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Reviews
Sobibor (2018)
Terrible
Immediately before watching this film, I watched a documentary on Sobibor, where the surviving participants in the uprising revisited the camp and discussed the experience of the camp and told the details of the uprising. Reenactments followed their stories.
All I can say is one of these films is fiction. There are so many differences between the documentary and this film, they need to put "inspired by a true story" (aka fiction).
There are also the crimes of omission. This film says the commandant got a life sentence and died in 1996. Yes...but he was released and lived about another 11 years in comfortable freedom before he died. So he did not pay for his crimes.
Such long and drawn out scenes of nothing one minute, and extended and unnecessary drawn-out violence the next. According to the documentary, there was no orgy of violence with the soldiers' party. They had their party and the next day they had the uprising.
Don't waste your time. See the Sobibor documentary.
Gotti (2018)
A Love Letter to a Murderer
John Gotti through the eyes of his criminal son.
Stylistically, it is choppy and boring. John Travolta is broadly playing an SNL-type character. Ditto for Kelly Preston; it's sad this was her last work.
American Ripper (2017)
Ridiculous and painful to watch
Mr. Mudgett is desperate to prove his g-g-grandfather, the vicious murderer H. H. Holmes is Jack the Ripper. I just have to ask "Why?". That question hung over each episode for me. You already have a horrible direct ancestor, and you want him to be even worse? Is it desperation for personal fame?
This desperation is apparent throughout the entire series. As each expert dispels and chance that Holmes and the Ripper are the same person, Mudgett refuses to accept that his theory lacks any evidence, and in fact, believes that the negative evidence proves the positive.
And this other, fame seeking ex-CIA operative is embarrassing. I'd hope such important jobs would be filled with people who were more well-spoken and erudite. "Wow". "That's interesting" and repeating the obvious.
The series is interminable. They drag every idea, possibility, and reflection (not to mention, long known facts) out so long, that the actual data--the meat of the investigation--could be presented in 4 episodes or less. But then, four episodes could not have generated 8 episodes worth of advertiser dollars.