Directed by Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson, Summer of Soul presents a powerful and transporting documentary—part music film, part historical record created around an epic event that celebrated Black history, culture, and fashion.
Over six weeks in the summer of 1969, just one hundred miles south of Woodstock, The Harlem Cultural Festival was filmed in Mount Morris Park — now Marcus Garvey Park.
The 5th Dimension performing at the Harlem Cultural Festival in 1969, featured in the documentary SUMMER OF SOUL.
Never seen footage and largely forgotten — until now. The movie shines a light on the history of our spiritual well-being. It stands as a testament to the healing power of music during times of unrest, both past and present.
The feature includes never-before-seen concert performances by Stevie Wonder, Nina Simone, Sly & the Family Stone, Gladys Knight & the Pips, Mahalia Jackson, B.B. King, The 5th Dimension, and more.
Directed by the late Luke Holland, Final Account is his interviews of nearly 300 elderly perpetrators and witnesses of the Holocaust from the Nazi side.
Such an important documentary that shows how the Nazis viewed their rise over Europe and the atrocities they allowed to happen. Doing nothing is still a transgression, and this movie received praises from prominent newspapers worldwide.
FINAL ACCOUNT by director Luke Holland, released by Focus Features. Courtesy of Focus Features
Final Account premiered posthumously three months after the death of Holland in June 2020.
Written by Natasa Drakulic and directed by Predrag Antonijevic, Dara of Jasenovac follows a little girl named Dara, played by Biljana Cekic, during the Holocaust in the Balkans to the infamous extermination camp complex Jasenovac — coined as Balkan’s Auschwitz. The story takes place in the Nazi-occupied Croatian Ustasha regime “NDH” in former Yugoslavia during WWII. They are told through the eyes of Dara, who the Nazis sent as a child during the Holocaust, ruled by sadistic camp commander Maks Luburic until the liberation. It is the first modern WWII movie that takes place in or shows the NDH-era camp.
It begins during the summer of 1942 when the family of twelve-year-old Dara is taken away and separated into two concentration camps. She witnessed all the horrors of the Ustashe regime. After they kill her brother and mother, she tries to save her younger brother’s life, hoping that her father is still alive.
Probably one of the most overlooked parts of history, Germans do not run Jasenovac, but the fascist Ustase runs the complex. He brutally murdered Jews, Serbs and Roma people, which included many women and children. As unspeakable atrocities unfold, Dara must summon tremendous courage to protect her infant brother from a terrible fate. At the same time, she safeguards her own survival and plots a precarious path toward freedom. The movie is the Serbian selection for the Academy Awards for Best International Feature.
The movie has English subtitles, and the rest of the talented cast includes Vuk Kostic, Natasa Ninkovic, and Nikolina Jelisavac.
The filmed version of the original Broadway production of Hamilton combines the best elements of live theater, film, and streaming to bring the cultural phenomenon to homes around the world for a thrilling, once-in-a-lifetime experience.
With book, music, and lyrics by Lin-Manuel Miranda and direction by Thomas Kail, Hamilton is inspired by the book Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow.
Featuring a score that blends hip-hop, jazz, R&B, and Broadway, Hamilton has taken the story of American founding father Alexander Hamilton and created a revolutionary moment in theatre. This musical has had a profound impact on culture, politics, and education.
Hamilton stars: Daveed Diggs as Marquis de Lafayette/Thomas Jefferson; Renée Elise Goldsberry as Angelica Schuyler; Jonathan Groff as King George; Christopher Jackson as George Washington; Jasmine Cephas Jones as Peggy Schuyler/Maria Reynolds; Lin-Manuel Miranda as Alexander Hamilton; Leslie Odom, Jr. as Aaron Burr; Okieriete Onaodowan as Hercules Mulligan/James Madison; Anthony Ramos as John Laurens/Philip Hamilton; and Phillipa Soo as Eliza Hamilton.
“I’m incredibly grateful that the world will be able to see this. Theater is a communal artistic experience, and this film is a love letter to live theater,” Lin-Manuel Miranda.
Capturing the essence of the Broadway show were six camera positions with six camera operators. Additionally, there were three fixed camera positions, one dolly and a Steadicam, a crane and two angles capturing each performance. There was one overhead camera and one at the rear of the stage, strategically hidden in a brick wall. The Steadicam, crane, and dolly were used on the scene the day the audience was not present. They shot 13 or 14 numbers from the 46 numbers in the show.
Director Thomas Kail describes directing Hamilton for the screen, “This film celebrates the work of our extraordinary designers.”
Offering the example with one of the most moving scenes, he says, “Satisfied changes time and plays with the time dynamic. The show doesn’t proceed in a linear fashion. It’s elliptical… it’s not continuous time, but it’s always moving forward, and Satisfied is the first moment in our show where we stop time.”
The song is also doing more, “What we are doing in that song is setting up the final duel… we’re setting up the bullet, and what we’re able to do on film is be much more subjective with the camera, so it feels a little more like we’re going inside her brain. The cut pattern is quite accelerated, and the camera angles are quite varied, and we did that because we wanted to also break the form in the cinematic language in the same way that we break the form in the theatrical language in the theater.”
Written by and starring Tom Hanks and directed by Aaron Schneider, Greyhound follows captain Ernest Krause, played by Hanks, in the early days of WWII. Krause commands an international convoy of 37 Allied ships as his first command of a U.S. destroyer.
They cross the treacherous North Atlantic while hotly pursued by wolf packs of Nazi U-boats. The story originates from actual events and the novel The Good Shepherd by C. S. Forester.
Also starring in the movie is Elisabeth Shue, Rob Morgan, and Stephen Graham. Make sure you watch the trailer because the movie is intense and visceral.
Written and directed by Wes Miller, Hell on the Border follows the story of Bass Reeves, played by David Gyasi. The movie appears to be an action-packed Western about Reeves, who was the first black U.S. marshal in the Wild West.
Having escaped from slavery after the Civil War, Reeves arrives in Arkansas seeking a job with the law. To prove himself, he must hunt down a deadly outlaw, played by Frank Grillo, with the help of a grizzled journeyman, played by Ron Perlman.
As Reeves chases the criminal deeper into the Cherokee Nation, he must not only dodge bullets in hopes of earning his star but severe discrimination and ends up cementing his place as a cowboy legend.
The cast includes Chris Mullinax, Jaqueline Fleming, Rudy Youngblood, Nick Loren, Marshall Teague, Gianni Capaldi, and Zahn McClarnon.
Jack London’s literary classic takes a new turn in the adaptation of The Call of the Wild with live-action and animation animals.
The movie is streaming on Amazon, and here is a featurette about the star of the film, Buck. The man who plays him is with Cirque du Soleil. Watch this clip and see how well he acts like Buck.
Directed by Chris Sanders and starring Harrison Ford as John Thornton, the vivid story comes is well-known. We follow Buck, a big-hearted dog whose blissful domestic life is turned upside down when he is suddenly uprooted from his California home and transplanted to the exotic wilds of the Alaskan Yukon during the Gold Rush of the 1890s.
As the newest rookie on a mail delivery sled team–and later its leader–Buck experiences the adventure of a lifetime, ultimately finding his real place in the world and becoming his own master.
Sanders helms the movie as a live-action and animation hybrid, employing cutting edge visual effects and animation technology to render the animals in the film as fully photorealistic, emotionally, and authentic characters.
Sanders credits include Lilo & Stitch and How to Train Your Dragon. He holds quite a repertory of writing credits, including The Lion King, Mulan, and Beauty and the Beast. However, Michael Green wrote the script based on London’s novel and Egerton Ryerson Young’s source material.
The cast also includes Dan Stevens, Omar Sy, Karen Gillan, Bradley Whitford, and Colin Woodell.
Ford is a natural in this movie clip, an amazing actor.
Rightfully written and directed by Terence Malick, The Hidden Life follows the life of Franz Jägerstätter, which the Catholic church beautified in 2007, as a conscientious objector to World War II and Hilter.
Winner of Cannes 2019 François Chalais Award, Terrence Malick, masterfully guides August Diehl, who plays Jägerstätter, an Austrian. Known as a rambunctious young man and womanizer, Franz leaves the small town where he grew up to work in the salt mines.
He returns three years later, riding a motorcycle and a devout Catholic. He marries Franziska, played by Valerie Pachner, whose religious faith is almost as powerful as Franz.
Franz denounces Hilter and WW II, resulting in the small town cauterizing him. He continues tending farm alongside his wife and children.
Eventually, the Nazis sent him to prison for his religious faith and denouncing Hilter and the war, saying he could not be both Catholic and Nazi. They executed him in 1943, and Franz becomes a martyr and beatified by the Catholic church.
I invite you to take a look at Malick’s movie, The Tree of Life, starring Brad Pitt, Sean Pen, and Jessica Chastain. He uses similar angles and tender moments to tell the story of a young boy growing up with an angelic mother and a spiteful father.
The trailer shows Malick’s talent for serene and pastoral countrysides of quiet long and buoyant moments of love and joy. Only Malick can tell the story of Jägerstätter’s tragic end to a blissful life taken by a strong belief and devotion to God.
The red carpet interviews at TIFF discuss Malick’s direction and the area where they filmed the farmhouse. The Jägerstätters lived in St. Radegund, a small village of 500 people in Upper Austria, near Salzburg and the German border. In the same province, where Hitler was born and spent his early youth–not far from Berchtesgaden, his mountain retreat during his years as head of the German state.
The video captures them sharing their experiences working with Malick.
He arrives home, but the consequences of him being a conscientious objector will be a sad and frightful ending. The camera work and acting drive the scene forward with Malick’s direction.
The next two clips are Malick’s signature work, narrative with telling their story through his wife’s letters.
Directed by Roland Emmerich, Midway focuses on the historic Battle of Midway as a critical part of the Pacific Theater during World War II. The movie shows the clash between the American fleet and the Imperial Japanese Navy, which marked a pivotal turning point during WWII. The film is streaming on Amazon.
Wes Tooke wrote the story based on the real-life events of heroic feats. The leaders and soldiers used their wits, instincts, courage, and bravery to overcome the odds and defeat the Japanese.
The movie’s huge cast is stellar.
Some of the top brass in the movie are Lieutenant Commander Wade McClusky, played by Luke Evans, Edwin Layton, played by Patrick Wilson, Admiral William “Bull” Halsey, played by Dennis Quad, and Admiral Chester Nimitz, played by Woody Harrelson. The rest of the cast includes Aaron Eckhart, Nick Jonas, Etsushi Toyokawa, Tadanobu Asano, Luke Kleintank, Jun Kunimura, Darren Criss, Keean Johnson, Alexander Ludwig, and Mandy Moore.
Emmerich directing credits are rich with grandiose movies like The Day After Tomorrow and Independence Day. Tooke writing credits include episodic TV shows like Colony and Jean-Claude Van Johnson.
The next trailer tells more about the story. Historically, the story is impressive. Doolittle and his crew perform an unbelievable mission.
The cast brings a whole new dimension to the story.
Directed by Alfonso Gomez-Rejoin, The Current War follows three brilliant visionaries set off in a charged battle for the future hold on electricity. The epic story of the cutthroat competition that literally lit up the modern world told in hush tones is now a motion picture.
Tom Holland as Samuel Insull and Benedict Cumberbatch as Edison
Benedict Cumberbatch is Thomas Edison, the celebrity inventor on the verge of bringing electricity to Manhattan with his radical new DC technology. On the eve of triumph, his plans are upended by charismatic businessman George Westinghouse, played by Michael Shannon, who believes he and his partner, the upstart genius Nikolai Tesla, played by Nicholas Hoult, have a superior idea for how to rapidly electrify America using AC current.
The poster is like the first one, but this poster says “Director’s Cut,” and that is fascinating. The movie has not been released, and there is a new version of the movie.
As Edison and Westinghouse grapple for who will power the nation, they spark one of the first and greatest corporate feuds in American history, establishing for future Titans of Industry the need to break all the rules.
Michael Shannon as Westinghouse
Alfonso Gomez-Rejon is best known for directing Me and Earl and the Dying Girl. Michael Mitnick wrote the screenplay and is also one of the producers of the movie. Mitnick adapted The Giver and scripted the episodic Vinyl.
The movie also stars Katherine Waterston, Tom Holland, Matthew Macfadyen, and Tuppence Middleton.
The next group of movie clips tells the tale of the war between Westinghouse and Edison. From the looks of it, Edison was a greedy man who only wanted fame and money.
