DIVERGENT EXPOSES CONTRADICTIONS IN A UTOPIAN SOCIETY Based on the novel by Veronica Roth, the film Divergent takes place in a Chicago a century after a war that has devastated the planet and made life possible only in small self-contained communities. To maintain order, the population is divided into six groups—intellectuals (Erudite), police (Undaunted), government […]
THE WOLF OF WALL STREET DEFRAUDS FILMVIEWERS A biopic of Jordan Belfort (played by Antonio DeCaprio), The Wolf of Wall Street portrays the rise of a onetime Bronx-born Wall Street neophyte working for a firm until its demise in the 1987 stock market crash to his rise as a major stock market player, his FBI
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THE SECRET LIFE OF WALTER MITTY IS REVEALED AGAIN A short story by James Thurber has now inspired two films, the latest directed by Ben Stiller, who plays the title role. Stiller, who often plays a shy guy whose antics are intended to amuse, is aptly cast in the role of a person in charge
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WHY IS HUNGER GAMES: CATCHING FIRE SO POPULAR? An immensely popular film at the box office, the film depicts a totalitarian state ruled by President Swan (played by Donald Sutherland), whose Machiavellian adviser Plutarch Heavensbee (Philip Seymour Hoffman) thinks that the state can keep people in check by an annual life-and-death contest among two the
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A GAY-LESBIAN SUPPORT GROUP IS FORMED IN GEOGRAPHY CLUB Michael Huffington (Ariana’s former husband) has directed Geography Club to advise gays and lesbians on how to combat shyness and bullying in high schools. The film features a first kiss between gays, closeted gays and lesbians, blonde girls trying to force men to have sex, macho
AN ANIMATED HISTORY OF BRAZIL IS PROVIDED BY RIO 2096 From the enslavement and massacres of native Amazonians to resistance to military rule from 1964-1985 and the future, director Luis Bolognesi has produced an animated film focusing on a 600-year love story between an immortal warrior (voiced by Selton Mello) and Janaína (Camila Pitanga). MH
SOME PEOPLE ARE TRULY ASTONISHING IN NEBRASKA All films are “political” because power is omnipresent, even the feel-good portrayal of small-town America provided in Nebraska, directed by Alexander Payne. Woody Grant (played by Bruce Dern) is not enjoying his life as a disheveled octogenarian father in Billings, Montana. One day Woody receives a letter from
THE BOOK THIEF IS A REMINDER OF HARSH CONDITIONS IN NAZI GERMANY Among the almost infinite possibilities to find drama during the days of Nazi Germany, the novel The Book Thief (2006) by Markus Zuzak has now been brought to the screen by director Brian Perceval. When the film begins, 11-year-old Liesel Meminger (played by
AN EX-COP LEADS A MANHUNT IN GO FOR SISTERS Director John Sayles likes to depict those who are down-and-out but struggle to overcome the odds. In Go for Sisters, he focuses on Bernice (played by LisaGay Hamilton), a parole officer for the Los Angeles Police Department whose wayward son is a person of interest in
KILL YOUR DARLINGS IS A BIOPIC OF ALLEN GINSBURG AT COLUMBIA Growing up as the son of poet Louis Ginsberg (played by David Cross), New Jersey-born Ginsberg (Daniel Radcliffe) attended straight-laced Columbia during the 1940s, but he was looking for something different. In a sense, the biopic is really about his dorm friend Lucien Carr
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