The Wonderful, Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl (1993) follows the wonderful, horrible career of Leni Riefenstahl: dancer, actress, master filmmaker.  A German in Ray Muller‘s German documentary, she was of course hired by Hitler to make what was for him a Nazi propaganda film (and work of art), Triumph of the Will, which brought her the severest notoriety and contempt.

Muller’s narrator announces that the picture “will approach [Riefenstahl] without preconceptions,” and it does.  Although she has no qualms about discussing Triumph‘s virtues, Riefenstahl says she is “deeply unhappy” that she directed the film.  She did not then know she and her crew were making “a pact with the devil,” afterwards claiming that the glorification of Nazis was merely the attempt to avoid making Triumph look like a newreel.

(In German with English subtitles)

In my opinion, Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016) is worth watching, just not to the end.  Kyle Smith is right about its being rather sophisticated, but typically it gets boring too, and befuddling.

On the other hand, the cast is good while production design and cinematography communicate beautifully.  Plus there is some genuine sensuality as Lois Lane (Amy Adams) sits naked, without any of her privates showing, in a bathtub.

A bevy of real-life liberals, including Patrick Leahy and Democratic Congresswoman Holly Hunter, is hauled in for further fun and games.  A subcommittee hearing regarding Superman (Henry Cavill) is held, and it seems fitting that liberal senators are discussing the excesses of a comic-book figure.

One assumes from watching last year’s The End of the Tour (2015) that author David Foster Wallace (Jason Segel) committed suicide in 2008 because he was so out of synch with ordinary social life.  Donald Margulies, the gifted playwright, provides a depiction of Wallace as a shy but defensive weirdo, an often unlikable if brilliant neurotic.  He is sans a wife or a girlfriend, has experienced deep depression—and, frankly, doesn’t stand a chance.

Directed by James Ponsoldt, The End of the Tour is a lesser film than Ponsoldt’s The Spectacular Now.  Though interesting, it is so short on drama it has only limited potency and appeal.

Sideways (2005), by Alexander Payne, is the one about the atypical road trip taken by the wine expert/aspiring novelist, Miles (Paul Giametti), and his horndog friend Jack (Thomas Haden Church).

An absorbing comedy-drama, piercing and droll, it points up the theme of when the development of liaisons with other people is not matched by moral development, the manifestation of character.  These liaisons, these love affairs, are strongly desired, but are guardedly or hastily formed by men who are boys, i.e. Miles and Jack.  A boy, even so, can see himself as a loser, as Miles does, and so we sympathize.