2023 Sleepers

                                                                         Part 2

Society of the Snow is, frankly, a little hard to take, but on the whole is worth it. In 1972 a Uruguayan rugby team charters a plane to fly them to a match in neighboring Chile. The plane crashes into a glacier in a remote part of the Andes. Many of the passengers are killed in the crash, the rest spend the next 72 days stranded. Quickly running out of the meager food supplies on board the plane remnants, some of the survivors decide they must do the unthinkable with the bodies of their comrades. Based on a true story, the photography is fantastic. The story is not for the faint of heart. 

Judy Blume is a controversial author banned by many a right wing group. But she is much loved by a large audience, especially young girls. Judy Blume Forever is a documentary that tells her story quite well. Her unabashed portrayal of things usually not talked about has won her a huge audience. Sexuality, menstruation and homosexuality are explained factually and without blinking.

Michael Fassbender is The Killer, a professional assassin. No, he’s not on one last mission. In fact, he’s in the middle of picking up the pieces from a failed assignment. Events take him to France, the US, the Dominican Republic, and back to the US. His methods are varied and generally quite effective. In one scene, he accommodates a target’s request to make her death appear accidental. For some reason, you tend to pull for this not-very-nice guy and his methods are ingenious.

She was the prime minister of Israel at the time of the Yom Kippur war. Who else would you get to play Golda beside Helen Mirren? Okay, maybe Streep, but Mirren is convincing as is the screenplay that leads us from intelligence reports that Israel will be attacked through a short, bloody war that eventually ends in a stalemate and peace negotiations. The battle strategy and action are quite good, and of course Mirren is superb as always.

Almost all of the names in Rustin will be more familiar than the title character. But Bayard Rustin was quite a guy back in the 60's. He is generally credited with organizing the 1963 March on Washington, an incredible piece of logistics. He was openly gay and as such pilloried by many other civil rights leaders, but he persevered and got the march done. Coleman Domingo is the little-known actor who scores in the title role. The guy playing Martin Luther King is a an exact copy in speech and looks. Also look for A. Phillip Randolph, Adam Clayton Powell, Roy Wilkins and Whitney Young. As biopics go, this one is good on the facts and well played.

All of the movies in this article are available, at least for a price. Some can be found on various steaming sites. All are for grown-ups only.