Opinion as a Movie-freak

Summary
A graduate student, Ian Gray, is researching the evolution of human eyes with Karen and Kenny, in order to discredit creationists by proving that eyes have evolved. Seven years later, when the hospital takes an iris scan of his son and enters into the database, they appear to match with another person's eyes, which suggested that their son may be some sort of reincarnation of the deceased man.


Genre : Drama
Country : USA
   
Cast :
Michael Pitt : Ian
Brit Marling : Karen
Astrid Bergès-Frisbey : Sofi

Director : Mike Cahill

Summary
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.

Genre : Biography/Drama/War
Country : UK/USA
 
Cast :
Benedict Cumberbatch : Alan Turing
Keira Knightley  : Joan Clarke

Matthew Goode : Hugh Alexander

Director : Morten Tyldum

Summary
Shortly after the Second World War, Max visits an English pawn shop to sell his trumpet. The shopkeeper recognizes the tune Max plays as one on a wax master of an unreleased recording, discovered and restored from shards found in a piano salvaged from a cruise ship turned hospital ship, now slated for demolition. This chance discovery prompts a story from Max, which he relates both to the shopkeeper and later to the official responsible for the doomed vessel, for Max is a born storyteller. He was befriended by another young man, the pianist in the same band, whose long unlikely name was Danny Boodman T.D. Lemons 1900, though everyone just called him 1900, the year of his birth.

Genre : Drama/Music/Romance
Country : Italy

Cast :
Tim Roth : 1900
Pruitt Taylor Vince : Max Tooney
Bill Nunn : Danny Boodmann

Director : Giuseppe Tornatore

Alternative title : La leggenda del pianista sull'oceano

English Here ...

Genre : Biography/Drama/War
Country : Australia/UK
 
Cast :
Colin Firth : Eric Lomax
Jeremy Irvine : Eric Lomax
Nicole Kidman : Patti

Director :
Jonathan Teplitzky

Summary
Eric Lomax was one of thousands of Allied prisoners of war forced to work on the construction of the Thai/Burma railway during WW2. His experiences, after the secret radio he built to bring news and hope to his colleagues was discovered, left him traumatised and shut off from the world. Years later, he met Patti, a beautiful woman, on a train and fell in love. Patti was determined to rid Eric of his demons. Discovering that the young Japanese officer who haunted her husband was still alive, she faced a terrible decision. Should Eric be given a chance to confront his tormentor ?

Summary
Theodore is a lonely man in the final stages of his divorce. When he's not working as a letter writer, his down time is spent playing video games and occasionally hanging out with friends. He decides to purchase the new OS1, which is advertised as the world's first artificially intelligent operating system. Theodore quickly finds himself drawn in with Samantha, the voice behind his OS1. As they start spending time together they grow closer and closer and eventually find themselves in love. Having fallen in love with his OS, Theodore finds himself dealing with feelings of both great joy and doubt. As an OS, Samantha has powerful intelligence that she uses to help Theodore in ways others hadn't, but how does she help him deal with his inner conflict of being in love with an OS?

Genre : SF/Romance/Drama
Country : US
 
Cast :
Joaquin Phoenix : Theodore
Scarlett Johansson : Samantha 
Amy Adams : Amy

Director :
Spike Jonze

Genre : Comedy/Romance/SF
Country: USA

Cast :
Domhnall Gleeson : Tim
Rachel McAdams : Mary
Bill Nighy : De vader

Director:
Richard Curtis

Summary
At the age of 21, Tim Lake discovers he can travel in time... The night after another unsatisfactory New Year party, Tim's father tells his son that the men in his family have always had the ability to travel through time. Tim can't change history, but he can change what happens and has happened in his own life-so he decides to make his world a better place...by getting a girlfriend. Sadly, that turns out not to be as easy as you might think.

Genre : Drama/History
Country: USA

Cast :
Forest Whitaker : Cecil Gaines
Oprah Winfrey :  Gloria Gaines
John Cusack : Richard Nixon
Robin Williams : Eisenhower

Director :
Lee Daniels

Summary

Cecil Gaines was a sharecropper's son who grew up in the 1920s as a domestic servant for the white family who casually destroyed his. Eventually striking out on his own, Cecil becomes a hotel valet of such efficiency and discreteness in the 1950s that he becomes a butler in the White House itself. There, Cecil would serve numerous US Presidents over the decades as a passive witness of history with the American Civil Rights Movement gaining momentum even as his family has troubles of its own. As his wife, Gloria, struggles with her addictions and his defiant eldest son, Louis, strives for a just world, Cecil must decide whether he should take action in his own way.

Genre : Mystery/Thriller
Country : USA

Cast :
Leonardo DiCaprio : Teddy Daniels
Mark Ruffalo : Chuck Aule
Ben Kingsley : Dr. Cawley

Director :
Martin Scorsese

Summary
It's 1954, and up-and-coming U.S. marshal Teddy Daniels is assigned to investigate the disappearance of a patient from Boston's Shutter Island Ashecliffe Hospital. He's been pushing for an assignment on the island for personal reasons, but before long he wonders whether he hasn't been brought there as part of a twisted plot by hospital doctors whose radical treatments range from unethical to illegal to downright sinister. Teddy's shrewd investigating skills soon provide a promising lead, but the hospital refuses him access to records he suspects would break the case wide open. As a hurricane cuts off communication with the mainland, more dangerous criminals "escape" in the confusion, and the puzzling, improbable clues multiply, Teddy begins to doubt everything - his memory, his partner, even his own sanity.
My opnion

A cuckoo's nest on an island
Links : IMDB

Nederlands hier ...

Genre : Western/Action
Country : USA

Cast :
Jamie Foxx : Django
Christoph Waltz : Dr. King Schultz
Leonardo DiCaprio : Calvin Candie

Director :
Quitin Tarantino

Summary
Former dentist, Dr. King Schultz, buys the freedom of a slave, Django, and trains him with the intent to make him his deputy bounty hunter. Instead, he is led to the site of Django's wife who is under the hands of Calvin Candie, a ruthless plantation owner.

Genre : Drama
Country : USA

Cast :
Denzel Washington : Whip Whitaker
Kelly Reilly : Nicole
Don Cheadle : Hugh Lang
John Goodman : Harling Mays

Director :
Robert Zemeckis

Summary
Whip Whitaker is a commuter airline pilot. While on a flight from Orlando to Atlanta something goes wrong and the plane starts to fly erratically. With little choice Whip crashes the plane and saves almost all on board. When he wakes up in the hospital, his friend from the airline union introduces him to a lawyer who tells him there's a chance he could face criminal charges because his blood test reveals that he is intoxicated with alcohol and cocaine. He denies being impaired, so while an investigation is underway, he is told to keep his act together. However, letting go of his addiction is not as easy as it seems...
My opinion

A top, excellent, brilliant, beautiful movie about the struggle of a person who fights against his addiction. The plane crash is actually not the main subject in this film. That's only used to attract people to the theater because it looks so spectacular. In a way it's just for satisfying our tendency to have a peek at disasters. And it gave the SE department the opportunity to flex its muscles. If that's the only thing that excites you, you'll be disappointed about the rest of the movie.

But the strength of this film and the admirable performance of Denzel is the realistic portray of the archetype of an alcoholic. For people who have been in such a stage of their life, there are many points that are so characteristic and recognizable. Others will call it a fake alcoholic or acting a bit pathetic about an addiction.


But Denzel shows what such a person has to endure : the shame, the profligate, the awareness of having a problem, feeling helpless and missing the strength to get over it and to resist the urge. There are a few small things that indicate that Denzel has studied it thoroughly. Such as knowing up to the minute how long he's been sober, the guilty and ashamed feeling at an AA meeting and then leaving with such an air as if that's only for suckers to go there and the hand that comes back into the picture to take that bottle.
At the funeral of a colleague he asks another colleague to lie a little about his problem. That shows how low a person can go when being addicted to something.


The fact he's a pilot and he was able to prevent a plane crashing in such a severe way that there would be more victims, is only a way that leads to the unveiling of his alcohol problem for years. He might as well been driving a tricycle against a lamppost to achieve the same result, but the images wouldn't be so spectacular. And trust me, the end is not as moralizing as I read here and there but shows how someone who can make that click in his life also ensures that his life and environment changes dramatically.

My rating 9/10
Links : IMDB

Nederlands hier ...

Genre : Action
Country : USA

Cast :
Bruce Willis : John McClane
Alan Rickman : Hans Gruber
Bonnie Bedelia : Holly McClane

Director :
John McTiernan

Summary
New York City Detective John McClane has just arrived in Los Angeles to spend Christmas with his wife. Unfortunatly, it is not going to be a Merry Christmas for everyone. A group of terrorists, led by Hans Gruber is holding everyone in the Nakatomi Plaza building hostage. With no way of anyone getting in or out, it's up to McClane to stop them all.