Change Your Image
asimow
Reviews
Marshall (2017)
Excellent courtroom movie about the young Thurgood Marshall is tense and witty
This enjoyable and inspiring movie is a worthy contribution to the courtroom movie genre. It memorializes the great Thurgood Marshall (who later won Brown v. Bd. of Education and sat on the Supreme Court). The film brings to life a forgotten rape case in Connecticut that Marshall tried early in his career when he was the solo staff lawyer at the NAACP. The story focuses on the plight of a black man accused of raping a white woman and it highlights issues of racism in the courtroom and on the streets. The movie recalls the classic fllms "To Kill a Mockingbird" (which also involved a black on white rape case) and "Anatomy of a Murder" (which also involved sexual issues and in which--like many real trials--we're never sure just what actually happened and who is telling the truth). The writing is sharp and witty and the acting and direction are great. Particularly strong is the emerging partnership and friendship of Marshall and the local lawyer, Sam Friedman, who had never tried a criminal case and thought he would just sit next to Marshall during the trial and and do nothing. But the judge forces Friedman to conduct the trial with Marshall serving as his adviser--and he rises to the occasion.
Ismach Hatani (2016)
This film about the conflicts in an Orthodox Jewish community is funny and touching.
This film is outstanding in all respects. It travels inside the world of the Orthodox in Jerusalem and treats Orthodox Jews with respect and affection but it laughs at them too. The film is funny and very touching. The members of the synagogue look like regular hard-working poor people, with ordinary problems, not movie stars. The central conflict in the plot concerns the construction of the women's balcony--the space set aside for women in the synagogue. The question is whether to build a new women's balcony (the old one collapsed) or to purchase a new Torah scroll (the old one was destroyed). There's money enough for one but not both. You'd imagine the women would be trying to abolish gender segregation in the synagogue as outdated and demeaning. Quite the contrary--they take to the streets in a demonstration calling on the men to build the balcony against the commands of a power-tripping rabbi who despises them. You don't have to be Jewish to love this movie, but it doesn't hurt either.