"The Road Home" (1999 China, 2001 U.S.)
Rated G
Four stars
When the great love stories of all time are listed, "The Road Home" won't be mentioned. Few have seen it.Most romantic movies present kindergarten notions of love (meet cute; skin deep; instant gratification) compared with this immensely moving and eloquent drama of unrelieved sacrifice.
When a Chinese woman learns of her husband's death, she insists he be hand-carried home rather than transported by vehicle. Even her sympathetic adult son can't appreciate why such an ancient ritual be satisfied.
Only as we watch the story, through flashbacks, of the couple's meeting and courtship 40 years earlier do we grasp the heart of the matter and why it's important that the widow's single request be honored.
"Divided We Fall" (2000 abroad, 2001 U.S.)
PG-13
Three and 1/2 stars
Remember when movies were densely plotted and characters' fates were influenced plausibly by relationships and by events beyond their control?
"Divided We Fall" provides a synopsis of the war in Europe from 1937-43, then pauses to focus on a multi-threaded story of German occupation.
A Catholic couple in a Bavarian Czech village apprehensively take in a Jew who has escaped from a concentration camp. While the guest hides in a spare room, the wife's Nazi admirer makes frequent social calls, bearing presents and suspicions.As relationships evolve steadily, the war winds down, but tensions rise. And the neighbors watch and wait to turn the tables.
It's one of the few films set in this milieu that is driven by characters who are interesting because they're never purely definable in any one way.
"Guadalcanal Diary" (1943)
PG in nature
Three stars
A tale of Marines in the Pacific, "Guadalcanal Diary" gets right the one thing HBO's "Band of Brothers" bungled: the individual identifications and through lines of the characters in battle.
Here they include Lloyd Nolan, Anthony Quinn, William Bendix, Richard Conte and Preston Foster, coping with bad weather, rough terrain, disease and Japanese enemies who were considered unfathomable.
"Midway" and "Wing and a Prayer," two military dramas made 32 years apart with vastly different approaches, detail the battle of Midway, the turning point of World War II in the Pacific:
"Midway" (1976)
PG
Two and 1/2 stars
Although boasting an all-star cast (Charlton Heston, Glenn Ford, James Coburn, Toshiro Mifune, Robert Wagner) and intending to suggest another "Longest Day" and a historical context reminiscent of "Tora! Tora! Tora!," "Midway" is a major-budget, minor-league Naval war picture.Henry Fonda scoots in as Adm. Chester Nimitz, and Robert Mitchum acts Adm. Bull Halsey from a hospital bed. The film feels synthetic, and the clips dropped in from other sources, such as "Away All Boats," don't help.It's obviously an attempt to do an epic on a tight budget with a screenplay in which the only subplot - involving Heston and son Edward Albert - plays like a rewrite of a better father-and-son officers angle played by John Wayne and Brandon de Wilde in "In Harm's Way."
"Wing and a Prayer" (1944)
PG in nature
Three stars
A U.S. aircraft carrier loaded with fictional characters champing to get into the war is ordered to play a diversionary role to mislead the Japanese during the weeks leading to the battle of Midway.
The characters are military stereotypes of the period, including William Eythe as a Hollywood star who brings his ego into the classroom and the cockpit. But it's played with heart by a solid cast (Dana Andrews, Don Ameche, Richard Jaeckel, Charles Bickford, Cedric Hardwicke), and the losses matter more here than they do in "Midway."
"Strange Invaders" (1983)
PG
Three stars
By no means a great sci-fi thriller, much less a classic, "Strange Invaders" nonetheless does something better than any of its counterparts in the final quarter of the 20th century.
Despite being in color, it conjures the aura of '50s sci-fi, when budgets were tight and goose bumps were raised as much by the power of suggestion as by spectacle. But it also has decent special effects.
An alien spaceship lands in Centerville, Ill., in 1958. In 1983, which was present day for "Strange Invaders," the takeover begins.
The acting ranges from terrible to campy, and director Michael Laughlin succumbs too much to spoofiness. Much as I wished then and now that he'd played straight with the content, doing another of those juicy old Red Scare parables, he has fun with jokes, such as making one alien an Avon lady.
Best gag: The only publication anyone can trust for the truth about aliens is a tabloid called The National Informer.
"Little Man Tate" (1991)
PG
Three and 1/2 stars
No one would challenge Jodie Foster's credentials as an actress. Among the films she directed, though, "Little Man Tate" best represents her smarts and sensitivity.
She takes one of the central roles as an unsophisticated, gum-gnawing waitress who has a 7-year-old son (Adam Hann-Byrd) with no father around. He's brilliant, and she's just bright and generous enough to know she can't do right for him in some respects.
She lends him to lonely genius Dianne Wiest, who can draw on his intelligence but can't provide the spiritual nurturing his own mom can.
"Little Man Tate" is one of the few movies about prodigies ("Smile" is another) that seems to have been created by people who know whereof they speak. In some ways, the kid could be Foster, a former child actor who never stopped growing professionally.
