Savannah Film Festival
Oct. 26th, 2025 10:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fabrisseThe Savannah Film Festival started yesterday. So far, I've seen two films.
The first was Blue Moon starring Ethan Hawke and directed by Richard Linklater. I knew enough about the lyrist Lorenz Hart to want to see it. It would be a better movie if it were between 10 and 20 minutes shorter. At the risk of sounding somewhat bitchy, I don't get Margaret Qualley's appeal. The supporting cast is excellent, including Patrick Kennedy as E.B. White. Hart comes across, possibly correctly, as someone completely charming and completely frustrating at the same time.
The second was Nuremberg. I keep going back and forth in my head about whether Rami Malek was really good or just OK as Douglas Kelley, the first psychiatrist to work with the first 22 men on trial at Nuremberg for war crimes. Michael Shannon as Justice Jackson was a standout as was Richard E. Grant as Sir David Maxwell-Fyfe, the British prosecutor.
The outstanding performance is Russell Crowe as Hermann Göring. The man is charming. He is also a drug addicted egomaniac who is aware of how his manipulations come across. It's thoroughly creepy and yet a very warm, disarming performance.
I would have liked more about Hess or Speer -- two of the seven not sentenced to death -- as a contrast to why some were and others weren't. I know Speer admitted wrong doing and even shame -- whether he actually felt it is anyone's guess.
I highly recommend Nuremberg even as I recognize that I'll probably never watch it again. It shows documentary footage of the concentration camps, so be prepared for it.
As a side note to Hess, by 1987 he was the last prisoner in Spandau. I didn't realize until today that he committed suicide, though I'd known he died, at the age of 93 on May 12, 1987.
From 1983-1987, my parents spent four months of the year in West Berlin while Dad taught at the local American military base. In 1987, Dad was due to start teaching in Boston in August, but he had to complete his last courses in Berlin. My 26th birthday was May 29 that year, and I discovered that Modern Jazz Quartet would be playing in Berlin on my birthday. Dad invited me to join him to celebrate my birthday.
On the two previous years when Sis and I joined our folks for Christmas in West Berlin, we had, at least once each trip, had a reason to go by Spandau. This time when Dad drove us by Spandau, around a quarter of the building was gone. As soon as Hess's death had been confirmed, the Soviet Union began taking the prison apart brick by brick. The prison no longer existed by the end of August that year. It was a disturbing site.
The first was Blue Moon starring Ethan Hawke and directed by Richard Linklater. I knew enough about the lyrist Lorenz Hart to want to see it. It would be a better movie if it were between 10 and 20 minutes shorter. At the risk of sounding somewhat bitchy, I don't get Margaret Qualley's appeal. The supporting cast is excellent, including Patrick Kennedy as E.B. White. Hart comes across, possibly correctly, as someone completely charming and completely frustrating at the same time.
The second was Nuremberg. I keep going back and forth in my head about whether Rami Malek was really good or just OK as Douglas Kelley, the first psychiatrist to work with the first 22 men on trial at Nuremberg for war crimes. Michael Shannon as Justice Jackson was a standout as was Richard E. Grant as Sir David Maxwell-Fyfe, the British prosecutor.
The outstanding performance is Russell Crowe as Hermann Göring. The man is charming. He is also a drug addicted egomaniac who is aware of how his manipulations come across. It's thoroughly creepy and yet a very warm, disarming performance.
I would have liked more about Hess or Speer -- two of the seven not sentenced to death -- as a contrast to why some were and others weren't. I know Speer admitted wrong doing and even shame -- whether he actually felt it is anyone's guess.
I highly recommend Nuremberg even as I recognize that I'll probably never watch it again. It shows documentary footage of the concentration camps, so be prepared for it.
As a side note to Hess, by 1987 he was the last prisoner in Spandau. I didn't realize until today that he committed suicide, though I'd known he died, at the age of 93 on May 12, 1987.
From 1983-1987, my parents spent four months of the year in West Berlin while Dad taught at the local American military base. In 1987, Dad was due to start teaching in Boston in August, but he had to complete his last courses in Berlin. My 26th birthday was May 29 that year, and I discovered that Modern Jazz Quartet would be playing in Berlin on my birthday. Dad invited me to join him to celebrate my birthday.
On the two previous years when Sis and I joined our folks for Christmas in West Berlin, we had, at least once each trip, had a reason to go by Spandau. This time when Dad drove us by Spandau, around a quarter of the building was gone. As soon as Hess's death had been confirmed, the Soviet Union began taking the prison apart brick by brick. The prison no longer existed by the end of August that year. It was a disturbing site.
