Someone recently asked me “Have you seen that new movie? You know, the one about the Holocaust?”
You mean anything currently showing at the Cineplex? As the New York Times wrote:
A minor incursion of this sort is an annual Oscar-season tradition, but 2008 offers an abundance of peaked caps and riding breeches, lightning-bolt collar pins and swastika armbands, as an unusually large cadre of prominent actors assumes the burden of embodying the most profound and consequential evil of the recent past.And after the slew of new releases, came the deluge of blog posts and articles comparing and reviewing the various Holocaust films.
So rather than add my two cents, I give you a blog about the overabundant number of articles about the overabundant number of Holocaust films.
-Slate’s taxonomy breaks it down into neat categories like “Good Germans” or “Resistant Jews.” But where’s “Failed Musicals?”
-Newsweek asks “if the Holocaust genre is nearing exhaustion” and finds that no, there is “an endlessly vital source of movie material.”
-The New York Post’s Page Six helps you determine which of your favorite movie stars are in which “heart-wrenching, Holocaust-themed flick.”
-The New York Times’ cleverly named article, “Never Forget… You’re Reminded,” argues that all too many people write and produce Holocaust-related material in order to “win prizes.” But don’t worry, the article has an slide show of Holocaust cinema that makes up for this somewhat offensive claim.
-On Nextbook, Stuart Klawans specifically asks us to “say ‘Never again’ to Holocaust movies.” Not on my watch, I would reply.
-Time, in reviewing Defiance, gives other people’s answer to the question “Should there be a moratorium on Holocaust movies?”
-At least the Village Voice has a sense of humor. “Will there be a special Academy Award for Best Aryan Costume Design this year?”
-And for those of us too lazy to read all of these articles, how about a Maxim-esque graphic or as New York magazine calls it “a fail-safe, flowchart-based guide to help determine which is right for you.”
