Dr. Wayne McMullen kicks off summer blog suggestions with the following recommendation:
Steven Spielberg's most recent film, Munich, is now out on DVD. When I saw it on the big screen, it was more out of a sense of "staying current" with the so-called prestige movies. I was surprised and impressed with how good it was. This film's success is partly due to Spielberg's keen visual sense combined with strong dialogue-notably by Tony Kushner, the author of Angels in America, who did some major revisions on the script. Munich generated considerable controversy during its theatrical release, as it deals with the morality and consequences of government-sanctioned targeted assassination. (The film is about the murder of the Israeli Olympic team in Munich in 1972, and the Israeli government's response.) Part of the controversy stemmed from how the film humanizes the "heroes" and the "villains"-actually, those two terms are hardly relevant here, as the audience is deprived of easy identification with the "good guys." The film addresses troubling questions about the cost of counter-terrorism measures, and about the repetitive cycles spawned by terrorism itself. Not an easy film to watch, but well-worth seeking out. This is probably one of the 2 or 3 best films Spielberg has made in his long career.
Posted by slw4 at May 11, 2006 09:34 AM