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The Next Generation Patlabor: Tokyo War: Director's Cut
Extended version of Patlabor Tokyo War
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The Poet Who Loved the War: Ivor Gurney
The remarkable story of the First World War soldier-poet who broke all the rules. Ivor Gurney wasn't an officer but a private who bizarrely joined up in the hope that the ordered army life would help ease a mental health condition. Initially this shock therapy worked, but he was eventually shot and gassed and spent the last 15 years of his life in an asylum. Yet the poetry he wrote there is uniquely powerful - capturing the experience of the ordinary soldier - and the film argues that it is the equal of the work of any of the more well-known soldier-poets of WWI. Gurney was also an accomplished composer and all the music used in the film is his, some of it hauntingly written on the Western Front.
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War on Whistleblowers: Free Press and the National Security State
War on Whistleblowers: Free Press and the National Security State highlights four cases where whistleblowers noticed government wrong-doing and took to the media to expose the fraud and abuse. It exposes the surprisingly worsening and threatening reality for whistleblowers and the press. The film includes interviews with whistleblowers Michael DeKort, Thomas Drake, Franz Gayl and Thomas Tamm and award-winning journalists like David Carr, Lucy Dalglish, Glenn Greenwald, Seymour Hersh, Michael Isikoff, Bill Keller, Eric Lipton, Jane Mayer, Dana Priest, Tom Vanden Brook and Sharon Weinberger.
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World War Two: 1942 and Hitler's Soft Underbelly
The British fought the Second World War to defeat Hitler. This film asks why, then, did they spend so much of the conflict battling through North Africa and Italy? Historian David Reynolds reassesses Winston Churchill's conviction that the Mediterranean was the 'soft underbelly' of Hitler's Europe. Travelling to Egypt and Italian battlefields like Cassino, scene of some of the worst carnage in western Europe, he shows how, in reality, the 'soft underbelly' became a dark and dangerous obsession for Churchill. Reynolds reveals a prime minister very different from the jaw-jutting bulldog of Britain's 'finest hour' in 1940 - a leader who was politically vulnerable at home, desperate to shore up a crumbling British empire abroad, losing faith in his army and even ready to deceive his American allies if it might delay fighting head to head against the Germans in northern France. The film marks the seventieth anniversary of the Battle of El Alamein in 1942.
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War Games: At the End of the Day
A game of paintball turns deadly when three unhinged and deranged ex-soldiers play a twisted mind game of catch and release with their unsuspecting victims. This quickly leads to a bloody man hunt where everyone is a target and no one is safe.
MOVIE
World War Two: 1941 and the Man of Steel
This is an interesting documentary about Stalin, his rise to power, and the invasion of the USSR by Germany in WWII. It's split into two parts, the first a general overview of the early history. The second part is the details of WWII and after. David Reynolds does an excellent job of explaining what happened with snippets from diaries, letters and other contemporaneous accounts. Well-assembled historical work.
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May They Rest in Revolt (Figures of War)
Ode, in black and white, to immigrants, from Calais, from elsewhere.
MOVIE
Arthur 3: The War of the Two Worlds
Maltazard, the Evil M, is now 7 feet tall and evolving among the humans, causing terror wherever he goes. His goal is simple: forming an army of giant henchmen and ruling over the universe. Meanwhile, Arthur is still a Minimoy, and thus in a state where he's unable to fend him off. With the help of Selenia and Betameche, he hatches a plan to regain his usual size: all they must do is infiltrate Arthur's house through the pipeworks, catch an electric train from his bedroom to his grandfather's study and find an elixir that will make him grow back to his human size. Sounds simple enough, if it weren't for Darkos, Maltazard's own son, hot on their tails.
MOVIE
Xiao Hua Cross Shandong and Hebei War Zone
In July 1938, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China appointed Xiao Hua as commander and political commissar, and formed an eastward anti-Japanese advance column to arrive at the Hebei-Shandong border area to establish a base. Due to its rich natural resources and convenient transportation, this area has always been a chokepoint for military strategists. Xiao Hua used his keen political insight and unique wisdom to integrate the army's troops and recruit miscellaneous armed forces. Leading the army to raid the Japanese stronghold Denming Temple. The Kuomintang county magistrate Mou Yizhi, who had been wavering, sided with the Eighth Route Army, allowing the army to gain a firm foothold. Later, facing the Japanese and puppet troops, he once again attacked the Denming Temple by surprise and united the general Gao Shuxun. Xiao Hua eventually led his troops to capture the Denming Temple and established the famous Hebei-Shandong border anti-Japanese base area.
