(Click on film's title to read SK's original review.)
Amazing Grace. The English abolitionist William Wilberforce fought the slave trade two hundred years ago, and Michael Apted's film tells his story with minimal preaching and agreeable flavor and force. Michael Gambon and Albert Finney adorn the cast. (Reviewed 03.19.07)
The Lives of Others. In the days of East Germany a Stasi captain is assigned to spy on a young couple, and fervent though he is, finds his fervor altering. Some scene structures are familiar, but the tenor of the film is intelligent, and its truths are nicely unsettling. (02.19.07)
Sacco and Vanzetti. A documentary about the 1920s Massachusetts trial that stirred the world. Two anarchists were brazenly framed and executed for robbery and murder, and this film is both a fascinating reminder of a controversy that became global and a sharp reminder of current dangers. (04.02.07)
The Wind That Shakes the Barley. With a title from a patriotic poem, this film revisits the Irish-British troubles of the 1920s, with a force that bothered some people with its truthfulness. Ken Loach, who has treated the subject before, has never handled it with more vigor. (04.02.07)
--SK
By Stanley Kauffmann