Schindler's List (1993)

It's the twenty-fifth anniversary of Schindler's List and Steven Spielberg introduces his masterwork as a story for modern times. And it is a behemoth of a movie, running over three hours. I'm glad to have seen it, but I never have to see it again. It is hard to watch. Not an easy movie to revisit, but now is as good a time as any as anti-semitism seems to never go away.

I find it daunting to comment on such epic films. I could maybe tackle small parts of it. John Williams's score, brought to life by Itzakh Perlman, is hauntingly beautiful. The liquidation of the Warsaw ghetto is a brutal scene, filmed with such horror and control. The scene in the showers at Auschwitz is extremely powerful for turning the audience's anticipatory expectations on its head. And there is so much emotion in the final scene when the war finally comes to an end. The directorial choice to close the film with the Schindlerjuden at Schindler's grave at Yad Veshem is striking, pulling the audience to the "present". It continues to evoke emotion twenty-five years later, during which I'm sure many of the film's characters have since passed away. Holocaust survivors are few today, but it's important for their stories to live on. The black-and-white cinematography contributes to the documentary-feel of the movie. It tells the audience that even the most unbelievable atrocities are not exaggerations.

The Jungle Book (2016)

I feel like this film is the next era in computer graphics. Disney did it in 1946 bringing the animated characters in Song of the South to the live-action world. Here, they place Mowgli in a computer-generated jungle full of computer-generated animals and wonders. Nothing else in this movie is real, but you wouldn't be able to tell. In that respect, The Jungle Book is very impressive.

Favreau creates his own enthralling world such that he doesn't need to hearken back to the original. It is all his own, though he sometimes tries to remind us. This Jungle Book is a lot scarier and less fun than the one I remember. And Mowgli is a lot more annoying than I remember, too. I kind of couldn't get over it. The iconic Bare Necessities sequence was strange to put it plainly with Bill Murray as Baloo. Actually, his portrayal of Baloo and his relationship with Mowgli reminded me of St. Vincent. Don't think that was intentional, but Murray sort of plays it the same way.

The Walk (2015)

This movie is very cleverly narrated by a charming Joseph Gordon Levitt as Philippe Petit in part French, part French-accented English. He sounds really good and he apparently learned to speak fluently for the role. I really liked the narration. It is direct and intimate with the viewer and it allows the viewer special insight into what anyone else would deem suicidal. In fact, the film opens with him staring directly down the lens of the camera. And from the beginning, you are welcomed into a surreal world as the camera zooms out to show Petit in the torch of the Statue of Liberty overlooking the Twin Towers. And then we are transported to France through a bit of globe magic for a sequence in black-and-white. And all of these little intricacies make the first hour interesting in what is an otherwise uninteresting setup before we get to the titular walk. But anticipation and excitement grows.

The walk itself is really well done. The visual effects and dizzying camerawork make you really feel like you're up there with him a hundred stories up. Throughout the film, the visual effects, though sometimes small, are really cool. And we delight in seeing the crazy joy sweep across his face when he is out on his wire despite our fear of falling that is not present in the man that is actually at risk.