Spotlight Needs A Better Screenplay

Everybody has been raving about Spotlight which is based on the true story of how The Boston Globe in 2001 uncovered the massive scandal of child abuse and cover-up within the local Catholic Archdiocese. Critics compared this movie to All The President's Men and there's a lot of Oscar buzz.

While I enjoyed the movie, I could not help but wish that Aaron Sorkin has written the screenplay instead. The entire dialogue just lacked a Newsroom kind of sharp wit and potency. Director Tom McCarthy wrote the screenplay as well, but for somebody who's known for Meet The Parents, the dialogue exchange among the investigative journalists with The Globe was just a bit flat. Nevertheless, McCarthy did a great job with the direction of the film as it kept me on the edge of my seat the whole time even though I already knew the ending.

It's been a long time that any movie has been made on investigative journalism, and from this perspective, Spotlight was indeed a pleasure to watch. But what made this movie excellent was the entire cast, particularly Mark Ruffalo, Michael Keaton, Stanley Tucci and Liev Schreiber. The first three certainly deserve an Oscar nomination as they played their respective characters with such authenticity and intensity. Ruffalo has always been a superb actor but, with age, he seems to be getting better and better. He was nominated for Best Supporting Actor last year for his role in Foxcatcher, and actually won a SAG Award and received Emmy and Golden Globe nominations for the HBO movie, The Normal Heart, which he also produced. But I loved him as the 'loser' record label executive in 2013's Begin Again and as a bipolar father in Infinitely Polar Bear in 2014 even without any award nominations.

But kudos should also go to Liev Schrieber (lead actor in TV drama Ray Donovan and, in real life, Naomi Watts's husband) who played Martin Baron, the new Executive Editor of The Boston Globe. He was the big boss who asked Spotlight's editor Walter 'Robby' Robinson (played by Michael Keaton) to dig deep on the Catholic Church in this investigative news story assignment which eventually won the paper a Pulitzer Prize for Public Service in 2003. When everybody else in the newsroom was shouting, yelling and getting real intense and emotional about the investigation and the story, Schrieber's Baron was extremely thoughtful, strategic and calm throughout the entire film. He was a staunch anchor for his team and because he was empowered by the publisher to shake things up, he literally made things happen, even if it meant taking down the powerful Catholic Archdiocese. In real life, Baron has been working as the Executive Editor of The Washington Post since December 2012 after a successful career with The Globe.

In spite of an ugly picture painted of the Catholic Church, I understand that the film has received a positive reception from many of its leaders. Cardinal Sean O'Malley of the Archdiocese of Boston said Spotlight illustrated how the newspaper's reports prompted the church "to deal with what was shameful and hidden." Vatican Radio, the official radio service of the Vatican, also gave strong praise for the film, describing it as "honest" and "compelling." The child molestation scandals were numerous from around the world and the Pope is still dealing with the aftermath.

This is not a film to watch when you're tired because you would need to pay attention to a lot of details. But it's a fantastic moral journalistic thriller that would eventually make you applaud (as did the audience at my show) at the end of the movie because justice is done.

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The 33: A Salute To Humanity

If the recent terrorist killings in Paris were an attack on humanity, then the Hollywood movie The 33 has to be a salute to the human race! Based on the real-life story of the collapse of the gold and copper San Jose mine near Copiapo, Chile, in 2010, the film captured the miraculous rescue of the 33 miners trapped underground for 69 days.

I remember watching the development of this story on TV news and marveled at the brave endurance of the miners trapped underground at 2,300 feet. Previous geological instability at this old mine and a long record of safety violations for the mine's owners had resulted in a series of fines and accidents, including eight deaths, during the 12 years leading up to the accident. Seventeen days after the accident, on August 22, a note written in bold red letters appeared taped to a drill bit when it was pulled to the surface after the rescue operation penetrated an area believed to be accessible to the trapped workers. The note read, "We are well in the shelter, the 33 of us." Once the rescuers and the rest of the world knew that the men were alive, Chile implemented a comprehensive plan to both care for the workers during their entrapment and to rescue the miners from the depths.

The 33 miners were not all friendly comrades to begin with. They were different people with different backgrounds, old and young, natives and foreigner (one of them was Bolivian). One of the miners had a wife and a long-term mistress at the same time and another suffered from bipolar disorder and was estranged from his older sister. Given the fact that the Chilean government had no choice but to be heavily involved in the rescue under the world's scrutiny, politics also stood in the way.

Because it's Hollywood, some parts of the story were a bit sensationalized even though, in general, it stayed quite true to the event. What was most touching was the evolution of the trapped miners from the initial 'looking out for oneself' survivors to the collaborative and self-sacrificing team players towards the end of the saga.

What made this movie outstanding was its stellar cast. Antonio Banderas subdued his sex appeal and played the leader of the group, nicknamed Super Mario, Mario Sepulveda. A very bronzed Juliette Binoche played Maria Segovia, the estranged sister of the miner suffering from bipolar disorder, and the feisty relative who was constantly on the case of Chile's Mining Minister. The latter was skilfully played by the handsome and famous Brazilian actor, Rodrigo Santoro, Gabriel Byrne and James Brolin also played impressive supporting roles.

There's no need for me to give a spoiler alert, because everybody recalls that all 33 miners were eventually rescued. In reality, private donations covered one-third of the US$20 million cost of the rescue, with the rest coming from the mine owners and the government although these details were not dwelt on in the film itself.

The movie ended with a shot of the real 33 surviving miners who, to this day, remain loyal friends to one another. However, what the film didn't say, is that most of the miners still struggle with the psychological scars of their entrapment and have had trouble holding down a job. After the initial talk shows, speaking engagements and free trips, interest in the miners began to fade and today, many of the miners have trouble making ends meet. Super Mario told The Daily Mail last year that he and his fellow miners suffer from nightmares and depression, brought on by the psychological trauma of being trapped for so long. Most of the miners are still taking antidepressants and other medications and will probably do so for the rest of their lives. Mario says he now worries constantly about money. He was offered a job recently in a mine again and he needed to go back underground to support his family. The miners felt abandoned again once they came up from underground and it's sad to hear from Mario saying that, "some days I think it would have been better if they had let us down there."

Frailty, Thy Name Is Not Woman

Whether you're a feminist or not (and yes, including you men too), you should still go to the cinema and watch Carey Mulligan's latest movie, Suffragette. It's difficult to even imagine that women around the world have only been given the rights to vote since the beginning of the 20th century. But the story of the British foot soldiers of the early feminist movement under the leadership of Emmeline Pankhurst (played by Meryl Streep in only a few scenes) was vividly told in this film. These women from a laundry factory in London, most of whom poor and uneducated, fought daily battles against the government - obviously an old boys club in those days - and, for their rights to vote, they were willing to lose their families, their jobs, their children and even their lives.

Some of those women, such as the pharmacist Evelyn Ellyn (played by Helena Bonham Carter) were staunch supporters from beginning to end. Others, such as the protagonist Maud Watts (played by Carey Mulligan), was a reluctant fighter in the early stages, but was later converted and gradually took on a leadership role among the women. It was a constant struggle between whether to fight for an equal voting right as men's, or to protect one's self interest and, therefore, do nothing. Another key character in the film, Violet Miller (played by Anne-Marie Duff, wife of Irish actor James McAvoy), started off as a fervent and fierce fighter for the feminist movement, but eventually gave up the fight for the sake of her future child.

The little-known female director Sarah Gavron did a great job with the film, But it was the writer, Abi Morgan, who presented a powerful thriller in her script. Morgan is known as a writer and producer for the movies Shame, The Iron Lady and The Hour. I read that Carey Mulligan was absolutely tired of appearing in another period movie until she saw the script of Suffragette and immediately signed on for the leading role. As usual, Mulligan dazzled in her role and should be considered for an Oscar. Helena Bonham Carter is not usually my favourite actress, but she was superb in her role as the pharmacist. One can understand why she took on this character as her great-grandfather H.H. Asquith served as the Prime Minister of the U.K. from 1908 to 1916, during the height of the suffrage movement. He was a staunch opponent of votes for women. This was also the first film that was allowed to be shot in the British House of Parliament since the 1950s.

Suffragette would move you to tears and rouse you to anger. Men were absolutely depicted as evil and selfish misogynists (with perhaps one exception) throughout the entire film. For me, the most powerful moment came when the movie ended with the chronology of countries around the world which passed a law allowing women in their respective nations to vote. And now, more than a century later, there are still countries such as Saudi Arabia which does not grant women that right, in addition to not permitting women to drive or travel! I left the cinema not only thinking that women have come a long way, but we should continue to soldier on for gender equality!

Ridley Scott Scores Again With The Martian

I am a fan of neither science fiction nor outer space movies, so it's surprising how many Ridley Scott movies I've seen and loved. In fact, Scott is probably among my top three favourite directors. I saw Prometheus on Netflix and thought that it was one of the coolest science fiction films in the last decade. Then I saw Exodus: Gods and Kings also on Netflix and was puzzled why it was panned by critics!

I deliberately waited till the initial excitement around Scott's new movie The Martian died down before I hit the 3D cinemas last week. Critics asked us to be prepared for a Cast Away in space. But I found the 2000 movie starring Tom Hanks boring! The Martian, on the other hand, was exciting, nerve-wracking and extremely funny at times! It was also one of the most beautifully-shot films I've seen.

Most film critics gave credit to director Scott as well as the lead actor Matt Damon. But I think if there is any Oscar buzz, the Academy should also consider Drew Goddard who wrote the screenplay adapted from Andy Weir's book of the same name. The script was tight, humorous and witty and the film was not laboriously long to tell the moving story.

By now, you must know the story line even if you haven't seen the movie. During a mission to Mars, Astronaut Mark Watney (played by Matt Damon) was presumed dead after a dust storm and left behind by his crew. Most of the film depicted how Watney tried to stay alive and on his survival skills on Mars. Millions of miles away, NASA and a team of international scientists worked tirelessly to bring "the Martian" home, while his crew mates simultaneously tried a close-to-impossible rescue mission.

The film was beautifully shot in Wadi Rum, Jordan, which has a red-coloured desert; and in Budapest where the buildings representing the NASA HQ and the Chinese space centre were actually two of the city's most important cultural hubs (the film and book acknowledged China's important role to help with the rescue mission). It was not surprising that Matt Damon's solo scenes were shot for five weeks straight, after which he was relieved from the filming schedule. He did not even meet most of his co-stars until the full cast was reunited to promote the film. NASA was, of course, consulted to ensure accuracy of space and space travel.

Many people call Damon the contemporary Tom Hanks. But I think the former is a better actor. After all, in spite of the wide range of Hanks's acting skills, can you ever imagine him playing an action hero like Bourne? Because Damon led us to believe that this ingenious astronaut, who was also a PhD in Botany, survived this ordeal in space by growing a potato farm on Mars from his and his crew's excrements, we marveled at his wisdom and perseverance; laughed at his intolerance of the '70s disco music; and were moved to tears by his humanity. I thought Damon deliberately lost weight when he went from a beefed-up body at the beginning of the movie to a bone-thin physique towards the end, but I read that the director did not allow this to happen and had used a body double at the end of the movie instead.

The Martian is the perfect synergy of a triumphant journey in science and a magnificent cinematic work of art. No wonder retired Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield said he has read the book and seen the movie and gave the latter a two thumbs up!

A Surprisingly Good Steve Jobs Biopic

I've read so many bad reviews of Danny Boyle's Steve Jobs that I thought twice before I decided to go and see it. But I was pleasantly surprised and actually liked it!

Aaron Sorkin is always arrogant, but there's no doubt that he's a screenplay genius. I'm not sure that moviegoers who have not read Walter Isaacson's biography on Steve Jobs would like the movie or not. The biography is a wonderful book and because Steve Jobs had only authorized Isaacson to interview people and write the biography without even his final approval prior to publication, I trusted its authenticity. But to condense that biography into a two-hour movie was no small feat! I think the one attribute that stood out in the movie was its sharp, tight, witty and true-to-origin script and all the kudos should go to Sorkin (The Social Network, Moneyball, The West Wing, The Newsroom).

I've never watched The Newsroom, but I understand that the actors for the movie Steve Jobs all auditioned for their respective roles by reading scripts from the award-winning TV series instead of the script from the movie. The second credit for this very enjoyable movie should go to the lead actor Michael Fassbender who does not look a bit like the late Apple founder. But throughout the film, I had no doubt that Fassbender was Jobs. Isaacson's depiction of Jobs as both a genius and a jerk was fully vivified by the actor. Having seen Ashton Kutcher in Jobs in 2013, there's no doubt that Kutcher looks more like the Apple founder, but I've always said that good actors do not need to be excellent impersonators. It requires more skills for an actor who doesn't look like Jobs to give a convincing performance, and Fassbender did that beautifully - portraying, in essence, the eccentric, intense, foul-mouthed, ill-tempered but also brilliant, charming and extremely-gifted Apple founder, as described by Isaacson in his book.

I was surprised to hear that Sorkin originally wanted Tom Cruise for this role and thank God the latter had declined. So did Leonardo DiCaprio and Christian Bale. The latter could probably play Jobs equally well because he's such a fine actor. Apparently, Fassbender admired Bale and actually called the latter and told him that he should have taken that role.

I've also read that Kate Winslet heard of the movie in the making from her makeup artist, and immediately craved for the role of Jobs's marketing director Joanna Hoffman. She wanted to be in a film with Fassbender and director Danny Boyle and sent them a photo with herself in a black wig. Well, she got the job, but I'm not sure that she excelled in it. Her American accent sounded a bit contrived and she totally looked frumpy and unattractive in the movie, maybe by design. Frankly speaking, any actress could have played that role exceedingly well and Winslet's superb acting skills were quite wasted in this film, in my opinion.

Director Danny Boyle (Slumdog Millionaire) did a decent job with the movie as the film condensed the book into three acts - the launches of the Macintosh in 1984, NeXT in 1988, and the iMac in 1998. There were flashbacks to Jobs's earlier life at the garage with Steve Wozniak (effectively played by Canadian Seth Rogen); and negotiations with the Apple board and John Scully (played by Jeff Daniels). But I did not expect the entire film to be focusing so much on Jobs's relationship with his daughter Lisa Brennan because this part did not even play a big role in Isaccson's biography at all.
Wozniak was a consultant to the movie and maybe that's why it enhanced the authenticity of Jobs really presented as a jerk even in front of his partner and co-founder of Apple. I also don't understand why it took three non-Americans (Boyle, Fassbender and Winslet) to do a movie on one of the most influential U.S. icons when there are so many other talented filmmakers and actors in Hollywood.

All in all, if you've read Isaacson's book, you would love the film. Otherwise, you might be a bit disappointed, even though if you are a fan of Aaron Sorkin and The Newsroom.

Powerful Russian Satire on Corruption in Putinland

I love watching movies because, like reading books, they stretch your imagination by telling a story in numerous different ways and sometimes blow your mind away by giving you a perspective of life that is too real. The Russian movie Leviathan, which has already swept all the Best Foreign Movie Awards so far, is almost a sure win for this category in the upcoming Oscars. It's a powerful satire on the current corrupt Russian government and on religion as well. As always, Russian literature and art excel in the reflection of the darkest side of humanity.

The story took place in a small Russian coastal town in the Barents Sea where whales sometimes appear and an ordinary working-class family was just trying to get by and seek happiness. Fishing was the main occupation of the town and people sought enjoyment by drinking vodka and having a lot of sex. Corruption was the norm of life and every public official including the mayor, his staff, the cops and even the priest were all cut from the same cloth. There were only a few characters in the film but very soon, they seemed like your friends and, as the audience, you became very involved with this unfortunate family.

Leviathan is Hebrew for Sea Monster as depicted in Tanakh and The Book of Job from the Old Testament. The book addressed the theme of God's justice in the face of human suffering, or in other words, asked a very simple question: why do the righteous suffer? In modern Hebrew, Leviathan means "whale," which explains the setting of this Russian coastal town where the sea and everything washed ashore have a deeper, darker meaning. In the Middle Ages, Leviathan was also described as the demon of envy and listed as one of the Four Crown Princes of Hell.

So the poetry continued to infiltrate the entire film which was really an enactment of The Book of Job in its contemporary form. The protagonist in the movie, Kolya was a good, hard-working, ordinary man wanting to lead a normal happy life with his second wife and his teenage son from a previous marriage. But Kolya himself was full of conflicts - he hated cops, but one of his best friends was a traffic policeman; he tried to fight a corrupt mayor by bringing in his lawyer friend from Moscow who blackmailed the mayor and also eventually betrayed his friend in a personal way. Kolya's troubles went from bad to worse until the sea monster eventually engulfed him and his entire family.

Apart from the first-rate performance by a group of unknown (to us) Russian actors, the music written by Philip Glass and cinematography by Mikhail Krichman were menacing, captivating and beautiful at the same time. Definitely two thumbs up for this outstanding foreign movie!

A Great Crime Drama In A Most Violent Year

In the new movie A Most Violent Year, you see the work of the three most-Oscar-snubbed artists in 2015 - director J.C. Chandor, lead actor Oscar Isaac and supporting actor David Oyelowo (snubbed for his leading role as Martin Luther King Jr. in Selma).

By now, I've seen all three feature films by J.C. Chandor - the first two were Margin Call and All Is Lost. All three were brilliant in their own ways and with A Most Violent Year, Chandor has once again established himself as one of the most versatile and potent directors of all times. If Hollywood breeds more of such fine directors and writers, its potential would be limitless!

There's very little violence in the movie with "Violent" as its title. Even though there were illegal activities throughout the film and intimidating scenes with guns, it's the innuendos and the mood around this crime drama that were captivating. The movie juxtaposed evil versus good; ruthlessness versus a law-abiding conscience; bold ambitions versus cowardice and fear. It's the story of an ambitious immigrant from Colombia who's trying to achieve the American dream while protecting his business and family.

The Juilliard-trained Oscar Isaac is, in my opinion, one of the finest young actors of our times. I never understood why the Oscars overlooked him for his role in Inside Llewyn Davis last year. Now, yet again, his excellent performance as Abel Morales in this most recent film was snubbed one more time. As much as he could convincingly portray a nerdy musician in the Cohen brothers' film, Isaac gave a tour de force performance as the ambitious, but morally stubborn businessman in this flick. It's hard not to think of the young Al Pacino when you saw Isaac's doleful eyes and camel-brown coat in this movie. Physically, Isaac is not much taller than Pacino at 5 feet 81/2 inches; but he commanded a huge presence in the film and, in spite of the numerous comparisons by film critics to Pacino's role as Michael Corleone in The Godfather II, I think Isaac carries his own weight and is a much less exaggerating actor than Pacino.

Isaac got this role because co-star Jessica Chastain, who went to Juilliard with him, recommended that he be cast as Morales after Javier Bardem has backed out. Isaac's own Hispanic roots (born to a Guatemalan mother and a Cuban father) made him the perfect fit as the Colombian immigrant Morales in the movie. It also gave him an opportunity to speak in his native Spanish tongue during parts of the film.

I love the way the movie was shot in a tinted yellow kind of lighting that gave New York City its 1981 look. It's the depth of winter in the middle of the most dangerous year according to NYC crime statistics. Most of the landscape was industrial; the Manhattan skyline was beautiful, nevertheless, reflecting the never-ending American dream.  Kudos also went to cinematographer Bradford Young who was also responsible for another wonderful movie Selma.

I haven't said much about Jessica Chastain's performance not because she wasn't impressive as the Lady-Macbeth-like character in the film, but because after seeing her in The Help, everything became possible for her in our eyes. Apart from her vintage Armani outfits in the drama, it's her extraordinarily long, sharp manicured nails that became her trademark in the entire film. I think any other fine actress could have possibly played her role equally well, but the scene stealer was definitely Oscar Isaac throughout the entire movie.

There's nothing to dislike about this crime drama. There are no cliches and not enough blood to be categorized as a violent movie. But what's not said was as important as what's being said in the film - this was what kept me on the edge of my seat for the entire two hours of the movie!

The Horror of Losing One's Memory

There's a line in the movie Still Alice that keeps referring to "the Art of Losing." In reality, after seeing the movie, there's nothing artistic or aesthetically pleasing about losing one's memory - there are only horror and extreme vulnerability!

Still Alice is a terrific movie on the trauma of the early onset of Alzheimer's Disease faced by a 50-year-old female linguistic professor Alice Howland (played by the 55-year-old Julianne Moore) and her immediate family members. Unlike other movies, such as Away From Her (back in 2006 starring Julie Christie and Gordon Pinsent), exploring the disease, this is about a much younger victim with an accomplished career and a happy family. So the focus of the film was very much on the 'early onset.'

What I like about the movie is the positive message it sent to the victims and their families. Everybody is in it together and trying to cope with it. There are characters in the film who are more selfish than the others. And the seeming theme of Shakespeare pervades in this drama as well - what you see may not be what you get!

I also particularly like the constant butterfly analogy - there are butterfly motifs everywhere from decorations to Alice's necklace once she's been diagnosed with the condition. Alice herself said something to this effect in the movie, "Butterflies don't live very long; but they are beautiful when they are alive and they've lived a very full and good life."

Apart from Julianne Moore who, by now, will probably be a sure win in the Best Actress category at the Oscars, Kristen Stewart also gave a very strong performance as Alice's youngest daughter Lydia who didn't go to college. I personally think that although Moore was excellent in this film, she should have been nominated for her role in David Cronenberg's Maps To The Stars instead. According to the novel's author Lisa Genova, before Julianne Moore was cast, the part was offered to Michelle Pfeiffer, Julia Roberts, Diane Lane and Nicole Kidman who all turned down the opportunity. So all the more credit goes to Moore for taking on this project and giving her very best to win her the accolades of her lifetime (this is her fifth nomination at the Oscars and she has never won)!

I also understand that co-director Richard Glatzer suffers from ALS and cannot speak. Not only did he co-write the screenplay, but he also directed the film using a text-to-speech app on an iPad.

Still Alice is a touching, realistic movie. It is also very scary because this could happen to any of us boomers and if it happened, we should really take the film's positive ending as an encouragement!

American Sniper Not Worthy Of Six Oscar Nominations

Bradley Cooper's American Sniper was disappointing! After all that hype and box-office-breaking records, it is, at best, an entertaining war movie. But does it deserve six Oscar nominations? Absolutely not.

You've got to admire Bradley Cooper's focus nowadays. Since he's become famous and wealthy, he has been using his own money and energy to try to make movies and Broadway shows on subjects that are close and dear to him. For instance, in 2011, he produced the film Limitless in which he played an author suffering from writer's block, living in New York, and then accidentally coming across a miracle drug called NZT-48 which helped bring his creative mojo back. The film was not a box-office success, but it was nevertheless very unique and creative.

Ever since he was a child, Cooper has been fascinated with The Elephant Man John Merrick. So, it's now his dream come true when Cooper is currently playing the lead in The Elephant Man on Broadway to great critical acclaim. He was the executive producer for Silver Linings Playbook in 2012 and for American Hustle in 2013 - two movies that need little introduction because he was the male lead in both of them and garnered him Oscar nominations for Best Actor.

And now in 2015, his American Sniper was released and earned him a third consecutive Oscar nomination for Best Actor. The other five nominations for this film are Best Picture, Adapted Screenplay, Film Editing, Sound Editing and Sound Mixing. I understand that David O. Russell (director of Silver Linings Playbook and American Hustle) originally considered directing the movie at one point, but a deal with Warner Brothers didn't work out. Then Steven Spielberg was interested in the project but he subsequently moved on as well. Eventually, Clint Eastwood became the director as well as one of the producers of the film.

When Cooper initially bought rights to the movie, he intended to only produce it with Chris Pratt starring, but he later changed his mind and decided to take up the role himself. In fact, he bulked up 40-plus pounds to look like the real sniper Chris Kyle and worked with a vocal coach twice a day to talk with a heavy Texan accent like Kyle. Having seen some footage of Kyle, I personally think that Chris Pratt would have been a better choice because he looks like a twin brother of Kyle's.

Apparently Cooper built up his physique just by Olympic lifting and went from 185 pounds to 225 pounds for this role to look huge like Kyle and according to IMDb, he even sported a gut for the film. All the more respect goes to Cooper for demonstrating that he's not just a pretty face and the sexiest man alive according to People Magazine. But in spite of all these efforts, I think his performance in this film was less impressive than his acting in Silver Linings Playbook  and American Hustle. If those two previous roles didn't earn him an Oscar, I doubt very much whether this one would.

But I'm not an American and, therefore, cannot understand the patriotism and fascination with a Navy SEAL who is known as The Legend for achieving 160 kills in the Iraq war over four tours. To me, this is just another war movie that depicts the inhumane decisions soldiers in combat have to make to protect themselves and their comrades. The battle scenes were tense but I can count so many other war movies such as Black Hawk Down and Zero Dark Thirty which are 10 times better than American Sniper.

Some may argue that Chris Kyle's Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) in the film was provocative and sad. Yet, not even this subject was dealt with profoundly enough in this film when compared to the very successful TV drama Homeland.

What really bugs me about this film is the lack of authenticity when it comes to attention to detail. By now, you might have already heard about the big hoopla around the fake baby doll from the social media. I understand that when a production assistant approached director Clint Eastwood about real baby #1 being sick, and then real baby #2 being a no-show, Eastwood immediately settled with a doll faking the baby of Kyle and wife Taya (played by Sienna Miller) in the film. Now, Eastwood might have bragged about how Morocco looked like Iraq in the movie and how the battle scene in the sandstorm was executed to great precision. But a fake baby? How insulting to us the audience!!

I'm not sure whether Kyle's memoir (from which the screenplay was adapted) actually mentioned The Legend sniper talking to his wife while in full action on the battleground. But, for more than once, Kyle was communicating with Taya via something that looked like an Iridium satellite phone while others were firing away and he was supposed to watch the enemy so that he could protect his fellow marines. Now how credible was that?

I'm not an expert in sound editing in movies, so if this film won an Oscar for Film Editing, Sound Editing or Sound Mixing, I might not have an objection. But I would be very unpleasantly surprised if it won a Best Picture Award or a Best Actor Award even though I like Bradley Cooper and agree that he's come a long way from being a reformed alcoholic and a hotel bell boy in his youth!

Hitchcockian Flick By Canada's Golden Boy

Whether you like Xavier Dolan's 2013 movie, Tom At The Farm (Tom a la ferme), or not, you'll be impressed by the tension and discomfort it created on screen. This is the fourth movie by the 25-year-old wunderkind from Quebec, Canada, who has just won the Jury Prize at last month's Cannes Festival for his latest film, Mommy (not yet available for public screening in Canada).

This was my first movie experience with Dolan as a director although at this young age, he's already had four others with critical acclaim - I Killed My Mother, Heartbeats, Lawrence Anyways and Mommy mentioned above. On top of his directing talent, he is also an experienced writer, editor, producer and costume designer. It's a very dark movie about a gay guy Tom (played by Dolan himself) from Montreal visiting his dead lover's family for the first time in rural Quebec. His visit became a discovery of surprise, horror and manipulation. Dolan also wrote the screenplay by adapting a play by Michel Marc Bouchard.

There's definitely a Hitchcockian supspense throughout the film created by Dolan's masterful delay of our visual image of the characters. So we saw the backs of the characters or their hands when they first appeared on screen. Dolan did not reveal the faces of his principal characters until their dialogue with Tom enabled us to imagine for a few seconds what they could have looked like physically.

The musical score by renowned composer Gabriel Yared, who made his film debut in 1980 with the score  for Jean-Luc Godard's Every Man For Himself, played an essential role in making this movie an ultimate thriller. Ironically, Jean-Luc Godard also shared the Jury Prize Award with Dolan at Cannes. As I was viewing the movie, I couldn't help but compared it to its previous genre as a play. The differentiating factors that made it such a creepy movie were definitely the music, the country-farm scenes, the stand-alone farm house in adverse weather, and the fresh blood from the cattle.

The cast was also superb, particularly Pierre-Yves Cardinal, who played Francis, the brother of Tom's deceased lover; and Lise Roy, who played the mother Agathe. It's also interesting that both Roy and Evelyne Brochu, who played Sara, also performed the same characters in the original play.

It's also obvious that Dolan is not a fan of America. From the bomber jacket worn by Francis to the music during the violent scenes, Dolan was telling us that all violence stemmed from our southern neighbour.

My favourite scene was the sexually-charged tango scene at the farm - it made you question the sexuality of Francis and who's really the manipulator here! I didn't like the film's ending at all. Many directors left the conclusion for the audience to figure out, but the final scene was strangely abrupt in this film.

I don't think Tom At The Farm is a masterpiece, but you might want to see it if you're curious about why Dolan is the current 'it' boy in Europe!

Love Lost, Found and Impermanent

The Face Of Love is a movie for boomers. Director Arie Posin talked about the challenges of financing the movie. There were three strikes working against the film - a woman in the lead role; starring actors (Annett Bening and Ed Harris) not in their 20s and on the cover of US Weekly; and it's a drama, not a thriller, a comedy or a science fiction. But eventually it got made with a moderate budget and an ace cast, including Robin Williams in a rare, non-comedic role and Jessie Weixler, best known as one of the  investigators, Robin, in the popular TV drama The Good Wife.

Professional film critics weren't kind to the movie, but I liked it - perhaps, from a baby boomer's perspective. All three principal actors in the film portray boomers looking for love after a major change in life. They've all lost their partners or spouses either through death or divorce. So they all choose somebody whom they like to believe in - Nikki (played by Annette Bening), the real estate staging agent, wants to relive her romance with her late husband; Tom (played by Ed Harris) wants to seek love before his health crisis implodes; and Roger (played by Robin Williams) wants somebody to replace his dead wife.

It's an artsy movie with scenes shot in the L.A. County Museum of Art and within a beautiful house designed by a successful architect. So even if you don't like the plot which, at times, seems incredulous, it's a pleasing picture for the eyes. Every character in the film is living in delusion. Nikki wants to cling on to a "clone duplicate" of her late husband without telling him the truth. Tom wants to seek temporary love without telling Nikki about his health crisis. And Roger just doesn't want to accept the reality that his next door neighbour doesn't love him.

Both Bening and Harris are in their best form although the former has not aged well. The film is about love lost, love found, but eventually gone again. The only thing that lasts is a painting capturing the essence of love. The movie manages to tell a romantic story between two aging boomers without being overly sappy!

Revenge and Reconciliation

The Railway Man was shown in Australia when I was visiting there last X'mas, but I never had a chance to see the film until it finally appeared in Canadian cinemas this past weekend. The film was shot in Thailand, Scotland, England and Australia and with a partial Australian production team, maybe that explained why it was shown in Australian cinemas so much in advance than North America.

I've always loved trains as a mode of transportation, and this film features some of the best shots of the railway in the countryside as old and new trains moved through the scenic villages and countryside throughout the years. The railway scenes were mostly shot in West Lothian, Scotland, and in the Ipswich Railway Workshops in Queensland, Australia. The English, Scottish and Australian countryside scenes were also breathtakingly beautiful.

The film is a psychodrama based on the true story and memoirs written by the former British Prisoner of War Eric Lomax. Like many others, Lomax was tortured during the Second World War by his Japanese foes and suffered from post-traumatic disorder after the war. He went back to seek revenge, but, instead, reconciled with his Japanese torturer and moved on with his life.

The torturing scenes were difficult to watch, but if you managed to stomach 12 Years A Slave, you should be able to sit through this film. My first impression after seeing this movie was that the current Japanese Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, should watch this movie and learn that in order for reconciliation to happen, one needs to first acknowledge the war crimes that have been committed. Other film critics have commented that perhaps former U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney should be seeing this movie to see the terrible impact of the "waterboarding torture" on the lives of prisoners of war. But, in reality, neither Abe nor Cheney has any remorse about what they've done and that remains a problem.

The plot is quite incredulous, but it's based on a true story which makes the film touching in many ways. Lomax was a railway enthusiast even though he's a soldier. Trains and railways became a major part of his adult life - it's ironical that his personal demons tormenting his middle years were caused by his capture during the war to build The Burma Railway. Yet, he found love on the train where he met his wife and he reconciled with his captor and torturer on the Burmese railway track when he went back to confront his former Japaense rival.

Colin Firth, in his usual elegant, understated way, plays a very convincing and tormented Lomax. He's a lonely soul for most of the time standing alone on deserted beaches and bridges. The heavy fog in most of the scenes enhanced his sadness and inner struggles. His big, heavy glasses became part of his link between the past and present. The young British actor from Cambridge, Jeremy Irvine, also did an outstanding job in portraying the young, geeky Lomax. Nicole Kidman, for the first time, is less irritating in in this movie playing a dowdy, middle-aged woman.

I've never heard of the director Jonathan Teplitzky before this movie, but he's done a great job with The Railway Man which took 15 years to develop. Many women audiences in the cinema were bawling towards the end of the movie, but I found this film encouraging rather than sad and depressing!

Grand Budapest Hotel: An Iconic Comedy

Comedies are always more challenging than tragedies to write and produce - whether they are plays, movies or books. Appealing to the vulnerable emotions of human beings is always easier than making people laugh. Even the Bard's tragedies are better plays than his comedies, in my opinion.

So imagine my pleasant surprise when I saw Wes Anderson's latest comedy, The Grand Budapest Hotel, on its premier night in Toronto. Having never seen any of his films before, I didn't know what to expect except for the fact that I found the promotional trailer for this film absolutely hilarious. Anderson's previous works always seemed too quirky for me but like the Coen brothers, Anderson has a huge following, particularly among younger fans.

According to Anderson, his screenplay was inspired by the Austrian writer Stefan Zweig who also wrote Letter From An Unknown Woman and Marie Antoinette. So Anderson wrote the story about the adventures of a legendary concierge, Gustave H, at a famous hotel between the wars, and the lobby boy Zero Moustafa who becomes his protege. A lot of people thought the movie is about a hotel in Budapest, but the whole fictional hotel is actually located in an imaginary place in Europe that looks more like Switzerland, but the film was actually shot in Saxony, Germany.

The result of Anderson's writing and direction is a highly-creative film which is not only extremely cartoonish and funny, but it's so beautifully shot that I felt like I was watching a flawless fairy tale for grown-ups! But beneath the laughter also lies a satire about the end of the European aristocracy with the brutal onslaught of the Nazis during the war. Comedies are all about timing, and Anderson's situational and caricatural work would certainly go down in history as one of the most iconic comedies of our times!

The movie, of course, is very much a success because of its cast of 'substantial' thousands, some of whom are regulars in Anderson's works - Ralph Fiennes, Jude Law, Adrien Brody, Willem Dafoe, Jeff Goldblum, Bill Murray, Ed Norton, Tilda Swinton, Harvey Keitel, Owen Wilson and Tom Wilkinson. Everybody is extremely funny, but the charmismatic Ralph Fiennes deserves the biggest kudos as he demonstrates his talents way beyond his usual melancholic and brooding leading roles from Shakespeare to Dickens.

It's not just a good laugh, but The Grand Budapest Hotel is a hilarious masterpiece worth watching again and again on the big screen!

The Art of Conning

There should be no boomer out there who would dislike the movie American Hustle. And this boomer liked the flick so much that I watched it twice within a month! The 70's-era film with big hair, excessive cleavage, disco music and outlandish costumes was just a blast. Ever since The Fighter, I've become a big fan of director/writer/producer David O. Russell. Who cares if George Clooney and Lily Tomlin hated him? Here's a director who went through a professional (a six-year hiatus with no film) and personal (his son was diagnosed with bipolar disorder) crisis and re-emerged in Hollywood at the top of his game! So it's no surprise that Russell wrote a story about resilience and survival with such wit and humour. So far, both the Golden Globe and the Screen Actors Guild Awards loved the film. Russell was, for once, not a producer of this movie and left it to Bradley Cooper who, in addition to being one of the key supporting actors, was also the co-executive producer.

This is a movie which showcased its actors. That's why for the second consecutive year (after last year's Silver Linings Playbook), Russell once again led his cast to Oscar nominations in all four acting categories with Christian Bale (Best Actor), Amy Adams (Best Actress), Jennifer Lawrence (Best Supporting Actress) and Bradley Cooper (Best Supporting Actor). Every single one of them excelled in this film and on top of that, Jeremy Renner, Louis C.K. and Robert De Niro all gave outstanding supporting performances.

Amidst this excellent cast, I have to root for Amy Adams as the winner of Best Actress at the Oscars on March 2. If I were a member of the Academy, it would have been a toss-up between Cate Blanchett in Blue Jasmine and Amy Adams in this film. All the nominees in this category probably deserved to win, but there's a difference between who ought to win and who I want to win. It's unfair that Jennifer Lawrence has almost overshadowed Adams in all the media coverage on her supporting role. But Adams's performance was just 'one hit out of the ballpark' strong! From her previous outstanding, but diverse roles in The Fighter, The Master and even the recent Her, one would never have thought that she could play such a glamourous, clever, scheming female con artist. But sporting extreme cleavage for the most part of the movie, Adams as Sydney Prosser was dazzlingly hot and charismatic in this film! The sharp contrast against her 'girl next door' role in Her all the more confirmed her acting sophistication. Everbody could only remember Meryl Streep as Julia Child in Julia and Julia and almost nobody recalls Amy Adams as the other Julia in the film. But in American Hustle, Adams, the ultimate femme fatale, with her irresistible animal magnetism, just made the movie!

The entire flick was based on the 'conning' theme - "people believe what they want to believe". So, if you agree with this premise, nothing is off limits in the art of conning. As a crime comedy, the film was surprisingly brain-wracking and I'd recommend that you pay full attention every single minute. Otherwise, if you snooze, you lose! There were so many metaphors throughout the movie - hairdos played a very major role! Big hair, curly hair, toupees, comb-overs, showgirl updos, bouffants, permed hair, afros... you name it! Most of the male and female leading and supporting actors at one point wore either curlers or hairpieces in the movie. Can we see through the characters behind the hairdos? That's the main question for the audience.

Then there's the ice-fishing story trying to be told many times in the film by the popular U.S. comedian Louis C.K., but never got finished. And the numerous fires, explosions and accidents started by Jennifer Lawrence in her role as Rosalyn, the Long-Island homemaker, the loose-cannon wife who almost brought about the downfall of con man Irving Rosenfeld, masterfully played by Christian Bale.

Jeremy Renner didn't get any award nominations for his supporting role as New Jersey mayor Carmine Polito. But his cartoonish performance was so comical and convincing that he kind of reminded me of Chris Christie in his current Bridgegate crisis.

All in all, a two-thumbs-up movie if you want to laugh, morally reflect and be entertained at the same time!

Beautiful But Sad Futuristic Movie

Her is the kind of movie that is so good that you immediately have to pay some attention to its director and writer Spike Jonze who is the ex-husband of another talented director, Sophia Coppola. I never saw any of his three previous feature films - Being John Malkovich, Adaptation and Where The Wild Things Are - but now, I'd want to see them all.

I've never liked futuristic movies because most of them are not realistic; but Her is one that could disturbingly be real in the very near future! I went and saw it because so many film critics and talk show hosts loved it - the movie was nominated for three Golden Globes (and would probably win at least one tonight) and won 37 international awards including the Best Screenplay for the 2014 Toronto Film Critics Association Awards.

Upon seeing the movie, you'll marvel first at the brilliant and clever original screenplay; then the outstanding acting by Joaquin Phoenix; followed by the beautiful cinematography by Hoyte Van Hoytema (The Fighter and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy) and the direction of Spike Jonze.

By now, everybody who is curious about movies must know that Her is a science fiction about a writer who falls in love with his 'female' operating system produced by artificial intelligence. My first reaction to the trailer was that it's a stupid concept - particularly when you saw the lead actor Joaquin Phoenix interacting with a computer! But, lo and behold, it's actually quite believable and very clever.

It took Jonze only five months to write his first draft of the story, but he never doubted that Phoenix would be his first choice as playing Theodore, the lonely writer who writes love letters for other people. After all, which male actor of our times could convincingly act for the majority of time on screen talking to himself? Well, or talking to a fake person who's also his OS? And besides being credible, Phoenix is adoringly sad and sweet at the same time.

While shooting the movie, the OS voice was played by British actress Samantha Morton who was on the set in a secluded box communicating with Phoenix without actually seeing each other. But after the movie was shot, both the director and Morton agreed that she's not the right voice. So Scarlett Johansson was brought in as the new Samantha and her voice was primarily recorded in the post-production studio with Phoenix being present with her as well. But what a great choice! Johansson gave a sexy, empathetic, witty and jealous performance of Samantha without the distraction of her physical attraction.

I always feel that Amy Adams is probably one of the most underestimated actresses of Hollywood. In American Hustle, for instance, Adams should be given all the acting compliments instead of the Hollywood 'it' girl Jennifer Lawrence. In this movie, Adams played Amy, the wonderful neighbour and platonic friend of Theodore's, with minimal make-up and full Silicon-Valley personality and appearance. Olivia Wilde also shed her usual heavy cosmetics to play the pretty, brainy but neurotic blind date of Theodore's.

The movie was made, for the most part, in Los Angeles, with two weeks of filming in Shanghai as the futuristic city. But what I love about the film is that it's extremely funny and sad at the same time. It's ridiculous that human beings have been reduced to a state that is incapable of having any healthy relationships with another person. Instead, we find comfort in falling in love with an invisible OS who becomes our personal assistant, our advisor in relationships, and our love object as well. But judging from how everybody is so addicted to technology nowadays, it's not hard to imagine that we might all become Theodore's and Amy's in the very near future.

Even though you expect Her to be witty, there are so many more clever moments that surprise you. The extremely funny video games such as the scoring of the Mommy points and the SexyKitten voice played by Kristen Whig are just two examples. It's a movie that bewilders you and yet depresses you at the same time. Maybe it's time to take some down time from our smartphones, our tablets and other electronic devices, and focus on our relationships with our loved ones instead?

The Old Man And The Sea

Robert Redford's All Is Lost reminds all viewers of Hemingway's The Old Man And The Sea and Ang Lee's Life of Pi. But its originality trumps any other movie out there this year. It's about an experienced sailor facing mortality in a tempest, but it's also a study of humanity as well as a horror movie at sea!

Hollywood seemed to dwell a lot lately on how men and women combat adversities - whether it's Sandra Bullock stranded in space in Gravity or Our Man, Robert Redford, fighting for survival at sea in this film. The entire movie is almost like a silent one featuring a one-man show. There's no other actor, not even any animals, except for Redford who only uttered two lines in the entire movie.

You don't have to be an avid sailor to appreciate this movie, but if you love to sail, you might even like it better. I loved Margin Call, the first feature film by the same director J.C. Chandor, who earned an Oscar nomination for Best Original Screenplay last year. With All Is Lost, he tried a totally different genre with men's fight against nature. Maybe it's because Margin Call was first shown at Robert Redford's Sundance Film Festival that the 39-year-old up-and-coming director teamed up with the 77-year-old Redford in this unusual work.

If you think you'll be bored during this movie because there's no dialogue, then you're totally wrong! In fact, I kept asking myself throughout the film what possibly would be the next move of Our Man, the character played by Redford. He managed to survive adversity after adversity and his hope never faded. The ending is magnificent and is subject to different interpretations. Like Ron Howard's Rush, which is more than a racecar movie, All Is Lost is really a film about our approach to life.

This year's Academy Awards contention will be very competitive - Redford is rumoured to be definitely nominated for an Oscar for Best Actor. Because he's never won an Oscar before, chances of his winning this one at his age are pretty high. I personally think he should definitely be awarded for his efforts - four months of shooting this movie at sea in the Bahamas, California and Mexico without having one dry day. Plus, he refused to use any stunt man even for the most challenging storm scenes. But Redford might have to compete with Forest Whitaker in The Butler, Tom Hanks in Captain Phillips, Chiwetel Ejiofor in 12 Years A Slave and possibly Matthew McConaughey in Dallas Buyers Club.

In the meantime, I'll be interested in your interpretation of the concluding scene of All Is Lost!

High Tension At Sea

The docudrama Captain Phillips has been earning rave reviews from both critics and audiences alike. I saw it over the Thanksgiving weekend and was not disappointed.

I've never been a fan of Tom Hanks, but his performance in this film would probably earn him another Oscar (let's reserve our final judgement until we see Robert Redford in his upcoming movie All Is Lost)! He's so good as a regular guy that even the real-life Captain Richard Phillips was impressed. He met with Hanks three times in the last two years at his Vermont farmhouse prior to filming.

In real life, Hanks is an extremely funny guy. Not only did he disclose to the world that he's suffering from Type 2 diabetes on the Late Show with David Letterman, but he also talked about his friendship with the four Somali actors who were recruited from Minneapolis - the largest concentration of Somalis in the U.S. He joked about their names without sounding like a racist, and it was extremely funny - who else would have friends called Barkhad, Barkhad, Faysal and Mahat? Even though they were novice actors, Barkhad Abdi, who played Muse in the film, was almost as good as Hanks himself. It was reported that Hanks didn't get a chance to meet his Somali co-actors until the first scene when they appeared on board the ship without any translators at work in order to create the tensest scene possible.

Kudos go to director Paul Greengrass, a Cambridge-educated Brit, who's best known for his two movies within the Bourne franchise - The Bourne Ultimatum and The Bourne Supremacy - and United 93. He was able to make a docudrama so tense and captivating that by the end of the movie, my knees were still shaking. In fact, the second half of the film was so tense that you'd almost want to scream aloud for the hijacked captain. Towards the end of the movie, it's obvious that the captain was suffering from intense post-traumatic stress. In fact, the real-life Phillips told USA Today that for a period of time, he would wake up at 5 a.m. every day crying like a baby and remembering how lucky he was to be alive. Although this aftermath was not included in the movie, Tom Hanks gave us a strong enough performance for us to almost weep with him when we saw him safe.

The real-life captain gave a lot of credit to the Navy SEALs whom he regarded as the real heroes who saved him. There have been a lot of movies about the SEALs' bravery, but their action in this film made you wish that every country could have a team of heroes and protectors like Max Martini and his cool SWAT team.

The real tragedy of this whole true story is really the dire livelihood led by millions in Somalia. The deprived fishermen turned pirates consider these hijackings at sea as ordinary business. So until they can find some decent means of making a living, they will continue to be pirates. As Captain Phillips asked in the film, "There's gotta be a better way to live than hijacking ships and harming people?" "Only in America," Muse responded..."Only in America!" And the irony is that he finally got a chance to see America, but from prison!

Kennedy Assassination From A Different Perspective

On the 50th anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, the movie Parkland gave an interesting perspective from four different angles - from the doctors and nurses on duty that fatally tragic day in Parkland Hospital, Dallas; from the alleged assassin's family; from the Secret Service and FBI agents' perspective; and from the shop owner who amateurishly filmed the entire assassination from his 8mm camera from a nearby rooftop.

In spite of pretty bad reviews from major film critics, the movie, in my opinion, was kind of refreshing. Many people compared it to Emilio Estevez's Bobby from 2006, but they are really apples and oranges.

It's pure fate that the team of residents and the head nurse from the Parkland Hospital had to have the dying President on their watch. In spite of the traumatic experience and the best rescuing efforts they had given, JFK still passed away in a pool of blood. I've never seen a resident doctor as good looking as Zac Efron, but the entire hospital team gave a credible performance. I've always been a fan of award-winning actor Marcia Gay Harden, who played the role of Parkland's head nurse. I also had the good fortune of recently meeting her in a New York hotel elevator where I've had a two-minute conversation about filming in Toronto with her. She has always been an intense actor, but in this movie, she hardly spoke more than five sentences in the emergency room.

Nobody has ever liked the FBI or Secret Service agents, and in this movie, both teams were portrayed as brutally selfish. The former was concerned only about destroying evidence to cover their asses, and Billy Bob Thornton, who skillfully played the stoic role of the head of Secret Service, Forrest Sorrels, was frustrated only because JFK was the first man he's ever lost on his 30-year watch.

The entire Oswald family was as creepy as the alleged assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, himself. James Badge Dale, who was one of the villains in Iron Man 3, played the role of Robert Oswald, Lee Harvey's brother. It's obvious that he was never close to his brother, but blood is thicker than water. Award-winning actor Jacki Weaver (Silver Linings Playbook) played the Oswald brothers' mother Marguerite, who was portrayed almost as insane as his murdered son. It's true that nobody can conclude, for sure, even to this day that Lee Harvey Oswald was either a U.S. agent who got framed or a Russian agent who was hired to assassinate the President.

As usual, the media love Paul Giamatti who was described by the film critics as the only laudable character (Abraham Zapruder) and actor in the entire movie. This is not a difficult role for Giamatti having seen him in more challenging roles such as Barney's Version and Sideways.

Director Peter Landesman is very much a novice as this was his directorial debut. But given the fact that he adapted the story from Vincent Bugliosi's book Four Days In November and his strong editing work between real footage of the assassination and the fake scenes, he has demonstrated enough potential to carry on with his directing pursuit.

No matter what perspective the film took, one fact remains inarguable - the impact of JFK's death was so huge and overwhelming on all Americans that they will remember his tragedy and legacy to this day and for 50 more years to come!

The Psychology Of Ruthless Competition

I was so reluctant to see Rush when I first watched the trailer. But a New York Times rave review convinced me otherwise. I have to say I was pleasantly surprised emerging from the cinema tonight.

My confidence in Ron Howard the director also explained why I changed my mind about going to this movie. Howard has the track record of undeniably great works, including Apollo 13, Backdraft, A Beautiful Mind and Frost/Nixon. Similar to Ang Lee, his talent is so diverse and he has demonstrated great versatility in a wide range of film genres.

Howard's directorial debut in 1977, Grand Theft Auto, was his only other movie focusing on cars. Other than that, Howard admitted that he knew nothing about car-racing prior to making this movie. It was the talented British screenwriter Peter Morgan, with whom Howard collaborated in Frost/Nixon, who first approached him with the script. Howard became interested and started taking some lessons in Formula Three racing in order to get a feel of the thrill. Morgan, whose wife is Austrian, also met with the real Niki Lauda for some 30 dinners in a Vienna restaurant to get an in-depth analysis from the former world champion himself.

The resulting work is a superb work of art. Howard took the audience right behind and in front of the racecar driver's seat - with the camera so close sometimes that you could almost count the driver's eyelashes. But you don't need to be a racecar fan to enjoy this movie. Technically, it may be a movie about autoracing, but Howard really took the sport to a macro level - it's the psychology of competition between the two rivals - British James Hunt (played by Chris Hemsworth) and Austrian Niki Lauda (played by Daniel Bruhl) - which was fascinating. Two polar-opposite individuals with different philosophies in life anchored the rivalry, respect and a life-long love-hate relationship between the two top drivers of the 1970s. Howard also left it to the audience to determine whose side are they on. As a director, he was deliberately unbiased.

Both principal actors are superb. Australian heartthrob Chris Hemsworth (best known for his role in Thor) has the good looks and charisma of playboy Hunt, while Spanish-born German actor Daniel Bruhl (Inglourious Basterds) demonstrates the precision, determination and ruthlessness of Lauder. Both were world champions, but in the end, the film left you questioning whether you're the living-for-the-present Hunt, or the committed, serious and hard-working Lauda. One may be intoxiated by Hunt, but it's the tough, persevering Lauda that one wants to emulate in life.

In spite of the film's dramatization of the dangerous sport, the movie is also very true to history which makes it all the more fascinating. The 64-year-old Lauder provided a lot of input and the movie was shot in actual racing circuits in 11 locations in England and Germany. Full attention to detail was paid to the era of the 1970s. If you like docu-dramas, you will love this film!

Prisoners - Best YTD 2013 Movie

I've never seen any of Canadian (Quebec) director Denis Villeneuve's previous movies - not even Incendies in 2011which has won so many awards and accolades. But after watching Prisoners today, I will put his works on my must-watch list in the future.

Prisoners is, so far, the best film I've seen this year. In spite of its three hours in length, every screen shot is worth the attention. The film made its debut at the Telluride Film Festival in August followed by the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) last month and began its appearance in cinemas across Canada today.

The two lead actors Hugh Jackman and Jake Gyllenhaal are both excellent and there are already a lot of Oscar-nominated projections. The hot-headed Jackman, in his Wolverine kind of way, is a sharp contrast against the calm, cool and intelligent Gyllenhaal. Both actors have to hide their obvious good looks to make their roles convincing.

But the greatest success should go to director Villeneuve who does not under-estimate his audience. He makes us work throughout the movie and never gives us the obvious explanation in any of the sub-plots or even on the suspects. As a crime thriller, he has not only managed to entertain us, but he challenges and provokes us to think, digest, rationalize and analyse. The movie is dark and violent, but the scariest thing is that it closely reflects what's been happening in North America, particularly in the U.S.A., in real life - the kidnapping and disappearance of so many kids! The most poignant question raised by the film is - how far would parents go to find and save their children when they've been abducted and kidnapped?

I've seen many crime dramas both on TV and on the big screen, so it's not difficult for me at all to guess very early on who's the responsible criminal - obviously not the usual suspects. But even so, the director puts us, the audience, in the difficult situation faced by parents. There are threads and clues in every scene, and we have to put them all together ourselves. Villeneuve also mocks religion and fate throughout the movie. Is God really looking after us and can we really control fate?

Keller Dover's  (Hugh Jackman) motto in life has always been "pray for the best, and be prepared for the worst," but was he ready for the worst when his daughter was kidnapped? Unfortunately, his motto has also always been mine as well, and this movie makes me wonder whether this point of view towards life is realistic or not since there's so much in life that we cannot control!

The cold, wet Pennsylvania weather, where the story takes place (the movie was actually shot in Georgia), exhibits a character of its own - just like the role of Seattle in the AMC crime drama The Killing. As the plot thickens and both cop and father get more desperate and frustrated, the weather also further dampens and worsens.

Kudos to Villeneuve and screen writer Aaron Guzikowski who went into great lengths to portray a good, workaholic cop who has a conscience and on whom law and order can be trusted. Mark Wahlberg is one of the executive producers of this film and was once considered in the lead role. I'm convinced that having played a similar character in The Lovely Bones, he could have played Jackman's part equally well.

I'm not sure whether this film can be stomached by parents who have young kids. But I'm definitely giving this flick a two thumbs up!