Goodfellas (1990)

Goodfellas (1990)

Goodfellas (or GoodFellas) is a 1990 American biographical crime film directed by Martin Scorsese. It is a film adaptation of the 1986 non-fiction book Wiseguy by Nicholas Pileggi, who co-wrote the screenplay with Scorsese. The film narrates the rise and fall of Lucchese crime family associate Henry Hill (the first-person narrator in the film) and his friends over a period from 1955 to 1980.

Scorsese initially named the film Wise Guy and postponed making it; later, he and Pileggi changed the name to Goodfellas. To prepare for their roles in the film, Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci, and Ray Liotta often spoke with Pileggi, who shared research material left over from writing the book. According to Pesci, improvisation and ad-libbing came out of rehearsals wherein Scorsese gave the actors freedom to do whatever they wanted. The director made transcripts of these sessions, took the lines he liked best, and put them into a revised script the cast worked from during principal photography.

Made on a budget of $25 million, Goodfellas grossed $46.8 million domestically. It received positive reviews from critics and was nominated for six Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director, and it won for Pesci in the Best Actor in a Supporting Role category. Scorsese's film won five awards from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, including Best Film and Best Director. Additionally, Goodfellas was named Best Film of the year by various film critics groups.

Goodfellas is often regarded as one of the greatest films of all time, both in the crime genre and in general. In 2000, the film was deemed "culturally, historically, and aesthetically significant" and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry by the United States Library of Congress. Its content and style have been emulated in numerous other films and television shows. Scorsese followed up making this film with two more about organized crime: Casino (1995) and The Departed (2006).

Storyline

Henry Hill is a small time gangster, who takes part in a robbery with Jimmy Conway and Tommy De Vito, two other gangsters who have set their sights a bit higher. His two partners kill off everyone else involved in the robbery, and slowly start to climb up through the hierarchy of the Mob. Henry, however, is badly affected by his partners' success, but will he stoop low enough to bring about the downfall of Jimmy and Tommy?

Plot

Henry Hill says, "As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a gangster", referring to his idolizing the Lucchese crime family gangsters in his blue-collar, predominantly Italian-American neighborhood in East New York, Brooklyn. Wanting to be part of something significant, Henry quits school and goes to work for them. He is able to make a living for himself and learns the two most important lessons in life: "Never rat on your friends, and always keep your mouth shut", the advice given to him after being acquitted of criminal charges early in his career.

Henry is taken under the wing of the local mob capo, Paul "Paulie" Cicero and his associates: James "Jimmy the Gent" Conway, who loves hijacking trucks; and Tommy DeVito, an aggressive armed robber with a temper. In late 1967, they commit the Air France Robbery. Enjoying the perks of their criminal life, they spend most of their nights at the Copacabana carousing with women. Henry meets and later marries Karen, a Jewish woman from the Five Towns. Karen is initially troubled by Henry's criminal activities but is soon seduced by his glamorous lifestyle.

On June 11, 1970, Billy Batts, a mobster with the Gambino crime family, insults Tommy about being a shoeshine boy in his younger days. Enraged, Tommy and Jimmy attack and kill him. Realizing their murder of a made man would mean retribution from the Gambino family, Jimmy, Henry, and Tommy cover up the murder. They transport the body in the trunk of Henry's car and bury it upstate. Six months later, Jimmy learns the burial site will be developed, forcing them to exhume the decomposing corpse and move it.

Henry sets up his mistress, Janice Rossi, in an apartment. When Karen finds out about their relationship, she tries to confront Janice at the apartment building and then threatens Henry at gunpoint at home. Henry goes to live in the apartment with Janice, but Paulie soon directs him to return to Karen after completing a job for him; Henry and Jimmy are sent to collect from an indebted gambler in Florida, which they succeed at after beating him. However, they are arrested after being turned in by the gambler's sister, a typist for the FBI. Jimmy and Henry receive 10-year prison sentences.

In prison, Henry sells drugs to support his family on the outside. After his early release in 1978, Henry further establishes himself in the drug trade, ignoring Paulie's warnings, and convincing Tommy and Jimmy to join him. The crew commits the Lufthansa heist at John F. Kennedy International Airport, stealing $6 million. However, after many of the participants ignore Jimmy's command not to buy expensive luxuries with their share for fear of attracting police attention, he has them killed. Tommy is killed in retribution for Batts' murder, having been fooled into thinking he would become a made man.

By May 11, 1980, Henry is a nervous wreck from cocaine use and insomnia, as he tries to organize a drug deal with his associates in Pittsburgh. However, he is arrested by narcotics agents and jailed. On his release, Karen tells him she flushed $60,000 worth of cocaine down the toilet to prevent FBI agents from finding it during their raid, leaving the family virtually penniless. Feeling betrayed by Henry's dealing drugs, Paulie gives him $3,200 and ends his association with him. Facing federal charges, Henry decides to enroll in the Witness Protection Program after realizing Jimmy intends to have him killed. Forced out of his gangster life, he now has to face living in the real world. He narrates: "I'm an average nobody. I get to live the rest of my life like a schnook".

Subtitles explain that Henry was subsequently arrested on drug charges in Seattle, Washington but has been clean since 1987. He and Karen separated in 1989 after 25 years of marriage. Paul Cicero died in Fort Worth Federal Prison of respiratory illness in 1988 at age 73. Jimmy, in 1990, was serving a 20-year-to-life sentence in a New York State prison.

Cast

• Robert De Niro as James "Jimmy the Gent" Conway
• Ray Liotta as Henry Hill
• Joe Pesci as Tommy DeVito
• Lorraine Bracco as Karen Hill
• Paul Sorvino as Paul "Paulie" Cicero
• Frank Sivero as Frankie Carbone
• Frank Vincent as Billy Batts
• Tony Darrow as Sonny Bunz
• Mike Starr as Frenchy
• Chuck Low as Morrie Kessler
• Frank DiLeo as Tuddy Cicero
• Johnny Williams as Johnny Roastbeef
• Samuel L. Jackson as Parnell "Stacks" Edwards
• Frank Adonis as Anthony Stabile
• Catherine Scorsese as Tommy DeVito's mother
• Gina Mastrogiacomo as Janice Rossi
• Debi Mazar as Sandy
• Margo Winkler as Belle Kessler
• Welker White as Lois Byrd
• Julie Garfield as Mickey Conway
• Paul Herman as Dealer
• Detective Ed Deacy as himself
• Christopher Serrone as young Henry Hill
• Charles Scorsese as Vinnie
• Michael Vivalo as Nicky Eyes
• Michael Imperioli as "Spider"
• Tony Sirico as Tony Stacks
• Frank Pellegrino as Johnny Dio
• Tony Ellis as bridal shop owner
• Elizabeth Whitcraft as Tommy's girlfriend
• Illeana Douglas as Tommy's other girlfriend
• Anthony Powers as Jimmy Two-Times
• Assistant U.S. Attorney Ed McDonald as himself
• Tony Lip as Frankie "the wop"
• Joseph Bono as Mikey Franzese
• Kevin Corrigan as Michael Hill
• Tobin Bell as parole officer
• Henny Youngman as himself
• Vito Picone as "Vito"

User Review

Amazing is the one and only word to say for this film. I have always thought that Goodfellas was one of the greatest films ever made and set a landmark in the 90's or even in movie history. I bought Goodfellas last week and I got to watch the film a couple days ago. I really just couldn't lay my eyes off the film and everything about it was just simply worth watching. The acting was excellent, Ray Liotta, Robert DeNiro, Joe Pesci, Lorraine Bracco, and other actors did great and almost all of the characters they portrayed were 100% accurate. The camera-work also was brilliant and Martin Scorsese does a beautiful job by putting excellent camera shots in his films and I give him high credit for that. The soundtrack too is one of the best soundtracks ever made and the song "Layla," put chills down my spine of how great this song fitted the film. Overall, Martin Scorsese made his best film in my opinion and him and Nicholas Pileggi made an excellent and sharp script that made this, the greatest mob film still today.

The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)

The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)

The Wolf of Wall Street is a 2013 American biographical black comedy crime film, directed by Martin Scorsese. The screenplay by Terence Winter is adapted from the memoir of the same name by Jordan Belfort and recounts from Belfort's perspective his career as a stockbroker in New York City and how his firm Stratton Oakmont engaged in rampant corruption and fraud on Wall Street that ultimately led to his downfall. Leonardo DiCaprio (who also co-produced the film) stars as Belfort, with Jonah Hill as his business partner and friend Donnie Azoff, Margot Robbie as his second wife Naomi Lapaglia, and Kyle Chandler as Patrick Denham, the FBI agent who tries to bring him down. Matthew McConaughey, Rob Reiner, Jon Favreau, and Jean Dujardin are also featured. The film marks the director's fifth collaboration with DiCaprio, after Gangs of New York (2002), The Aviator (2004), The Departed (2006), and Shutter Island (2010), as well as his second collaboration with Winter after the television series Boardwalk Empire (2010–14).

The Wolf of Wall Street premiered in New York City on December 17, 2013, and was released theatrically on December 25, 2013, in the United States, distributed by Paramount Pictures. The film was the first to have been released entirely through digital distribution. It was a major commercial success, grossing more than $392 million worldwide during its original theatrical run to become Scorsese's highest-grossing movie to date and the 17th-highest-grossing film of 2013. The film was controversial for its morally ambiguous depiction of events, explicit sexual content, profanity, depiction of hard drug use, and the use of animals during production.

The film received mostly positive reviews from critics, with praise for Scorsese's direction and the performances of DiCaprio and Hill, and was nominated for several awards, including five nominations at the 86th Academy Awards ceremony: Best Picture, Best Director for Scorsese, Best Writing (Adapted Screenplay) for Winter, and Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor nominations for DiCaprio and Hill, respectively. The film did not win in any category, although DiCaprio did win Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy at the 71st Golden Globe Awards, where the film was also nominated for Best Picture – Musical or Comedy. It was also recognized by numerous other awards ceremonies, as well as guilds and critics' associations.

Storyline

Jordan Belfort is a Long Island penny stockbroker who served 22 months in prison for defrauding investors in a massive 1990s securities scam that involved widespread corruption on Wall Street and in the corporate banking world, including shoe designer Steve Madden.

Plot

In 1987, Jordan Belfort (Leonardo DiCaprio) loses his job as a Wall Street stockbroker for L.F. Rothschild, employed under Mark Hanna (Matthew McConaughey) due to Black Monday. He takes a job at a boiler room brokerage firm on Long Island that specializes in penny stocks. Thanks to his aggressive pitching style and the high commissions, Belfort makes a small fortune.

Jordan befriends his apartment neighbor Donnie Azoff (Jonah Hill), and the two found their own company. They recruit Jordan's accountant parents as well as several of Jordan's friends, whom Jordan trains in the art of the "hard sell". The basic method of the firm is a pump and dump scam. To cloak this, Belfort gives the firm the respectable name of "Stratton Oakmont". After an exposé in Forbes, hundreds of ambitious young financiers flock to his company.

As Jordan becomes immensely successful, he slides into a decadent lifestyle of prostitutes and Quaaludes. He has an affair with a woman named Naomi Lapaglia (Margot Robbie). When his wife Teresa finds out, they divorce and he marries Naomi, soon having a daughter. Meanwhile, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the FBI begin investigating Stratton Oakmont.

Jordan illegally makes $22 million in three hours upon securing the IPO of Steve Madden. This brings him and his firm to the attention of the FBI, mainly agent Patrick Denham (Kyle Chandler). To hide his illegitimate money, Jordan opens a Swiss bank account with corrupt banker Jean-Jacques Saurel (Jean Dujardin) in the name of Naomi's aunt Emma (Joanna Lumley), who is a British citizen and thus outside the reach of American authorities. He uses the wife and in-laws of his friend Brad Bodnick (Jon Bernthal), who have European passports, to smuggle cash into Switzerland.

Donnie gets into a public fight with Brad, and while Donnie escapes, Brad is arrested. Jordan also learns from his private investigator that the FBI is wiretapping his phones. Fearing for his son, Jordan's father pressures him to leave Stratton Oakmont and lie low while Jordan's lawyer orchestrates a deal to keep him out of prison. Jordan, however, does not want to quit, and talks himself into staying in the middle of his farewell speech.

Jordan, Donnie and their wives are on a yacht trip to Italy when they learn that Aunt Emma has died of a heart attack. Over the objections of his grieving wife and his yacht captain, Jordan decides to sail to Monaco so they can drive to Switzerland without getting their passports stamped at the border and settle the bank account, but a violent storm capsizes their yacht. After their rescue by Italians, the plane sent to take them to Geneva is destroyed when a seagull flies into the engine. Jordan considers this a sign from God and decides to sober up.

Two years later, the FBI arrests Jordan because Saurel, arrested in Florida on an unrelated charge, has told the FBI about Jordan's criminal activities. Since the evidence against him is overwhelming, Jordan agrees to gather evidence on his colleagues in exchange for leniency.

Fed up with Jordan's lifestyle, Naomi tells Jordan she is divorcing him and wants full custody of their children. After their argument turns violent, Jordan relapses on cocaine and attempts to kidnap their daughter Skylar before crashing his car into a fence. Naomi and the Belforts' housekeeper rescue Skylar from the vehicle and leave Jordan, bleeding and defeated, in the car.

The next morning, Jordan wears a wire to work. Jordan slips Donnie a note warning him about the wire. Feeling disappointed and betrayed, Donnie gives the note to the FBI, and Jordan is arrested for breaching his cooperation deal. The FBI raids and shuts down Stratton Oakmont.

Despite this one breach, Jordan receives a reduced sentence for his testimony and is sentenced to 36 months in a minimum security prison in Nevada. After his 2006 release, Jordan makes a living hosting seminars on sales technique.

Cast

• Leonardo DiCaprio as Jordan Belfort
• Jonah Hill as Donnie Azoff (based on Danny Porush)
• Margot Robbie as Naomi Lapaglia (based on Nadine Caridi)
• Matthew McConaughey as Mark Hanna
• Kyle Chandler as Patrick Denham, FBI agent who is lead of the investigation
• Rob Reiner as Max "Mad Max" Belfort
• Jon Bernthal as Brad Bodnick
• Jon Favreau as Manny Riskin
• Jean Dujardin as Jean-Jacques Saurel
• Joanna Lumley as Aunt Emma
• Cristin Milioti as Teresa Petrillo
• Christine Ebersole as Leah Belfort
• Shea Whigham as Captain Ted Beecham
• Katarina Čas as Chantalle Bodnick
• P. J. Byrne as Nicky "Rugrat" Koskoff
• Kenneth Choi as Chester Ming
• Brian Sacca as Robbie "Pinhead" Feinberg
• Henry Zebrowski as Alden "Sea Otter" Kupferberg
• Ethan Suplee as Toby Welch
• Barry Rothbart as Peter Diblasio
• Jake Hoffman as Steve Madden
• Mackenzie Meehan as Hildy Azoff
• Spike Jonze as Dwayne
• Bo Dietl as Bo Dietl
• Jon Spinogatti as Nicholas
• Madison McKinley Garton as Heidi
• Aya Cash as Janet
• Thomas Middleditch as Stratton Broker in a Bowtie
• Shea Coleman as Skylar Belfort (14 months old)
• Giselle Eisenberg as Skylar Belfort (4 years old)
• Johnnie Mae as Violet
• Jordan Belfort as Auckland Straight Line Host

User Review

"The Wolf of Wall Street" is infectiously entertaining. It is probably the funniest movie I have seen all year with witty dialogue, over the top characters, and filled with energy that bleeds off the screen. Between all the fun however, there is also a story about addiction and how it can cause a downward spiral in your life whether it be drugs, money, or power.

Acclaimed director Martin Scorsese does a wonderful job keeping this movie at a high at all times. Never once does this movie lose it's energy or sense of humor much like the drug induced characters. There are a lot of quick cuts and edits to keep the movie feeling as If you are on drugs as well as playing high energy music in some of the more serious situations.

The cast brings their "A" game. The stand out is obviously Leonardo DiCaprio, who pretty much owns and excels any scene he is in. This film really showcases his diverse range.

Overall "The Wolf of Wall Street" is a full on adrenaline ride that never loses momentum. It's directed with a lot of flair and energy and has an incredibly well written script that gives it depth and a ton of laughs. The cast is fantastic and DiCaprio gives his best and most fun filled performance to date. I really enjoyed this movie and think it's the funniest movie of the year 4.5/5

American Sniper (2014)

American Sniper (2014)

American Sniper is a 2014 American biographical war film directed by Clint Eastwood and written by Jason Hall. It is loosely based on the memoir American Sniper: The Autobiography of the Most Lethal Sniper in U.S. Military History (2012) by Chris Kyle, with Scott McEwen and Jim DeFelice. The film follows the life of Kyle, who became the deadliest marksman in U.S. military history with 255 kills from four tours in the Iraq War, 160 of which were officially confirmed by the Department of Defense. While Kyle was celebrated for his military successes, his tours of duty took a heavy toll on his personal and family life. The film stars Bradley Cooper as Kyle and Sienna Miller as his wife Taya, with Luke Grimes, Kyle Gallner, Sam Jaeger, Jake McDorman, and Cory Hardrict in supporting roles.

The world premiere was on November 11, 2014, at the American Film Institute Festival, followed by a limited theatrical release in the United States on December 25, 2014 and a wide release on January 16, 2015. The film became a major success, with a worldwide gross of over $547 million, making it the highest-grossing film of 2014 in the United States ($350 million), the highest-grossing war film of all time unadjusted for inflation, and Eastwood's highest-grossing film to date.

The film received mostly positive reviews from critics, with the majority of praise directed towards Cooper's lead performance and Eastwood's direction, though it attracted some controversy over its portrayal of both the War in Iraq and of Chris Kyle. At the 87th Academy Awards, American Sniper received six nominations, including Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Actor for Cooper, ultimately winning one award for Best Sound Editing

Storyline

Chris Kyle was nothing more than a Texan man who dreamed of becoming a cowboy, but in his thirties he found out that maybe his life needed something different, something where he could express his real talent, something that could help America in its fight against terrorism. So he joined the SEALs in order to become a sniper. After marrying, Kyle and the other members of the team are called for their first tour of Iraq. Kyle's struggle isn't with his missions, but about his relationship with the reality of the war and, once returned at home, how he manages to handle it with his urban life, his wife and kids.

Plot

Growing up in Texas, Chris Kyle is taught by his father how to shoot a rifle and hunt deer. Years later, Chris has become a ranch hand and rodeo cowboy, and returns home early, to find his girlfriend in bed with another man. After telling her to leave, he is mulling it over with his brother when he sees news coverage of the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings and decides to enlist in the navy. He qualifies for special training and becomes a U.S. Navy SEALs sniper.

Chris meets Taya Renae at a bar, and the two soon marry. He is sent to Iraq after the September 11 attacks of 2001. His first kills are a woman and boy who attacked U.S. Marines with a Russian made RKG-3 anti-tank grenade. Chris is visibly upset by the experience but later earns the nickname "Legend" for his many kills. Assigned to hunt for the al-Qaeda leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Chris interrogates a family whose father offers to lead the SEALs to "The Butcher", al-Zarqawi's second-in-command. The plan goes awry when The Butcher captures the father and his son, killing them while Chris is pinned down by a sniper using a Romanian PSL sniper rifle. This sniper goes by the name Mustafa and is an Olympic Games medalist from Syria. Meanwhile, the insurgents issue a bounty on Chris.

Chris returns home to his wife and the birth of his son. He is distracted by memories of his war experiences and by Taya’s concern for them as a couple; she wishes he would focus on his home and family.

Chris leaves for a second tour and is promoted to Chief Petty Officer. Involved in a shootout with The Butcher, he helps in killing him. When he returns home to a newborn daughter, Chris becomes increasingly distant from his family. On Chris' third tour, Mustafa seriously injures a unit member, and the unit is evacuated back to base. When they decide to return to the field and continue the mission, another SEAL is killed by gunfire.

Guilt compels Chris to undertake a fourth tour, and Taya tells him that she may not be there when he returns. Back in Iraq, Chris is assigned to kill Mustafa, who has been sniping U.S. Army combat engineers building a barricade. Chris' sniper team is placed on a rooftop inside enemy territory. Chris spots Mustafa and takes him out with a risky long distance shot at 2100 yards (1920 meters), but this exposes his team's position to numerous armed insurgents. In the midst of the firefight, and low on ammunition, Chris tearfully calls Taya and tells her he is ready to come home. A sandstorm provides cover for a chaotic escape in which Chris is injured and almost left behind.

After Chris gets back, on edge and unable to adjust fully to civilian life, he is asked by a Veterans Affairs psychiatrist if he is haunted by all the things he did in war. When he replies that it is “all the guys [he] couldn't save" that haunt him, the psychiatrist encourages him to help severely wounded veterans in the VA hospital. After that Chris gradually begins to adjust to home life.

Years later, on February 2, 2013, a happy Chris says goodbye to his wife and family as he leaves to spend time with a veteran at a shooting range. An on-screen subtitle reveals: "Chris Kyle was killed that day by a veteran he was trying to help", followed by stock footage of crowds standing along the highway for his funeral procession.[9] More are shown attending his memorial service.

Cast

• Bradley Cooper as Chris Kyle
• Sienna Miller as Taya Renae Kyle
• Max Charles as Colton Kyle
• Luke Grimes as Marc Lee
• Kyle Gallner as Goat-Winston
• Sam Jaeger as Captain Martens
• Jake McDorman as Ryan "Biggles" Job
• Cory Hardrict as 'D' / Dandridge
• Navid Negahban as Sheikh Al-Obodi
• Eric Close as DIA Agent Snead
• Eric Ladin as Squirrel
• Kevin "Dauber" Lacz as himself
• Brian Hallisay as Captain Gillespie
• Keir O'Donnell as Jeff Kyle
• Marnette Patterson as Sarah
• Leonard Roberts as Instructor Rolle
• Sammy Sheik as Mustafa, a character partially based on Iraqi sniper Juba
• Mido Hamada as "The Butcher"

User Review

American Sniper is Clint Eastwood's harrowing take on Chris Kyle's life and his service in the Navy as a SEAL sniper who killed nearly 200 enemy soldiers. The film is relentlessly violent and disturbing but honors the life of the late Chris Kyle in a very admirable way. It doesn't show this man as an invincible legend, it shows him as a mere man with a heart and soul that are clearly broken due to his sacrifice for his country. Bradley Cooper delivers the best performance of his career as Chris Kyle. Cooper didn't merely bulk up for the role, he became this man without any hesitation and doesn't hit a false note. Clint Eastwood proves that he can still deliver a phenomenal film even in his mid-eighties. It isn't only impressive for his age, but American Sniper is an impressive film in general. It doesn't wallow in classic war film clichès, it tells Kyle's story the way he told it in the book and while some creative liberties were taken in telling the story regarding pacing, it is an excellent film. It isn't an all out war film like The Hurt Locker, it is a heavy drama with plenty of gut wrenching scenes both on and off the battle field. The most interesting part of this film is the parallels between Kyle's life as a sniper and Kyle's deteriorating life state side. It is an interesting dynamic to add to a film like this and echoes past films from the 70s such as Coming Home and The Deer Hunter. On a technical level, American Sniper sores with great cinematography that is a bit more colorful when compared to Eastwood's past films and excellent sound design. You see every wound and hear every gunshot with realistic velocity. It is a truly great cinematic experience. Overall, American Sniper is a great film that will tug at your heart strings much like last year's Lone Survivor and even goes one step beyond that film and gives us grade A entertainment with grade A acting. It stands as one of the best films of the year.

The 33 (2015)

The 33 (2015)

The 33 (Spanish: Los 33) is a 2015 English-language Chilean survival drama film, directed by Patricia Riggen and written by Mikko Alanne, Craig Borten, and José Rivera. The film is based on the real events of the 2010 mining disaster, in which a group of thirty-three miners were trapped inside the San José Mine in Chile for more than two months. The film stars Antonio Banderas as Mario Sepúlveda, who sent videos to the rescuers to notify them about the miners' condition.

Storyline

Based on the real-life event, when a gold and copper mine collapses, it traps 33 miners underground for 69 days.

Plot

Dozens of people from Copiapó, Chile, work in the San José mine. The owner ignores the warnings of the failing stability of the mine, which collapses a short time later. The only path inside the mine is completely blocked, and the thirty-three miners manage to get to the rescue chamber. They discover that the radio is useless, the medical kit is empty, the ventilation shafts lack the required ladders, and there is very little stored food. Mario Sepúlveda becomes the leader of the miners, dividing the foods rations and stopping the outbursts of violence or despair. The mine company does not attempt any rescue, and the relatives of the miners gather around the gates.

The government of Chile decides on active intervention, and orders the use of drills to reach the chamber. The first exploratory boreholes move off-target, but a later one reaches the required destination. The miners attach a note to the drill bit to announce their survival. They receive new food and clothing, and television communication with the surface. A second, bigger, drill system is prepared to retrieve the miners one by one

Cast

The following names have been confirmed:

• Antonio Banderas as "Super" Mario Sepúlveda, public face for the group of miners, who made daily video logs to assure the public that they were all right.
• Rodrigo Santoro as Minister Laurence Golborne, the Minister of Mining of Chile.
• Juliette Binoche as María Segovia,[4] Darío's sister.
• James Brolin
• Lou Diamond Phillips as Luis "Don Lucho" Urzúa, the shift foreman, who took a leading role while the miners were trapped and helped make more accurate maps of the cave for the rescue crews.
• Mario Casas as Álex Vega,[4] a miner who suffered from kidney problems and hypertension.
• Juan Pablo Raba as Darío Segovia, drill operator and son of a miner.
• Kate del Castillo as Katy Valdivia de Sepúlveda
• Cote de Pablo as Jessica Vega, the wife of Álex Vega.
• Jacob Vargas as Edison "Elvis" Peña, the miners' song leader, who requested that Elvis Presley songs be sent down the mine.
• Bob Gunton as President Sebastián Piñera,president of Chile.
• Gabriel Byrne as André Sougarret,the engineer who masterminded the escape operation.
• Naomi Scott as Escarlette Sepúlveda Valdivia, Mario and Katy's daughter.
• Marco Treviño as José Henríquez, the miners' pastor, who led daily prayers within the shelter.
• Oscar Nunez as Yonni Barrios
• Alejandro Goic as Franklin Lobos
• Tim Willcox as himself
• Federico Luppi
• Tenoch Huerta
• Pedro Calvo

User Review

For sixty-nine days in the summer and autumn of 2010, the world was transfixed by a human-interest story like few others in history. It involved the plight of thirty-three mineworkers trapped inside an unstable mountain mine in the Atacama Desert in the southern part of Chile. During what appeared to be a routine mining operation some two thousand feet below the desert surface on August 5, 2010, the mountain started shifting very violently, trapping these workers in a shelter, blocked by a mass of rock twice the size of New York's Empire State Building. With three days worth of rations, the miners managed to survive an extra two weeks before massive drills managed to reach them with additional supplies. But during that time, it was necessary to engage in a very careful rescue operation that took an additional seven and a half weeks; and it involved a great deal of risk. Utilizing a Phoenix rescue capsule designed in the U.S., the multi-national rescue operation resulted in all thirty-three men coming out of there alive on October 13th, some in very bad shape, but all in one piece, physically anyway. This is the story told in the 2015 movie THE 33.

Well directed by Patricia Riggen, a Mexican-born female director whose credits include 2007's UNDER THE MOON, THE 33 stars Antonio Banderas and Lou Diamond Phillips as the principal leaders of the miners who find themselves trapped in that mountain, literally between rock and a hard place, and a Chilean mining company and government that seem unwilling to believe that any of them are alive. The claustrophobic nature of the saga is very well depicted by Riggen, and give the added gravitas by the largely Latin American cast that portray the miners, including Banderas and Phillips. A fair amount of this film was made on location not far from the actual mine itself, in Copiapo, Chile; and the remoteness is photographed with the utmost stark reality imaginable. Riggen also depicts the kind of international media attention that the story got, and how the families and wives of the miners, including Juliette Binoche, who portrays the wife of miner Dario Segovia, played in the film by Juan Pablo Rada, angrily pressed the case for the Chilean government to do more, even to the point of asking for help from outside sources, including an American mining and drilling expert portrayed by James Brolin. Gabriel Byrne and Rodrigo Santoro portray the government officials charged with finding a way of drilling down to the miners without making the mountain even more unstable than it already is, and thus guaranteeing a cave-in that would make rescue impossible.

While it may be easy to portray the Chilean mine disaster depicted in THE 33 as an example of corporate malfeasance that had nearly fatal results, that socio-political aspect is not really discussed in the film, although when the end credits (featuring the real life miners) roll, the end title card indicates that the mining company never compensated the miners for their nearly ten weeks of psychological and spiritual horror (in essence, they got the Shaft, so to speak). The film, however, does go to great lengths to depict the aforementioned psychological and spiritual horror they went through, including a subtle hint that, unless food was sent down to them, they might resort to cannibalism if any of them died off in that hellhole, where temperatures reached 100 degrees Fahrenheit the entire time. Even without this hint, though, the film that THE 33 most closely resembles is 1993's ALIVE, which depicted the survivors of the 1972 Andean plane crash whose survival did partially depend on cannibalism; it also resembles the equally compelling true-life 1995 space saga APOLLO 13. Another aspect well depicted is how transfixed the international media, including every news outlet in the United States, covered this story in a way that, given how tabloid-focused it had become by then, was largely tasteful, though also suitably dramatic.

The whole enterprise is topped off by an appropriate, somber, and Andean-flavored score by James Horner, which turned out to be one of the last film scores he worked on before he perished in a plane crash in Ventura County, California in June 2015. Despite the fairly leisurely pace (some would, mistakenly in my opinion, call it slow), THE 33, like ALIVE and APOLLO 13, is done in the right way, avoiding spectacle most of the time, using CGI only when necessary, and steering clear of sensationalism. As such, it will likely count as one of the best movies of 2015.

The Imitation Game (2014)

The Imitation Game (2014)

The Imitation Game is a 2014 British-American historical drama thriller film directed by Morten Tyldum, with a screenplay by Graham Moore loosely based on the biography Alan Turing: The Enigma by Andrew Hodges (previously adapted as the stage play and BBC drama Breaking the Code). It stars watch Benedict Cumberbatch as real life British cryptanalyst Alan Turing, who decrypted German intelligence codes for the British government during World War II.

The film's screenplay topped the annual Black List for best unproduced Hollywood scripts in 2011. The Weinstein Company acquired the film for $7 million in February 2014, the highest amount ever paid for U.S. distribution rights at the European Film Market. It was released theatrically in the United Kingdom on November 14 and the United States on November 28.

The Imitation Game was a commercial and critical success. By April 2015, it had grossed over $227 million worldwide against a $14 million production budget, making it the highest-grossing independent film of 2014. It was nominated in eight categories at the 87th Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director (Tyldum), Best Actor (Cumberbatch), and Best Supporting Actress (Keira Knightley). It won an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. It garnered five nominations in the 72nd Golden Globe Awards and was nominated in three categories at the 21st Screen Actors Guild Awards, including Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture. It also received nine British Academy of Film and Television Arts nominations, including Best Film and Outstanding British Film, and won the People's Choice Award at the 39th Toronto International Film Festival.

The LGBT civil rights advocacy and political lobbying organisation the Human Rights Campaign honoured The Imitation Game for bringing Turing's legacy to a wider audience. However, the film was criticised for its inaccurate portrayal of historical events and

Storyline

Based on the real life story of legendary cryptanalyst Alan Turing, the film portrays the nail-biting race against time by Turing and his brilliant team of code-breakers at Britain's top-secret Government Code and Cypher School at Bletchley Park, during the darkest days of World War II.

Plot

In 1951, two policemen, Nock and Staehl, investigate mathematician Alan Turing after an apparent break-in at his home. Turing's suspicious behaviour and lack of war records triggers Nock's suspicion that he might be a Soviet spy. During his interrogation by Nock, Turing tells of his time working at Bletchley Park.

When Britain declares war on Germany in 1939, Turing travels to Bletchley Park, where, under the direction of Commander Alastair Denniston, he joins the cryptography team of Hugh Alexander, John Cairncross, Peter Hilton, Keith Furman, and Charles Richards. The team are trying to break the ciphers created by the Enigma machine, which the Nazis use to provide security for their radio messages.

Turing is difficult to work with and considers his colleagues inferior. He remembers 1927, when Turing was unhappy and bullied at boarding school. He developed a friendship with Christopher Morcom, who sparks an interest in cryptography, and eventually Turing developed romantic feelings for him. Before Turing could confess his love, Morcom dies from bovine tuberculosis.

He works alone to design a machine to decipher Enigma. After Denniston refuses to fund construction of the machine, Turing writes to Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who puts Turing in charge of the team and funds the machine. Turing fires Furman and Richards and places a difficult crossword in newspapers to find replacements. Joan Clarke, a Cambridge graduate, and Jack Good pass Turing's test, but Clarke's parents will not allow her to work with male cryptographers. Turing arranges for her to live and work with the female clerks who intercept the messages and shares his plans with her.

Turing's machine, which he names Christopher, is constructed but Turing cannot determine the Enigma settings before the Germans reset the encryption each day. Denniston orders it destroyed and Turing fired, but the other cryptographers threaten to leave if Turing is dismissed. After Clarke plans to leave on the wishes of her parents, Turing proposes marriage, which she accepts. During their reception, Turing confirms his homosexuality to Cairncross, who warns him to keep it secret. After overhearing a conversation with a clerk about messages she receives, Turing has an epiphany, realising he can program the machine to decode words he already knows exist in certain messages - such as the word "weather" (as the morning messages always include a weather forecast) and the phrase "Heil Hitler." After he recalibrates the machine, it quickly decodes a message and the cryptographers celebrate; however, Turing realises they cannot act on every decoded message or the Germans will realise Enigma has been broken.

Turing discovers that Cairncross is a Soviet spy. When Turing confronts him, Cairncross argues that the Soviets are allies working for the same goals and threatens to disclose Turing's homosexuality if Cairncross's role as an agent is revealed. When MI6 agent Stewart Menzies appears to threaten Clarke, Turing reveals that Cairncross is a spy. Menzies reveals that he knew this already and planted Cairncross among them in order to leak messages to the Soviets for British benefit. Fearing for her safety, Turing tells Clarke to leave Bletchley Park, revealing that he is homosexual and lying about never having cared for her. They break up, but she remains at Bletchley. After the war, Menzies tells the cryptographers to destroy their work and that they can never see one another again or share what they have done.

In the 1950s Turing is convicted of indecency and, in lieu of a jail sentence, undergoes chemical castration so he can continue his work. Clarke visits him in his home and witnesses his physical and mental deterioration. They reconcile as she reminds him that his work saved millions of lives.

In the end, the group is seen burning the documents, and a caption reveals Alan Turing committed suicide when he was 41 years old.

Cast

• Benedict Cumberbatch as Alan Turing
• Keira Knightley as Joan Clarke
• Matthew Goode as Hugh Alexander
• Rory Kinnear as Detective Nock
• Allen Leech as John Cairncross
• Matthew Beard as Peter Hilton
• Charles Dance as Cdr. Alastair Denniston
• Mark Strong as Maj. Gen. Stewart Menzies
• James Northcote as Jack Good
• Steven Waddington as Supt Smith
• Tom Goodman-Hill as Sgt. Staehl
• Alex Lawther as young Alan Turing
• Jack Bannon as Christopher Morcom
• Tuppence Middleton as Helen
• David Charkham as Joan's Father, William Kemp Lowther Clarke
• Victoria Wicks as Joan's Mother, Dorothy Clarke

I Saw the Light (2015)

I Saw the Light (2015)

I Saw the Light is a 2015 biography film directed, written and produced by Marc Abraham, starring Tom Hiddleston as Hank Williams and Elizabeth Olsen as Audrey Williams. It is based on the book Hank Williams: The Biography by Colin Escott, George Merritt, and William MacEwen. It was screened in the Special Presentations section of the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival. The film is scheduled to be released on March 25, 2016

Cast

• Tom Hiddleston as Hank Williams
• Elizabeth Olsen as Audrey Sheppard Williams, Hank's wife, manager, and duet partner
• David Krumholtz as James Dolan, a New York journalist
• Bradley Whitford as Fred Rose, songwriter who co-wrote several songs with Hank
• Maddie Hasson as Billie Jean, a 19-year-old pursued by Hank after his divorce from Audrey and eventually becomes his second wife and widow.
• Cherry Jones as Lillie Skipper Williams, Hank's mother
• Josh Pais as Dore Schary, a movie director, producer and former head of MGM Studios
• Wrenn Schmidt as Bobbie Jett, had a short-lived relationship with Hank after his divorce from Audrey. She gave birth to their daughter, Jett Williams[9]
• James DuMont as WB Nolan, a music promoter and small-town mayor
• Casey Bond as Jerry Rivers[10]
• Michael Rinne as Lum York, bass player in Hank's band, Drifting Cowboys
• Joshua Brady as Sammy Pruett, lead guitarist in Hank's band, Drifting Cowboys
• Wes Langlois as Don Helms, steel guitarist in Hank's band, Drifting Cowboys
• Von Lewis as Ray Price, a Country singer and roommate of Hank Williams
• Fred Parker Jr. as Faron Young
• Rob Boltin as Frank Walker, Hank's friend and producer

In the Heart of the Sea (2015)

In the Heart of the Sea (2015)

Based on the 1820 event, a whaling ship is preyed upon by a sperm whale, stranding its crew at sea for 90 days, thousands of miles from home.

The overarching theme of Ron Howard’s In the Heart of the Sea is one decidedly about man vs beast, framed around the hunt for oil that has lasted generations and caused many good people over the years to commit atrocities they are not proud of. Towards the end of the movie, we learn that oil has been struck underground for the first time, leaving the characters based on real life to believe that the horrors of husbands and fathers going away for years at a time at sea to murder these sperm whales are coming to an end.

Nah, we would just find something else to kill over oil, like real people.

Here’s the problem though, none of the darker, intellectually stimulating themes are explored until well over halfway into the movie, and unfortunately by that point you are ready to tap-out considering that much of the proceedings are bubblegum Hollywood action scenes designed to assault your vision with oncoming 3D. For clarification, the screening we were shown was in a standard format, but you don’t need to be an expert analysis on film to know what audience is being catered to here.

Forgettable action aside, the narrative is also quite a mess, with the decision to periodically showcase Herman Melville (Ben Wishaw) having a sit-down with an elderly Thomas Nickerson (Brendan Gleeson) over the details of the 1820 sinking of the Essex (by the gargantuan whale nicknamed Moby Dick) to use as groundwork for his acclaimed novel, coming across awkwardly inserted. It’s evident by the narration that the events we see unfold are essentially a confession of the horrifically dehumanizing things these sailors had to do to survive while stranded at sea, and that the audience is supposed to empathize with all of this locked away emotional pain, but the meat of the film lacks far too much character depth and appearances from the famous whale.

One aspect In the Heart of the Sea gets right is the conscious decision to keep first mate Owen Chase’s (Chris Hemsworth) wife off-screen for the duration of the journey. Not only would you have overly dramatic manipulative scenes of a soon-to-be mother crying and grieving over the absence of her husband otherwise, but without her presence in the film, we can vicariously feel Owen’s longing of wanting to make it back home alive after becoming emaciated while lost at sea, thanks to one life or death encounter.

So that’s one instance of empathy, leaving the rest of the film surprisingly hollow and more committed to special effects sequences that yield no emotional impact. It’s not solely due to the weak characters the film provides, but also the result of some overly obvious and downright terrible green screen effects of whalers crashing over waves in tiny boats, directly looking straight out into the ocean. Furthermore, and this is something I won’t completely hold against the movie, but after having seen The Revenant the day before this screening, In the Heart of the Sea is simply pitiful execution at immersion. The former film was shot entirely on location with all natural light and absolutely no electricity or effects to enhance the weather or conditions.

What I will say however, is that the physical transformation of many actors involved, especially Chris Hemsworth, is absolutely commendable and properly elicits that these guys are truly suffering. As days turn into months, depriving each whaler further of food, they look considerably malnourished and weak. It’s the kind of imagery that will make you clutch that big bucket of popcorn next to you a little tighter.

Specifically touching on Chris Hemsworth, it’s also welcome that his protagonist is complex with a mixed personality of both likable and unlikable qualities. He’s very cocky during the first act (whether it be because he’s upset he is not yet a captain after being promised so, or reassuring his wife nothing bad will happen), but naturally becomes humbled over the course of the destruction costing many lives. We never lose sense that he’s a good meaning, well-intentioned guy that was ultimately just devoted to building a better life for his family, even at the risk of putting himself in harms way.

It’s really the supporting cast that is entirely forgettable and underdeveloped. Most notably is the captain of the ship, who is unqualified but born into the vocation. He is advised by his father to act as their superior rather than their friends, while Owen Chase is pretty much the antithesis of this, making for your standard good guy/bad guy archetypes. The captain is also humbled in his own way, but again, he’s not that complex a character to where you will care. Owen also has interactions with a younger Thomas Nickerson (Tom Holland), but yet again nothing compelling comes from it.

The constant interruptions of his older self also ruin the flow, serving no purpose to the overall narrative. There’s even a grossly melodramatic moment where he mentions that he never admitted to cannibalism out of fear his wife would leave him for partaking in such an abomination, where afterwards she immediately consoles him. It’s just a way to gloss over darker material without actually showing it, which is probably because the one time a character is shown doing something shocking, such as committing suicide, you don’t care anyway. The person has made no impression on the viewer whatsoever for that death to mean something important.

Still, despite the disjointed narrative and forgettable characters, the most unforgivable flaw with In the Heart of the Sea are its 3D driven effects that feel far too manufactured and lacking in intensity, while only giving Moby Dick about 15 minutes of screen-time. At least Chris Hemsworth is great.