Gladiator II

After a Roman attack on North Africa, led by general Marcus Acacius (Pedro Pascal), Hanno (Paul Mescal) is captured and brought to Rome where he becomes a gladiator… just like…

Henry V: Branagh and the Bard

Photo: Renaissance Films When I was a teenager, my class was treated to a performance of Shakespeare’s ”Hamlet”. It was not a bad production; the young leading actors later became…

Murder on the Orient Express 

In 1934, famous detective Hercule Poirot (Kenneth Branagh) finds himself on the Orient Express where a notorious businessman (Johnny Depp) is murdered. Another star-studded version of Agatha Christie’s most famous…

The Odessa File 

In 1963, German reporter Peter Miller (Jon Voight) becomes involved in the search for a brutal concentration camp commander, Roschmann (Maximilian Schell), who disappeared after World War II with help…

The King’s Speech: Royal Pains

Colin Firth and Geoffrey Rush. Photo: The Weinstein Company After watching this brilliant drama, I knew I had to consult YouTube for the speech King George VI made after Britain's…

I, Claudius: Fool, Biographer, Emperor

Derek Jacobi. Photo: BBC One thing is certain. The years may fly by in this adaptation of Robert Graves's books on the first four Julio-Claudian emperors, but when 77 years…

Gladiator: Echoing in Eternity

Russell Crowe. Photo: Universal Gladiator is one of those films that opened as early as May, without all that much fanfare, and then kept building until the Oscars many months…