Movie/TV Reviews
The Battle of the Ice 85 (or 782) Years Later
On 5 April, 1241, Alexander Nevsky of Novgorod crushed invading crusader knights atop the frozen Lake Peipus. In 1939, Soviet director Sergei Eisenstein immortalized the day in film. Let’s reflect on the cinematic and political importance of the Eisenstein movie and the centuries-old conflict it portrays.
What Chapaev Can Teach Us About War and Ukrainian Death Battalions
Recently Maria and I watched the 1934 Soviet film Chapaev, a biopic of Vasily Chapaev, a Russian folk hero from the Civil War. 88 years later, this movie aged well and is still as relevant as ever. Movies tend to grow stale over time and become unwatchable (who wants to watch a typical film from the 1930s, for the love of God), but this isn’t one of them. Chapaev is just as watchable and exciting as any contemporary war movie, and the lessons are just as important now as they were when it first hit the silver screen.
What George Romero’s Zombie Movie Can Teach Us About the Ukraine War
Today I’m going to talk about the alleged Russian attack on June 27 against a Ukrainian shopping mall that Zelensky claimed was filled with more than 1,000 shoppers and employees. I’ve seen chatter from both sides about the veracity of these claims, but I’m going to specifically analyze the propaganda value and the talking points it illustrates.