Tag Archives: history

Documentary Review: Entrancing “Trains” is a History of Europe through its Rails and Rolling Stock

Posted on September 18, 2025 by Roger Moore

“Trains,” the new dialogue-free “found footage” documentary by the Polish filmmaker Maciej Drygas, is one of the most original pieces of movie-making you’re likely to run across. Drygas tells a history of Europe through the first half of the 20th … Continue reading →

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Movie Review — “Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale”

Posted on September 12, 2025 by Roger Moore

Lady Mary makes one more most-unladylike sexual mistake, “Mum-MAH” dishes up one more serving of proto-feminist American common sense and one last “season” in London town is experienced for “Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale” of the highbrow British/PBS soap opera … Continue reading →

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Documentary Review: The Psychology of “Ordinary Men” who carried out “The Forgotten Holocaust”

Posted on August 19, 2025 by Roger Moore

It can’t be a coincidence that Netflix chose this moment in time to stream the 2022 German TV doc “Ganz normale Männer – Der ‘vergessene Holocaust,’” “Ordinary Men: The Forgotten Holocaust.” The Internet is overrun with videos of masked goons … Continue reading →

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Documentary Review: Archaeologist Could Rewrite American Prehistory if he saves an Ancient Site from his Fellow Texans — “The Stones Are Speaking”

Posted on May 29, 2025 by Roger Moore

Anyone with just a passing appreciation of American archaeology has heard of a Clovis point or stone tool. That’s an ancient spear point dating from a people and an era that for generations has been considered “The First Americans,” arriving … Continue reading →

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Classic Film Review: MGM’s Blunt, if Belated Warning about Fascism — “The Mortal Storm”

Posted on May 17, 2025 by Roger Moore

The first time I pondered the “coincidence” of a classic film turning up on my TV at a particular moment in history was coming home from school in the ’70s and seeing the Cold War era gem “Seven Days in … Continue reading →

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Classic Film Review: “The Return of Martin Guerre,” the Original “Deep Fake”(1982)

Posted on May 1, 2025 by Roger Moore

Before he became the French poster boy for “sexual predator,” Gerard Depardieu was the unlikeliest screen sex symbol of his era. Burly to the point of huge, played a soulful “Cyrano” and took on Jean Valjean in a TV version … Continue reading →

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Netflixable? A mad bomber plots a “Bullet Train Explosion”

Posted on April 29, 2025 by Roger Moore

A 1975 Japanese thriller titled “Bullet Train,” about a high-speed passenger train with a bomb on board, one that will explode if the train slows beyond a triggered speed, inspired the bomb-on-a-bus thriller “Speed,” its sequel and lots of imitators. … Continue reading →

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Documentary Review: Central and South Americans find they must fight for “Water for Life”

Posted on April 10, 2025 by Roger Moore

We’ve been warned for decades that the next “war” between the world’s haves and have-nots is going to be over water. From hydroelectric dams pushed by outside profiteers to mineral interests that need water for mining to just plain “let’s … Continue reading →

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Netflixable? Master Documentarian Errol Morris takes on Manson’s Motives and MO — “Chaos: The Manson Murders”

Posted on March 12, 2025 by Roger Moore

Over fifty years after the Charles Manson/Tate-LaBianca murders, the “Helter Skelter” slaughter continues to entice and challenge the American psyche. With all the books, all the films and TV miniseries about it, with even Quentin Tarantino weighing in with a … Continue reading →

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Documentary Review: An Oscar nominated jazz memoir of Cold War Colonialism and Civil Rights — “Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat” in Congo

Posted on February 13, 2025 by Roger Moore

Johan Grimonprez’s “Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat” swirls by — a sea of famous and infamous faces, a parade of voices and a catalog of unpleasant history served up on a bed of bebop, cool jazz and free jazz. The … Continue reading →

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