The assassination took place just as the bloody Civil War was winding down, and so the Northern sentiment was still strongly anti-Rebel and a battlefield mentality still prevailed. With Lincoln dead, Secretary of War Stanton (Kevin Kline) stepped into the power vacuum and decided that the trial should be in a military court with the outcome pretty much predetermined by a community reeling from the death of the President.  “Revenge,” as her lawyer puts it, “not justice.”  Surratt ran a boardinghouse, where John Wilkes Booth and the others met to plan the murder.  Surratt’s son was a part of the conspiracy but escaped, and so the film suggests, they were using her to get to him.

Aiken is a young Union officer, just back from the fighting, and returning to his law practice, when his boss lays the job of defending “the traitor” in his lap.  He doesn’t want to have anything to do with it, but comes to see that she is probably innocent, and that the powers that be are not interested in the truth, only in “getting this behind us.”  In fact, it was this case that forced the government to mandate civilian trials for non-combatants.

It is an interesting and little-known story, but The Conspirator suffers from a script that is a way too thinly veiled and heavy-handed political allegory.  Think Gitmo and Arab-Americans in post-9/11 America. I’m all for nice political dramas, but the “hammer over your head” approach just doesn’t do it for me.  Despite wonderful casting, the characters are mainly one-dimensional and the script totally lacking in nuance.  We all know Redford can direct a wonderful movie (Ordinary People), but he totally misses the mark on this one.

(An interesting footnote at the end tells us that after Aiken left the law, he went on to become the first editor in chief at The Washington Post.)

Cooper (The Hangover, Alias) plays Eddie Morra, an aspiring author suffering from chronic writer’s block and a defeatist attitude (ah, yes. been there, done that). As his personal and professional life start to crumble, Eddie runs into his smarmy ex-brother-in-law who offers him a free sample of a revolutionary drug called NZT. It’s a top-secret, though supposedly FDA-tested “smart drug” that helps you tap into 100 percent of your brainpower. It doesn’t make you “high”, per se, just really, really “clear” – about everything.

Despite his better judgment, Eddie takes the drug and is immediately blessed with limitless clarity that allows him to finish his book in record time, master the stock market, learn a bunch of languages and get laid by lots of pretty girls. He’s golden – as long as he keeps taking the drug, which he does, after acquiring a rather large stash of it (I won’t reveal how).

Robert De Niro costars as Carl Van Loon, a Trumpish mega-mogul who hires the brainiac version of Eddie to help broker the largest merger in corporate history. The deal – and Eddie’s new life- threaten to unravel when NZT’s brutal side-effects start to take a toll and Eddie is constantly chased by a bevy of bad guys who want to get their hands on his dwindling supply of the drug. (note to the squeamish: there’s a particularly gross scene near the end of the movie, but you’ll see it coming).

The movie evolves into a bit of a morality tale, weighing the risks and benefits of the drug. It actually reminded me (classic television flashback alert!) of an old Bionic Woman episode where a Jamie Somers’ “look-alike” took an experimental drug called Adrenalazine that gave her super-strength and speed but ultimately made her deathly ill. Hmmmm. I wonder if the writers of Limitless happened to catch that episode. I believe it was a “very special” two-parter.

Anyway, you get the picture. Limitless isn’t mind-blowing. But Bradley Cooper is talented and easy on the eyes, so it’s okay for a rainy day matinee – if you’ve already seen The Adjustment Bureau. Both are rated PG-13 with near-identical running times (~1:45).

Bonus tidbit: Cooper recently became the first graduate from the Actors Studio Drama School at Pace University to be interviewed as a guest on the show Inside the Actors Studio. Coincidentally, as a student, Cooper once asked guest/idol Robert De Niro a question about his craft. Little did they know that someday they’d be co-starring in a movie together. Pretty cool.

The White Ribbon reminds me of Ingmar Bergman; the stark visuals create a sense of foreboding and you are sucked into a bleak world filled with dark mysteries. The entire film takes place in a pre-World War One German village lorded over by The Baron on his estate. In the first scene, the Village Doctor falls and breaks his collarbone because “someone” strung wire across the road to trip his horse. And from this opening scene until the end, bad things happen at every turn. Children are tortured. People die in accidents or suicides. Barns burn. Relationships fall apart and people are generally brutal to one another. And it is all shot absolutely gorgeously in black and white.

The central mystery is who hurt the children and the doctor. The multiple villagers’ stories are narrated by The School Teacher. It is his view of these dark happenings that is told many years later looking back on it all. The one light storyline in the film is his courtship of a young woman who is the nanny to the Baron’s twins.

Much was written about this film depicting the society that created fascism and how the children of the film would be ripe to turn on the Jews because of being raised in this strict Protestant mode. And while that may be true, you are left at the end with more questions than answers. The film is more a series of scenes than a full story. Call me old fashioned for wanting a screenplay to have a beginning, middle and end. Perhaps the ending is implied – the fascism that followed. But at the end of this 145-minute film, I was expecting to find out who done it, or why it was done or something more than was delivered.

The White Ribbon is a film you definitely need to be willing to work at seeing. Be prepared for a disconcerting, depressing two and a half hours and a pretty unsatisfying ending. As arty as I am, and I do love a good Bergman film, I think this film is highly over-rated.

(Viewing note: if you are semi-blind like me, make sure you have a BIG screen to watch the DVD because for some reason the subtitles on this one are really, really small.)

I found some of the characters completely unlikeable – Jennifer Connelly, Scarlett Johansson, Bradley Cooper, I’m talking about you, well your characters anyway. The plot was completely predictable – Ben Affleck and Jennifer Aniston, Ginnifer Goodwin and Justin Long, I’m talking about you, yeah you and your storylines. But there were a few funny moments, mainly from a completely under utilized Drew Barrymore, that kept me hanging on. Still, in the end I was left looking for another movie to love because this one didn’t cut it.

I learned early in life that a story is supposed to have a beginning, middle, and end, yet these 4+ writers seem to have forgotten that lesson, because this film seems to come to an end, but then “oh no there’s more” and then it comes to and end again and then again and again and again. Maybe they should have made it as a miniseries, since that is really what it feels like. My favorite non-commital thing to say to a filmmaker when you cannot find anything else to say about their movie is, “Great production value.” And in Australia, the money is all up there on the screen. Lots of money. Money wasted. Don’t waste your time.