We are going through some rough times right now.
Here are a few movies that might make you feel better about it.
2025 has barely begun but it already feels like a lot.
Climate change-fueled wildfires continue to ravage Los Angeles and parts of Southern California while unease grips the news.
These are a few of my favorite things.
Brothers who on the right occasion can be tapped to go on a mission from God.
Wacker Drive might as well be renamed after them.
It will still put a lump in your throat to hear Lebeau shout, Vive la France!
Its a movie about every two-bit hustler and conmans worst fear: what if the bill came due?
(Those were the days.)
The giggles we still get from Springtime for Hitler are proof he succeeded then and reassuringly now.
But the whole movie taps into earnest wholesomeness, perhaps even more so than its obvious Indiana Jones influences.
There he battles Timothy Daltons pitch perfect Errol Flynn stand-in, who (surprise!)
is actually a secret Nazi saboteur determined to steal Howard Hughes rocket.
They even get local wiseguy mobster Eddie Valentine (Paul Sorvino) in on the act.
I may not make an honest buck, Sorvino seethes, but Im a hundred percent American.
I dont work for no two-bit Nazi.
Its a good sentiment.
This might be because even in 2011, the superhero genre was pivoting to more outlandish interconnected fantasies.
It also features an absolutely badass moment where Fassbender turns Magneto into a full-fledged antihero.
They didnt have a name, Fassender smiles.
It was taken from them by pig farmers and tailors.
And cousin, business is a-boomin!
But despite that pride of title placement, you shouldnt be deceived.
Theyre merely an ornate decoration on top; frosting on the cake.
Inglourious Basterdsis really a wide ensemble of lives and stories intersecting in Nazi-Occupied France circa 1944.
It is a fantasy aboutthe restorative power of cinemaand the fleeting beauty of escapism.
Still, its also about killin Nazis.
And sometimes with a baseball bat.
