November 9 - The Book Thief

Today’s film is a drama with a scene that happens on November 9. Watch and enjoy this movie tonight.  

THE BOOK THIEF     

Liesel Meminger and her brother are on their way to a foster home since their mother is fleeing the country because she is a communist wanted by Germany’s Nazi regime.  Her brother dies on the train and is buried along side the tracks where Liesel steals “The Gravedigger’s Handbook” when it’s owner drops it. The kindly Hans and abrasive Rosa Hubermann adopt Liesel. One her first day of school after Liesel beats up Franz Deutscher when he calls her dummkopf because she cannot read or write, her neighbor Rudy Steiner develops a crush on her.  On November 9, 1938 [18:35 – 20:15] Kristalnacht, the first of many nights of Nazi violence against the Jews,  Max Vandenburg flees his home. Rudy gets in trouble for admiring Jessie Owens. At a book burning on Hitler’s birthday, Liesel learns her mother left because of Hitler and states she hates him, which Hans tells her she must never say. She also retrieves an unburned book from the pile, but is observed by Ilsa Hermann, the mayor’s wife. Max arrives at the Hubermanns and is hidden because Max’s father saved Han’s life in the First World War. Liesel delivers laundry to the Mayor’s house and learns Ilsa saw her take the book, but instead of denouncing Liesel, lets her read in her library. However eventually the mayor stops this. Rudy’s father enlists and Max gives Liesel a diary for a Christmas present. Max gets sick and Liesel steals books from the mayor’s house to read to him. Rudy finds out about Max and they have a scare when their basement (where Max is hidden) is inspected for possible use as an air raid shelter. Max is in a coma for three days, but recovers. Air raids begin.   After Hans tries to intervene in the arrest of a local Jewish businessman, Max leaves to protect them and Hans is drafted. There are more air raids and Liesel gets into trouble by thinking she sees Max in a line of Jews being deported. Hans comes home and Liesel starts working on her diary in the basement. One night there is an unannounced air raid that kills the Hubermanns, Rudy’s mother and Franz Deutscher. Liesel is dug out of the basement and Rudy dies in her arms. She lives with Rudy’s father until Max returns after the war. Death, who has been narrating the film says that Liesel became a writer, had three children and died at the age of ninety.

A very good film and a must see. Has both humor and pathos. Excellent performances, especially by Nelisse, Watson and Rush.

The date is given in the film at 18:50.

Director - Brian Percival                               

Screenwriter - Michael Petroni           

Awards – The film was nominated for Best Original Score at the 86^th Academy Awards

Runtime – 2 hours 5 minutes                         

Released – October 3, 2013

Starring – Geoffrey Rush as Hans Hubermann, Sophie Nélisse as Liesel Meminger, Emily Watson as Rosa Hubermann, Ben Schnetzer as Max Vandenburg, Nico Liersch as Rudy Steiner, Godehard Giese as the policeman on the train, Roger Allam as Death, Oliver Stokowski as Alex Steiner, Barbara Auer as Ilsa Hermann, Heike Makatsch as Liesel's mother, Levin Liam as Franz Deutscher, Carina Wiese as Barbara Steiner

Copyright by Ivan Walters in 2015.

November 8 - Miss Austen Regrets

Today’s movie is period drama with a scene that happens on November 8. Watch and enjoy this movie tonight.

MISS AUSTEN REGRETS    

Jane Austen accepts a marriage proposal, but changes her mind the next day. Twelve years later she attends the wedding of her niece Anna on November 8, 1814. [3:05 to 5:22] She advises another niece Fanny about Fanny’s attraction to a Mr. Plumptre. He seems about to propose to Fanny but does not.  Jane meets her former suitor, Mr. Bridges again. She finishes Emma and starts on Persuasion.  Jane travels to London with her brother Henry to meet with her publishers. Henry becomes ill and Jane becomes attracted to his physician, Dr. Haden. Jane returns home. When Jane meets Fanny again, she blames Jane for Mr. Plumptre becoming engaged to someone else. Henry’s bank collapses.  They return home where Jane begins to feel ill. Jane is blamed by her mother for not accepting that proposal, which we learn that she changed her mind about after talking with her sister Cassandra. Jane tells her niece Fanny that she will marry M. Papillion. Jane dies. Three years later Fanny does marry M. Papillion.

A good biopic.  Will especially interest Janites.

Jane Austen by David Nolles (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York, 1997) at page 450 gives the date of this wedding

Producer - David Thompson, Anne Pivcevic & Jamie Laurenson

Director - Jeremy Lovering

Screenplay -   Gwyneth Hughes

Running Time - 1 hour 30 minutes

Released - February 3, 2008

Starring - 

Olivia Williams as Jane Austen

Imogen Poots as Fanny Austen Knight

Greta Scacchi as Cassandra Austen

Hugh Bonneville as Rev. Brook Bridges

Adrian Edmondson as Henry Austen

Jack Huston as Charles Haden

Phyllida Law as Mrs. Austen

Pip Torrens as Edward Austen-Knight

Tom Hiddleston as John Plumptre

Jason Watkins as Rev. Clarke

Copyright by Ivan Walters in 2015

November 7 - Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows

Today’ movie is a suspense thriller with scenes that happen on November 7. Watch and enjoy this film tonight.  

SHERLOCK HOLMES: GAME OF SHADOWS    

Irene Adler delivers a package to Herr Dr. Hoffmanstahl as payment for a letter he is selling to Dr. James Moriarty. However, the package is a bomb, whose detonation is prevented by Sherlock Holmes. Holmes gets the letter but Hoffmanstahl is still killed by Moriarty’s agents and Adler is later poisoned by him.  Holmes goes with his associate, Dr, James Watson to Watson’s bachelor party and meets Madame Simza Heron, the letter’s addressee. Holmes prevents her murder, but she flees. After Watson’s wedding to Mary Morstan, Moriarty and Holmes meet. When Holmes refuses to stop opposing Moriarty, the   Professor threatens Dr. and Mrs. Watson. Holmes defeats killers on board the Watson’s train taking them to their honeymoon. While Mary is sent into hiding with Holmes’s brother Mycroft. Watson and Holmes travel to Paris and find Simza. The letter was from her brother and may have unintentionally revealed Moriarty’s plans. Simza leads Holmes and Watson to an anarchist group that she and her brother once belonged to that is now being forced to plant bombs for Moriarty. Holmes thinks the clues point to a bomb at the Paris Opera House on November 7, 1891 [59:41 – 1:10:33] during a performance of Don Giovanni. Actually this is a blind to allow the assassination of Meinhard, a German arms manufacturer, so Moriarty can take over his company. Holmes is captured and tortured by Moriarty but rescued by Watson and Sinza. Moriarty’s plan is to sabotage an international conference, leading to a world war, during which he will profit by selling arms to both sides. Simza’s brother Renee has been surgically modified to impersonate an ambassador to facilitate an assassination that will start a war. Watson and Simza stop Renee, who is killed by Moriarty’s henchman, Col, Moran. Holmes and Moriarty fight, leading to their apparent deaths in the Reichenbach Falls. Watson finishes his memoir of Holmes, who is still alive, but in hiding.    

The date is given in the film at 52:25 on the ticket to Don Giovanni.

                       

Producers - Joel Silver, Lionel Wigram, Susan Downey and Dan Lin

Director - Guy Ritchie

Screenwriters - Michele Mulroney and Kieran Mulroney

Runtime – 2 hours 9 minutes

Released – December 16, 2011

Starring – Robert Downey, Jr. as Sherlock Holmes, Jude Law as Dr. John Watson, Jared Harris as Professor James Moriarty, Noomi Rapace as Madame Simza Heron, Stephen Fry as Mycroft Holmes, Kelly Reilly as Mary Watson (''née'' Morstan), Rachel McAdams as Irene Adler, Eddie Marsan as Inspector Lestrade, Paul Anderson as Sebastian Moran, Geraldine James as Mrs. Hudson, Thierry Neuvic as Claude Ravache, Fatima Adoum as a manouche, Wolf Kahler as Herr Dr. Hoffmanstahl, Affif Ben Badra as Tamas Morato

Copyright by Ivan Walters in 2015.

November 6 - The Eagle Has Landed

Today’s motion picture is a war suspense film with scenes that happen on November 6. Watch and enjoy this movie tonight.

THE EAGLE HAS LANDED

After Col. Skorenzky rescues Mussolini from the allies, Hitler orders Admiral Canaris, head of German intelligence to prepare a contingency plan to kidnap British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. Col. Radl, who is assigned this task, gets a message from an agent in England that Churchill will be spending the weekend at a lonely house on the Norfolk coast near the village of Studley Constable. Radl picks Steiner for the job since he’s a paratrooper who was educated in England. Steiner and his men are arrested for trying to save a Jewish girl from deportation. Canaris orders Radl to drop the plan, but he meets with Liam Devlin, a member of the IRA who hates the English. Himmler orders the plan carried out. Radl retrieves Steiner and his men from suicide torpedo duty. Devlin travels to Studley Constable and meets Molly Price and fights Arthur over her. Steiner’s men parachute in. Arthur investigates Devlin. Molly shots Arthur, since she thinks Devlin is a black marketer. Devlin meets the village priest and his sister Pam, who introduces him to an American officer, Capt. Clark, who is stationed nearby. His boss Col. Pitts wants a combat command. Steiner’s men, who are disguised as Poles begin ‘maneuvers” in the village on November 6, 1943, [1:04:45 to 2:07:43] but are exposed when one of the men dives into the millrace to save a small child who is drowning. Pam and Mary are in the church and see the Germans herding all the civilians there so they escape through a tunnel under the church. Pam goes to see Joanna Grey since she has a car. Unfortunately, she turns out to be the German agent who filed the initial report. She shoots Pam and wounds her, but Pam still escapes to warn Capt. Clark. Col. Pitts desperate for combat leads his men to the village and tries to get Steiner to surrender. When he refuses, Pitts sends his men charging in blind and many are killed. Churchill is intercepted by Capt. Clark and taken to the American HQ. Back in the village Col. Pitts again charges in blind and is shot and killed by Joanna Grey. Clark takes over and gets more men. Steiner releases the villagers he had been holding as hostages.  Steiner sneaks out through the tunnel to go and shoot Churchill, while his men hold off the Americans as long as possible until all are killed. Devlin leaves on the e-boat that had been sent to pick up the Germans. Steiner stays. He goes to the HQ where Churchill is staying and gets close enough to kill him before being killed himself. Only then is it revealed that it wasn’t Churchill at all, but a double, as the real Churchill has left for the Teheran conference. Radl is shot on Himmler’s orders.

A good action film. Keeps the suspense high, even though you know how it turns out. Larry Hagman was well cast, while Donald Sutherland was not.

The Eagle Has Landed by Jack Higgins (Pocket Books, New York, 1975) at page 10 and the film at 16:51-16:52 give the date of the battle

Producer - David Niven, Jr. and Jack Weiner

Director - John Sturges

Screenplay - Tom Mankiewicz

Running Time - 2 hours 25 minutes

Released - December 25, 1976

Starring -         

Michael Caine as Oberst Kurt Steiner

Donald Sutherland as Liam Devlin

Robert Duvall as Oberst Max Radl

Jenny Agutter as Molly Prior

Donald Pleasence as Heinrich Himmler

Anthony Quayle as Adm. Wilhelm Canaris

Jean Marsh as Joanna Grey

Sven-Bertil Taube as Hauptmann Ritter (Hans) von Neustadt

Siegfried Rauch as Sergeant Major Otto Brandt

John Standing as Father Verecker

Judy Geeson as Pamela Verecker

Treat Williams as Capt. Clark

Larry Hagman as Col. Pitts

Richard Wren as Sgt. Hans Altmann

Alexei Jawdokinov as Cpl. Werner Briegel

Steve Ubels as a German paratrooper

 Leonie Thelen as the
Jewish girl

Copyright by Ivan Walters
in 2015

November 5 - Time After Time

Today’s motion picture is a science fiction film with scenes that  happen on November 5. Watch and enjoy this film tonight.

TIME AFTER TIME          

On November 5, 1893 [1:13 to 20:07] Jack the Ripper murders a prostitute. H.G. Wells shows his friends, including Dr. John Stevenson, that he has created a time machine. The police arrive looking for the Ripper and find evidence in Dr. Stevenson’s bag that he is the Ripper. After they leave Wells realizes that Stevenson has used the time machine to travel into the future. The machine returns empty, as it was designed to. Wells uses it to follow Stevenson to November 5, 1979 [22:53 to 32:43] in San Francisco. Wells goes to all the banks to see if Stevenson has exchanged money. He meets Amy Robbins who tells him Stevenson did exchange pounds and she referred him to the Hyatt–Regency Hotel. Wells goes there to try and get Stevenson to come back with him to 1893. Stevenson refuses, tries to kill Wells and flees. Wells thinks Stevenson is killed in a car crash. Wells and Amy go on a daylong date and spend the night together. Then he learns Stevenson is not dead and has killed two prostitutes. Neither the police nor Amy believe Wells’s story. Then he takes Amy forward in time a few days and she sees a newspaper story about her own murder. They go back in time to before her murder, but Wells only manages to call the police shortly before the Ripper’s next murder. Because of this the police arrest Wells as the killer. He is worried about Amy and begs the police to check on her safety. When they finally go to Amy’s apartment they find a dismembered body. Wells is released since he obviously could not have done it as he was in custody. However Stevenson killed Amy’s co-worker and took Amy hostage to get the key from Wells that will enable him to leave in the machine and stop it returning to Wells.  Once Stevenson gets in the machine Wells removes the “vaporizing equalizer”, which sends the passenger traveling through time without the machine, in effect killing Stevenson. Wells and Amy return to 1893 and get married.

                       

A moderately exciting time travel story. Interesting in that November 5 is a date used in two other time travel films, Back to the Future and Timerider: The Adventures of Lyle Swann. I wonder was that intentional or coincidental.

    

Date given in the film on the time machine at 17:17 and 23:04

Producers – Herb Jaffe                    

Director – Nicholas Meyer

Screenwriter – Nicholas Meyer

Runtime – 1 hour 52 minutes

Released – August 31, 1979

Starring –

Malcolm McDowell as H. G. Wells                                                                         

David Warner as John Leslie Stevenson

Mary Steenburgen as Amy Robbins                                                                       

Charles Cioffihorror as Police Lt Mitchell                                                                          

Kent Williams as assistant                                                                                               

Patti D'Arbanville as Shirley                                                                                    

Joseph Maher as Adams                                                                                           

Corey Feldman as boy at museum                                                                       

Andonia Katsaros as Mrs. Turner  

Jim Haynie as 1st Cop

Wayne Storm as 2nd Cop   

Shelley Hack as Docent                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        

Copyright by Ivan Walters in 2015

November 4 - Tuesdays with Morrie

Today’s movie is a drama with a scene that happens on November 4. Watch and enjoy this movie tonight.  

TUESDAYS WITH  MORRIE        

                       

Morrie Schwartz is retired professor who enjoys life until he develops Lou Gehrig’s disease. Mitch Albom, a former of student of his has become an overworked sportwriter who ignores his beautiful, talented girlfriend Janine.  Then Mitch sees Morrie on Nightline and goes to see him.  Janine leaves Mitch over his failure to commit. Morrie tells Mitch about his mother’s death and how his father ignored him, but that his step-mother gave him love and introduced him to education. Mitch works to try to get Janine back, culminating with writing her a letter with a marriage proposal. Janine, intrigued by the change in Mitch goes with him to see Morrie.  Mitch proposes again to Janine and she accepts. Then on November 4,  1995 [1:26:34 to 1:26:55] they get word that Morrie has died.

nytimes.com/1995/11/09/us/morris-schwartz-professor-78.html   gives his date of death

Producer – Jennifer Ogden

Director - Mick Jackson

Screenwriter - Thomas Rickman

Awards – The film won the Outstanding Single Camera Picture Editing for a Miniseries, Movie or a Special, Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie (Lemmon), Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie (Azaria) and Outstanding Made for Television Movie. It was also nominated for Outstanding
Sound Mixing for a  Miniseries or a Movie the 52^nd Primetime Emmy Awards.

Runtime – 1 hour 39 minutes

Released - December 5, 1999

Starring -

Jack Lemmon as Morrie Schwartz

Hank Azaria as  Mitch Albom

Wendy Moniz as Janine

Caroline Aaron as Connie

Bonnie Bartlett as Charlotte

Aaron Lustig as Rabbi Al Axelrod

Bruce Nozick as Mr. Schwartz

Ivo Cutzarida as Armand

John Carroll Lynch as Walter Moran

Kyle Sullivan as Young Morrie

Dan Thiel as Shawn Daley

Christian Meoli as Aldo

Copyright by Ivan Walters in 2015

November 3 - Big

Today’s movie is a  comedy fantasy with a scene that happens on November 3. Watch and enjoy this  movie tonight.

 BIG                                 

Josh Baskin is a twelve year old who like most twelve year olds wants to be an adult, especially after he is refused entry on a carnival ride for being too short. He wanted to ride to impress a girl. He plays a fortuneteller machine named Zoltar that tells him his wish to be big is granted even though the machine is unplugged. The next morning when he wakes up, Josh is big. He can’t convince his mother it’s him and flees the house. He does convince his best friend Billy, who helps Josh move to nearby New York City. They arrange to have a list of all carnivals mailed to them so they can find where the Zoltar machine is now located. This will take six weeks, so Josh gets a job in the computer section of McMillan Toy Company. One day he meets the president of the company at FAO Schwartz and impresses him with his knowledge of toys and child-like enthusiasm, so Josh is promoted to Vice-President in charge of product development. Josh’s success attracts the enmity of Paul Davenport, another executive. However Paul’s girlfriend, another McMillan executive, Susan Lawrence is intrigued with Josh and leaves a company party with him. They end up bouncing on a trampoline and sleeping separately in bunk beds. After a competitive tennis game where Paul punches Josh, Susan dumps Paul. On November 3, 1988 [1:06:02 to 1:14:00] Billy and Josh celebrate Josh’s birthday. Later Susan comes over and Josh “gets lucky. ”  Josh and Susan start dating and they move in together. The list of carnivals finally arrives. Billy tracks down the machine. Josh is initially torn about whether he wants to go back, but when he tells Susan he’s only 13, she’s doesn’t believe him. In the middle of a presentation Josh walks out and goes to the machine followed by Susan. She declines his offer to become a kid again with him, even though he told her she was the only reason he had to stay an adult. She takes him home and Josh reverts back to age 13, much to the relief of his parents and Billy.

                       

A funny and quirky movie Preaches the old adage, “be careful what you wish for, you might get it”.  Josh got his wish, but eventually decided it wasn’t worth what he had to give up. 

Josh’s birth date given in film at 15:31

Awards – The film was nominated for the Best Actor (Hanks) and Best Original Screenplay at the 61^st Academy Awards. 

Producer - James L. Brooks and Robert Greenhut

Screenplay - Gary Ross and Anne Spielberg

Director - Penny Marshall                      

Runtime – 2 hours 10 minutes  

                             

Released – June 3, 1988
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Starring –

Tom Hanks as Josh Baskin (adult)

David Moscow as Josh Baskin (young)

Elizabeth Perkins as Susan Lawrence

Robert Loggia as MacMillan

John Heard as Paul Davenport

Jared Rushton as Billy Kopecki

Jon Lovitz as Scotty Brennen

Copyright by Ivan Walters in 2015.