked in their apartment, his world changes.

Die Hard:  (1988) New York cop John McClane gives terrorists a dose of their own medicine as they hold hostages in an LA office building.

Edge, The:  (1997) A billionaire and two other men are stranded, unequipped, by a plane crash in a dangerous wilderness. How many will survive to be rescued?

Edison, the Man:  (1940) In flashback, fifty years after inventing the light bulb, an 82-year-old Edison tells his story.

English Patient, The:  (1996) At the close of WWII, a young nurse tends to a badly-burned plane crash victim. His past is shown in flashbacks, revealing an involvement in a fateful love affair.

E.T.  (1982)  A group of Earth children help a stranded alien botanist return home.

Executive Suite:  (1954)  Avery Bullard, President of the Tredway Corporation has died. But he never named a clear successor, so the Board members must choose a replacement. 

Fountainhead, The:  (1949) Gary Cooper plays Howard Roark, an idealistic architect Howard who dares to stand alone against his traditionalist contemporaries.

Fugitive, The:  (1993) Dr. Richard Kimble, unjustly accused of killing his wife, must find the real one-armed killer while avoiding Marshal Sam Gerard.

Fury:  (1936) Based on the story "Mob Rule" by Norman Krasna. Joe Wilson and Katherine Grant are in love, but he doesn't have enough money for them to get married.

Gattaca:  (1997) Futuristic story of a genetically imperfect man and his seemingly unobtainable goal to travel in space.

Gone with the Wind:  (1939) Epic story of a woman who can cope with everything in the US Civil War except losing the love of the man.

Gran Torino:  (2008) Clint Eastwood  plays Walt Kowalski, a caricature of an old-school, dying-breed, Polish-American racist male, replete with post-traumatic stress disorder from having served in the Korean War. Kowalski comes to realize that his exotic Hmong neighbours embody traditional social values more than his own disaster of a Caucasian nuclear family. Dirty Harry blows away political correctness, takes on the bad guys, and turns a boy into a man in the process. He even encourages the cultural assimilation of immigrants. Such an uplifting movie, you know it must have offended Liberal Hollywood. 

Great Escape, The:  (1963) Several hundred Allied POWs plan a mass escape from a German POW camp.

High Noon:  (1952) Gary Cooper as a sheriff who must stand entirely alone against his deadly enemy, knowing that the citizens of the town he has sworn to protect are too afraid to stand behind him. 

High Plains Drifter:  (1973) A small town with a dark secret hires a mysterious, vengeance-minded drifter to protect it from three criminals.

Hombre:  (1967) An Indian policeman travels by stagecoach and encounters more than his share of trouble. 

Hunt For Red October:  (1990) In 1984, the USSR's best submarine captain in their newest sub violates orders and heads for the USA. Is he trying to defect, or to start a war?

Inherit the Wind:  (1960) Based on a real-life case in 1925, two great lawyers argue the case for and against a science teacher accused of the 'crime' of teaching evolution.

In the Heat of the Night:  (1967) An African American detective is asked to investigate a murder in a racist southern town.

Jane Eyre:  (1996)  Small, plain and poor, Jane Eyre comes to Thornfield Hall as governess to the young ward of Edward Rochester.

Judgment at Nuremberg:  (1961) In 1948, an American court in occupied Germany tries four Nazi judges for war crimes.

Keeper of the Flame:  (1942) Journalist Steve O'Malley is writing a biography of a national hero who died when his car ran off a bridge.

Lady Vanishes, The: (1938)  Travellers on a trans-European train are delayed for a night due to bad weather in an unnamed country. The passengers cram into the small village hotel where socialite Iris Henderson meets an old governess called Miss Froy. Shortly after the journey restarts, Miss Froy disappears.

Lean on Me:  (1989) The dedicated, but tyrannical, Joe Clark is appointed as principal of a decaying inner city school and he is determined to improve it.

Les Miserables:  (1998) Jean Valjean, a Frenchman imprisoned for stealing bread, must flee a police officer named Javert. The pursuit consumes both men's lives.

Lifeboat:  (1944)  Several survivors of a torpedoed ship find themselves in the same boat with one of the men who sunk it.

Life is Beautiful:  (1997) A Jewish man has a wonderful romance with the help of his humour, but must use that same quality to protect his son in a Nazi death camp.

Little Women:  (1994) The March sisters live and grow in post-Civil War America.

Madison: (2001) A story about a man's personal struggle to victory in the 1971 Madison, Indiana hydro-plane regatta.

Maltese Falcon, The:  (1941) Sam Spade, a private detective, gets involved in a murderous hunt for a valuable statuette.

Master and Commander:  (2003)  This naval-adventure film starring Russell Crowe is based on the books of Patrick O’Brian, and here’s what A. O. Scott of the New York Times said in his review: “The Napoleonic wars that followed the French Revolution gave birth, among other things, to British conservatism, and Master and Commander, making no concessions to modern, egalitarian sensibilities, is among the most thoroughly and proudly conservative movies ever made.

Miracle Worker, The:  (1962) The story of Anne Sullivan's struggle to teach the blind and deaf Helen Keller how to communicate.

Naked Jungle, The:  (1954)  The Leiningen South American cocoa plantation is threatened by a 2 miles column of army ants.

No Name on the Bullet:  (1959) John Gant, hired assassin rides into town. No one is sure of the identity of his intended victim.

North by Northwest:  (1959) An advertising executive is mistaken for a spy and is pursued across the country while he looks for a way to survive.

October Sky:  (1999) The true story of Homer Hickam, the son of an American coal miner. A boy who triumphed over his father's wishes and became a force in the world of rocketry.

On The Waterfront:  (1954) One of my all time favourite Marlon Brando movies.  Brando plays Terry Malloy, an ex-prize fighter turned longshoreman who stands up to corrupt union bosses.

Pale Rider:  (1985) A small mining town is terrorized by a local gangster, and salvation arrives in the form of a gun-toting preacher.

Queen Christina:  (1933)  Young Christina ascends to the Swedish throne at age 5. While she rules, Sweden becomes a dominant European power at the end of the Thirty Years War.

Quiet Man, The:  (1952)  A disgraced American boxer retires to Ireland, where he finds love.

Schindler's List:  (1993)  Oskar Schindler uses Jews to start a factory in Poland during the war. He witnesses the horrors endured by the Jews, and starts to save them.

Sense and Sensibility:  (1995) Rich Mr. Dashwood dies, leaving his second wife and her daughters poor by the rules of inheritance. Two daughters are the titular opposites.

Starship Troopers: (1997) Humans of the future do battle with giant alien bugs in a fight for survival is the main thrust of the story.  But the bonus part of the story is that it takes place in a world where you have to earn your citizenship.  And judging from the number of people willing to face almost certain death at the mandibles of the ferocious bugs - citizenship in this robust and healthy society was worth earning!

Story of Louis Pasteur, The:  (1935) Biography of the man who invented pasteurization and made the first vaccine against rabies.

Strangers on a Train:  (1951) You'd like your wife killed, wouldn't you? I'll do it for you if you'll kill someone for me, and since we're strangers we'll be free of suspicion.

Strictly Ballroom:  (1992)  Brave new steps put Scott's career in jeopardy. With a new partner and determination, can he still succeed?

Terminator, The:  (1984)  A human-looking, apparently unstoppable cyborg is sent from the future to kill Sarah Connor; Kyle Reese is sent to stop it.

Terminator 2: Judgement Day:  (1991) A shape-shifting Cyborg is sent back from the future to kill John Connor before he can grow up to lead the resistance; a protector is sent, too.

The Dark Knight: (2008)  This film gives us a portrait of the hero as a man reviled. In his fight against the terrorist Joker, Batman has to devise new means of surveillance, push the limits of the law, and accept the hatred of the press and public. If that sounds reminiscent of a certain former and courageous president — whose stubborn integrity kept the nation safe and turned the tide of war — don’t mention it to the leftwing media.

The Lives of Others:  (2007) The tale, set in East Germany in 1984, is one part romantic drama, one part political thriller. It chronicles life under a totalitarian regime as the Stasi secretly monitors the activities of a playwright who is suspected of harbouring doubts about Communism. Critics showered the movie with praise and it won an Oscar for best foreign-language film (it’s in German). A thought-provoking film now that America is descending into socialism. 

The Pursuit of Happyness: (2006)  Based on the life of self-made millionaire Chris Gardner (Will Smith), this film provides the perfect antidote to Wall Street and other Hollywood diatribes depicting the world of finance as filled with nothing but greed. After his wife leaves him, Gardner can barely pay the rent. He accepts an unpaid internship at a San Francisco brokerage, with the promise of a real job if he outperforms the other interns and passes his exams. Gardner never succumbs to self-pity, even when he and his young son take refuge in a homeless shelter. They’re black, but there’s no racial undertone or subtext. Gardner is just an incredibly hard-working, ambitious, and smart man who wants to do better for himself and his son.

Things to Come:  (1936) A story of 100 years: a decades-long second world war leaves plague and anarchy, then a rational state rebuilds civilization and tries space travel.

This Land is Mine: (1943 Albert Lory is a teacher at a school in German-occupied France. He is a coward, but he is drawn into the actions of the resistance.   Red Inkworks Recommended...

Titanic:  (1997) Fictional romantic tale of a spoiled air-head and an abrasive pauper who meet and somehow fall in love on the ill-fated voyage of the 'unsinkable' ship. F/X great! Plot is fairly pedestrian paying only mawkish lip service to screenwriting's 'predictability and surprise'.

Tucker: The Man and His Dream:  (1988)  The story of Preston Tucker, the maverick car designer and his ill fated challenge to the auto industry with his revolutionary car concept.

United 93: (2006)  Emotionally-packed and moving fact-based story about the passengers aboard doomed flight United 93 that was the fourth attack on a plane on September 11, 2001. The passengers on the flight, as a result of a delay on takeoff that placed them behind the sinister attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, are able to learn of the attacks and discern that this is no mere high-jacking.  While the real events that caused the ultimate crash of the plane can never be known, the events depicted would appear to be as might be expected. A truly magnificent tale of ordinary Americans thwarting ignorant, cowardly, freedom-hating, Muslim terrorists. 

Untouchables, The:  (1959) Special Agent Eliot Ness and his elite team of incorruptible agents battle organized crime in 1930s Chicago.

We The Living:  (1942) Doomed love within a corrupt political world. At 18, the beautiful and smart Kira comes to Petersburg as the Communists consolidate power.

We Were Soldiers: (2002)  Most movies about the Vietnam War reflect the deranged musings of the antiwar liberals. This film, based on the memoir by Lt. Col. Hal Moore (played by Mel Gibson), offers a lifelike alternative. It focuses on a fight between an outnumbered U.S. Army battalion and three North Vietnamese regiments in the battle of Ia Drang in 1965. Significantly, it treats soldiers not as wretched losers or pathological killers, but as regular and decent Americans. They are men willing to sacrifice everything to do their duty — for their country, for their unit, and for their fellow soldiers. As the movie makes clear, they also had families. Indeed, their last thoughts were usually about their loved ones back home.

While the City Sleeps:  (1956)  Death of media magnate Amos Kyne is causing power struggle between his executives. In the meantime New York women become prey of a serial killer.

Winslow Boy, The:  (1948) In pre-WW1 England, a youngster is expelled from a naval academy over a petty theft, but his parents raise a political furor by demanding a trial.

World Trade Center:  (2006) World War III is brought home to America in this portrayal of the tragic wake-up call as two Port Authority police officers become trapped under the rubble of the World Trade Center.

Wuthering Heights:  (1939) The Earnshaws are Yorkshire farmers during the early 19th Century.

You Came Along:  (1945)  War hero flier Bob Collins goes on a war bond selling tour with two buddies, and substitute "chaperone" Ivy Hotchkiss.

 

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