LEGENDS OF OZ: DOROTHY’S RETURN ENCOURAGES EMPOWERMENT Yet another spinoff from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, this time a musical animation, Legends of Oz: Dorothy’s Return begins with the desperate Lion, Scarecrow, and Tin Man warning Dorothy (voiced by Lea Michele) about something dreadful going on in Oz. The road from Kansas to Emerald City […]
OBSOLESCENCE IS THE THEME OF TRANSCENDENCE Fear that machines would put laborers out of work prompted the Luddites to try to destroy machines. The prospect that machines can keep everyone alive indefinitely and will run everything through artificial intelligence has spawned Transcendence, a film posing Luddism as a strategy to use before machines cross
ILO ILO DEMONSTRATES WHY SINGAPOREANS ARE UNHAPPY AND NEVER SMILE The Chinese title translates “Mom and Dad Are Not Home,” but the English title is the name of a town in the Philippines. Singaporean middle class parents of 10-year-old Jiale (played by Koh Jia Ler) have just hired Teresa (Angeli Bayani), a Filipino maid who
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