1.
12 Years a Slave (film)
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Northup worked on plantations in the state of Louisiana for 12 years before his release. The first scholarly edition of Northups memoir, co-edited in 1968 by Sue Eakin and Joseph Logsdon, carefully retraced and validated the account, other characters in the film were also real people, including Edwin and Mary Epps, and Patsey. The film was directed by Steve McQueen, the screenplay was written by John Ridley. Chiwetel Ejiofor stars as Solomon Northup, Michael Fassbender, Benedict Cumberbatch, Paul Dano, Paul Giamatti, Lupita Nyongo, Sarah Paulson, Brad Pitt, and Alfre Woodard are all featured in supporting roles. Principal photography took place in New Orleans, Louisiana, from June 27 to August 13,2012, the locations used were four historic antebellum plantations, Felicity, Bocage, Destrehan, and Magnolia. Of the four, Magnolia is nearest to the plantation where Northup was held. 12 Years a Slave received widespread acclaim, and was named the best film of 2013 by several media outlets. It proved to be a box office success, earning over $187 million on a budget of $22 million. The film won three Academy Awards, Best Picture, Best Supporting Actress for Nyongo, and Best Adapted Screenplay for Ridley, the Best Picture win made McQueen the first black producer ever to have received the award and the first black director to have directed a Best Picture winner. The film was awarded the Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture – Drama, and the British Academy of Film and Television Arts recognized it with the Best Film and the Best Actor award for Ejiofor. In 1841, Solomon Northup is a free African-American man working as a violinist, living with his wife, two white men, Brown and Hamilton, offer him short-term employment as a musician if he will travel with them to Washington, D. C. However, once they arrive, the duo drug Northup and conspire to deliver him to a slave pen run by a man named Burch, Northup is later shipped to New Orleans along with others who have been detained against their will. A slave trader named Freeman gives Northup the identity of Platt, a slave from Georgia. Due to tension between Northup and another worker, Ford sells him to another slave owner named Edwin Epps. In the process, Northup attempts to explain that he is actually a free man, at the plantation, Northup meets Patsey, a favored slave, whom Epps regularly rapes and abuses. Some time later, an outbreak of cotton worm befalls Eppss plantation, unable to work his fields, Epps leases his slaves to a neighboring plantation for the season. While there, Northup gains the favor of the owner, Judge Turner, who allows him to play the fiddle at a neighbors wedding anniversary celebration. When Northup returns to Epps, he attempts to use the money to pay a white hand and former overseer, Armsby
2.
Breaking Bad
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Breaking Bad is an American crime drama television series created and produced by Vince Gilligan. The show originally aired on the AMC network for five seasons, from January 20,2008 and it tells the story of Walter White, a struggling high school chemistry teacher diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer. The title is from a Southern colloquialism meaning to raise hell, Breaking Bad is set and was filmed in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Walters family consists of his wife Skyler and children, Walter, Jr. the show also features Skylers sister Marie Schrader, and her husband Hank, a Drug Enforcement Administration agent. Walter hires lawyer Saul Goodman, who connects him with private investigator and fixer Mike Ehrmantraut and in turn Mikes employer, the final season introduces the characters Todd Alquist and Lydia Rodarte-Quayle. Breaking Bad is widely regarded as one of the greatest television series of all time, by the time the series finale aired, the series was among the most-watched cable shows on American television. In 2013, Breaking Bad entered the Guinness World Records as the most critically acclaimed show of all time, Breaking Bad was created by Vince Gilligan, who spent several years writing the Fox series The X-Files. Gilligan wanted to create a series in which the protagonist became the antagonist, Television is historically good at keeping its characters in a self-imposed stasis so that shows can go on for years or even decades, he said. When I realized this, the next step was to think. He added that his goal with Walter White was to him from Mr. Chips into Scarface. The show title is based on a Southern colloquialism meaning, among other things, raising hell, according to Time entertainment editor Lily Rothman, the term has a broader meaning and is an old phrase which connotes more violence than raising hell does. As the series progressed, Gilligan and the staff of Breaking Bad made Walter increasingly unsympathetic. Gilligan said during the run of the series, Hes going from being a protagonist to an antagonist and we want to make people question who theyre pulling for, and why. Cranston said by the season, I think Walts figured out its better to be a pursuer than the pursued. Hes well on his way to badass, while still pitching the show to studios, Gilligan was initially discouraged when he learned of the existing series Weeds and its similarities to the premise of Breaking Bad. While his producers convinced him that the show was different enough to still be successful, the network ordered nine episodes for the first season, but the 2007–08 Writers Guild of America strike limited the production to seven episodes. Once Gilligan recognized that this would mean wed always have to be avoiding the Sandia Mountains in shots directed toward the east and it was shot primarily on 35 mm film, with digital cameras employed as needed for additional angles, point of view shots and time-lapse photography. Breaking Bad reportedly cost $3 million per episode to produce, higher than the average cost for a cable program
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Century City, Los Angeles
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Century City is a 176-acre neighborhood and business district in Los Angeles Westside. Outside of Downtown Los Angeles, Century City is one of the areas most prominent employment centers. The district was developed on the backlot of film studio 20th Century Fox. There are two schools, but no public schools in the neighborhood. Important to the economy are the Westfield Century City shopping center, business towers, the land of Century City belonged to cowboy actor Tom Mix, who used it as a ranch. It later became a backlot of 20th Century Fox, which still has its headquarters just to the southwest. The following year, in 1957, they commissioned a development from Welton Becket Associates. Of America, also known as Alcoa, for US$300 million, herrscher had encouraged his uncle-in-law to borrow money instead, but once Skouras refused, he was out of the picture. The new owners conceived Century City as a city within a city, in 1963, the first building, Gateway West Building, was completed. The next year, in 1964, Minoru Yamasaki designed the Century Plaza Hotel, five years later, in 1969, architects Anthony J. Lumsden and César Pelli designed the Century City Medical Plaza. Century Citys plaza as it appeared in the early 1970s can be viewed in several scenes of still another Fox film, Conquest of the Planet of the Apes. The 2000 U. S. census counted 5,513 residents in the 0. 70-square-mile Century City neighborhood—or 7,869 people per square mile, the Southern California Association of Governments estimates that the daytime population amounts to 48,343 on a working day. In 2008, the city estimated that the resident population had increased to 5,934, in 2008, the median age for residents was 46, older than average for the city and the county. The percentage of residents aged 65 and older was the highest for any neighborhood in Los Angeles County, the percentages of widowed men and women and of divorced men were among the countys highest. Military veterans accounted for 11. 9% of the population, a rate for the city. The neighborhood was considered not especially diverse ethnically, with a percentage of white residents. The breakdown was whites,82. 5%, Asians,8. 6%, Latinos,4. 4%, blacks,1. 4%, and others,3, 0%. Iran and Canada were the most common places of birth for the 25. 5% of the residents who were born abroad—a low percentage, the median yearly income in 2014 was $95,135, a high figure for Los Angeles
4.
Guillermo del Toro
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Guillermo del Toro Gómez is a Mexican film director, screenwriter, producer, and novelist. He was originally chosen by Peter Jackson to direct The Hobbit films, Del Toros work is characterised by a strong connection to fairy tales and horror, with an effort to infuse visual or poetic beauty. He has a fascination with monsters, which he considers symbols of great power. He is also friends with fellow Mexican directors Alfonso Cuarón and Alejandro González Iñárritu, Del Toro was born in Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico. He was raised in a strict Catholic household, Del Toro studied at the Centro de Investigación y Estudios Cinematográficos, in Guadalajara. When del Toro was about eight years old, he began experimenting with his fathers Super 8 camera, making films with Planet of the Apes toys. One short focused on a serial killer potato with ambitions of world domination, it murdered del Toros mother and brothers before stepping outside and being crushed by a car. Del Toro made about 10 short films before his first feature, including one titled Matilde and he also wrote four and directed five episodes of the cult series La Hora Marcada, along with other Mexican filmmakers such as Emmanuel Lubezki and Alfonso Cuarón. Del Toro studied special effects and make-up with special-effects artist Dick Smith and he spent 10 years as a special-effects make-up designer and formed his own company, Necropia. He also co-founded the Guadalajara International Film Festival, later in his directing career, he formed his own production company, the Tequila Gang. In 1997, at the age of 33, Guillermo was given a $30 million budget from Miramax Films to shoot another film, during this time, his father, automotive entrepreneur Federico del Toro, was kidnapped in Guadalajara. Although Federico was eventually released safely, due to economic pressure from his captors. The event prompted del Toro, his parents, and his siblings to move abroad, in an interview with Time magazine, he said this about the kidnapping of his father, Every day, every week, something happens that reminds me that I am an involuntary exile. These two films, The Devils Backbone and Pans Labyrinth, are among his most critically acclaimed works and they share similar settings, protagonists and themes with the 1973 Spanish film The Spirit of the Beehive, widely considered to be the finest Spanish film of the 1970s. Del Toro views the horror genre as political, explaining, Much like fairy tales. One is pro-institution, which is the most reprehensible type of tale, Dont wander into the woods. The other type of fairy tale is completely anarchic and antiestablishment and he is close friends with two other prominent and critically praised Mexican filmmakers Alfonso Cuarón and Alejandro González Iñárritu. The three often influence each others directorial decisions, and have been interviewed together by Charlie Rose, Cuarón was one of the producers of Pans Labyrinth, while Iñárritu assisted in editing the film
5.
Ryan Coogler
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Ryan Kyle Coogler is an American film director and screenwriter. His first feature film, Fruitvale Station, won the Grand Jury Prize and he also wrote and directed the seventh film in the Rocky film saga, Creed. Coogler was born on May 23,1986 in Oakland, California and his mother, Joselyn, is a community organizer, and his father, Ira Coogler, is a juvenile hall probation counselor. Both parents graduated from California State University, Hayward and he has two brothers, Noah and Keenan. His uncle, Clarence Thomas, is a third-generation Oakland longshoreman, Coogler lived in Oakland, California until age eight, when he moved to Richmond, California. During his youth, he ran track and played football and he went to Saint Marys College High School, a private Catholic school in Berkeley, California, and was good at math and science. He started his journey at Saint Marys College of California on a football scholarship as a redshirt wide receiver his freshman semester intending to study chemistry. While he was there, his English professor Rosemary Graham encouraged him to pursue a career in screenwriting, at Sacramento he majored in finance and took as many film classes as he could fit in with the rigors of college football. He then attended USC School of Cinematic Arts, where he made a series of short films, the film was developed and produced by Oscar-winning actor Forest Whitaker. Ive worked with a number of truly unique voices, true auteurs, Whitaker said of Coogler, the film was screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival where it won the award for Best First Film. Time named him with Michael B. Jordan one of 30 people under 30 who are changing the world, Fruitvale Station grossed over $17 million worldwide after its theatrical run, and earned a score of 94% on Rotten Tomatoes. In July 2013, it was reported that MGM had offered Coogler to direct Creed, a spin-off-sequel of the Rocky films and this film, which was released on November 25,2015 in the United States, reunited Coogler with Michael B. Jordan, who played Apollo Creeds son Adonis, the film was praised across the board by critics. For the film, Coogler won the New Generation Award from the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, in January 2013, Coogler said he was working on a graphic novel and a young adult novel about undisclosed subject matter. Coogler will also work with frequent collaborator Michael B. Jordan for a time in the upcoming film Wrong Answer. Coogler has worked since age 21 as a counselor with incarcerated youth at San Franciscos Juvenile Hall, following in the footsteps of his father and he is married to Zinzi Evans. Fruitvale Station Creed Black Panther Locks Fig Gap The Sculptor Ryan Coogler at the Internet Movie Database
6.
Michael B. Jordan
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Michael Bakari Jordan is an American actor. Other film roles include Red Tails, Chronicle, and That Awkward Moment, Michael B Jordan was born in Santa Ana, California, the son of Donna, an artist and high school guidance counselor, and Michael A. Jordan. He is the middle of three children with a sister, Jamila, who works in production, and a younger brother, Khalid. Jordans family spent two years in California before moving to Newark, New Jersey and he attended Newark Arts High School, where his mother works, and where he played basketball. Jordans middle name, Bakari, is Swahili for noble promise and his first principal film role followed 2001 when he was featured in Hardball, which starred Keanu Reeves. In 2002, he gained attention by playing the small. In March 2003, he joined the cast of All My Children playing Reggie Porter, jordans other credits include guest starring appearances on CSI, Crime Scene Investigation, Without a Trace and Cold Case. Thereafter, he had a role in the independent film Blackout. In 2008, Jordan appeared in the music video Did You Wrong by R&B artist Pleasure P. In 2009, he guest-starred on Burn Notice in the episode Hot Spot, in 2010, he guest-starred in the Law & Order, Criminal Intent episode Inhumane Society as a boxer involved in a Michael Vick-inspired dog fighting scandal. In 2009, Jordan began starring in the NBC drama Friday Night Lights as quarterback Vince Howard and he played the character for two seasons until the show ended in 2011. In 2010, he was considered one of the 55 faces of the future by Nylon Magazines Young Hollywood Issue and that year, he landed a recurring role on the NBC show Parenthood playing Alex. This marked his second collaboration with showrunner Jason Katims, who was in charge of Friday Night Lights, buddyTV ranked him #80 on its list of TVs Sexiest Men of 2011. Jordan voiced Jace in the Xbox 360 game, Gears of War 3, in 2012, Jordan appeared in the George Lucas-produced movie Red Tails and played one of the leads in Chronicle, a film about three teenaged boys who develop superhuman abilities. He also guest-starred in an episode of Houses final season, playing a blind patient, in 2013, Jordan starred as shooting victim Oscar Grant in Fruitvale Station, directed by Ryan Coogler. His performance was received, with The Hollywood Reporter film critic Todd McCarthy writing that he reminded him of a young Denzel Washington. Following his role in Fruitvale Station, Jordan was named an actor to watch by People, time named him with Coogler one of 30 people under 30 who are changing the world and he was also named one of 2013s Breakout Stars by Entertainment Weekly and GQ. He lent his voice to Cyborg in the superhero adventure Justice League
7.
Matthew McConaughey
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Matthew David McConaughey is an American actor. He first gained notice for his role in the coming-of-age comedy Dazed and Confused. Matthew McConaughey, the youngest of three boys, was born on November 4,1969 in Uvalde, Texas and his mother, Mary Kathleen Kay or KMac, is a former kindergarten teacher and a published author. She was originally from Trenton, New Jersey and his father, James Donald McConaughey, was from Louisiana and ran an oil pipe supply business. He played for the Kentucky Wildcats and the Houston Cougars college football teams, in 1953, Jim McConaughey was drafted in the 27th round by the NFL football team the Green Bay Packers. He was released before the season began and never played a league game in the NFL. Matthews mother and late father married each other three times and his ancestry includes Scottish, English, Irish, Swedish and German. He is a relative of Confederate brigadier general Dandridge McRae, McConaughey moved to Longview, Texas in 1980, where he attended Longview High School. He lived for a year in Warnervale, New South Wales, Australia and he attended the University of Texas at Austin, where he joined Delta Tau Delta fraternity. He began in the fall of 1989 and graduated in the spring of 1993 with a degree in Radio-Television-Film. His original plan had changed as he wanted to attend Southern Methodist University until a brother told him that private school tuition would have been a burden on the family finances. He also had planned to attend law school graduation from college. McConaughey began working in commercials, including one for the Austin, Texas daily newspaper, the Austin American-Statesman. The line, How else am I gonna keep up with my Horns, – a reference to his beloved Texas Longhorns sports teams – gave the local community a look at the young actor, before he was cast in Richard Linklaters film Dazed and Confused. In 1992, he was cast as Joe in Trisha Yearwoods video for her hit song Walkaway Joe, in the late 1990s, McConaughey was cast in leading roles in more movies, including Contact, Amistad, The Newton Boys, EDtv and U-571. By the early 2000s, he was frequently cast in comedies, including The Wedding Planner and How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days. McConaughey starred in the 2005 feature film Sahara, along with Steve Zahn, prior to the release of the film, he promoted it by sailing down the Amazon River and trekking to Mali. That same year, McConaughey was named People magazines Sexiest Man Alive for 2005, in 2006, he co-starred with Sarah Jessica Parker in the romantic comedy Failure to Launch and as Marshall head football coach Jack Lengyal in We Are Marshall
8.
Cate Blanchett
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Catherine Elise Cate Blanchett is an Australian actress and theatre director. She has received acclaim and many accolades, including six AACTA Awards. In 2013, she starred as Jasmine Francis in Woody Allens Blue Jasmine, Blanchett is one of only six actors, and the only actress, to receive Academy Award nominations for portraying the same role in two films, accomplished in her case by portraying Queen Elizabeth I. She is additionally the only Australian to win two acting Oscars, a seven-time Oscar nominee, she has also received nominations for Notes on a Scandal, Elizabeth, The Golden Age, Im Not There and Carol. Blanchett has also had a career on stage and is a four-time Helpmann Award winner for Best Female Actor in a Play. From 2008 to 2013, she and her husband Andrew Upton were co-CEOs, Blanchett has been awarded the Centenary Medal for Service to Australian Society by the Australian government. She was appointed Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters by the French government in 2012, in 2015, she was honoured by the Museum of Modern Art and received the British Film Institute Fellowship in recognition of her outstanding contribution to the industry. Blanchett was born on 14 May 1969 in the Melbourne suburb of Ivanhoe and she is the middle of three children, her older brother is a computer systems engineer, and her younger sister is a theatrical designer. The two met when Blanchetts fathers ship broke down in Melbourne, when Blanchett was 10, her father died of a heart attack, leaving her mother to raise the family on her own. Blanchetts ancestry includes English, some Scottish, and remote French roots, Blanchett has described herself as being part extrovert, part wallflower during childhood. She had a penchant for dressing in traditionally masculine clothing, and went through goth and punk phases during her teenage years and she studied economics and fine arts at the University of Melbourne but dropped out after one year to travel overseas. While in Egypt, Blanchett was asked to play an American cheerleader, as an extra in the Egyptian boxing movie, Kaboria, in need of money, she accepted. Upon her return to Australia, she moved to Sydney and enrolled in the National Institute of Dramatic Art to pursue an acting career and she graduated from NIDA in 1992. Blanchetts first major role was opposite Geoffrey Rush, in the 1992 David Mamet play Oleanna for the Sydney Theatre Company. That year, she was also cast as Clytemnestra in a production of Sophocles’ Electra, a couple of weeks after rehearsals, the actress playing the title role pulled out, and director Lindy Davies cast Blanchett in the role. Her performance as Electra became one of her most acclaimed at NIDA, Blanchett played the role of Ophelia in an acclaimed 1994–95 Company B production of Hamlet directed by Neil Armfield, starring Rush and Richard Roxburgh, and was nominated for a Green Room Award. She appeared in the 1994 TV miniseries Heartland opposite Ernie Dingo, the miniseries Bordertown with Hugo Weaving and she also appeared in the 50-minute drama short Parklands, which received an Australian Film Institute nomination for Best Original Screenplay. Her first leading role was as Lucinda Leplastrier in Gillian Armstrongs romantic drama Oscar and Lucinda, Blanchett received wide acclaim for her performance, and earned her first AFI Award nomination as Best Leading Actress, she lost to Deborah Mailman in Radiance
9.
Jared Leto
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Jared Joseph Leto is an American actor, singer-songwriter, and director. After starting his career with appearances in the early 1990s. He made his debut in How to Make an American Quilt. He later began focusing increasingly on his career, returning to acting with Panic Room, Alexander, Lord of War, Lonely Hearts, Chapter 27. In 2012, he directed the documentary film Artifact, in 2016, he played the DC Comics supervillain Joker in the DC Extended Universe film Suicide Squad. Letos performance as a woman in Dallas Buyers Club earned him an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award. Leto is considered to be an actor, known for his constant devotion to. He often remains completely in character for the duration of the schedules of his films. He is also known to be selective about his film roles, Leto is the lead vocalist, multi-instrumentalist and main songwriter for Thirty Seconds to Mars, a band he formed in 1998 in Los Angeles, California, with his older brother Shannon Leto. Their debut album,30 Seconds to Mars, was released to positive reviews, the band achieved worldwide fame with the release of their second album A Beautiful Lie. Their following releases, This Is War and Love, Lust, Faith and Dreams, as of September 2014, the band has sold over 15 million albums worldwide. Leto has also directed videos, including the MTV Video Music Award–winning The Kill, Kings and Queens. Jared Joseph Leto was born on December 26,1971, in Bossier City, Louisiana, Leto is the surname of his stepfather. His parents divorced when he was a child, and he and his brother, Shannon Leto, lived with their mother and their maternal grandparents, Ruby. His father remarried, and committed suicide when Jared was eight, Leto moved frequently with his family from his native Louisiana to different cities around the country. My moms father was in the Air Force, Leto has explained, Leto has two younger half-brothers from his fathers second marriage. Constance joined the movement and encouraged her sons to get involved in the arts. We celebrated creative experience and creative expression and we didnt try and curtail it and stunt any of that kind of growth
10.
Lana Del Rey
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Elizabeth Woolridge Grant, better known by her stage name Lana Del Rey, is an American singer, songwriter, and model. Her music has been noted for its style, its preoccupation with themes of tragic romance and melancholia. Del Rey received further recognition after her major-label debut Born to Die peaked at two on the United States charts and was the fifth best-selling album of 2012. Three of the EPs tracks were featured in her short film Tropico, in 2014, Del Rey released her third studio album, Ultraviolence, which received positive critical and commercial reception, it became her first number-one record in the United States. In 2015, following a North American tour with Courtney Love and Grimes, Del Rey released her studio album. It also received critical and commercial response, the album had the fourth highest first week sales by a female artist in 2015. Del Rey is set to release her studio album, titled Lust for Life. She has one sister, Caroline Grant, and one brother. Her paternal grandfather, Robert England Grant, Sr. was a Kidder, Peabody & Co. investment banker, a president for Plough, Inc and Textron. Del Rey grew up in rural Lake Placid, New York, and attended a Catholic elementary school and for one year and she began singing in her church choir when she was a child, where she was the cantor. At age fifteen, she was sent to Kent School by her parents to deal with her rampant alcohol abuse, her uncle, before becoming a singer, Del Rey wanted to be a poet. As a child, her father wrote country songs for personal enjoyment, while her mother was interested in singing, during this time, Del Reys uncle taught her how to play guitar, and she realized could probably write a million songs with those six chords. Shortly after, she began writing songs and performing in nightclubs around the city under various names such as Sparkle Jump Rope Queen and Lizzy Grant, I was always singing, but didnt plan on pursuing it seriously, Del Rey said. The following fall, she enrolled at Fordham University where she majored in philosophy, Del Rey said she chose to study the subject because it bridged the gap between God and science. I was interested in God and how technology could bring us closer to finding out where we came from, according to Del Rey, she had trouble making friends in boarding school and college, and said, that was when my musical experience began. I kind of people for myself. After college, she moved to Brooklyn, where she resided for four years. On April 25,2005, a compact disc was registered under Elizabeth Woolridge Grant with the United States Copyright Office
11.
Captain Phillips (film)
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Captain Phillips is a 2013 American biographical survival thriller film directed by Paul Greengrass and starring Tom Hanks and Barkhad Abdi. The screenplay by Billy Ray is based on the 2010 book A Captains Duty, Somali Pirates, Navy SEALs, scott Rudin, Dana Brunetti and Michael De Luca served as producers on the project. It premiered at the 2013 New York Film Festival, and was released on October 11,2013. The film emerged as a box office grossing over $218 million against a budget of $55 million. In 2014, Captain Phillips received six Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Supporting Actor for Abdi. Richard Phillips takes command of MV Maersk Alabama, a container ship from the Port of Salalah in Oman, with orders to sail through the Gulf of Aden to Mombasa. Wary of pirate activity off the coast of the Horn of Africa, he and First Officer Shane Murphy order strict security precautions on the vessel, during a drill, the vessel is chased by Somali pirates in two skiffs, and Phillips calls for help. Knowing that the pirates are listening to traffic, he pretends to call a warship. One skiff turns around in response, and the other – manned by four heavily armed pirates led by Abduwali Muse – loses engine power trying to steer through Maersk Alabamas wake. The next day Muses skiff, now fitted with two engines, returns with the same four pirates aboard. Despite the best efforts of Phillips and his crew, the pirates secure their ladder to the Maersk Alabama, as they board, Phillips tells the crew to hide in the engine room and allows himself to be captured. He offers Muse the $30,000 in the ships safe, while they search the ship, Murphy sees that the youngest pirate Bilal does not have sandals and tells the crew to line the engine room hallway with broken glass. Chief Engineer Mike Perry cuts power to the ship, plunging the lower decks into darkness, Bilal cuts his feet when they reach the engine room, and Muse continues to search alone. The crew members ambush Muse, holding him at knifepoint, and arrange to release him, however, Muses right-hand man Nour Najee refuses to board the lifeboat with Muse unless Phillips goes with them. Once all are on the lifeboat, Najee attacks Phillips, forcing him into the vessel before launching the boat with all five of them on board. As the lifeboat heads for Somalia, tensions flare between the pirates as they run low on the plant-based amphetamine khat and lose contact with their mother ship, Najee becomes agitated and tries to convince the others to kill Phillips. They are later intercepted by the U. S. Navy destroyer USS Bainbridge, Bainbridges captain Frank Castellano is ordered to prevent the pirates from reaching the Somali coast by any means necessary. Even when additional ships arrive, Muse asserts that he has come too far, while three SEAL marksmen get into positions, Castellano and the SEALs continue to try to find a peaceful solution, eventually taking the lifeboat under tow
12.
Gravity (2013 film)
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Gravity is a 2013 British-American science fiction adventure film directed, produced, co-written and co-edited by Alfonso Cuarón. It stars Sandra Bullock and George Clooney as astronauts who are stranded in space after the destruction of their space shuttle. Cuarón wrote the screenplay with his son Jonás and attempted to develop the film at Universal Pictures, the rights were sold to Warner Bros. Pictures, where the project eventually found traction, david Heyman, who previously worked with Cuarón on Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, produced the film with him. Gravity opened the 70th Venice International Film Festival on August 28,2013 and had its North American premiere three days later at the Telluride Film Festival. Upon its release, Gravity was met with acclaim, and has been regarded as one of the best films of the 2010s. The film became the film of 2013 with a worldwide gross of over US$723 million against production budget of only $100 million. The film was awarded six BAFTA Awards, including Outstanding British Film and Best Director, the Golden Globe Award for Best Director, seven Critics Choice Movie Awards. Dr. Ryan Stone, an engineer from Lake Zurich, Illinois, is aboard the NASA Space Shuttle Explorer for her first space mission. Veteran astronaut Matt Kowalski is commanding his final mission, Mission Control orders that the mission be aborted and the crew begin re-entry immediately because the debris is speeding towards the Shuttle. Communication with Mission Control is lost shortly thereafter, high-speed debris from the Russian satellite strikes the Explorer and Hubble, detaching Stone from the shuttle and leaving her tumbling through space. Kowalski, using a Manned Maneuvering Unit, recovers Stone and they return to the Explorer and they discover that it has suffered catastrophic damage and the rest of the crew are dead. They decide to use the MMU to reach the International Space Station, Kowalski estimates they have 90 minutes before the debris field completes an orbit and threatens them again. On their way to the International Space Station, the two discuss Stones home life and her daughter, who died young in an accident, as they approach, they see that its crew has evacuated in one of its two Soyuz TMA capsules. The parachute of the remaining Soyuz TMA-14M has deployed, rendering the capsule useless for returning to Earth, Kowalski suggests using it to travel to the nearby Chinese space station Tiangong,100 km away, in order to board a Chinese module to return safely to Earth. Out of air and maneuvering power, the two try to grab onto the ISS as they fly by, Stones leg gets entangled in the Soyuzs parachute cords and she grabs a strap on Kowalskis suit, but it soon becomes clear that the cords will not support them both. Despite Stones protests, Kowalski detaches himself from the tether to save her from drifting away with him and he continues to support her until he is out of communications range. Stone enters the station via an airlock
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