RACE (2016) and another movie (a terrible second choice)
Posted: Mon Nov 28, 2016 5:55 pm
RACE (2016)
I don't remember seeing much advertising for this movie.
It is the story of Jesse Owens at the 1936 Olympics. Owens won 4 gold medals to spoil Adolf Hitler's "pure white aryan" Olympics.
It's good. Well acted. Speaks well to the racism of the time.
However, like "The King's Speech" from 2010, it is set so close to WW2 that a dread fills the audience.
For those a little squeamish about Hitler's Third Reich, remember, we know what the 1936 Olympics look like thanks to Leni Riefenstahl movie OLYMPIA. Everything that is sports photography today traces its origin from this one film... And the scenes at the Olympic Stadium in Germany are authentic recreations of a stadium the size of Los Angeles Colosseum. When Hitler and his Nazis fill a box worthy of a King. It's rightfully chilling. Those scenes not easy to watch. However, Jesse Owens winning four gold medals is worth the viewing. And the telling of leading Jesse Owen's college races is well done and inspiring.
The title RACE is (of course) a wordplay on Racial relations and the four gold medal races by Jesse Owens.
(At the dinner in honor of Jesse Owens at the Waldorf Astoria in New York after the Olympics, Owens and his wife had to ride up to his banquet in a freight elevator because "those people" could only use the service entrance of the Waldorf.)
Now that "other" movie
THE LEGEND OF HERCULES...
What can I say -- poorly written, uninspired acting, emotionally absent, and not even the fights satisfy...
I don't remember seeing much advertising for this movie.
It is the story of Jesse Owens at the 1936 Olympics. Owens won 4 gold medals to spoil Adolf Hitler's "pure white aryan" Olympics.
It's good. Well acted. Speaks well to the racism of the time.
However, like "The King's Speech" from 2010, it is set so close to WW2 that a dread fills the audience.
For those a little squeamish about Hitler's Third Reich, remember, we know what the 1936 Olympics look like thanks to Leni Riefenstahl movie OLYMPIA. Everything that is sports photography today traces its origin from this one film... And the scenes at the Olympic Stadium in Germany are authentic recreations of a stadium the size of Los Angeles Colosseum. When Hitler and his Nazis fill a box worthy of a King. It's rightfully chilling. Those scenes not easy to watch. However, Jesse Owens winning four gold medals is worth the viewing. And the telling of leading Jesse Owen's college races is well done and inspiring.
The title RACE is (of course) a wordplay on Racial relations and the four gold medal races by Jesse Owens.
(At the dinner in honor of Jesse Owens at the Waldorf Astoria in New York after the Olympics, Owens and his wife had to ride up to his banquet in a freight elevator because "those people" could only use the service entrance of the Waldorf.)
Now that "other" movie
THE LEGEND OF HERCULES...
What can I say -- poorly written, uninspired acting, emotionally absent, and not even the fights satisfy...