Ah, the 1970s! I was an infant to elementary school student for the entire decade, but even at that age I realized things seemed really laid back and in earth-tone colors. And even a rugrat like me knew that Pele was the God of Soccer, an Olympian with my other gods, Kneviel the God of Motorcycles and Lee Majors the God of Cybernetic Enhancements. Anyway, what I wasn’t entirely aware of was that for a brief time, America had a professional soccer league, with a team that featured that greatest footballers of the time.

Once in a Lifetime tells the breezy, crazy, stranger than fiction tale of the New York Cosmos and America’s brief but passionate embrace of soccer. This is one of the slickest and most fun documentaries I’ve ever enjoyed; Once in a Lifetime is a rare documentary that works as a party/large crowd movie. The music is unrelentingly fabulous; when Steely Dan’s “Showbiz Kids” gets cued up, I was already in a “oooh yeah, giggety giggety giggety” frame of mind. But the music switches over to opera and even “Flight of the Valkreyies” when depicting European and Brazilian soccer, to hilarious results.

Suffice to say that Once in a Lifetime has a cinematic cast of characters, including the biggest real-life jerk who’s the Ultimate Asshole simply because he can; Georgia Chinagalia apparently played ball as well as Pele, and he had the temerity to criticize Pele’s playing style. Through it all are the bewildered, utterly outmatched American players, city-league amateurs who were suddenly playing with the world’s best. It must have been a hoot.

My only criticism of this film is that the film wholly focuses on the Cosmos; you never get the perspective of the twenty-odd other teams in the North American Soccer League who had to face Pele & Company; what’s more surprising is that the Cosmos did not win every game and got knocked out of the playoffs…so apparently either the other teams were recruiting Brazilians and Europeans wholesale, or some Americans learned how to play ball. Other than this significant absence, Once in a Lifetime is a rollicking, very funny, and extremely naive flick. Let’s face it, kids. Soccer, er I mean “football”, will never make it in the US as long as our culture revolves around commercial television…

… so then again, maybe soccer might have a chance….

It shouldn’t come as any surprise to anyone that Adolf Hitler was a human being. Indeed, this human depiction of history’s most infamous tyrant makes the man all the more terrifying. I would find it infinitely more comforting If it turned out Hitler was a space alien or possessed by demons. Downfall is a dramatic, quickly paced film, and Bruno Ganz took on the actor’s biggest nightmare role and performed it with panache and gravity, creating a mesmerizing presence that defined Hitler’s diabolical charisma. He is supported by a superb cast; two stand-outs is Ulrich Matthes’ Goebbels and Juliane Kohler’s Eva Braun, the two loyal-to-the-end anchors in Hitler’s life, and could be seen as living metaphors of Hitler’s best and worst sides of his personality.

An idle thought went through my mind as I hunkered down with Hitler on his last ten days. What would a Jewish person think of Downfall? What would a white supremacist/Neo-Nazi think? What about a German or Russian veteran who fought in the war? My conclusions are completely unfounded speculation, of course, but my gut instinct told me that these widely divergent perspectives would all approve of Downfall. The Jewish person would approve of Ganz’s portrayal of a sick, demented man falling to pieces. The Nazi would seen him as a tragic hero. The veterans would approve of the film’s grim authenticity and realism.

For me, the key to understanding the Hitler of Downfall is not dissecting his madness, but rather trying to understand why millions of people followed his lead. The most important part of this film is not Ganz’s remarkable performance, though he is certainly the glue that holds this difficult film together. It’s the fact that even as the world was collapsing around their ears, there were still Germans who loved Hitler dearly, and still believed in his supernatural powers and prophetic visions. I can’t think of a better definition and more damning depiction of the concept of faith.

In the world of D&D, the eighth plane of hell is depicted as a frozen wasteland of despair, managed by demons who specialize in frigid torments. That eighth plane of hell came to mind as I watched the stunning and magnificent Stalingrad, which is simply one of the finest, if not the finest, film about World War II. Wonderfully absent are any undercurrents of heroism, duty, sacrifice, or any other Dulce Et Decorum Est bullshit. Stalingrad is a mesmerizing film for its complete lack of story or plot conceit. Rather, it is simply a chronicle of a squadron of German soldiers who are trying to stay alive at all costs.

The opening is surreal and foreboding enough; hardened veterans of the North Africa campaign are frolicking on a sun dappled beach in Italy. They’re having a good time, but they’re not naive to the realities of war. The squadron’s leader is severely brain-damaged, and his men know the real price of war. The soldiers are eventually saddled with a green lieutenant who is all duty and rah rah crap, and one expects that this toolbag will get his comeuppance on the Eastern Front.

But the lieutenant eventually becomes as grizzled and cynical as his men as they navigate their way through Hitler’s greatest debacle, the siege of Stalingrad. Here, the film just slams you with its relentless authenticity, from the exhaustively researched equipment (half-tracks, T-34s, flamethrowers, squadron tactics, etc.) to the simple, hard-bitten dialog of men trying to kill each other and stay alive.

It’s not even funny how far removed Stalingrad is from Saving Private Ryan, but I shouldn’t blame Spielberg. The Eastern Front was simply a different animal than the Western Front. (Don’t get me wrong; I’m not denigrating any World War II veteran’s bravery). The utter simplicity and directness of the film’s story allows director Joseph Vilsmaier to focus upon the environment of the hell on earth that was Stalingrad, without the simplistic anti-war moralizing of Cross of Iron or the contrived and goofy caricatures of Enemy at the Gates.

Stalingrad is a bona-fide soldier’s movie, and I’m confident anyone who has been involved in real combat will embrace this film. This isn’t a film about Nazis versus Russians; this is a film about pure and brutal survival, like Alive on meth, crack, and heroin…garnished with artillery shells, landmines, friendly fire, gangrene, and unbridled madness to liven up the proceedings.

Of course, see the subtitled version in favor of the dreadful dub, for to hear the screams and whispers in German and Russian will bring you that much closer to the men who lived and died on the snowbanks of this insane campaign. “I feel as if my skin is melting,” says one soldier in a quiet and poetic turn, and that is precisely how war should feel.

The ending is perfect, not entirely unexpected, and completely appropriate and respectful. Stalingrad is a atypical war movie that transcends the usual political rhetoric and military fetishism that infects most war movies, and eloquently shows that war will always be legalized mass murder, regardless of what our leaders jabber about on the airwaves.