Jonathan Olsberg Movies

One young man's devastating voyage through the Holocaust sets the stage for this powerful drama. Gyorgy "Gyurka" Koves (Marcell Nagy) is a 14-year-old Jewish boy living in Hungary when the Nazi pogroms begin sweeping through the country. Gyura's father (Janos Ban) has his business taken away from him not long before he's taken away to a concentration camp, and as he's led away, Gyura agrees to his father's request to look after his stepmother while he's gone. However, Gyurka takes a bus rather than the train to work the following morning, believing it to be safer, but before it can reach its destination, police stop the vehicle and take the Jewish passengers into custody. Gyurka is sent to Auschwitz, but is later transferred to Buchenwald, and finally to Zeitz; at each stop the teenager is witness to greater and greater horrors, as different varieties of torture and violence are introduced with each passing day, until his emotions begin to wear away. When American troops finally liberate Zeitz, Gyurka has been shocked into a placid serenity, and when he returns to the wreckage that is Budapest, his ravaged body and ghostly calm go mostly overlooked by the other survivors attempting to rebuild. Sorstalansag (aka Fateless) was adapted from a novel by Imre Kertesz, a Nobel Prize-winning author who is himself a survivor of the Nazi death camps. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

With a nod towards the films of Aki Kaurismaki, this off-beat, whimsical directorial debut by British filmmaker Sue Clayton, centers on the mysterious disappearance of the titular Irish youth, who late one night, leapt from a freeway overpass and was never heard from again. Three years later, his family and his friend Danny still grieve. Matters are made worse when a pop song about Danny and the incident becomes a smash hit in Europe. Shortly after, Danny receives a phone call from Finbar who is in Scandinavia. Thus begins Danny's search for Finbar, a search that leads him to a tiny Lapland village located near the Finnish border. There he is taken in by an icy beauty named Abbi and soon begins to rebuild the life that was shattered by the disappearance of Finbar. When Finbar suddenly returns, problems arise. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Actor Oliver Parker made his directorial debut with this adaptation of the tragic play by William Shakespeare that abridges the original text by half and ups the quotient of sex and violence. Laurence Fishburne stars as the Moorish general Othello, who returns a hero after crushing an invasion attempt by the Turkish army near Cyprus. Pledged to marry the lovely Desdemona (Irene Jacob), Othello ignores the advice of his intended's father, who tells him that she may have a deceptive nature. Othello's aide Iago (Kenneth Branagh), jealous over the elevation of his rival, Cassio (Nathaniel Parker, the director's real-life brother) to lieutenant, begins scheming to make Othello believe that Desdemona and Cassio are carrying on an affair. On the slimmest of evidence, Iago manages to manipulate Othello's suspicious, distrustful nature. Played previously in black face on film by actors Orson Welles and Laurence Olivier, Parker's production of Othello (1995) was the first major cinematic production to cast an African-American in the title role. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide

A young New York City rock singer decides to try her hand at fame in Japan so makes the journey. Upon her arrival she meets a Japanese musician who needs an American girl to front his band. Fortunately, she joins up, and the band makes it big while she and the musician engage in a comedic romance. ~ Kristie Hassen, All Movie Guide