In math during middle school, I remember quite vividly
becoming frustrated when we began one year learning all the exceptions to rules
we’d learned the previous term. Similarly, history is taught to adolescents in
broadly defined strokes, with little time for more than one or two supporting
anecdotes, and certainly little contrasting evidence. It wasn’t until high school
— and then likely discovered on my own — that I learned about the “flyboy” volunteers of World War I, and
other niche stories of history, tales to me far more fascinating in their
call-to-arms specificity and identification than the solemn recitation of battle
and treaty dates.

Documentary title Into
the Fire concurs with this line of thinking, casting a light back to the origins
of the Spanish Civil War of 1936, when right-wing military officers led by
General Francisco Franco attempted to overthrow the newly elected, democratic
government, with both Hitler and Mussolini lending vocal support to the
uprising. In response, nearly 80 American women joined over 2,700 of their
countrymen in a fight to beat back fascists, volunteering in direct defiance of
the American government. The women were part of the International Bridgade’s
40,000 volunteers, a group made up of individuals from more than 50 countries
who came to fight for democracy in Spain.

In this meticulously researched and very specifically
sketched yet still interesting documentary, not to be confused with Jonathan Hock’s fellow non-fiction flick Through the Fire, 16 of these brave and idealistic
nurses, writers and journalists share stories of courage and commitment to a
just cause. Most of the women were previously uninvolved in politics, and some
of the nurses had never done more than put a band-aid on a cut. Nevertheless,
they quickly demonstrated their courage and resolve, throwing themselves
wholeheartedly into “La Causa.” Back at home, their efforts were largely
unacknowledged, and Into the Fire,
subtitled “American Women in the Spanish Civil War,” vividly reveals this
forgotten history, artfully weaving together archival materials with words from
the likes of Dorothy Parker and Eleanor Roosevelt. Director Julia Newman worked
as a freelance journalist and television producer in advertising for over 20
years. Though a neophyte filmmaker, she has served as executive director of the
Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives since 2002, and worked on this flm for much of
the 1990s. Though it runs only an hour, the movie still feels packed with
revelation simply because these are stories that haven’t really been heard
elsewhere. This is a movie about action, moral purpose and duty, and its subject-matter freshness makes it a winning exploration of those themes, particularly
for mid-century history buffs.

Into the Fire
comes housed in a regular Amray case, and presented in full screen. DVD bonus features
include an introduction from Newman and a short biography, the short film Archives of Activism, and an archival photo
gallery and historical timeline. For more information, click here. B (Movie) C+ (Disc)

Eli Roth made a splash with his Thanksgiving trailer from Grindhouse, and has Hostel: Part II hitting theaters in just over a month. So what better a time to revisit that last flick’s predecessor, with a review of it on DVD and naked pictures of its lithe stars (above)? To wit, a slightly redacted version of a piece originally published last year, concurrent with the film’s bow on DVD, and from an outlet that has yet to make due on its contract to me:

Filmmaker Eli Roth‘s first film, Cabin
Fever, in which a group of friends turn on one another when beset by a
highly contagious flesh-eating virus, took a healthy dose of twisted humor and
married it to an isolated setting and gory concept. His bleak, Euro-backpacking
follow-up, Hostel, is much less a
cathartic genre romp than a willfully depraved exercise in stimulus response, largely a
film to be endured rather than viscerally enjoyed. There are still some touches
of mordant wit, both direct (in its slagging, fraternal dialogue) and more
surreal (a brickbat-armed gang of small kids who demand candy), but when you
get up after watching Hostel, you want to take a shower. And that’s very much
the point.

The story centers on a trio of backpackers — including
Americans Josh (Dumb and Dumberer’s
Derek Richardson) and Paxton (Crazy/Beautiful’s
Jay Hernandez) — who are young, dumb and, as the rest of the saying somewhat
goes, not out to study art, history and cultural intricacies. Looking for
nothing more than good times, they stumble across a guy who recommends they
ditch their plans for Barcelona and
instead head to the remote Eastern European outpost of Bratislava,
where hot local women throw themselves at young guys, particularly anyone from
the United States.
They’re quickly sold on the idea. En route via train, they meet a strange Dutch
gentleman (Jan Vlasák), and are understandably weirded out when he digs into
his salad with his hands and intones, “I like to have a relationship with
something that gave its life so that I might not go hungry. With things I kill,
I feel its mortality.”

Upon arriving in Bratislava, Josh, Paxton and their Russian
pal Oli (Eythor Gudjonsson) immediately find welcome reception for all their
hedonistic dreams, the former two with a pair of mysterious comely lasses,
Natalya and Svetlana (Barbara Nedeljakova and Jana Kaderabkova, respectively).
The guys’ neon-lit pleasure trip, though, quickly turns into a descent into
hell. Oli disappears without saying goodbye, and Josh and Paxton eventually
find themselves drugged, tortured and sold into impending death in a chilling
murder-for-thrill ring.

Housed in a single-disc Amray case, this unrated, widescreen
cut of Hostel features an interesting
gross of supplemental features. Four, count ’em four, full-length audio commentary tracks kick-start the affair,
with Roth sitting in on each one of them. The first is a solo mission, but the
best, if most breathlessly paced, is probably the second option, with Roth and
executive producers Boaz Yakin, Quentin Tarantino and Scott Spiegel. A third
track features Roth, producer Chris Briggs and on-set documentarian Gabriel
Roth, while the fourth is stitched together from thoughts with actors
Nedeljakova (below left) and Gudjonsson (below right), editor George Folsey and Ain’t It Cool News’ tubby
sycophant, Harry Knowles. 5.1 Dolby digital surround sound tracks in both
English and French are featured, nicely showcasing the film’s well-mixed sound
design, which is as aurally panic-inducing as many of the torturous set pieces.

There’s also a brief, interactive featurette that showcases
a scene involving the destruction of an automobile by the aforementioned kiddie
gang, and a nearly hour-long, three-part making-of featurette that is divided
evenly between pre-production and the actual filming. Since Hostel was shot entirely on location,
Roth has interesting things to relate about Prague
toilets, and accountant Mark Bakunas, a former rocker, also emerges as an
interesting character. Finally, there’s equal parts humor and disbelief in a
scene where a Czech day-player shows up on set drunk, and unable to film his
scene. Still, like strung-together vacation slides, this stuff is mostly
formless, and thus only for those really into the movie. While certainly not
for all audiences, what recommends Hostel
is its grungily depraved authenticity; its dungeons come off convincingly as a
human abattoir. For squirming, squinting displeasure, Hostel delivers. B (Movie) B (Disc)