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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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