RocknRolla

RocknRolla is a 2008 British crime film written and directed by Guy Ritchie, and starring Gerard Butler, Tom Wilkinson, Mark Strong, Thandie Newton, Idris Elba, Ludacris, Gemma Arterton and Dragan Micanovic.

The film revolves around Lenny, a "rocknrolla" (a successful crime boss and jack-the-lad), and was made in London. It was released on 5 September 2008 in the UK, hitting #1 in the UK box office in its first week of release.

In London, a real-estate scam puts millions of pounds up for grabs, attracting some of the city's scrappiest tough guys and its more established underworld types, all of whom are looking to get rich quick. While the city's seasoned criminals vie for the cash, an unexpected player -- a drugged out rock 'n' roller presumed to be dead but very much alive, comes in and changes the plans.

 Critical reaction to the film has been mixed to positive, with 60% positive out of 134 reviews on the film review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes. The website Metacritic, which compiles and then aggregates major film critics' reviews, gave the film a 53 out of 100, which is categorized as having mixed or average reviews.
Chris Tilly of IGN UK gave the film a positive review with four out of five stars, saying "He's hardly re-inventing the wheel with this movie, but RocknRolla is nonetheless a comedy thriller that is every bit as accomplished as his early work, and without doubt a witty, adrenalin-fuelled blast from start to finish.".
Roger Ebert gave the film three stars, stating that "It never slows down enough to be really good, and never speeds up enough to be the Bourne Mortgage Crisis, but there's one thing for sure: British actors love playing gangsters as much as American actors love playing cowboys, and it's always nice to see people having fun."

 

Dark City

Dark City is a 1998 science fiction film directed by Alex Proyas. In the film, human inhabitants live in a city where the sun is not seen, and their lives are manipulated by Strangers studying humanity. The film was written by Proyas, Lem Dobbs, and David S. Goyer, and stars Rufus Sewell, William Hurt, Kiefer Sutherland, and Jennifer Connelly.

A man struggles with memories of his past, including a wife he cannot remember, in a nightmarish world with no sun and run by beings with telekinetic powers who seek the souls of humans.

Slumdog Millionaire

Slumdog Millionaire is a 2008 British film directed by Danny Boyle, screenplay written by Simon Beaufoy, and co-directed in India by Loveleen Tandan. It is an adaptation of the novel Q & A (2005) by Indian author and diplomat Vikas Swarup. Set and filmed in India, the film tells the story of Jamal Malik, a young man from the dharavi slums of Mumbai who appears on the Indian version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? (Kaun Banega Crorepati in the Hindi version) and exceeds people's expectations, thereby arousing the suspicions of the game show host and of law enforcement officials.

The Counterfeiters

The Counterfeiters (German: Die Fälscher) is a 2007 Austrian-German film written and directed by Stefan Ruzowitzky. Based on the memoir by Adolf Burger, the film tells the inspiring story of a pre-World War II criminal whose cunning and fiery spirit enable him to overcome deadly odds and survive life in Germany's Sachsenhausen concentration camp. It fictionalizes Operation Bernhard, a secret plan by the Nazis during the Second World War to destabilize the United Kingdom by flooding its economy with forged Bank of England currency. The film centers on a Jewish counterfeiter, Salomon 'Sally' Sorowitsch, who is coerced into assisting the Nazi operation at the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. The film is based on a memoir written by Adolf Burger, a Jewish Slovak typographer who was imprisoned in 1942 for forging baptismal certificates to save Jews from deportation, and later interned at Sachsenhausen to work on Operation Bernhard. Ruzowitsky consulted closely with Burger through almost every stage of the writing and production. The film won the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar at the 80th Academy Awards in 2008.

City of God

City of God (Portuguese: Cidade de Deus) is a 2002 Brazilian crime drama film directed by Fernando Meirelles and Kátia Lund, released in its home country in 2002 and worldwide in 2003. It was adapted by Bráulio Mantovani from the 1997 novel of the same name written by Paulo Lins. It depicts the growth of organized crime in the Rio de Janeiro suburb of Cidade de Deus, between the end of the '60s and the beginning of the '80s, with the closure of the film depicting the war between the drug dealer Li'l Zé and criminal Knockout Ned. The tagline is "Fight and you'll never survive..... Run and you'll never escape."

The cast includes Alexandre Rodrigues, Leandro Firmino da Hora, Jonathan Haagensen, Douglas Silva, Alice Braga and Seu Jorge. Most of the actors were, in fact, residents of favelas such as Vidigal and the Cidade de Deus itself.

The film received four Academy Award nominations in 2004: Best Cinematography (César Charlone), Best Directing (Meirelles), Best Editing (Daniel Rezende) and Best Writing (Adapted Screenplay) (Mantovani). Before that, in 2003 it had been chosen to be Brazil's runner for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, but it was not nominated to be one of the five finalists.

Meirelles and Lund went on to create the City of Men TV series and film City of Men, which share some of the actors (notably leads Douglas Silva and Darlan Cunha) and their setting with City of God.

Youth gangs took over the slums of Rio de Janiero during the 1960s and didn't relinquish their stronghold until the mid-1980s. Only a sucker wouldn't have turned to crime and this is exactly how naive teen Rocket (Alexandre Rodrigues) views himself. His attempts in illegal activity fail as he finds potential victims too friendly. Equally unsuccessful in love, he regularly fails to lose his virginity. Blood spills throughout the streets of the Ciudad de Deus as gang leader Li'l Ze (Leandro Firmino da Hora) is challenged by local druglords and a gang of pre-teens known as the Runts. Rocket shoots all of this action with his weapon of choice, a camera. Director Fernando Meirelles combines visual flashiness with dark history in telling the story of three decades of unrest in underground Rio de Janiero. Technically flawless, the Brazilian film uses a rapid-cutting style to flash back and forth in time. Cinematographer Cesar Charlone shoots with an overexposed glow in a film that may seem numb to violence, but reveres photography. Director Meirelles was assisted by Katia Lund, a filmmaker who had previously shot in the Rio ghettos

The film was screened out of competition at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival. Brazil, City of God garnered the largest audience for a domestic film in 2002, with over 3.1 million tickets sold, and a gross of 18.6 million reais ($10.3 million). The film also grossed over 7 million dollars in the U.S. and over 27 million worldwide. City of God is listed at #16 in the Internet Movie Database's Top 250 Films as voted by the site's users.

City of God received impressive positive acclaim from major publications in the United States, gathering 93% of favourable reviews on Rotten Tomatoes. Empire chose it as the 177th best film of all time in 2008, and Time chose it as one of the 100 greatest movies of all time. In the UK it was ranked 3rd in Film4's "50 Films to See Before You Die".

Reference:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0317248/
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/city_of_god/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_God_(film)

Boy A

Boy A is a 2007 BAFTA award-winning film adaptation of Jonathan Trigell's critically acclaimed novel of the same name which shares some similarities with the notorious James Patrick Bulger case. The film premièred at the 2007 Toronto Film Festival. It is directed by John Crowley and stars Andrew Garfield (who won the 2008 Best Actor BAFTA TV Award for his performance), Peter Mullan and Katie Lyons. The USA cinematic release is distributed by the Weinstein Company. It is a story of a young ex-con Jack, newly released from serving a prison sentence for a murder he committed as a child.

Bright futures are undercut by dark pasts in Boy A, a quiet, ruminative tale about a violent act committed by a man in his tormented youth, and his haunting inability to find a way to have a peaceful adulthood years later. Fresh out of a 14-year prison sentence, 24-year-old Jack (Andrew Garfield) arrives in Manchester looking for a new start. He has a new name, a new job, and a carefully sealed criminal record, but an entire boyhood spent behind bars has left him permanently looking over his shoulder. Guided by his fatherly caseworker, Terry (Peter Mullan), Jack attempts to forge meaningful ties with a local girl and a chatty co-worker, but what happiness he finds is challenged when his true identity seeps (and then floods) through the cracks of his new façade. Directed with claustrophobic flair by John Crowley, Boy A unfolds in tight hallways and on narrow roads; for Jack, even in freedom, every room's a prison. As the story of Jack's new life moves forward, sharply lit flashbacks continually offer new details of his childhood crime. The backward glances work as both a compelling narrative technique and a glimpse into Jack's conscience (and the viewer's); the harsh reminder of his former self seem to play endlessly in his mind, impossible to reconcile with the gentle, introspective adult he longs to become.

Efficiently directed by John Crowley, Boy A avoids exploitation while never soft-selling its thorny subject matter. The movie is taut with suspense but culminates in wise resignation as the hero comes to understand he's running from a part of himself. Boy A is one of those rare movies that takes the idea of rehabilitation seriously. In the end, it may present a worst-case scenario, but it does so with unusual depth and conviction. Boy A currently holds a 91% approval rating based on 53 professional critical reviews on aggregator Rotten Tomatoes.

Reference:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1078188/

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/boy_a/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boy_A_(film)

Appaloosa

Appaloosa is a 2008 American Western film based on the 2005 novel of the same name by crime writer Robert B. Parker. The film was directed by Ed Harris and co-written by Harris and Robert Knott. Appaloosa stars Harris alongside Viggo Mortensen. The film premiered in the 2008 Toronto International Film Festival, was released in select cities on September 19, 2008 and expanded into wide-release on October 3, 2008. A traditional genre western, Appaloosa sets itself apart with smart psychology, an intriguing love triangle, and good chemistry between the leads.

The movie shares some narrative similarities with the 1959 Western Warlock, directed by Edward Dmytryk and starring Henry Fonda, Anthony Quinn and Richard Widmark. There is also a 1966 Western named The Appaloosa which stars Marlon Brando, but the two films are unrelated.

Actor Ed Harris takes only his second stab at directing, following the Oscar-winning feature Pollock with this spirited western. Harris draws on a strong cast, many of whom have acted with him in previous films, to tell the story of two gunfighters attempting to bring peace to the small town of Appaloosa in the late 1800s. Virgil Cole (Harris) and Everett Hitch (Viggo Mortensen) ride into the windswept New Mexico town and are hired to bring vigilante entrepreneur Randall Bragg (Jeremy Irons) to justice. Bragg has imposed a reign of terror over Appaloosa, but his murderous actions are tempered when Cole and Hitch take control. Matters get complicated when widower Allison French (Renee Zellweger) flounces into town and variously woos Cole, Hitch, and Bragg, allowing Harris to throw in a few neat twists as his two principal characters attempt to bring the miscreant entrepreneur to justice.

Appaloosa is a slow-moving and beautifully shot feature that perfectly translates the dusky New Mexico landscape to celluloid. This film draws heavily on deeply affecting performances from his leads. Irons is particularly affecting as the baleful Bragg, who brings a real air of menace to the screen any time he appears on camera. The nuanced turns by Harris and Mortensen play like a master class in subtlety, with the two seasoned actors perfectly delivering two stoic characters who are masking a lifetime of pain and suffering.

Early reviews of Appaloosa from the 2008 Toronto International Film Festival were lukewarm. Brad Frenette of the National Post said "the film feels double its 114-minute running time, but Appaloosa redeems itself through unexpected moments of levity, Harris's steady direction and the god amongst men, Lance Henriksen." Frenette also said Renee Zellweger is "mostly a bust" and Viggo Mortensen "oozes cool." Popjournalism reviewer Sarah Gopaul said Harris and Mortensen spend too much time talking and discussing their feelings, which she said made the film too light for the gritty Western genre. Gopaul said Ed Harris and Viggo Mortensen delivered decent performances and that Renee Zellweger's character has more depth than the traditional romantic interest in a Western. The New Yorker’s David Denby called it “a well-made, satisfying, traditionalist Western with some odd quirks and turns.”
On Rotten Tomatoes, Appaloosa is currently rated at 76% on the Tomatometer, based on 149 reviews.
The film appeared on some critics' top ten lists of the best films of 2008. Ray Bennett of The Hollywood Reporter named it the 8th best film of 2008, and Mike Russell of The Oregonian named it the 10th best film of 2008.

Reference:

• http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0800308/
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appaloosa_%28film%29
• http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/10008785-appaloosa/

The Visitor

The Visitor is a 2008 American drama film written and directed by Thomas McCarthy. The screenplay focuses on a lonely man in late middle age whose life changes when he is forced to face issues relating to identity, immigration, and cross-cultural communication in post-9/11 New York City. For The Visitor, McCarthy won the 2008 Independent Spirit Award for Best Director, while Richard Jenkins was nominated for Best Actor in the 2009 Academy Awards.

In a world of six billion people, it only takes one to change your life. In actor and filmmaker Tom McCarthy’s follow-up to his award winning directorial debut The Station Agent, Richard Jenkins (Six Feet Under) stars as a disillusioned Connecticut economics professor whose life is transformed by a chance encounter in New York City.

Sixty-two-year-old Walter Vale (Jenkins) is sleepwalking through his life. Having lost his passion for teaching and writing, he fills the void by unsuccessfully trying to learn to play classical piano. When his college sends him to Manhattan to attend a conference, Walter is surprised to find a young couple has taken up residence in his apartment. Victims of a real estate scam, Tarek (Haaz Sleiman), a Syrian man, and Zainab (Danai Gurira), his Senegalese girlfriend, have nowhere else to go. In the first of a series of tests of the heart, Walter reluctantly allows the couple to stay with him.

Touched by his kindness, Tarek, a talented musician, insists on teaching the aging academic to play the African drum. The instrument’s exuberant rhythms revitalize Walter’s faltering spirit and open his eyes to a vibrant world of local jazz clubs and Central Park drum circles. As the friendship between the two men deepens, the differences in culture, age and temperament fall away.

After being stopped by police in the subway, Tarek is arrested as an undocumented citizen and held for deportation. As his situation turns desperate, Walter finds himself compelled to help his new friend with a passion he thought he had long ago lost. When Tarek’s beautiful mother Mouna (Hiam Abbass) arrives unexpectedly in search of her son, the professor’s personal commitment develops into an unlikely romance.

And it’s through these new found connections with these virtual strangers that Walter is awakened to a new world and a new life.   

The film was named best of the year by the Washington Post, the Charlotte Observer, and the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. It also was cited as one of the year's ten best by numerous publications, including the Chicago Reader, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, The Hollywood Reporter, The Wall Street Journal, and the New York Post.

Reference:

• http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0857191/
• http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/visitor/
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Visitor_%282008_film%29

In Bruges

In Bruges is a 2008 black comedy film, directed and written by Martin McDonagh. The film stars Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson as hitmen in hiding, with Ralph Fiennes as their gangster boss. The film takes place – and was filmed – within the Belgian city of Bruges. In Bruges was the opening night film of the 2008 Sundance Film Festival. The film opened in limited release in the United States on 8 February 2008; premiered at the Dublin Film Festival on 15 February 2008; later went on full release in Ireland on 7 March 2008; and opened 18 April 2008 in the United Kingdom.

Colin Farrell won a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy for the film, while Martin McDonagh won a BAFTA Award for Best Original Screenplay.

Mr. McDonagh makes his feature directorial debut on the film, from his own original screenplay. His plays (which include The Lieutenant of Inishmore and The Pillowman) have brought him two Olivier Awards and four Tony Award nominations. He wrote and directed Six Shooter, starring Brendan Gleeson, which earned him the 2006 Academy Award for Best Live-Action Short Film. In Bruges was filmed on location; Bruges (pronounced "broozh"), the most well-preserved medieval city in the whole of Belgium, is a welcoming destination for travelers from all over the world.

But for hit men Ray (Colin Farrell) and Ken (Brendan Gleeson), it could be their final destination; a difficult job has resulted in the pair being ordered right before Christmas by their London boss Harry (two-time Academy Award nominee Ralph Fiennes) to go and cool their heels in the storybook Flemish city for a couple of weeks. Very much out of place amidst the gothic architecture, canals, and cobbled streets, the two hit men fill their days living the lives of tourists. Ray, still haunted by the bloodshed in London, hates the place, while Ken, even as he keeps a fatherly eye on Ray's often profanely funny exploits, finds his mind and soul being expanded by the beauty and serenity of the city.

But the longer they stay waiting for Harry's call, the more surreal their experience becomes, as they find themselves in weird encounters with locals, tourists, violent medieval art, a dwarf American actor (Jordan Prentice) shooting a European art film, Dutch prostitutes, and a potential romance for Ray in the form of Chloë (Clémence Poésy), who may have some dark secrets of her own. And when the call from Harry does finally come, Ken and Ray's vacation becomes a life-and-death struggle of darkly comic proportions and surprisingly emotional consequences.

In Bruges was nominated for a total of seven awards by the British Independent Film Awards,[8] including nominations for The Douglas Hickox Award for Best Debut Director and Best Actor and Best Screenplay, the latter of which it won.[9] It was also been nominated for two IPA Satellite Awards for Best Actor (Brendan Gleeson) and Motion Picture (Comedy or Musical).[10]

In November 2008, Martin McDonagh won the Irish Playwrights and Screenwriters Guild (IPSG) award for Best Film Script for In Bruges.[11]

The film was also nominated for the 2008 Best Motion Picture — Comedy or Musical, and both Brendan Gleeson and Colin Farrell were nominated for Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture (Comedy or Musical), which Farrell won at the 66th Golden Globe Awards. McDonagh won the Best Screenplay BAFTA Award in February 2009.

The film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay in 2009.
The film won the Irish Film and Television Awards for Best International Film in 2009.

Reference:

• http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0780536/
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_Bruges
• http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/in_bruges/ 

Gran Torino

Gran Torino is a 2008 American drama film directed and produced by Clint Eastwood, who also stars in the film. The film marks Eastwood's return to a lead acting role after four years, his previous leading role having been in Million Dollar Baby, and Eastwood has stated that this is his final film as an actor. The film features a predominantly Hmong cast, as well as Eastwood's younger son, Scott Eastwood, playing "Trey". Eastwood's oldest son, Kyle Eastwood, provided the score. The film opened to theaters in a limited release in North America on December 12, 2008, and later to a worldwide release on January 9, 2009.

The story follows Walt Kowalski, a recently widowed Korean War veteran who is alienated from his family and angry at the world. Walt's young Hmong neighbor, Thao, tries to steal Walt's prized 1972 Ford Gran Torino on a dare by his cousin for initiation into a gang. Walt develops a relationship with the boy and his family.

Retired auto worker Walt Kowalski fills his days with home repair, beer and monthly trips to the barber. The people he once called his neighbors have all moved or passed away, replaced by Hmong immigrants, from Southeast Asia, he despises. Resentful of virtually everything he sees--Walt is just waiting out the rest of his life. Until the night someone tries to steal his `72 Gran Torino. The Gran Torino brings his shy teenaged neighbor Thao into his life when Hmong gangbangers pressure the boy into trying to steal it. But Walt stands in the way of both the heist and the gang, making him the reluctant hero of the neighborhood--especially to Thao's mother and older sister, Sue, who insist that Thao work for Walt as a way to make amends. Though he initially wants nothing to do with these people, Walt eventually gives in and puts the boy to work fixing up the neighborhood, setting into motion an unlikely friendship that will change both their lives

For his fourth directorial feature in the span of two years, Clint Eastwood tells the story of a grizzled Korean War vet's reluctant friendship with a Hmong teenage boy and his immigrant family. Set in contemporary Detroit, Gran Torino tackles the shifting cultural and economic landscape of not only the Motor City, but America as well. Eastwood stars as Walt Kowalski, an unabashed bigot who never heard a racial insult he didn't love. Bitter, haunted, and full of pride, Walt refuses to abandon the neighborhood he's lived in for decades despite its changing demographics as he clings desperately to a mindset long since out of step with the times. When his Hmong neighbor Thao tries to steal his prized muscle car as part of a gang initiation, Walt is forced to grapple with the world around him. There is nothing subtle about Walt's bigotry, yet his misanthropy knows no bounds, and Eastwood does a remarkable job of finding the humor in Walt's equal opportunity racism. More than simply a racial morality tale, however, Gran Torino is about the unlikely bonds that people form to navigate the subtle complexities every day life. Gran Torino explores the challenging yet rich new world that can open up when individuals let down their guard, even if for just a moment. Estranged from his family and his church, and without any sense of personal peace, Walt offers all that he has to Thao and his family, namely wisdom and protection. When tragedy strikes the family, Eastwood allows a little classic Harry Callahan to poke through, but the surprising finale posits a hero that Dirty Harry would never have the guts to be. It's a potent symbolic gesture to Eastwood's own growth as a storyteller.

Gran Torino was recognized by the American Film Institute as one of the Ten Best Films of 2008. Clint Eastwood's performance has also garnered recognition. He won an award for Best Actor from the National Board of Review, he was nominated for the Broadcast Film Critics Association (Critics' Choice Awards) and by the Chicago Film Critics Association Awards for Best Actor. An original song from the film, "Gran Torino", was nominated for the Golden Globe Awards for Best Original Song. The music is by Clint Eastwood, Jamie Cullum, Kyle Eastwood, and Michael Stevens, with Cullum penning the lyrics. The Art Directors Guild nominated Gran Torino in the contemporary film category.

Gran Torino was a critical and commercial success, grossing over $269 million worldwide.

Reference:

• http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1205489/
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gran_Torino_%28film%29
• http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/gran_torino/
• http://www.metacritic.com/film/titles/grantorino?q=Gran%20Torino
  

No Country for Old Men

No Country for Old Men is a 2007 crime thriller film adapted for the screen and directed by Joel and Ethan Coen, and starring Tommy Lee Jones, Javier Bardem, and Josh Brolin. Adapted from the Cormac McCarthy novel of the same name, No Country for Old Men tells the story of a botched drug deal and the ensuing cat-and-mouse drama, as three men crisscross each other's paths in the desert landscape of 1980 West Texas. The film examines the themes of fate and circumstance the Coen brothers have previously explored in Blood Simple and Fargo.

No Country for Old Men has been highly praised by critics. Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times called it "as good a film as the Coen brothers...have ever made." Guardian journalist John Patterson said the film proved "that the Coens' technical abilities, and their feel for a landscape-based Western classicism reminiscent of Anthony Mann and Sam Peckinpah, are matched by few living directors." The film was honored with numerous awards, garnering three British Academy of Film awards, two Golden Globes, and four Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Director (Joel and Ethan Coen), Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Supporting Actor (Javier Bardem).

No Country for Old Men premiered in Competition at the Cannes Film Festival on May 19, 2007. The film commercially opened in limited release in 28 theaters in the United States on November 9, 2007, grossing $1,226,333 over the opening weekend. The film expanded to a wide release in 860 theaters in the United States on November 21, 2007, grossing $7,776,773 over the first weekend. The film subsequently increased the number of theaters to 2,037. The film opened in Australia on December 26, 2007, and in the United Kingdom (limited release) and Ireland on January 18, 2008. As of February 13th, 2009, the film has grossed $74,283,000 domestically (United States).

No Country for Old Men was nominated for eight Academy Awards and won four, including Best Picture. Additionally, Javier Bardem won Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role; the Coen Brothers won Achievement in Directing (Best Director) and Best Adapted Screenplay. Other nominations included Best Film Editing (the Coen Brothers as Roderick Jaynes), Best Cinematography (Roger Deakins), Best Sound Editing and Best Sound Mixing.

The film was nominated for four Golden Globe Awards, winning two at the 65th Golden Globe Awards. Javier Bardem won Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture and the Coen Brothers won Best Screenplay – Motion Picture. The film was also nominated for Best Motion Picture – Drama, and Best Director (Coen Brothers). Earlier in 2007 it was nominated for the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival. The Screen Actors Guild gave a nomination nod to the cast for its "Outstanding Performance". The film won top honors at the Directors Guild of America Awards for Joel and Ethan Coen. The film was nominated for nine Orange British Academy Film Awards's in 2008 and won in three categories; Joel and Ethan Coen winning the award for Best Director, Roger Deakins winning for Best Cinematography and Javier Bardem winning for Best Supporting Actor. It has also been awarded the David di Donatello for Best Foreign Film.

Consonant with the positive critical response, No Country for Old Men received widespread formal recognition from numerous North American critics' associations (New York Film Critics Circle, Toronto Film Critics Association, Washington D.C. Area Film Critics Association, National Board of Review, New York Film Critics Online, Chicago Film Critics Association, Boston Society of Film Critics, Austin Film Critics Association, and San Diego Film Critics Society). The American Film Institute listed it as an AFI Movie of the Year for 2007, and the Australian Film Critics Association and Houston Film Critics Society both voted it best film of 2007.

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Burn After Reading

Burn After Reading is a 2008 American black comedy film written, produced, and directed by Joel and Ethan Coen. The film stars George Clooney, John Malkovich, Tilda Swinton, Frances McDormand, Richard Jenkins, and Brad Pitt. It was released in the United States on September 12, 2008, and it was released on October 17, 2008 in the United Kingdom. The film had its premiere on August 27, 2008, when it opened the 2008 Venice Film Festival. The film is the brothers' first film following their Academy Award for Best Picture-winning No Country for Old Men.

Osbourne Cox, a Balkan expert, is fired at the CIA, so he begins a memoir. His wife wants a divorce and expects her lover, Harry, a philandering State Department marshal, to leave his wife. A diskette falls out of a gym bag at a Georgetown fitness center. Two employees there try to turn it into cash: Linda, who wants money for elective surgery, and Chad, an amiable goof. Information on the disc leads them to Osbourne who rejects their sales pitch; then they visit the Russian embassy. To sweeten the pot, they decide they need more of Osbourne's secrets. Meanwhile, Linda's boss likes her, and Harry's wife leaves for a book tour. All roads lead to Osbourne's house.

With their overtly comedic follow-up BURN AFTER READING, the Coen Brothers return--about a third of the way--from the dark, dank recesses of the human psyche they traversed in their Oscar-winning NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN. For those unfamiliar with the landscape of modern movie psychoanalysis, this puts the fraternal filmmakers square in the cruel, misanthropic, and farcical realm of their 1990s-era body of work, somewhere between the tragicomic crime thriller of FARGO and the disconnected noir-homage anti-storytelling of THE BIG LEBOWSKI, with 2007's NO COUNTRY retroactively adding new nihilism-tinged dimensions of smart skepticism to the proceedings.
In a more linear trajectory, BURN AFTER READING also stands as the third entry, after BLOOD SIMPLE and FARGO, in what could be an unofficial Tragedy of Human Idiocy trilogy, wherein characters make the most outlandishly moronic moves to devastating consequences simply by adhering to true human behavior. Indeed, Carter Burwell's emotionally weighty score, which washes over biting scenes of explosive, anesthetizing belly laughs, is very reminiscent of his FARGO work. BURN is ostensibly structured and propelled by a spy-thriller plotline involving a classified CD lost by a disgraced CIA spook and found by two simple gym employees. But, in actuality, it's simply--amazingly--a collection of brilliant caricature studies interwoven by veracious, if Coenesque, social interactions, as epitomized by the pathos of the Frances McDormand character's precipitous quest for cosmetic surgery.

Reviews for the film were mostly positive, earning a 77% "Certified Fresh" rating at Rotten Tomatoes based on 213 reviews as of November 26, 2009. The film fared worse among "Top Critics," earning a 59% "Certified Fresh" rating out of 39 reviews. The Times, which gave the movie four out of five stars, compared it to Coen films Raising Arizona and Fargo in its "savagely comic taste for creative violence and a slightly mocking eye for detail."

The movie was nominated at the 2009 Golden Globe awards for Best Comedy or Musical and for Best Lead Actress in a Comedy or Musical. The National Board of Review named Burn After Reading to their list of the Top 10 Movies of 2008. Noel Murray of The A.V. Club named it the second best film of 2008, Empire magazine named it the third best film of 2008, and Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly named it the seventh best film of 2008.

Reference Links:

• http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/burn_after_reading/
• http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0887883/
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burn_After_Reading 

The Bank Job

The Bank Job is a 2008 British crime film directed by Roger Donaldson and starring Jason Statham, based on the 1971 Baker Street robbery in central London, from which the money and valuables stolen were never recovered. The producers allege that the story was prevented from being told because of a D-Notice (now known as a DA-Notice) government gagging request, allegedly to protect a prominent member of the British Royal Family. According to the producers, this movie is intended to reveal the truth for the first time, although it includes significant elements of fiction.

In September 1971, thieves tunneled into the vault of a bank in London's Baker Street and looted safe deposit boxes of cash and jewelry worth over three million pounds. None of it was recovered. Nobody was ever arrested. The robbery made headlines for a few days and then disappeared - the result of a 'D' Notice, gagging the press. This film reveals what was hidden for the first time. The story involves murder, corruption and a sex scandal with links to the Royal Family - a story in which the thieves were the most innocent people involved.

Inspired by the infamous 1971 robbery that took place at the Lloyds Bank in Marylebone London, LIONSGATE's ® The Bank Job stars Jason Statham (Transporter, Snatch, Crank, Italian Job) and Saffron Burrows (Klimt, Enigma). The highly-charged heist thriller tautly interweaves high-level corruption, murder and sexual scandal in 1970s England.

A car dealer with a dodgy past and new family, Terry (Statham) has always avoided major-league scams. But when Martine (Burrows), a beautiful model from his old neighborhood, offers him a lead on a foolproof bank hit on London's Baker Street, Terry recognizes the opportunity of a lifetime. Martine targets a roomful of safe deposit boxes worth millions in cash and jewelry. But Terry and his crew don't realize the boxes also contain a treasure trove of dirty secrets - secrets that will thrust them into a deadly web of corruption and illicit scandal that spans London's criminal underworld, the highest echelons of the British government, and the Royal Family itself...the true story of a heist gone wrong...in all the right ways.

Reference Links:

• http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0200465/
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bank_Job
• http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1189844-the_bank_job/

Crash

Crash is a 2004 American/German drama film, written, produced, and directed by Paul Haggis. It premiered at the Toronto Film Festival in September 2004, and was released internationally in 2005. The film is about racial and social tensions in Los Angeles. A self-described "passion piece" for director Paul Haggis, Crash was inspired by a real life incident in which his Porsche was carjacked outside a video store on Wilshire Boulevard in 1991. It won three Oscars for Best Picture, Best Original Screenplay and Best Editing of 2005 at the 78th Academy Awards.

The film depicts several characters living in Los Angeles, California during a 36-hour period and brings them together through car collisions, shootings, and carjacking. Through these characters' interactions, the film seeks to depict and examine not only racial tension, but also the distance between strangers in general.
Several stories interweave during two days in Los Angeles involving a collection of inter-related characters, a police detective with a drugged out mother and a thieving younger brother, two car thieves who are constantly theorizing on society and race, the white district attorney and his irritated and pampered wife, a racist white veteran cop (caring for a sick father at home) who disgusts his more idealistic younger partner, a successful Hollywood director and his wife who must deal with the racist cop, a Persian-immigrant father who buys a gun to protect his shop, a Hispanic locksmith and his young daughter who is afraid of bullets, and more.

People are born with good hearts, but they grow up and learn prejudices. "Crash" is a movie that brings out bigotry and racial stereotypes. The movie is set in Los Angeles, a city with a cultural mix of every nationality. The story begins when several people are involved in a multi-car accident. From that point, we are taken back to the day before the crash, seeing the lives of several characters, and the problems each encounters during that day. An LAPD cop (Matt Dillon) is trying to get medical help for his father, but he is having problems with a black HMO clerk who won't give his father permission to see another doctor. He in turn takes out his frustration on a black couple during a traffic stop. A socialite (Sandra Bullock) and District Attorney (Brandon Fraser) are carjacked at gunpoint by two black teenagers. Sandra takes out her anger on a Mexican locksmith who is changing the door locks to their home. Later that night, the locksmith is again robbed of his dignity by a Persian store-owner. Many of the characters switch from being bad-person-to-hero in ways that may surprise you. Douglas Young (the-movie-guy) It's a wonderful movie!

The film received generally positive reviews with the review tallying website Rottentomatoes.com reporting that 143 out of the 190 reviews they tallied were positive for a score of 75 percent and a certification of "fresh", while MetaCritic tallied an average score of 69 out of 100 for Crash's critical consensus. Roger Ebert gave the film four stars and described it as, "a movie of intense fascination" listing it as the best film of 2005.

Some critics assert that Asians are portrayed in an overwhelmingly negative light with few, if any, redeeming qualities. The film has been criticized for reinforcing Asian stereotypes and lacking any manner of significant development of its Asian characters. From an alternative perspective, the film has been critiqued for "laying bare the racialised fantasy of the American dream and Hollywood narrative aesthetics" and for depicting the Iranian shopkeeper as a "deranged, paranoid individual who is only redeemed by what he believes is a mystical act of God". The film has also been critiqued for using multicultural and sentimental imagery to cover over material and "historically sedimented inequalities" that continue to affect different racial groups in Los Angeles.

Crash opened in wide release on May 6, 2005, and was a box-office success in the late spring of 2005. The film had a budget of $6.5 million (plus $1 million in financing). Because of the financial constraints, director Haggis filmed in his own house, borrowed a set from the TV show Monk, used his car in parts of the film, and even used cars from other staff members. It grossed $53.4 million domestically, making back more than seven times its budget. Despite its success in relation to its cost, Crash was the least grossing film, at the domestic box office, to win Best Picture since The Last Emperor in 1987.

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Original Source:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0375679/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crash_(2004_film)

A Few Good Men

A Few Good Men is a play by Aaron Sorkin, first produced on Broadway by David Brown in 1989. Sorkin adapted his work into a screenplay for a 1992 film directed by Rob Reiner, produced by Brown and starring Tom Cruise, Jack Nicholson, and Demi Moore.

In the heart of the nation's capital, in a courthouse of the U.S. government, one man will stop at nothing to keep his honor, and one will stop at nothing to find the truth.
It tells the story of military lawyers at a court-martial who uncover a high-level conspiracy in the course of defending their clients, United States Marines accused of murder.
Lt. Daniel Kaffee, a Navy lawyer who has never seen the inside of the courtroom, defends two stubborn Marines who have been accused of murdering a colleague.

Story line and plot don't seem to be so strong and there will be many people who would not agree with its end and even with the message of the movie, which is although not so clear but definitely points towards some of the not so best practices being followed in any country's army (over discipline in the name of straightening the people and getting things in order or even avoiding any further chaos or things being run by certain people just to settle their personal scores and run in a way they think is the best, even disregarding other people's reasonable opinions). However, the other things apart, movie was a treat to watch. Director Rob Reiner and writer Aaron Sorkin didn't leave any stone unturned when it came to dialogues in the movie - in fact, the dialogues delivered by each and every character (not only Jack Nicholson) have been simply stunning.

This movie received 83% in RottenTomatoes with average rating of 6.8 out of 10
Some of the positive reviews for the film are:
An extraordinarily well-made movie, which wastes no words or images in telling a conventional but compelling story.
Although Nicholson has little more than an extended cameo, he seizes the final courtroom scene and makes it a tour de force of cinema.
The same histrionic fireworks that gripped theater audiences will prove even more compelling to filmgoers due to the star power and dramatic screw-tightening.
Highly entertaining courtroom drama that's well-directed by Reiner but narratively flawed. Thematically, the story is fraudulent--much ado about nothing--but enjoybale to watch.
So well written and so well acted that you almost don't notice what a shoddy and clumsy piece of filmmaking it is.

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Original Source:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0104257/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Few_Good_Men
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/few_good_men/