Downfall
-Now, I haven't see a lot of World War II movies in my life. Saving Private Ryan is pretty much the only one I can think of at the moment, although I know there's more. Oh, I guess Schindler's List would count as one... does it count as one? It took place during World War II, at least. Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that while most people are sick of WWII films, I've really never been interested in them. I am assuming that it is because of one of two reasons:
1) The Nazis probably never win in the end. Sure, this isn't something that I should REALLY complain about, since... you know, Nazis are the root of all evil or something like that, but I'd like to see a historically accurate depiction of World War II, leading up to their ultimate surrender... and then SWERVE EVERYONE and have Nazi Germany win and take over the world. Admit it, it'd be kind of cool to see. Unfortunately, I do not know if any such ending to a WWII exists (or would ever exist),
2) Pop culture has always portrayed the Nazis as the epitome of uncompromising evil. And obviously, they did a whole crap load of bad... but I'd hesitate to call any human "evil." Completely, terribly misguided, sure. Also I really dislike 2D characterizations of the bad guys.
So I liked this movie, mainly because a lot of the characters weren't really evil, but just apes*** crazy. It actually makes them scarier, because they aren't just some bad people who know what they are doing is bad... but rather they believe that they are completely in the right, that all these people deserve death, etc. etc. In the case of Hitler, you see glimpses of an idea that he realizes he may have gone wrong somewhere, but due to stubbornness refuses to admit defeat or guilt in any sort of way.
What gives the film its extra punch is the Goebbels family, especially the mother. I mean, she may come off as cold and evil, but really... no mother would kill six of her children without being severely misguided. In this case, she thinks that they have no future thanks to the regime crumbling.
One of the problems was that there were a LOT of characters, and I couldn't keep track of all their roles and their names, probably because I'm not completely familiar with the Nazi hierarchy. Could have had a little more clarity, but whatever.
Spartacus
So my main impression was that it was like Braveheart, except considerably less lame. You know, both are long epics that spends considerable time questioning what it means to be "free", both equate the willingness to fight for what you believe in to masculinity... except Spartacus was directed by Stanley f'n Kubrick, and Mel Gibson thinks the concept of freedom so exciting that he litters the film with like 6000 literal and annoying dialogues about how great it is.
You know how both have these characters with homosexual tendencies to further illustrate the masculinity of the hero? Well, in Spartacus, the scene is awesome, where Laurence Olivier is getting washed by his servant and gets into a discussion about how he likes "both snails and oysters." It's at the same time subtle and yet totally not. On the flip side... you have Braveheart, where the homosexual couple is ineffectual and basically just as comedic characters... and it kind of pisses me off.
Basically, I think the main reason why I liked this movie is because it reminded me how much Braveheart sucked.
To Kill A Mockingbird
Gregory Peck's performance (especially his work in the courtroom scenes) carried this. Otherwise... eh. I'm not a fan when the melodrama is lathered on a little too liberally. And again... 2D representations of good and bad really aren't that interesting.
I've also never read the book. Does that make me a bad person? Just a question... I already know that I'm pretty much the worst English major to ever exist, but maybe I'm even worse than that.
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