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Jumat, 03 April 2015

Woman in Gold

"Woman in Gold" has a rich story to tell. The true account of Maria Altmann's fight to reclaim a famed Gustav Klimt painting of her aunt, "Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I," first stolen by the Nazis and then appropriated by Austria after the war, is laced with riveting history, deep and complex emotion, and fascinating bureaucracy. Yet director Simon Curtis's rendering of Altmann's tale, though respectful and pretty, is somehow lifeless.
source:http://www.nola.com/movies/index.ssf/2015/03/woman_in_gold_movie_review_fa.html#incart_story_package


Gustav Klimt's famous painting of a dark-eyed beauty encased in shimmering gold lozenges is often dismissed by art critics as a disappointing excursion into kitsch by the avant-garde Austrian painter. But the portrait, commissioned by a wealthy Jewish family not long before the outbreak of World War II, has brought visceral pleasure to countless owners of postcards, posters and key-rings who have yet to set foot in New York's Neue Galerie, where the original hangs today. How it got there from Vienna makes for a sensational true-life tale, however staidly told in the new film Woman in Gold.
To Maria Altmann, an elderly Los Angeles Jewish dress-shop owner played in the movie by Helen Mirren, Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer was a precious reminder of her glamorous and beloved Aunt Adele, lost forever in the wake of Nazi art theft. Before her premature death, Bloch-Bauer had bequeathed the painting to Vienna's prestigious Belvedere art gallery. Soon after, the painting, along with many other artifacts owned by her family, was brazenly looted by Austrian Nazis; Maria was one of the few in her family who escaped death and ended up in the Untied States. After the War the painting resurfaced and remained in Vienna's prestigious Belvedere gallery for six decades until Altmann — with the help of a young attorney who happened to be the grandson of émigré composer Arnold Schoenberg, a contemporary of Klimt — returned to try to reclaim her family property.
The epic legal fight that followed is the subject of Woman in Gold, a stolidly sequential drama by British director Simon Curtis (My Week With Marilyn). With a directing style best described as reverently ceremonial, Curtis plods through scenic tours of the baroque architectural grandeur of Vienna today, regularly punctuated with flashbacks to the traumatic wrecking of Maria's gilded youth. Dancing the hora at Maria's wedding comes with a thudding overlay of Nazi jackboots. On the soundtrack, lest you miss the message, is "O Mary, don't you weep."
With star power more in mind than goodness of fit, the movie is hopelessly miscast. Mirren is her usual entertaining blast of acerbic brio, but here she improbably reprises her QEII testiness, accessorized with an Austrian accent. For his part Ryan Reynolds, a terrific physical comedian, is all wrong for the earnestly idealistic Randy Schoenberg, who found a novel way to help Maria sue the Austrian government for recovery of a painting it had now recast as a symbol of the country's national identity.
How they accomplished this is such a great yarn that, for all its broad brush strokes, Woman in Gold can't help but tell a moving populist parable about the will to power of an ordinary woman — one among millions, it turns out as the restitution of wartime cultural theft becomes a very big deal in the art world — taking on powerful institutions to regain a tiny fraction of her family's appalling losses.
To the credit of screenwriter Alexi Kaye Campbell and a nice turn by Daniel Bruhl as an Austrian investigative journalist with a guilty secret he is driven to expunge, Woman in Gold does not shy away from Austria's reluctance to face up to its wartime record. Instead, the film suggests that the affirmation of national pride that moved Austrian officials to fight Maria's claim tooth and nail depended on a sustained denial of its own shameful history.
After a Herculean struggle, in the end an Austrian arbitration committee did right by Altmann, who sold Klimt's Adele to cosmetics heir Ronald Lauder for a fortune and donated most of the proceeds to arts institutions and Holocaust survivors' groups. There it hangs in New York, a refugee like its rightful owner — and an enduring testament to the Austrian back-story that never made it into The Sound of Music.
source:http://www.npr.org/2015/04/02/396789932/lost-art-is-reclaimed-in-woman-in-gold

Movie Info
WOMAN IN GOLD is the remarkable true story of one woman's journey to reclaim her heritage and seek justice for what happened to her family. Sixty years after she fled Vienna during World War II, an elderly Jewish woman, Maria Altmann (Mirren), starts her journey to retrieve family possessions seized by the Nazis, among them Klimt's famous painting 'Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I'. Together with her inexperienced but plucky young lawyer Randy Schoenberg (Reynolds), she embarks upon a major battle which takes them all the way to the heart of the Austrian establishment and the U.S. Supreme Court, and forces her to confront difficult truths about the past along the way. 
(C) TWC
Rating: PG-13 (for some thematic elements and brief strong language)
Genre: Drama
Directed By: Simon Curtis
In Theaters:
Runtime:
The Weinstein Company - Official Site
source:http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/woman_in_gold/ 


Kamis, 02 April 2015

Wild

Only a hundred or so more days to go. Cheryl Strayed (Reese Witherspoon) did just that. She strayed. Weighted down by guilt, anger and grief over the death of her mother, the then-22-year-old pulled up stakes and -- figuratively, at least -- she wandered, like so many tend to do in times of trouble.
For her, it became a dangerous journey, as the self-described experimentalist and habitual yes-girl wandered farther than most dare, toward heroin addiction, toward meaningless sex, toward anything to help her forget everything but the moment.

And then she found her way back.


It's that moving and inspirational journey -- to the brink of self-destruction and back again -- that she described in her best-selling 2012 memoirs, and it's the journey director Jean-Marc Vallee tells in his beautiful, soul-stirring adaptation, "Wild."



After day one of her hike up the Pacific Crest Trail—a winding path that stretches from the Mexican border all the way up the West Coast of the U.S. to the outskirts of Canada—Cheryl Strayed is seriously questioning her willpower. And her sanity.
 
But it was kind of a mental meltdown that got her here in the first place.
Her life has become a mess. She knows it, and everyone around her knows it. Before she set her feet down on this rough-cut trail, she had been on a self-destructive path of drug addiction and sex with strangers. It was a trek that had destroyed her marriage and sucked away her health. Maybe walking a thousand miles will set things straight.

If nothing else, this journey might give her a chance to think, to dissect the mistakes she's made, to salve the things that hurt the most. Maybe this exhausting slog filled with aching muscles, scraped knees and bloody feet will allow her to finally dig up all the stuff she's had buried down deep.

So she shrugs into her huge and agonizingly heavy pack once again. She takes the next step. She conquers the next mile. She embraces the next hour alone with her thoughts.
With only a hundred or so more days to go.

Cast:
Reese Witherspoon as Cheryl Strayed
Laura Dern as Mom/Bobbi
Keene McRae as Leif

source:http://www.nola.com/movies/index.ssf/2014/12/the_wild_reese_witherspoon.html#incart_m-rpt-1
& http://www.pluggedin.com/movies/intheaters/wild-2014.aspx

Movie Info
With the dissolution of her marriage and the death of her mother, Cheryl Strayed has lost all hope. After years of reckless, destructive behavior, she makes a rash decision. With absolutely no experience, driven only by sheer determination, Cheryl hikes more than a thousand miles of the Pacific Crest Trail, alone. WILD powerfully captures the terrors and pleasures of one young woman forging ahead against all odds on a journey that maddens, strengthens, and ultimately heals her. (c) Fox Searchlight
Rating: R (for sexual content, nudity, drug use, and language)
Genre: Drama
Directed By: Jean-Marc Vallée
Written By: Nick Hornby
In Theaters:
On DVD: Mar 31, 2015
Runtime:
20th Century Fox - Official Site
source:http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/wild_2014/ 


The Imitation Game

Synopsis
Alan Turing's life story is unequivocally a tragedy. The Imitation Gamea new biopic that focuses on his accomplishments as a codebreaker during World War II, manages to recognize this while celebrating his formidable legacy.

The film tells an important story. Turing, a mathematician, is considered the father of computer science and a pioneer of artificial intelligence. That alone would merit his continued recognition as a great thinker. But he also played a crucial role in World War II—so much so that Winston Churchill said Turing made the most important contribution to winning the war. He was a war hero. Perhaps the biggest war hero.
During the war, the Axis forces had no better weapon than their Enigma machines, cryptographic marvels the Nazis thought were impossible to crack. Turing and other Allied codebreakers thought differently, and built a machine to break the code. This allowed Allied forces to intercept Axis communications, enabling access to information that ultimately helped the Allied forces defeat the enemy.
The film primarily focuses on Turing's time at Bletchley Park's Hut 8. Using a police officer's investigation into Turing in 1951 as a framing device, the story is told largely in flashbacks. The film follows Turing, played by Benedict Cumberbatch, as he antagonizes and bonds with his fellow codebreakers—particularly Joan Clark, the team's brilliant, lone female member (portrayed by Keira Knightley in a subtle, unshowy performance), to whom he was briefly engaged. In the movie, as in life, Turing called off the engagement after he told her he was gay.
The Imitation Game is a good movie, but not a great one: While the actors turn in solid performances, the screenwriting relies too much on the trope of the tortured, misunderstood genius vs. the world, and the historical footage of the war seems awkwardly crammed in to make you remember that, oh shit, U-Boats were scary.
In fact, The Imitation Game is really a few different movies at once: It's a spy caper, a race-against-the-clock film, a celebration of eccentricity, and an indictment of Britain's shoddy treatment of one of her heroes. The framing device was distracting, since it asks us to imagine that Turing would confess his highly classified role to a random police officer.
And the flashbacks to Turing's formative schoolboy relationship border on schmaltzy. Though they do serve to humanize the character, they wouldn't have been necessary if the script gave Turing a more nuanced characterization. Some of his lines sound like it's just Sheldon from Big Bang Theory talking, although Cumberbatch saves much of the material from getting too paint-by-numbers-nerd.
Despite the tremendous debt Britain owes him, Turing died a convicted felon. He committed suicide at age 42, two years after his arrest for "gross indecency" after being exposed as a homosexual. He was unable to continue working with the government, and was forced to choose between chemical castration and prison, and chose castration. The man whose work helped save Britain was treated monstrously, just for being who he was.
The film touches on the tragic ending to Turing's life as the film closes, as well as the way his reputation has been (thankfully) restored in recent years. It notes that he was eventually granted a posthumous royal pardon last year. I'd be surprised if you didn't leave the theater after seeing it without agreeing with former Prime Minister Gordon Brown's apology to the (long-dead) Turing in 2009: "We're sorry. You deserved so much better."
I saw The Imitation Game at the Toronto International Film Festival, but it will have a limited wide release November 21. So spend Thanksgiving this year being thankful Alan Turing existed.
source:http://gizmodo.com/the-imitation-game-review-a-stirring-look-at-turings-t-1633503454
Movie Info
During the winter of 1952, British authorities entered the home of mathematician, cryptanalyst and war hero Alan Turing (Benedict Cumberbatch) to investigate a reported burglary. They instead ended up arresting Turing himself on charges of 'gross indecency', an accusation that would lead to his devastating conviction for the criminal offense of homosexuality - little did officials know, they were actually incriminating the pioneer of modern-day computing. 
Famously leading a motley group of scholars, linguists, chess champions and intelligence officers, he was credited with cracking the so-called unbreakable codes of Germany's World War II Enigma machine. An intense and haunting portrayal of a brilliant, complicated man, THE IMITATION GAME follows a genius who under nail-biting pressure helped to shorten the war and, in turn, save thousands of lives. 
(c) Weinstein
Rating:PG-13 (for some sexual references, mature thematic material and historical smoking)
Genre:Mystery & Suspense , Drama
Directed By:Morten Tyldum
Written By:Graham Moore
In Theaters:
On DVD:Mar 31, 2015
US Box Office:$90.5M
Runtime:
The Weinstein Company - Official Site
source:http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_imitation_game/



Rabu, 01 April 2015

Interstellar

Everything has its time, we're told in Ecclesiastes. And for planet Earth, it's time for death.

Not that you'd know it from a cursory glance. In fact, most folks hope the old girl is on the road to recovery decades after an environmental cataclysm wiped out most of the globe's food supply. Now, severely depopulated and humbled, we're getting back to the basics: growing food, maintaining shelter, spending time with family. A few of us might even take in a ball game on a lazy afternoon.

But a nitrogen-eating blight is again cutting down crops, one by one. Wheat, rice, okra ... nothing survives the disease these days except corn, and that may not last much longer. Massive dust storms sweep across the land, choking out light and life alike. And even as people push through day by day, it seems society has lost something critical: it's desire to explore, to search for something better.

"We used to look up in the sky and wonder at our place in the stars," former astronaut Cooper says. "Now we just look down and worry about our place in the dirt."

And that place in the dirt for Coop means scraping together a living as a farmer instead of continuing his career as an astronaut. It means having to deal with his high-tech combines taking off in their directions instead of doing what he's programmed them to do. And listening to his 10-year-old daughter, Murphy, saying there's a ghost in her room. Then, when a dust storm blows through Murph's open window, it seems the grime has made strange patterns on the floor ... as if it—the dirt itself—was trying to tell them something.

It is, actually. And Coop discovers the dusty lines are binary code that, when translated, become coordinates on a map. When he and Murph go there, they find a massive, secret science facility—perhaps humanity's last real hope. The scientists and engineers who work there, led by Coop's old NASA associate Dr. Brand, have found a mysterious wormhole near Saturn that leads to a new galaxy. They've already sent a dozen intrepid scientists through the hole and to some promising planets beyond, but they need another ship to now shoot through, retrieve data from the 12 and return home with it.

And, Brand tells Coop, they could sure use a good pilot to fly the thing. If all goes well and the theory of relatively works as it ought, he could get back home in, oh, a few decades or so—looking no worse for wear and ready to save whatever's left of humanity.

If not ... well, Coop should give Murph an extra-long hug goodbye. 
source:http://www.pluggedin.com/videos/2015/q1/interstellar.aspx

Plot
With Earth dying and resources dwindling, former astronaut Cooper (McConaughey), along with scientists Brand (Hathaway), Doyle (Bentley) and Romilly (Gyasi), take humanity’s last spaceship through a wormhole in search of a new beginning for the human race.
source:http://www.empireonline.com/reviews/reviewcomplete.asp?FID=138121

Movie Info
With our time on Earth coming to an end, a team of explorers undertakes the most important mission in human history; traveling beyond this galaxy to discover whether mankind has a future among the stars. (C) Paramount
Rating: PG-13 (for some intense perilous action and brief strong language)
Genre: Action & Adventure , Science Fiction & Fantasy
Directed By: Christopher Nolan
Written By: Christopher Nolan , Jonathan Nolan
In Theaters:
On DVD: Mar 31, 2015
Runtime:
Paramount Pictures - Official Site
source:http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/interstellar_2014/


Do You Believe?

Do You Believe – Lives intersect on the streets of Chicago – rich lives, poor lives, desperate lives.


They each have their dreams, their secrets, and their hurts, which keep them from connecting with each other, and keep them from living their lives to the fullest.
A ‘chance’ encounter with a street preacher challenges a local pastor into putting his faith to the test. How he reacts ricochets to those around him, drawing them all towards the place where they must confront an essential question for themselves: “Do you believe? Do you believe in the power of the cross?”

The Newsboys song “We Believe” will be featured at the end of the upcoming film. Tait joked “In a perfect world I would have the Newsboys to keep making records and a write a record to a movie.”
source:http://www.christianfilmdatabase.com/review/do-you-believe/ 

Dove's Review
Do You Believe?” is the best faith-based film I have ever seen! I have seen a lot of them, so this is certainly a compliment. The superlatives will flow from the faith-based community regarding this film. The stories are wonderful, the characters are rich, the acting is terrific, and several characters’ stories meet at the climax on the same bridge during a stormy night. The overriding theme of the film is that God can take things that are not good and weave them into something that is. It is the “God’s eye view,” according to Pastor Matthew (Ted McGinley), that must be kept in perspective. To anyone who has ever faced death, lost a loved one (especially a child), been at a crossroads or crisis of some kind, this movie will resonate.

McGinley is excellent as the pastor who is confronted by an old man who makes him think about the Cross and what he truly believes about it. The pastor then leaves crosses at every seat for his next sermon and preaches about it. An example of one of the stories that intertwine is that of JD (Lee Majors) and his wife Terry (Cybill Shepherd), who lost their daughter Kathleen some years earlier. They have left her room unchanged. A friend named Joe (Brian Bosworth) helps a homeless woman named Samantha (Mira Sorvino) and her daughter Lily (newcomer Makenzie Moss) and they wind up in front of JD and Terry when they serve them a meal at a Salvation Army lunch. Feeling compassion for them on a rainy night when JD knows they are sleeping in a car, he invites them into their home. Lily tells her mother they need to thank Jesus for the bed. And, despite her caution, Terry cannot help but feel drawn to Lily and her mother.

Other stories feature two brothers named P.B. (for Pretty Boy) and Kriminal (played by Senyo Amoaku). Pretty Boy feels drawn toward God and finds Him one night when he flees police and runs into a church just as Pastor Matthew is preaching about the cross and asks, “Do you believe?” Kriminal doesn’t like the change in Pretty Boy, but a turning point takes place in his life following a tragic event. Add to this an unwed mother who decides to keep her baby while on the way to the abortion clinic when she feels the baby kick, and Carlos, a former Marine who carries a lot of guilt and yet saves a young woman from committing suicide, and you have plenty of drama. Sean Astin is perfect as a skeptic doctor who witnesses a medical miracle before his eyes and tries to deny it. In addition, a paramedic named Bobby (Liam Matthews) hands a dying man a cross and ministers to him, but faces retribution from the man’s wife and her attorney.

The stories all seamlessly fit together by film’s end, and the bridge scene is dramatic and powerful. I was not bored once during the movie and was deeply moved on several occasions. The director did an excellent job. The film is peppered with just the right number of humorous moments to relieve some of the tension the characters face. We are happy to award “Do You Believe?” our “Faith-Friendly” Seal for ages twelve plus. See this movie! This film has it all!
source:http://www.dove.org/review/10830-do-you-believe/

Movie Info

A dozen different souls-all moving in different directions, all longing for something more. As their lives unexpectedly intersect, they each are about to discover there is power in the Cross of Christ ... even if they don't believe it. Yet. When a local pastor is shaken to the core by the visible faith of an old street-corner preacher, he is reminded that true belief always requires action. His response ignites a faith-fueled journey that powerfully impacts everyone it touches in ways that only God could orchestrate. This stirring new film from the creators of God's Not Dead arrives in theaters Spring of 2015. More than a movie, it's a question we all must answer in our lifetimes: DO YOU BELIEVE? 
(C) Submersive Media
 
Rating: PG-13 (for thematic elements, an accident sequence and some vioelnce)
Genre: Drama
Directed By: Jonathan M. Gunn
Written By: Chuck Konzelman , Cary Solomon
In Theaters:
US Box Office: $7.2M
Runtime:
Freestyle Releasing - Official Site
source:http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/do_you_believe/ 


Selasa, 31 Maret 2015

Cinderella

Synopsis

Many a fairy tale concludes with, "And they lived happily ever after." Fewer begin from such a place. But for Ella, life was indeed enchanted.


 

Growing up in a sprawling country mansion, her days consist of communicating with her animal friends (especially four mice living in the house) and basking in the delight of her doting parents. But then Ella's mother falls mortally ill. On her death bed, she beckons Ella close to tell her "a great secret that will see you through all the trials life has to offer: Have courage and be kind."
 
As the years roll by, Ella and her father, a merchant, make a good effort to enjoy life together. But melancholy fills his heart, a longing for companionship. And so, when he meets a beautiful widow with two daughters about Ella's age, it seems a perfect opportunity for a second chapter of familial bliss.

Except that it isn't.
You already know that Lady Tremaine is as cruel as her daughters are vain. And when Ella's father dies on a journey, the teen girl is left with little more in this world than the concepts of courage and kindness her mother bequeathed to her.
And the previously unhoped-for love of a charming prince, of course!
source:http://www.pluggedin.com/movies/intheaters/cinderella-2015.aspx

Parents Reviews

Parents need to know that this non-musical take on Cinderella is true to the classic Disney animated tale, if somewhat more intense given that it's live action instead of a cartoon. As a child, Cinderella (Downton Abbey's Lily James) loses her mother; her father dies when she's older. Both are drawn-out scenes filled with tears and intense sadness, which could upset younger kids. 

The prince's father also dies, and Cinderella is a beautiful, kind, and dutiful young woman (albeit one with an unreailstically tiny, corset-cinched waist) who's left to suffer at the hands of her evil stepmother (the divine Cate Blanchett). 

Everything about the film is visually stunning -- from the sets to the costumes to the actors -- and being a courageous, kind person is a constant theme. But the prince is transfixed by Cinderella after meeting her just once, and she has no future until he comes and rescues her. The stepmother's cruelty and neglect toward Cinderella could scare some kids. There's a little mild language ("stupid," "shut up") and some background drinking at a party.
source:https://www.commonsensemedia.org/movie-reviews/cinderella-2015#

Movie Info

Cate Blanchett stars in this new vision of the Cinderella tale from director Kenneth Branagh and the screenwriting team of Chris Weitz and Aline Brosh McKenna for Disney Pictures. ~ Jeremy Wheeler, Rovi
Rating: PG (for mild thematic elements)
Genre: Science Fiction & Fantasy , Romance
Directed By: Kenneth Branagh
Written By: Aline Brosh McKenna , Chris Weitz
In Theaters:
Runtime:
Walt Disney Studios Pictures - Official Site
source:http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/cinderella_2013/ 


The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

Sonny (Dev Patel) prepares to expand the Best Exotic Marigold Hotel for the Elderly and Beautiful while planning his impending wedding to Sunaina (Tena Desae) in this sequel that reteams director John Madden and screenwriter Ol Parker.

Synopsis

Sonny (Dev Patel) prepares to expand the Best Exotic Marigold Hotel for the Elderly and Beautiful while planning his impending wedding to Sunaina (Tena Desae) in this sequel that reteams director John Madden and screenwriter Ol Parker. As the contented residents of the hotel begin settling into their new lives, Sonny strives to balance the demands of planning his wedding with the responsibilities of purchasing a new property. Meanwhile, new guests Guy (Richard Gere) and Lavinia (Tamsin Greig) find themselves in a predicament after arriving at the hotel to find there is only one vacancy. Perhaps with a little innovation new co-manager Muriel (Maggie Smith) can find a means of accommodating the hotel's latest occupants, but she'll have her work cut out for her as Douglas (Bill Nighy) and Evelyn (Judi Dench) begin their new careers in Jaipur while flirting with the idea of a serious romance -- like Norman (Ronald Pickup) and Carol (Diana Hardcastle). With romance in the air it's no wonder that Madge (Celia Imrie) has her pick of handsome suitors, and as stalwart Muriel safeguards the many secrets of the vivacious residents, Sonny and Sunaina learn that planning a traditional Indian wedding can be a true test of commitment. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
source:http://www.fandango.com

Movie Info

Now that The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel is full up with its long-term residents, co-managers Muriel Donnelly (Maggie Smith) and Sonny Kapoor (Dev Patel) have a dream of expansion, and they've found just the place: The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. With plans underway, Evelyn and Douglas (Judi Dench and Bill Nighy) venture into the Jaipur workforce, wondering where their regular breakfast dates will lead. Meanwhile, Norman and Carol (Ronald Pickup and Diana Hardcastle) navigate the swirling waters of an exclusive relationship, as Madge (Celia Imrie) juggles two very eligible suitors, and recent arrival Guy Chambers (Richard Gere) finds a muse in Sonny's mother, Mrs. Kapoor (Lillete Dubey) for his next novel. As his marriage to Sunaina (Tina Desai), the love of his life, quickly approaches, Sonny finds his plans for the new hotel making more claims on his time than he has available. Perhaps the only one who may know the answers is Muriel, the keeper of everyone's secrets. As the big day nears, family and guests alike find themselves swept up in the irresistible intoxication of an Indian wedding.​ -- (C) Fox Searchlight

Rating: PG (for some language and suggestive comments)
Genre: Comedy
Directed By: John Madden
Written By: Ol Parker
In Theaters: Mar 6, 2015 Wide
US Box Office: $28.1M
Runtime: 2 hr. 2 min.
20th Century Fox - Official Site
source:http://www.rottentomatoes.com/

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