The Holocaust took a horrific human toll in both casualties and emotional scars that will last forever. Two movies coming out this Oscar season (and a third—“Defiance”—next month) are haunted by the spectre of this shameful event, although each takes a very different approach.

“Valkyrie” recounts the true story of two attempts by German officers to assassinate Adolf Hitler during World War II, specifically the plots headed by Claus von Stauffenberg. One of the biggest problems of “Valkyrie” is that there is hardly a whiff of German culture to be found. First weirdness: American-accented Tom Cruise plays a man named von Stauffenberg. Second weirdness: British actors Bill Nighy, Tom Wilkinson, Kenneth Branagh, and Terence Stamp, who play other Germans, all have European accents. The notion that Cruise and his fellow officers are against Hitler isn’t hard to swallow, but a little bit of perspective and character would have been nice.

Instead, director Bryan Singer (“X-Men,” ”The Usual Suspects”) approaches this sensitive material as a strict procedural. It’s almost as if we are joining part two of a miniseries already in progress: “After the attack on Poland in 1939 offended his conscience and his deeply held religious convictions, and the 1941 Russian invasion produced hideous mass executions, von Stauffenberg’s resistance against Hitler becomes a pact with others who also believe the Führer is seriously deficient in military leadership.” Of course, I learned that online and not from the movie.

World War II and its moral ambiguities are merely the backdrop for an inconsistent suspense plot about the planning and implementation of these unsuccessful attempts. It is interesting to learn about the German Resistance, but “Valkyrie” offers nothing in the way of context; nothing more than a History Channel documentary or an “Unsolved Mysteries” re-enactment might offer. There are no political or ideological distinctions between these men other than to what degree they are willing to risk their own lives to overthrow Hitler. Although Singer does manage to pull off a couple pretty tense situations, “Valkyrie” is a pretty stiff and unemotional affair.

Click here to read Part Two, a review of “The Reader.”

Tags: bryan, cruise, movie, review, singer, tom, valkyrie

Whose idea was it to use Black Sabbath’s “Iron Man” in all the trailers and marketing for the upcoming Jon Favreau-directed Marvel comics spectacle (starring Robert Downey, Jr.) ? Give them a freaking medal (made of iron, no doubt) because this is both kitchy and fun and totally bad ass at the same time. But was the song actually inspired by the comic? And what is Iron Man’s Queen connection? Ever seen the cover of that band’s “News of the World”? Here’s a great article from Boston.com that explores the twisted history of Iron Men.

Bill O’Reilly is happy that “Stop-Loss” tanked at the box office. [link here] What an idiot. This movie is completely pro-soldier and has almost no rhetoric in it at all. Whaht’s more, he’d like to think that this trend means Americans still think the war is a good idea. That’s not the case at all, it’s just that people are so tired of hearing bad news about it that they don’t want to go to the theater and deal with it in their entertainment as well.

Tom Cruise’s United Artists has pushed back the release date of the Bryan Singer-directed “Valkyrie,” in which the star plays a Nazi officer. Here’s the scoop from a Variety blog and a look at the real person he is portraying side-by-side with Cruise, made up for the movie. Are they moving the release date because the director is going overbudget or because they no longer think the film has any real Oscar chances? Moving it from the fall of 2008 to the spring of 2009 certainly looks suspicious. Either way, I’m there because Singer hasn’t done a non-superhero movie (X-Men,” “X2,” “Superman Returns”) in a long, long time. And, ultimately, a film’s release date is nothing but an early indicator of its quality. Just look at “Zodiac” and “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” which was released in March.

I always liked Guillermo del Toro’s visual sensibilities in sub-par horror flicks movies like “Mimic” and “Blade II,” and I thought “The Devil’s Backbone” was a truly great film, but it wasn’t until “Pan’s Labyrinth” that I saw that the director had the potential to be a master storyteller as well. The reason? “Hellboy” looked great, but the story was pretty weak– disjointed, with the origin story mixed up in a could-have-been-really-cool-but-ended-up-kinda-silly Rasputin bad-guy plot that fell short by somehow being too typical. Anyway, “Pan’s Labyrinth” has made me even more excited for “Hellboy II: The Golden Army,” so here’s a link to some video of del Toro hosting a sneak peek for you all!

Uwe Boll makes terrible, terrible movies. (Most of them are film adaptations of video games: “House of the Dead,” “BloodRayne,” “Alone in the Dark”) 140, 769 people hate his movies so much that they’ve signed an online petition imploring him to stop. Immediately. When he first heard about the petition, which was at 18,000 signatures at the time, Mr. Boll said, “18,000 is not enough to convince me.” The magic number? “1 million.” Here’s the petition, and a link to his video statement about it. A juicy quote from the video: “Look, I’m not a fucking retard like Michael Bay or other people running around in the business… or Eli Roth making the same shitty movies over and over again. If you really look in my movies you will see my real genius. You have to really wake up and see me what I am, the only genius in the whole fucking business.”

He’s a class act. You may remember back in 2006, when Boll challenged four critics of his movies to actually duke it out in the boxing ring with him:

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Tags: black sabbath, bryan singer, guillermo del toro, hellboy II, iron man, john favreau, queen, the golden army, tom cruise, uwe boll, valkyrie