Peter Flechtner Movies
- 2006
- Add The Short Life of José Antonio Gutierrez to QueueAdd The Short Life of José Antonio Gutierrez to top of Queue
The story of the first American soldier to be killed in the Iraqi war sets the stage for a studied exploration of just what it means to be an emigrant in search of the American dream in director Heidi Specogna's look at the life of slain soldier José Antonio Gutierrez. When his face made the nightly news, Gutierrez was mourned as an ambitious Guatemalan boy who dreamt of growing up to be an American and fighting for the freedom that America represented to him. As filmmaker Specogna comes into possession of two photographs of Gutierrez -- one as a young orphan and another as a grown soldier -- she speaks with the people who knew him best in hopes of getting the true story of his short and tragic life. The result is a revealing look at the harsh socioeconomic conditions that drive desperate individuals such as Gutierrez to brave the treacherous journey to America in hopes of building a better life for the ones they love. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Patrick Atkinson, Fabian Giron, (more)
Based on a true story, Steven Spielberg's Schindler's List stars Liam Neeson as Oskar Schindler, a German businessman in Poland who sees an opportunity to make money from the Nazis' rise to power. He starts a company to make cookware and utensils, using flattery and bribes to win military contracts, and brings in accountant and financier Itzhak Stern (Ben Kingsley) to help run the factory. By staffing his plant with Jews who've been herded into Krakow's ghetto by Nazi troops, Schindler has a dependable unpaid labor force. For Stern, a job in a war-related plant could mean survival for himself and the other Jews working for Schindler. However, in 1942, all of Krakow's Jews are assigned to the Plaszow Forced Labor Camp, overseen by Commandant Amon Goeth (Ralph Fiennes), an embittered alcoholic who occasionally shoots prisoners from his balcony. Schindler arranges to continue using Polish Jews in his plant, but, as he sees what is happening to his employees, he begins to develop a conscience. He realizes that his factory (now refitted to manufacture ammunition) is the only thing preventing his staff from being shipped to the death camps. Soon Schindler demands more workers and starts bribing Nazi leaders to keep Jews on his employee lists and out of the camps. By the time Germany falls to the allies, Schindler has lost his entire fortune -- and saved 1,100 people from likely death. Schindler's List was nominated for 12 Academy Awards and won seven, including Best Picture and a long-coveted Best Director for Spielberg, and it quickly gained praise as one of the finest American movies about the Holocaust. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Liam Neeson, Ben Kingsley, (more)
Kewpie-doll voiced Melanie Griffith does a sexed-up Nancy Drew turn in David Seltzer's adaptation of Susan Issacs' novel Shining Through. Set during World war II, Griffith plays Linda Voss, a spunky New York girl who applies for a job with international lawyer Ed Leland (Michael Douglas). Ed hires her immediately when he finds out that she speaks German fluently. The reason Ed is so interested in Linda's language skills is because Ed is an undercover OSS officer who needs a German translator. Their business relationship translates into love, but when America enters the war, Ed abandons his law practice to become a full-time spy. Utilizing Linda's charms, she travels to Berlin and infiltrates the Nazis as a domestic to try to discover information about "a bomb that can fly by itself." But Linda has personal as well as patriotic motives for agreeing to go undercover, since she has Jewish relatives in Berlin and wants to find out their whereabouts. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Michael Douglas, Melanie Griffith, (more)
