Here is what I’ve been watching:

Churchill: On Blue-ray and on-demand

I’m not sure just why Sir Winston Churchill is suddenly the subject of two films released in 2017 – the other “The Darkest Hour” with Gary Ohlman is due out on Nov. 22 – but for some reason the man who has been dubbed “the greatest Briton” is getting his time in the cinematic spotlight.

This film was released earlier this year and features Brian Cox as the wartime prime minister. The story takes place in the days leading up to the D Day invasion and centers on Churchill’s fears the plan might backfire and result in the slaughter of tens of thousands of British soldiers and sailors.

Churchill’s apprehensions come from the failed invasion of Allied troops during the first Word War at Gallipoli – another massive beach assault. He worries history would repeat itself.  If it did it would secure Hitler’s continued domination of Europe.

Complicating the situation is the realization that Churchill has a diminishing influence over the management of the war effort, something that enrages him. His periodic depressions are causing tensions between he and his wife.

Director Jonathan Teplitzky keeps this story’s action squarely on the conflict between Churchill and his contemporaries. In other words, this is a film about D Day that has no footage about D Day. Although a handsome period piece, the result is a feel this would have worked equally well as a stage play.

While Cox and Miranda Richardson, who plays Clementine, Churchill’s wife, should get Oscar nods in my opinion, the problem with the film is whether or not it is true.

Screenwriter Alex Tunzelmann is a historian who has written several books and whose work has appeared in a variety of newspapers. She has written a column for The Guardian called “Reel History,” which examines the historical veracity of movies.

It’s ironic, then, that some Churchill scholars are disputed the film’s premise that the prime minister was so violently opposed to the D Day plan.

The issue of accuracy is one that makes or breaks this film and I would hate to find out the plot is simply stagecraft to tell a more dramatic story.

It is a good-looking movie with a number of wonderful performances, but I just want it to be true. Churchill himself deserves the truth.

On Netflix: The Meyerowtiz Stories (New and Selected)

A comedy/drama with a star-studded cast, “The Meyerowtiz Stories (New and Selected)” is the type of film that balances on the point of a needle. One false move and it can tilt wildly in one direction and tilt this film does.

Director and writer Noah Baumbach clearly seeks to tell a sympathetic, comic and yet at times dramatic story about a dysfunctional family.  Dustin Hoffman is Harold Meyerowtiz, a college art professor and sculptor who is at the end of his teaching career and is craving attention from the art community that he believes he deserves. The much-married Harold has three children from his first two wives: Danny (Adam Sandler), Jean (Elizabeth Marvel) and Matthew (Ben Stiller). As Harold’s health and financial situation worsens the children become more and more involved with their father and with each other.

The simple fact is that Harold is a first class pain in the backside, who has been a pretty lousy father. How much of this is supposed to be funny escaped me while viewing. What I saw was a group of broken people struggling to make sense of their childhood and how it affected them as adults.

There are certainly some good performances here with Sandler proving once again he has considerable dramatic skills, but the film as a whole has a pretension about it that prevented any real insight or enjoyment. It’s a shame that Baumbach elects to focus on the two brothers while leaving the sister’s story under-developed.