Some of the best movies ever released, are those that are true stories that fill in the gaps in world history. The new movie “Official Secrets” is about what happened in early 2003, when the United States and England were collaborating to fabricate reasons to invade Iraq, that the world now realizes was an “illegal war”.

The reasons for invading Iraq in March 2003 were many, but the most prevalent was revenge for the 2001 Terrorist attacks that caused the worst civilian casualties on American soil in this history of the United States. However revenge for mass murder on American soil is not an valid and legal reason to invade another country. A massive and collaborative effort began with England and the United States to convince the UN security council that Iraq had to be invaded and Saddaam Hussein removed from power before he could use his destructive weapons.

The final solution to finding an excuse to invade Iraq, repeated many hundreds of times, was that “Iraq had weapons of mass destruction”. During a speech in front of the UN security Council Secretary of State Colin Powell, pleaded with the UN to allow the United States and England to invade Iraq because of weapons of mass destruction. Colin Powell now considers this one moment, the worst in his entire career, because Iraq never had any of the weapons Powell was talking about.

The story of Official Secrets starts with a government agent in England, Katharine Gun, played by Keira Knightley whose job was to scan emails and translate messages, looking for possible information that could be used by the spy agencies of England. A single email was scanned one day, that suggested that a reason to invade Iraq was being fabricated by both England and the United States. Rather than ignoring this message, Katherine, realizing that she could possibly stop an illegal war and prevent the deaths of thousands of people, decided to send this email message to the press. The story that followed was all about politics, and the difference between doing the right thing no matter what the cost, or just doing your job.

This movie does an excellent job of showing this low point in the history of both the United States and England, like no other movie I have seen about this embarrassing incident from the year 2003. The legal ramifications and politics involved were also very well portrayed and fascinating throughout the two hours.

The Rotten Tomatoes rating for Official Secrets is a very solid 80% and I agree with this rating and recommend this film.

The movie “Hustlers” is one of the very few movies since “The Big Short” that is about the 2008 financial crisis that almost drove the entire world into a Great Depression worse than the one in 1929. Anyone interested in learning about what happened in 2008 should see the Big Short – which is a great movie, definitely not this film.

The easy money that was made during the DOT COM bubble that peaked in March 2000 indirectly caused the real estate bubble that started in September 2007. Corporations and individuals who lost fortunes in 2000 were looking to get it all back, starting in 2003 and as a result, financial restrictions were lifted and criminals were allowed to ruin the economies of the world due to their greed. The more easy money that was made, the stupider people became, thinking that the party would never end. Not only did it all end, were it not for the bailouts that started in 2008 the financial health of the world might have ended forever. The long term effects of the damage the 2008 financial crisis have been ongoing for millions of people around the world ever since. Due to the National Debt of the United States, now 22 trillion, largely due to the bailouts, the world might never fully recover from the repercussions of what happened in 2008.

Hustlers is a true story about a group of strippers who work at a strip club frequented by Wall Street employees who in the year 2007, like most of the world, were doing fantastically well within a fake economy driven by the insanity of the real estate bubble. Once the bubble burst, the easy money stopped for everyone, including all of the women who work at this strip club. The lead stripper is Ramona played by Jennifer Lopez, who eventually leads the group of women astray. For Lopez, this is one of her few serious roles in many years and while her performance is good in this film, nothing about this movie deserves the very high 87% on Rotten Tomatoes. More in line, due to the story and the acting is the 5.8 rating on IMDB.

After the easy money ended, a group of strippers, lead by Ramona decided to trick and then drug men. Once they were unconscious, they stole their credit cards to steal cash advances. Given that this is a true story, I was surprised at the number of men who fell victim to this, despite the blackmail and embarrassment involved. I thought the story did a good job showing the desperation of these women who needed money so badly, that they rationalized a crime like this, thinking that, “these are the men who stole money from so many people, so we can steal from them”. This movie also does a good job showing the horrendous life of most of these strippers who degrade themselves in clubs like this only to have so much of their money stolen from them by criminal club owners.

The Rotten Tomatoes rating for Hustlers is a very high 87%, but my rating is only 70%. Once again, there was way too much chain smoking in this movie, mostly with Lopez’s character – another thing I did not like about this film. I give Hustlers only a very mild recommendation, mainly because it is a true story that happened as a result of the 2008 financial crisis.

The new documentary “Fiddler: A Miracle of Miracles” has an extremely rare rating of 100% on Rotten Tomatoes and for that reason, I saw this film.

What almost everybody knows about the musical “Fiddler on the Roof”, is that it is just about the most popular and most performed musical in the world. Just about all the songs from this play are immediately recognizable to everyone, most especially, “I wish I were a rich man”. What this very good documentary shows is the history of this world renowned play that has its roots in Jewish culture, including even the Holocaust. This documentary shows the play’s derivations from a famous story based on the works of Yiddish writer Sholem Aleichem (1859-1916) . I thought this documentary was very well done, including the many interviews from some famous people who have performed in this musical, including Linn Manuel Miranda.

I recommend this documentary, but my rating is more in the 80% range, with a solid recommendation.