1.
Georgia (U.S. state)
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Georgia is a state in the southeastern United States. It was established in 1733, the last of the original Thirteen Colonies, named after King George II of Great Britain, Georgia was the fourth state to ratify the United States Constitution, on January 2,1788. It declared its secession from the Union on January 19,1861 and it was the last state to be restored to the Union, on July 15,1870. Georgia is the 24th largest and the 8th most populous of the 50 United States, from 2007 to 2008,14 of Georgias counties ranked among the nations 100 fastest-growing, second only to Texas. Georgia is known as the Peach State and the Empire State of the South, Atlanta is the states capital, its most populous city and has been named a global city. Georgia is bordered to the south by Florida, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean and South Carolina, to the west by Alabama, the states northern part is in the Blue Ridge Mountains, part of the Appalachian Mountains system. Georgias highest point is Brasstown Bald at 4,784 feet above sea level, Georgia is the largest state entirely east of the Mississippi River in land area. Before settlement by Europeans, Georgia was inhabited by the mound building cultures, the British colony of Georgia was founded by James Oglethorpe on February 12,1733. The colony was administered by the Trustees for the Establishment of the Colony of Georgia in America under a charter issued by King George II. The Trustees implemented a plan for the colonys settlement, known as the Oglethorpe Plan. In 1742 the colony was invaded by the Spanish during the War of Jenkins Ear, in 1752, after the government failed to renew subsidies that had helped support the colony, the Trustees turned over control to the crown. Georgia became a colony, with a governor appointed by the king. The Province of Georgia was one of the Thirteen Colonies that revolted against British rule in the American Revolution by signing the 1776 Declaration of Independence, the State of Georgias first constitution was ratified in February 1777. Georgia was the 10th state to ratify the Articles of Confederation on July 24,1778, in 1829, gold was discovered in the North Georgia mountains, which led to the Georgia Gold Rush and an established federal mint in Dahlonega, which continued its operation until 1861. The subsequent influx of white settlers put pressure on the government to land from the Cherokee Nation. In 1830, President Andrew Jackson signed the Indian Removal Act into law, sending many eastern Native American nations to reservations in present-day Oklahoma, including all of Georgias tribes. Despite the Supreme Courts ruling in Worcester v. Georgia that ruled U. S. states were not permitted to redraw the Indian boundaries, President Jackson and the state of Georgia ignored the ruling. In 1838, his successor, Martin Van Buren, dispatched troops to gather the Cherokee
2.
Atlanta metropolitan area
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Its economic, cultural and demographic center is Atlanta, and it had a 2015 estimated population of 5.7 million people according to the U. S. Census Bureau. The metro area forms the core of a trading area. The Combined Statistical Area spans up to 39 counties in north Georgia and had an estimated 2015 population of 6.3 million people, Atlanta is considered an alpha world city. It is the third largest metropolitan region in the Census Bureaus Southeast region behind Greater Washington and South Florida. By U. S. Census Bureau standards, the population of the Atlanta region spreads across an area of 8,376 square miles – a land area comparable to that of Massachusetts. Because Georgia contains more counties than any state except Texas. As of the 2000 census, fewer than one in ten residents of the area lived inside Atlanta city limits. A2006 survey by the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce counted 140 cities, six cities – Johns Creek, Milton, Chattahoochee Hills, Dunwoody, Peachtree Corners, and Brookhaven – have incorporated since then, following the lead of Sandy Springs in 2005. The Atlanta metropolitan area was first defined in 1950 as Fulton, DeKalb, Gwinnett, Cobb, the CSA also abuts the Macon and Columbus MSAs. The region is one of the metropolises of the Southeastern United States, the above-listed counties are included in the Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Gainesville CSA. However, most other entities define a much smaller metropolitan area by including only the counties which have the densest suburban development. Fulton, DeKalb, Gwinnett, Cobb, and Clayton were the five original counties when the Atlanta metropolitan area was first defined in 1950, and continue to be the core of the metro area. These five counties along with five more are members of the Atlanta Regional Commission, the ten ARC counties and five more are part of the Metropolitan North Georgia Water Planning District, created in 2001. The 14 counties listed above with under 60,000 residents are not included in any other metropolitan definition except the OMB/Census Bureaus CSA. Hall County was originally the Gainesville, GA Metropolitan Statistical Area, Cumberland Perimeter Center Hartsfield-Jackson area More than one half of metro Atlantas population is in unincorporated areas or areas considered a census-designated-place by the census bureau. Metro Atlanta includes the incorporated and unincorporated suburbs, exurbs. 420,003 Places with 75,000 to 99,999 inhabitants Sandy Springs pop,76,728 Places with 50,000 to 74,999 inhabitants Alpharetta pop. 51,271 Places with 25,000 to 49,999 inhabitants Dunwoody pop,25,636 Places with 24, 999- inhabitants The area sprawls across the low foothills of the Appalachian Mountains to the north and the Piedmont to the south
3.
The Tree of Life (film)
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The Tree of Life is a 2011 American experimental epic drama film written and directed by Terrence Malick and starring Brad Pitt, Sean Penn, and Jessica Chastain. After several years in development and missing 2009 and 2010 release dates, The Tree of Life premiered in competition at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival, where it was awarded the Palme dOr. It ranked no.1 on review aggregator Metacritics Top Ten List of 2011, the Tree of Life made more critics year-end lists for 2011 than any other film. It has appeared in the 2012 Sight & Sound critics poll of the worlds top 250 films as well as BBCs poll of the greatest American films, the film begins with a quotation from the Book of Job, Where were you when I laid the foundations of the Earth. When the morning stars together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy. A mysterious, wavering light, resembling a flame, flickers in the darkness, Mrs. OBrien recalls a lesson taught to her that people must choose to follow either the path of grace or the path of nature. In the 1960s or thereabouts, she receives a telegram informing her of the death of her son, Mr. OBrien is notified by telephone while at an airport. The family is thrown into turmoil, in the present day, the OBriens eldest son, Jack, is adrift in his modern life as an architect. One day he apologizes to his father on the phone for something he said about R. L. s death, from the darkness the universe is born, the Milky Way and then the solar system form while voice-overs ask existential questions. On the newly formed Earth, volcanoes erupt and microbes begin to form, sea life is born, then plants on land, then dinosaurs. In a symbolic first act of compassion, a dinosaur chooses not to eat a weakened creature that is lying on the side of a river bed, an asteroid tumbles through space and strikes the Earth, causing the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event. In a sprawling neighborhood in the American South live the OBriens. The young couple is enthralled by their new baby Jack and, later, when Jack reaches adolescence, he is faced with the conflict of accepting the way of grace or nature, as embodied by each of his parents. Mrs. OBrien is gentle, nurturing, and authoritative, presenting the world to her children as a place of wonder. Mr. OBrien is strict and authoritarian, and easily loses his temper as he struggles to reconcile his love for his sons with wanting to prepare them for a world he sees as corrupt and exploitative. He laments his decision to work in a power plant instead of pursuing his passion for music and he tries to get ahead by filing patents for various inventions. Jacks perceptions of the world begin to change one of his boyhood companions drowns at the pool. One summer, Mr. OBrien takes a business trip
4.
Terrence Malick
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Terrence Frederick Malick is an American film director, screenwriter and producer. Malick began his career as part of the New Hollywood film-making wave with the films Badlands and Days of Heaven, Malicks films have been noted for exploring themes such as individual transcendence, nature, and conflicts between reason and instinct. The stylistic elements of the work have inspired divided opinions among film scholars. Terrence Malick was born in Ottawa, Illinois and he is the son of Irene and Emil A. Malick, a geologist. His paternal grandparents were Assyrian Christian immigrants from Urmia, Iran, Malick attended St. Stephens Episcopal School in Austin, Texas, while his family lived in Bartlesville, Oklahoma. Malick had two brothers, Chris and Larry. Larry Malick was a guitarist who went to study in Spain with Andrés Segovia in the late 1960s, in 1968, Larry intentionally broke his own hands due to pressure over his musical studies. Their father Emil went to Spain to help Larry, but his son died shortly after, the early death of Malicks younger brother has been explored and referenced in his films The Tree of Life and Knight of Cups. Malick received a A. B. in philosophy from Harvard College, graduating cum laude. He did graduate work at Magdalen College, Oxford, as a Rhodes Scholar, after a disagreement with his advisor, Gilbert Ryle, over his thesis on the concept of world in Kierkegaard, Heidegger, and Wittgenstein, Malick left Oxford without a degree. In 1969, Northwestern University Press published Malicks translation of Heideggers Vom Wesen des Grundes as The Essence of Reasons, after returning to the United States, Malick taught philosophy at Massachusetts Institute of Technology while freelancing as a journalist. He wrote articles for Newsweek, The New Yorker, and Life, Malick started his film career after earning an MFA from the AFI Conservatory in 1969, directing the short film Lanton Mills. At the AFI, he established contacts with people such as actor Jack Nicholson, longtime collaborator Jack Fisk, and agent Mike Medavoy and he wrote early uncredited drafts of Dirty Harry and Drive, He Said, and is credited with the screenplay for Pocket Money. Malick was also co-writer of The Gravy Train, under the pseudonym David Whitney, after one of his screenplays, Deadhead Miles, was made into what Paramount Pictures believed was an unreleasable film, Malick decided to direct his own scripts. Malicks first feature-length work as a director was Badlands, an independent film starring Martin Sheen and it was influenced by the crimes of convicted teenage spree killer Charles Starkweather. Malick raised half of the budget by approaching people outside of the industry, including doctors and dentists, the rest was raised by executive producer Edward R. Pressman. After a troubled production that many crew members leaving halfway through the shoot. As a result, Warner Bros. bought distribution rights for three times its budget, Malicks second film was the Paramount-produced Days of Heaven, about a love triangle that develops in the farm country of the Texas Panhandle in the early 20th century
5.
Brad Pitt
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William Bradley Brad Pitt in Shawnee Oklahoma. He is an American actor and producer and he has received multiple awards and nominations including an Academy Award as producer under his own company Plan B Entertainment. Pitt first gained recognition as a hitchhiker in the road movie Thelma & Louise. His first leading roles in big-budget productions came with the dramas A River Runs Through It and Legends of the Fall, Pitt starred in the cult film Fight Club and the heist film Oceans Eleven and its sequels, Oceans Twelve and Oceans Thirteen. As a public figure, Pitt has been cited as one of the most influential and powerful people in the American entertainment industry, as well as the worlds most attractive man and his personal life is also the subject of wide publicity. Divorced from actress Jennifer Aniston, to whom he was married for five years and they have six children together, three of whom were adopted internationally. In September 2016, Jolie filed for divorce from Pitt, William Bradley Pitt was born in Shawnee, Oklahoma, to William Bill Alvin Pitt, manager of a trucking company, and Jane Etta, a school counsellor. The family soon moved to Springfield, Missouri, where he lived together with his siblings, Douglas. Pitt has described Springfield as Mark Twain country, Jesse James country, having grown up with a lot of hills, Pitt attended Kickapoo High School, where he was a member of the golf, swimming and tennis teams. He participated in the schools Key and Forensics clubs, in school debates, following his graduation from high school, Pitt enrolled in the University of Missouri in 1982, majoring in journalism with a focus on advertising. As graduation approached, Pitt did not feel ready to settle down and he loved films—a portal into different worlds for me—and, since films were not made in Missouri, he decided to go to where they were made. Two weeks before earning his degree, Pitt left the university and moved to Los Angeles, while struggling to establish himself in Los Angeles, Pitt took lessons from acting coach Roy London. Pitts acting career began in 1987, with uncredited parts in the films No Way Out, No Mans Land and his television debut came in May 1987 with a two-episode role on the NBC soap opera Another World. In November of the same year Pitt had a guest appearance on the ABC sitcom Growing Pains and he appeared in four episodes of the CBS primetime series Dallas between December 1987 and February 1988 as Randy, the boyfriend of Charlie Wade. Later in 1988, Pitt made a guest appearance on the Fox police drama 21 Jump Street, in the same year, the Yugoslavian–U. S. Co-production The Dark Side of the Sun gave Pitt his first leading film role, the film was shelved at the outbreak of the Croatian War of Independence, and was not released until 1997. He made guest appearances on television series Head of the Class, Freddys Nightmares, Thirtysomething, and Growing Pains. Pitt was cast as Billy Canton, an addict who takes advantage of a young runaway in the 1990 NBC television movie Too Young to Die. the story of an abused teenager sentenced to death for a murder
6.
Moneyball (film)
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Moneyball is a 2011 American sports drama film directed by Bennett Miller from a screenplay by Steven Zaillian and Aaron Sorkin. Columbia Pictures bought the rights to Lewiss book in 2004, Moneyball was featured at the 2011 Toronto International Film Festival and was released on September 23,2011 to box office success and critical acclaim. The film was nominated for six Academy Awards including Best Actor for Pitt, Best Supporting Actor for Hill, Oakland Athletics general manager Billy Beane is upset by his teams loss to the New York Yankees in the 2001 postseason. During a visit to the Cleveland Indians, Beane meets Peter Brand, Beane tests Brands theory by asking whether he would have drafted him, Beane having been a Major League player before becoming general manager. Though scouts considered Beane a phenomenal prospect, his career in the Major Leagues was disappointing, after some prodding, Brand admits that he would not have drafted him until the ninth round and surmised that Beane would probably have accepted a scholarship to Stanford instead. Impressed, Beane hires the inexperienced Brand to be the Athletics assistant general manager, Oakland team scouts are first dismissive and then hostile towards Brands non-traditional sabermetric approach to scouting players. Most notably, Grady Fuson aggressively confronts Beane, causing him to be fired, Grady then takes to the radio airwaves and doubts the teams future. Rather than relying on the experience and intuition, Brand selects players based almost exclusively on their on-base percentage. Beane signs the ones Brand suggests, such as unorthodox submarine pitcher Chad Bradford, past-his-prime outfielder David Justice, Beane also faces opposition from Art Howe, the Athletics manager, who does not agree with the new philosophy. With tensions already high between the two due to a dispute, Howe disregards Beanes and Brands strategy and plays a lineup he prefers. Early in the season, the Athletics fare poorly, leading critics to dismiss the new method as a failure, Beane convinces the owner to stay the course. He trades away the traditional first baseman, Carlos Peña, to force Howe to use Hatteberg at that position. The As win 19 consecutive games, tying for the longest winning streak in American League history, like many baseball players, Beane is superstitious and avoids games in progress, but upon hearing how well the game is going on the radio, he decides to go. Beane arrives in the inning, only to watch the team falter. Finally, the As do win, on a home run by Hatteberg. After celebrating that, however, the As again lose in the postseason, Beane is disappointed, believing nothing short of a championship should be considered a success. He is contacted by the owner of the Boston Red Sox, Beane declines an opportunity to be GM of the Red Sox, despite the $12.5 million salary, which would have made him the highest-paid general manager in sports history. He returns to Oakland, while an epilogue reveals that two later, the Red Sox won the 2004 World Series, using the model pioneered by the Athletics
7.
Juliette Binoche
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Juliette Binoche is a French actress, artist and dancer. She has appeared in more than 60 feature films, been recipient of international awards. Coming from a background, she began taking acting lessons during adolescence. Her sensual performance in her English-language debut The Unbearable Lightness of Being, directed by Philip Kaufman, for her performance in Lasse Hallströms romantic comedy Chocolat, Binoche was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress. During the 2000s she maintained a career, alternating between French and English language roles in both mainstream and art-house productions. In 2010, she won the Best Actress Award at the Cannes Film Festival for her role in Abbas Kiarostamis Certified Copy making her the first actress to win the European Best Actress Triple Crown. In 2008 she began a tour with a modern dance production in-i devised in collaboration with Akram Khan. Binoche was born in Paris, the daughter of Jean-Marie Binoche, a director, actor, and sculptor, and Monique Yvette Stalens, a teacher, director, and actress. Her father, who is French, also has one eighth Portuguese-Brazilian ancestry, juliettes mother was born in Częstochowa, Poland. Binoches maternal grandfather, Andre Stalens, was born in Poland, of Belgian and French descent, both of them were actors who were born in Częstochowa, the German Nazi occupiers imprisoned them at Auschwitz as intellectuals. When Binoches parents divorced in 1968, four-year-old Binoche and her sister Marion were sent to a boarding school. During their teens, the Binoche sisters spent their holidays with their maternal grandmother. Binoche has stated that this perceived parental abandonment had an effect on her. She was not particularly academic and in her years began acting at school in amateur stage-productions. At 17 she directed and starred in a student production of the Eugène Ionesco play and she studied acting at the Conservatoire National Supérieur dArt Dramatique, but quit after a short time as she disliked the curriculum. In the early 1980s, she found an agent through a friend and joined a troupe, touring France, Belgium. Around this time she began lessons with acting coach Vera Gregh, after this Binoche secured her first feature-film appearance with a minor role in Pascal Kanés Liberty Belle. Her role required just two days on–set, but was enough to inspire Binoche to pursue a career in film, Binoches early films established her as a French star of some renown
8.
Certified Copy (film)
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Certified Copy is a 2010 art film by Iranian writer and director Abbas Kiarostami, starring Juliette Binoche and the British opera singer William Shimell, in his first film role. The film is set in Tuscany, and focuses on a British writer, the film was a French-majority production, with co-producers in Italy and Belgium. The dialogue is in French, English and Italian, the film premiered at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival where Binoche won the Best Actress Award for her performance. She leaves her phone number with Millers translator, Miller and the woman later meet at her shop, and Miller suggests they get out and see some of the countryside. The woman drives them around aimlessly while Miller signs the books, Miller points out that even the Mona Lisa is a copy of the woman who modeled for the painting, real or imagined. They then visit an art museum to see another famous copy, and the woman gets increasingly distraught as she complains about her rebellious son to Miller and their discussions get personal, and its intentionally unclear which, if either, is the true reality of the film. After some arguing, and some soul-baring language, a reconciliation ends the film, since then they had both desired to work together and in 2008 Binoche appeared briefly in Kiarostamis experimental film Shirin. During a visit in Tehran by Binoche, Kiarostami told Binoche the synopsis of Certified Copy as a casual anecdote, according to Kiarostami, studying the reactions of Binoche as she listened to the story was a vital part of the films further development. The film suffered from delays and changes in the cast. Filming was originally supposed to start in October 2007 with English as the principal language, a second attempt was planned for March 2008, this time mainly in French and with Sami Frey opposite Binoche. Next up to be attached was François Cluzet, with filming scheduled to begin in May 2009. At some point Robert De Niro was in negotiation for the role, but eventually it was offered to William Shimell, a baritone opera singer who had never acted in a film before. Kiarostami had met Shimell in 2008 during his own debut as an opera director, when I saw him, I immediately perceived in him the strength, finesse and humour of the character, Kiarostami commented on his choice. Production was led by MK2 in co-production with France 3 and the Italian company BiBi Films, funding was granted by the CNC and via pre-sales to Canal+. The budget was 3.8 million euro, the film was finally shot from 8 June 2009 on location in Tuscany, using locations in Cortona, Lucignano and Arezzo. He also noted how he for once felt free to express whatever he wanted in the film, Certified Copy premiered on 18 May 2010 at the 63rd Cannes Film Festival as part of the main competition. It was released the day in regular French cinemas through MK2. The film opened in 101 venues and had an attendance of 70,876 the first week, resulting in a ninth place on the French box office chart
9.
Jessica Chastain
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Jessica Michelle Chastain is an American actress and film producer. Born in a town near Sonoma, California, and raised in Sacramento. In 1998, she made her stage debut as Shakespeares Juliet. After studying acting at the Juilliard School, she was signed to a talent holding deal with the television producer John Wells and she was a recurring guest star in several television shows, including Law & Order, Trial by Jury. She also took on roles in the productions of Anton Chekhovs play The Cherry Orchard in 2004. Chastain made her debut in the drama Jolene, and gained wide recognition in 2011 for starring roles in half a dozen films, including the dramas Take Shelter. Her performance as a socialite in The Help earned her an Academy Award nomination. In 2012, she won a Golden Globe Award and received a second Oscar nomination for playing a CIA agent in the thriller Zero Dark Thirty, Chastain made her Broadway debut in a revival of The Heiress in the same year. Chastains accolades include two Academy Award and British Academy Film Award nominations and she is known to prepare extensively for her roles. Chastain is the founder of the production company Freckle Films, which was created to promote diversity in film and she is vocal about social issues such as gender and racial equality, and mental health. Time magazine named her one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2012, Jessica Michelle Chastain was born on March 24,1977, in a small town near Sonoma, California. She is the daughter of Jerri Renee Hastey and her biological father is Michael Monasterio, a rock musician. Her parents were teenagers when she was born. Chastain is reluctant to discuss this aspect of her childhood. She has two sisters and two brothers and her sister Juliet committed suicide in 2003 following years of drug abuse. She was raised in Sacramento, California, by her mother and stepfather, Michael Hastey and she considers her stepfather to be one of the greatest people she knows, and has said that he was the first person to make her feel secure. She shares a bond with her maternal grandmother, Marilyn. As a student at the El Camino Fundamental High School in Sacramento and she was a loner and considered herself a misfit in school, eventually finding an outlet in the performing arts
10.
Silver Linings Playbook
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Silver Linings Playbook is a 2012 American romantic comedy drama film written and directed by David O. Russell. It was adapted from the novel The Silver Linings Playbook, by Matthew Quick, the film stars Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence, with Robert De Niro, Jacki Weaver, Chris Tucker, Anupam Kher, and Julia Stiles in supporting roles. Cooper plays Patrick Pat Solitano, Jr. a man with bipolar disorder who is released from a hospital and moves back in with his parents, played by Robert De Niro. The two become closer as they train and Pat, his father, and Tiffany examine their relationships with other as they cope with their problems. Silver Linings Playbook premiered at the 2012 Toronto International Film Festival on September 8,2012, the film opened to major critical success and earned numerous accolades. It received eight Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, Best Director, the film was a success at the box office, grossing over $236 million worldwide, more than eleven times its budget. After eight months of treatment in a health facility for bipolar disorder, Patrick Pat Solitano is released into the care of his father Patrizio. His main focus is to reconcile with his wife, Nikki. She has moved away and obtained an order against him after Pat had found her in the shower with another man. During his time in the clinic Pat befriends Danny McDaniels, an man who is embroiled in a legal dispute with the clinic on whether or not he is eligible to leave. Pats therapist, Dr. Patel, does his best to him to keep taking his medication. But Pat tells him that he has a new outlook on life, he attempts to see the good, or silver linings, at dinner with his friend Ronnie and his wife Veronica, Pat meets Veronicas sister Tiffany Maxwell, a young widow with depression and relationship problems. Sparks fly between Pat and Tiffany and she tries to connect by offering sex, but Pat keeps focusing on getting Nikki back. Tiffany tries to get closer to Pat and even offers to deliver a letter to Nikki—if, in return, he will practice dancing with her and he reluctantly agrees and the two begin a rigorous practice regimen over the following weeks. Pat believes the competition will be a way to show Nikki that he has changed. Patrizio hopes to open his own restaurant and has resorted to illegal bookmaking, having put virtually all of his money on the outcome of a Philadelphia Eagles game, he asks Pat to attend as a good-luck charm. Danny is eventually released from the clinic, and teaches Pat, Pat asks Tiffany for time off from practice to attend the game. She gives him a reply from Nikki, in which she cautiously hints there may be a chance for reconciliation between them
11.
Kathryn Bigelow
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Kathryn Ann Bigelow is an American film director, producer, and writer. The Hurt Locker won the 2009 Academy Award for Best Picture and the BAFTA Award for Best Film and she also became the first woman to win the Saturn Award for Best Director in 1995 for Strange Days. In April 2010, Bigelow was named to the Time 100 list of most influential people of the year, Bigelow was born in San Carlos, California, the only child of Gertrude Kathryn, a librarian, and Ronald Elliot Bigelow, a paint factory manager. Her mother was of Norwegian descent, Bigelows early creative endeavors were as a student of painting. She enrolled at San Francisco Art Institute in the fall of 1970, while enrolled at SFAI, she was accepted into the Whitney Museum of American Arts Independent Study Program in New York City. Bigelows early work benefited from her apprenticeships with Vito Acconci, Richard Serra, also in her early days in Manhattan, Bigelow teamed up with Philip Glass on a real-estate venture in which the pair personally renovated distressed apartments downtown then sold them for a profit. Bigelow entered the film program at Columbia University, where she studied theory and criticism. She also taught at the California Institute of the Arts, Bigelows short The Set-Up is a 20-minute deconstruction of violence in film. The film portrays two men fighting each other as the semioticians Sylvère Lotringer and Marshall Blonsky deconstruct the images in voice-over, Bigelow asked her actors to actually beat and bludgeon each other throughout the films all-night shoot. Her first full-length feature was The Loveless, a film which she co-directed with Monty Montgomery. Next, she directed Near Dark, which she co-scripted with Eric Red, in the same year, she directed a music video for the New Order song Touched by the Hand of God, the video is a spoof of glam metal imagery. Bigelows subsequent trilogy of action films — Blue Steel, Point Break, in the process, Bigelow became recognizable as both a Hollywood brand and an auteur. All three films rethink the conventions of action cinema while exploring gendered and racial politics, Eric Red was also co-writer on Bigelows 1990 film, Blue Steel. Blue Steel starred Jamie Lee Curtis as a police officer who is stalked by a psychopathic killer. This is perhaps due to the fact that it most successfully conforms to its genre and abandons much of the stylistic substance. In 1993, she directed an episode of the TV series Wild Palms, Bigelows 1995 film Strange Days was written and produced by her ex-husband James Cameron. Despite some positive reviews, the film was a commercial failure, furthermore, many attributed the creative vision to James Cameron, diminishing Bigelows perceived influence on the film. She directed episodes of Homicide, Life on the Street in 1997 and 1998, based on Anita Shreves novel of the same name, Bigelows 2000 film The Weight of Water is a portrait of two women trapped in suffocating relationships
12.
Zero Dark Thirty
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Zero Dark Thirty is a 2012 American political action-thriller film directed by Kathryn Bigelow and written by Mark Boal. This search eventually leads to the discovery of his compound in Pakistan and it was produced by Boal, Bigelow, and Megan Ellison, and was independently financed by Ellisons Annapurna Pictures. The film premiered in Los Angeles on December 19,2012 and had its release on January 11,2013. Zero Dark Thirty received widespread acclaim and appeared on 95 critics top ten lists of 2012. The film also earned Golden Globe Award nominations for Best Motion Picture – Drama, Best Director, acting CIA director Michael Morell stated, The film creates the strong impression that the enhanced interrogation techniques. Were the key to finding bin Laden, other critics described it as an anti-torture exposure of interrogation practices. Republican Congressman Peter T. King charged that the filmmakers were given access to classified materials. Unbeknownst to Panetta, screenwriter Mark Boal was among the 1,300 present during the ceremony, in 2003, Maya, a young U. S. She is reassigned to the U. S. embassy in Pakistan to work with a fellow officer, Dan subjects the detainee to approved torture interrogation techniques, i. e. stress positions, hooding, subjection to deafening noise, sleep deprivation, waterboarding, and humiliation. Other detainees corroborate this, with some claiming Abu Ahmed delivers messages between bin Laden and a man known as Abu Faraj al-Libbi, in 2005, Abu Faraj is apprehended by the CIA and local police in Pakistan. Maya is allowed to him, but he continues to deny knowing a courier with such a name. Maya interprets this as an attempt by Faraj to conceal the importance of Abu Ahmed, Maya spends the next five years sifting through masses of data and information, using a variety of technology, hunches, and sharing insights. She concentrates on finding Abu Ahmed, theorizing that he is the best way to find bin Laden, in 2008, she is caught up in the Islamabad Marriott Hotel bombing. Dan, departing on reassignment, warns Maya about a change in politics. Mayas fellow officer and friend Jessica is killed in the 2009 Camp Chapman attack and that same day, a grieving Maya receives an interrogation video of a Jordanian detainee, who claims the man previously identified from a photograph as Abu Ahmed is a man he personally buried in 2001. Several CIA officers – Mayas seniors – conclude the target who could be Abu Ahmed is long dead, and that they have searched a false trail for nine years. Sometime later, a fellow analyst researching Moroccan intelligence archives comes to Maya and suggests that Abu Ahmed is Ibrahim Sayeed, realizing her lead may still be alive, Maya contacts Dan, now a senior officer at the CIA headquarters. Dan uses CIA funds to purchase a Lamborghini for a Kuwaiti prince in exchange for the number of Sayeeds mother
13.
Daniel Day-Lewis
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Sir Daniel Michael Blake Day-Lewis is an English actor who holds both British and Irish citizenship. Born and raised in London, he excelled on stage at the National Youth Theatre, before being accepted at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, which he attended for three years. Despite his traditional training at the Bristol Old Vic, he is considered to be a method actor, known for his constant devotion to. He often remains completely in character for the duration of the schedules of his films. He is one of the most selective actors in the industry, having starred in only five films since 1998. Protective of his life, he rarely gives interviews and makes very few public appearances. He starred in My Beautiful Laundrette, his first critically acclaimed role and he then assumed leading man status with The Unbearable Lightness of Being. He was also nominated in category for In the Name of the Father. He has also won four BAFTA Awards for Best Actor, three Screen Actors Guild Awards and two Golden Globe Awards, in November 2012, Time named Day-Lewis the Worlds Greatest Actor. In June 2014, he received a knighthood at Buckingham Palace for services to drama, Day-Lewis was born in Kensington, London, the son of poet Cecil Day-Lewis and English actress Jill Balcon. Day-Lewiss mother was Jewish, and his maternal great-grandparents Jewish families emigrated to England from Latvia and his maternal grandfather, Sir Michael Balcon, was the head of Ealing Studios. Living in Greenwich, Day-Lewis found himself among tough South London children and he mastered the local accent and mannerisms and credits that as being his first convincing performance. Later in life, he has known to speak of himself as very much a disorderly character in his younger years, often in trouble for shoplifting. In 1968, Day-Lewiss parents, finding his behaviour to be too wild, at the school, he was introduced to his three most prominent interests, woodworking, acting, and fishing. The transfer led to his debut at the age of 14 in Sunday Bloody Sunday in which he played a vandal in an uncredited role. He described the experience as heaven, for getting paid £2 to vandalise expensive cars parked outside his local church, for a few weeks in 1972, he and his parents and sister lived at Lemmons, the north London home of Kingsley Amis and Elizabeth Jane Howard. Cecil Day-Lewis had cancer and Howard invited the family to Lemmons as a place they could use to rest, Cecil died there in May that year. Leaving Bedales in 1975, Day-Lewiss unruly attitude had diminished and he needed to make a career choice, although he had excelled on stage at the National Youth Theatre in London, he applied for a five-year apprenticeship as a cabinet-maker, but was rejected due to lack of experience
14.
Lincoln (film)
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Lincoln is a 2012 American epic historical drama film directed by Steven Spielberg, starring Daniel Day-Lewis as United States President Abraham Lincoln. The film also features Sally Field, David Strathairn, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, James Spader, Hal Holbrook, the film was produced by Spielberg and frequent collaborator Kathleen Kennedy, through their respective production companies, Amblin Entertainment and the Kennedy/Marshall Company. Filming began October 17,2011, and ended on December 19,2011, Lincoln premiered on October 8,2012 at the New York Film Festival. The film was co-produced by DreamWorks Pictures, 20th Century Fox, and Participant Media, the film was distributed by Fox in international territories. Lincoln received widespread acclaim, with major praise directed to the acting, especially Day-Lewis performance. In December 2012, the film was nominated for seven Golden Globe Awards including Best Motion Picture – Drama, Best Director for Spielberg and winning Best Actor for Day-Lewis. At the 85th Academy Awards, the film was nominated for twelve Academy Awards including Best Picture and Best Director, it won for Best Production Design, the film was also a commercial success, grossing over $275 million at the box office. In January 1865, President Abraham Lincoln expects the Civil War to end soon – perhaps within a month – with the defeat of the Confederate States. Lincoln feels it is imperative to pass the amendment before that, even if all of them are ultimately brought on board, the amendment will still require the support of several Democratic congressmen if it is to pass. Lincoln, however, remains adamant about having the amendment in place and the issue of slavery settled before the war is concluded, therefore, in return for his support, Blair insists that Lincoln allow him to immediately engage the Confederate government in peace negotiations. Unable to proceed without Blairs support, however, Lincoln reluctantly authorizes Blairs mission, in the meantime, Lincoln and Secretary of State William Seward work on the issue of securing the necessary Democratic votes for the amendment. Furthermore, those members will soon be in need of employment, and Lincoln will have many federal jobs to fill as he begins his second term, which he sees as a tool he can use to his advantage. Meanwhile, Confederate envoys are ready to meet with Lincoln to discuss terms for peace, a rumor of their mission circulates, prompting both Democrats and conservative Republicans to advocate postponing the vote on the amendment. But in a carefully worded statement, Lincoln denies that there are envoys in Washington, black visitors to the gallery celebrate, and Stevens returns home to his housekeeper and lover, a mixed-race woman. On April 3, Lincoln visits the battlefield at Petersburg, Virginia, six days later, Grant receives General Robert E. Lees surrender at Appomattox Courthouse. The next morning at the Petersen House, Lincoln dies, Secretary of War Edwin Stanton declares, Lincoln is seen again delivering his second inaugural address. His performance as Abraham Lincoln earned him his third Academy Award for Best Actor, Sally Field as First Lady Mary Todd LincolnField was first announced to join the cast as early as September 2007, but officially joined the cast in April 2011. Field said, To have the opportunity to work with Steven Spielberg and Daniel Day-Lewis and to one of the most complicated
15.
Jennifer Lawrence
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Jennifer Shrader Lawrence is an American actress. Since 2015, Lawrence has been the actress in the world. She appeared in Times 100 most influential people in the world in 2013 and Forbes Celebrity 100 the following year, during her childhood, Lawrence performed in church plays and school musicals. When she was 14, a talent scout spotted her in New York and she then moved to Los Angeles and began her acting career by playing guest roles in television shows. Her first major role came as a main cast member on the sitcom The Bill Engvall Show, Lawrence made her film debut with a supporting role in Garden Party, and had her breakthrough playing a poverty-stricken teenager in the independent drama Winters Bone. She achieved wider recognition for playing the mutant Mystique in X-Men, First Class, Lawrences fame continued to grow with her starring role as Katniss Everdeen in the Hunger Games film series, which established her as the highest-grossing action heroine of all time. She went on to earn various accolades from her collaborations with director David O. Russell and her performance as a depressed widow in the romance film Silver Linings Playbook received an Academy Award for Best Actress, making her the second youngest Best Actress Oscar winner. Lawrence subsequently won a BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role for playing a wife in the black comedy American Hustle. She also received Golden Globe Awards for her roles in both of these films and for playing the eponymous inventor in the biopic Joy. Jennifer Shrader Lawrence was born on August 15,1990, in Indian Hills, Kentucky, to Gary, a worker, and Karen. She has two brothers, Ben and Blaine, and her mother brought her up to be tough like them. Lawrences mother did not allow her to play other girls in preschool as she deemed her too rough with them. The actress was educated at the Kammerer Middle School in Louisville and she did not enjoy her childhood due to hyperactivity and social anxiety, and considered herself a misfit among her peers. Lawrence says that her anxieties vanished when she performed on stage, a cheerleader at school, Lawrence also played softball, field hockey and basketball, which she played on a boys team that her father coached. She was fond of riding while growing up and frequently visited a local horse farm. She has a damaged coccyx from being thrown off a horse, the actress has said that she knew she would be famous from an early age. When her father worked from home, she performed for him, for the next few years, she continued to take parts in church plays and school musicals. During a family vacation to New York, when Lawrence was 14, Lawrences mother was not keen on allowing her to pursue an acting career, but briefly moved to the city to let her read for roles
16.
Philip Seymour Hoffman
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Philip Seymour Hoffman was an American actor, director, and producer of film and theater. Best known for his supporting and character roles – typically lowlifes, bullies. Drawn to theater as a teenager, Hoffman studied acting at New York Universitys Tisch School of the Arts and he began his screen career in a 1991 episode of Law & Order and started to appear in films in 1992. He began to play leading roles, and for his portrayal of the author Truman Capote in Capote. The feature Jack Goes Boating marked his debut as a filmmaker, Hoffman was also an accomplished theater actor and director. He joined the off-Broadway LAByrinth Theater Company in 1995, where he directed, produced and his performances in three Broadway plays – True West, Long Days Journey into Night, and Death of a Salesman – all led to Tony Award nominations. Hoffman struggled with drug addiction as an adult, and relapsed in 2013 after many years of sobriety. Hoffman was born on July 23,1967, in the Rochester suburb of Fairport and his mother, Marilyn OConnor, came from nearby Waterloo and worked as an elementary school teacher before becoming a lawyer and eventually a family court judge. His father, Gordon Stowell Hoffman, was a native of Geneva, New York, along with one brother, Gordy, Hoffman had two sisters, Jill and Emily. Hoffman was baptized a Roman Catholic and attended Mass as a child and his parents divorced when he was nine, leaving the children to be raised primarily by their mother. Hoffmans childhood passion was sports, particularly wrestling and baseball, and he recalled in 2008, I was changed – permanently changed – by that experience. It was like a miracle to me, Hoffman developed a love for the theater, and proceeded to attend regularly with his mother, who was a lifelong enthusiast. He remembered that productions of Quilters and Alms for the Middle Class, at the age of 14, Hoffman suffered a neck injury that ended his sporting activity, and he began to consider acting. Encouraged by his mother, he joined a club. Acting gradually became a passion for Hoffman, I loved the camaraderie of it, the people, and thats when I decided it was what I wanted to do. At the age of 17, he was selected to attend the 1984 New York State Summer School of the Arts in Saratoga Springs, Miller later commented on Hoffmans popularity at the time, We were attracted to the fact that he was genuinely serious about what he was doing. Hoffman applied for several drama degree programs and was accepted to New York Universitys Tisch School of the Arts, between starting on the program and graduating from Fairport High School, he continued his training at the Circle in the Square Theatres summer program. Hoffman had positive memories of his time at NYU, where he supported himself by working as an usher, with friends, he co-founded the Bullstoi Ensemble acting troupe
17.
The Master (2012 film)
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The Master is a 2012 American psychological drama film written, directed, and co-produced by Paul Thomas Anderson and starring Joaquin Phoenix, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and Amy Adams. It tells the story of Freddie Quell, a World War II veteran struggling to adjust to a society, who meets Lancaster Dodd. Dodd sees something in Quell and accepts him into the movement, Freddie takes a liking to The Cause and begins traveling with Dodd along the East Coast to spread the teachings. It was produced by Annapurna Pictures and Ghoulardi Film Company and distributed by The Weinstein Company, with a budget of $30 million, filming began in June 2011, with cinematography provided by Mihai Mălaimare Jr. Jonny Greenwood was the music composer and Peter McNulty film editor. The Master was shot almost entirely on 65mm film stock, making it the first fiction feature to be shot, initially, the film was set up with Universal, but fell through due to script and budget problems. It was first publicly shown on August 3,2012, at the American Cinematheque in 70 mm and screened variously in the same way, where it won the FIPRESCI Award for Best Film. It was released on September 14,2012, in the United States to critical acclaim, with its acting, screenplay, direction, plausibility and realistic resemblance to post-World War II Americans praised. It further received three Academy Award nominations, Best Actor for Phoenix, Best Supporting Actor for Hoffman, in 2016, The Master was voted the 24th greatest film of the 21st century by 177 critics from around the world. Freddie Quell is a sex-obsessed alcoholic World War II veteran from Lynn, Massachusetts, by 1950, he has become a portrait photographer at a department store, but he is soon fired for getting into a drunken fight with a customer. Freddie then finds work at a Salinas, California cabbage farm, one night, intoxicated, Freddie finds himself in San Francisco and stows away on the yacht of a follower of Lancaster Dodd, the leader of a nascent philosophical movement known as The Cause. Dodd begins an exercise with Freddie called Processing, a flurry of disturbing psychological questions aimed at conquering Freddies past traumas, Freddie is enthralled by Dodd, who doesnt flinch from his abject revelations, and Dodd sees something in Freddie. Freddie travels with Dodds family as they spread the teachings of The Cause along the East Coast, Dodd and his family, with Freddie tagging along, stay as guests in the homes of various women drawn to The Cause. But when at a party in New York, a man questions Dodds methods and statements, Freddie pursues him to his apartment. Other members of The Cause begin to worry about Freddies behavior, while they are guests of an acolyte in Philadelphia, Dodds wife Peggy tells Freddie that he must quit drinking if he wishes to stay, to which he agrees. However, he has no intention of keeping his promise. Freddie criticizes Dodds son Val for disregarding his fathers teachings, Dodd is arrested for practicing medicine without proper qualifications, after one of his former hostesses has a change of heart, Freddie is also arrested for assaulting the police officers. In the jail adjacent to Dodd, Freddie smashes the toilet and batters himself against the bars and his bunk. Freddie erupts in a tirade, questioning everything that Dodd has taught him, the two men trade insults until Dodd turns his back
18.
Judi Dench
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Dame Judith Olivia Dench CH DBE FRSA, known as Judi Dench, is an English actress and author. Dench made her debut in 1957 with the Old Vic Company. Over the following few years she performed in several of Shakespeares plays in such roles as Ophelia in Hamlet, Juliet in Romeo and Juliet and Lady Macbeth in Macbeth. Although most of her work during this period was in theatre, she branched into film work. She drew strong reviews for her role in the musical Cabaret in 1968. Over the next two decades, Dench established herself as one of the most significant British theatre performers, working for the National Theatre Company and the Royal Shakespeare Company. She achieved success in television during this period, in the series A Fine Romance from 1981 until 1984 and she has also received the BAFTA Fellowship and the Special Olivier Award. In June 2011, she received a fellowship from the British Film Institute, Dench is also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. Dench was born in Heworth, North Riding of Yorkshire and her mother, Eleanora Olive, was born in Dublin, Ireland. Her father, Reginald Arthur Dench, a doctor, was born in Dorset, England, and later moved to Dublin and he met Denchs mother while he was studying medicine at Trinity College, Dublin. Dench attended The Mount School, a Quaker independent secondary school in York and her brothers, one of whom was actor Jeffery Dench, were born in Tyldesley, Lancashire. Her niece, Emma Dench, is a Roman historian and professor previously at Birkbeck, University of London, and currently at Harvard University. In Britain, Dench has developed a reputation as one of the greatest actresses of the period, primarily through her work in theatre. She has more than once been named one in polls for Britains best actor. Through her parents, Dench had regular contact with the theatre and her father, a physician, was also the GP for the York theatre, and her mother was its wardrobe mistress. Actors often stayed in the Dench household, during these years, Judi Dench was involved on a non-professional basis in the first three productions of the modern revival of the York Mystery Plays in the 1950s. In 1957, in one of the last productions in which she appeared during this period, she played the role of the Virgin Mary, performed on a fixed stage in the Museum Gardens. Though she initially trained as a set designer, she became interested in school as her brother Jeff attended the Central School of Speech
19.
Skyfall
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Skyfall is the 23rd James Bond film produced by Eon Productions and released in 2012. It features Daniel Craig in his performance as James Bond, and Javier Bardem as Raoul Silva. It was directed by Sam Mendes and written by Neal Purvis, Robert Wade and John Logan and it was distributed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and Columbia Pictures. The story centres on Bond investigating an attack on MI6, the attack is part of a plot by former MI6 agent Raoul Silva to humiliate, discredit and kill M as revenge against her for betraying him. The film sees the return of two recurring characters to the series after an absence of two films, Q, played by Ben Whishaw, and Moneypenny, played by Naomie Harris. Skyfall is the last film of the series for Judi Dench, who played M, the position is subsequently filled by Ralph Fiennes character, Gareth Mallory, though Dench would make a brief appearance in the next Bond film, Spectre. Mendes was approached to direct the film after the release of Quantum of Solace in 2008, development was suspended when MGM encountered financial troubles and did not resume until December 2010, during this time, Mendes remained attached to the project as a consultant. The original screenwriter, Peter Morgan, left the project during the suspension, when production resumed, Logan, Purvis, and Wade continued writing what became the final version of the script. Filming began in November 2011 and primarily took place in the United Kingdom, with portions shot in China. Skyfall premiered in London at the Royal Albert Hall on 23 October 2012 and was released in the United Kingdom on 26 October 2012 and it was the first James Bond film to be screened in IMAX venues, although it was not filmed with IMAX cameras. The films release coincided with the 50th anniversary of the series and it was the 14th film to gross over $1 billion worldwide, and the first Bond film to do so. The film won accolades, including two BAFTA Awards, two Academy Awards and two Grammys. In Istanbul, MI6 agents James Bond and Eve Moneypenny chase a mercenary, Patrice, as Bond and Patrice fight atop a train, M, the head of MI6, orders Eve to shoot Patrice from long range. Eve misses and inadvertently hits Bond, who falls into a river, Bond is presumed dead and Patrice escapes. In the aftermath of the operation, M comes under pressure from Gareth Mallory, on her return from the meeting, MI6s servers are hacked and M receives a taunting message via computer moments before the MI6 building explodes, killing several employees. Bond, who used his death to retire, learns of the attack. Although he fails a series of physical and psychological examinations, M approves his return to the field, Bond is ordered to identify Patrices employer, recover the stolen hard drive, and kill Patrice. He meets Q, MI6s new quartermaster, who gives him a radio beacon, in Shanghai, Bond follows Patrice into a skyscraper, but is unable to prevent him from killing his target
20.
Her (film)
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Her is a 2013 American romantic science-fiction drama film written, directed, and produced by Spike Jonze. It marks Jonzes solo screenwriting debut, the film follows Theodore Twombly, a man who develops a relationship with Samantha, an intelligent computer operating system personified through a female voice. The film also stars Amy Adams, Rooney Mara, and Olivia Wilde, Jonze conceived the idea in the early 2000s after reading an article about a website that allowed for instant messaging with an artificial intelligence program. After making Im Here, a film sharing similar themes. He wrote the first draft of the script in five months, principal photography took place in Los Angeles and Shanghai in mid-2012. The role of Samantha was recast in post-production, with Samantha Morton being replaced with Johansson, additional scenes were filmed in August 2013 following the casting change. Her premiered at the 2013 New York Film Festival on October 12,2013, Warner Bros. initially provided a limited release for Her at six theaters on December 18. It was later given a release at over 1,700 theaters in the United States. Her received widespread acclaim upon its release, and grossed over $47 million worldwide on a production budget of $23 million. The film received awards and nominations, primarily for Jonzes screenplay. At the 86th Academy Awards, Her received five nominations, including Best Picture, Jonze also won awards for his screenplay at the 71st Golden Globe Awards, the 66th Writers Guild of America Awards, the 19th Critics Choice Awards, and the 40th Saturn Awards. Unhappy because of his divorce from his childhood sweetheart Catherine, Theodore purchases a talking operating system with artificial intelligence, designed to adapt. He decides that he wants the OS to have a female voice, Theodore is fascinated by her ability to learn and grow psychologically. They bond over their discussions about love and life, such as Theodores avoidance of signing his divorce papers because of his reluctance to let go of Catherine, Samantha proves to be constantly available, always curious and interested, supportive and undemanding. Samantha convinces Theodore to go on a date with a woman, with whom a friend. The date goes well, but Theodore hesitates to promise when he see her again, so she insults him. Theodore mentions this to Samantha, and they talk about relationships, Theodore explains that, although he and Amy dated briefly in college, they are only good friends, and that Amy is married. Theodores and Samanthas intimacy grows through a sexual encounter
21.
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
22.
Chiwetel Ejiofor
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Chiwetel Umeadi Ejiofor, CBE, is a British actor. Ejiofor portrayed the characters Solomon Northup in 12 Years a Slave, Karl Mordo in Doctor Strange, Dr. Vincent Kapoor in The Martian, Okwe in Dirty Pretty Things and The Operative in Serenity. For 12 Years a Slave he received Academy Award and Golden Globe nominations and he was nominated for a 2014 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie for his performance in Dancing on the Edge. In 2008, he was awarded an Officer of the OBE by Queen Elizabeth II for services to the arts and he was elevated to Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 2015 Birthday Honours. Ejiofor was born in Londons Forest Gate, to Nigerian parents of Igbo origin and his father, Arinze, was a doctor, and his mother, Obiajulu, was a pharmacist. His younger sister is CNN correspondent Zain Asher and his father was killed, and Ejiofor was badly injured, and received scars that are still visible on his forehead. Ejiofor began acting in plays at the age of fourteen at Dulwich College. He got into the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art but had to leave after his first year, after being cast in Steven Spielbergs film Amistad. He played the role in Othello at the Bloomsbury Theatre in September 1995, and again at the Theatre Royal, Glasgow in 1996. Ejiofor made his debut in the television film Deadly Voyage in 1996. He went on to become an actor in London. In Steven Spielbergs Amistad, he gave support to Djimon Hounsous Cinque as interpreter Ens, in 1999, he appeared in the British film G, MT – Greenwich Mean Time. In 2000, he starred in Blue/Orange at the Royal National Theatre and that same year, his performance as Romeo in William Shakespeares Romeo and Juliet was nominated for the Ian Charleson Award. Ejiofor was awarded the Jack Tinker Award for Most Promising Newcomer at the Critics Circle Theatre Awards in 2000, Ejiofor had his first leading film role in 2000 playing Nicky Burkett in Jeremy Camerons It Was An Accident. In 2002 he starred in Dirty Pretty Things, for which he won a British Independent Film Award for best actor. In the following year, he was part of the ensemble cast of Love Actually, starred in a BBC adaptation of Chaucers The Knights Tale and he starred alongside Hilary Swank in 2004s Red Dust, portraying the fictional politician Alex Mpondo of post-apartheid South Africa. He played Mike Terry, in the cult film Redbelt that received favourable reviews and he also received acclaim for his performance as a complex antagonist The Operative in the 2005 film Serenity. Ejiofor played a revolutionary in the 2006 film Children of Men and his singing and acting performance in Kinky Boots received a Golden Globe Award and British Independent Film Award nomination
23.
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
24.
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
25.
Blue Jasmine
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Blue Jasmine is a 2013 American black comedy drama written and directed by Woody Allen. The film tells the story of a rich Manhattan socialite who falls into hard times and has to move into her sisters apartment in San Francisco. The film had a release on July 26,2013, in New York and Los Angeles. Blue Jasmine received praise from critics, particularly for Blanchetts performance, Blanchett won the Academy Award for Best Actress, and Hawkins and Allen were nominated for Best Supporting Actress and Original Screenplay, respectively. Blanchett also won the Golden Globe Award, the SAG Award, the film was a box office success, earning $97.5 million worldwide against a budget of $18 million. Jasmine Francis disembarks in San Francisco after a flight from New York City and she takes a taxi to her sister Gingers apartment, where Ginger is dismayed to learn that Jasmine traveled first class despite claiming to be broke. Jasmine has recently suffered a breakdown and, having incurred heavy debts, has been forced to seek refuge with her sister. Jasmine is haunted by memories of her past life as a Manhattan socialite, in a series of flashbacks, it is revealed that some years previously, Ginger and her working-class husband Augie visited New York, their first time there in many years. Jasmine provides a car and driver for them to tour the city, Ginger announces they have won $200,000 in the lottery, which Augie intends to use to start a construction business. However Jasmine offers Hals help in investing the money instead, which Augie reluctantly accepts, while touring New York, Ginger sees Hal kiss another woman. The woman later appears at Jasmines birthday party, Ginger debates whether to say anything to Jasmine but decides to stay quiet, aware that Jasmine might react badly to the suggestion that Hal is having an affair. In the meantime, Hal was exposed to the authorities as a major fraudster running a scheme with his clients money. He eventually commits suicide in prison after being publicly disgraced, Jasmines step-son Danny drops out of Harvard and cuts himself off completely from Jasmine, believing her to be complicit in Hals crimes. Ginger and Augie lost everything in the scheme and their marriage fell apart, after Hals death, Jasmine began drinking heavily and taking anti-anxiety medication. Moreover, she has a habit of babbling to herself and to others, Ginger is now dating a mechanic called Chili, whom Jasmine detests for his low breeding and coarse manners. She considers becoming a designer because of her great taste. She wants to take courses, but, having no computer skills. With no income, she takes a job as a receptionist with a dentist
26.
Lupita Nyong'o
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Lupita Amondi Nyongo is a Mexican-Kenyan actress. She was born in Mexico to Kenyan parents and raised in Kenya and she attended college in the United States, earning a bachelors degree in film and theater studies from Hampshire College. Nyongo began her career in Hollywood as a production assistant, in 2008, she made her acting debut with the short film East River and subsequently returned to Kenya to star in the television series Shuga. Also in 2009, she wrote, produced and directed the documentary In My Genes and she then pursued a masters degree in acting from the Yale School of Drama. Soon after her graduation, she had her first feature film role as Patsey in Steve McQueens historical drama 12 Years a Slave and she became the first Kenyan and first Mexican actress to win an Academy Award. Nyongo made her Broadway debut as an orphan in the critically acclaimed play Eclipsed. Nyongo was born in Mexico City, Mexico, to Kenyan parents, Dorothy and Peter Anyang Nyongo, Nyongo identifies as Kenyan-Mexican and has dual Kenyan and Mexican citizenship. She is of Luo descent on both sides of her family, and she is the second of six children and it is a tradition of the Luo people to name a child after the events of the day, so her parents gave her a Spanish name, Lupita. Her father is a former Minister for Medical Services in the Kenyan government, at the time of her birth, he was a visiting lecturer in political science at El Colegio de México in Mexico City, and her family had been living in Mexico for three years. Nyongo and her family moved back to their native Kenya when she was less one year old. She grew up primarily in Kenya, and describes her upbringing as middle class, when she was sixteen, her parents sent her to Mexico for seven months to learn Spanish. During those seven months, Nyongo lived in Taxco, Guerrero and her family was later forced to leave Kenya because of political unrest. Her uncle, Charles Nyongo, disappeared after he was thrown off a ferry in 1980, Nyongo grew up in an artistic family, where family get-togethers often included performances by the children in the family, and trips to see plays. She attended Rusinga International school in Kenya and acted in school plays, at age 14, Nyongo made her professional acting debut as Juliet in Romeo and Juliet in a production by the Nairobi-based repertory company Phoenix Players. While a member of the Phoenix Players, Nyongo also performed in the plays On The Razzle, Nyongo cites the performances of American actresses Whoopi Goldberg and Oprah Winfrey in The Color Purple with inspiring her to pursue a professional acting career. Nyongo later attended St. Marys School in Nairobi, where she received an IB Diploma in 2001 before attending college in the United States and she graduated from Hampshire College with a degree in film and theatre studies. She cites Ralph Fiennes, the star of The Constant Gardener, in 2008, Nyongo starred in the short film East River, directed by Marc Grey and shot in Brooklyn. She returned to Kenya that same year and appeared in the Kenyan television series Shuga, in 2009, she wrote, directed, and produced the documentary In My Genes, about the discriminatory treatment of Kenyas albino population
27.
Boyhood (film)
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Boyhood is a 2014 American coming-of-age drama film, written and directed by Richard Linklater, and starring Patricia Arquette, Ellar Coltrane, Lorelei Linklater, and Ethan Hawke. Filmed from 2002 to 2013, Boyhood depicts the childhood and adolescence of Mason Evans, Richard Linklaters daughter Lorelei plays Masons sister, Samantha. Production began in 2002 and finished in 2013, with Linklaters goal to make a film about growing up, the project began without a completed script, with only basic plot points and the ending written initially. Linklater developed the script throughout production, writing the next portion of the film after rewatching the previous years footage. Boyhood premiered at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival and was released theatrically on July 11,2014, the film also competed in the main competition section of the 64th Berlin International Film Festival, where Linklater won the Silver Bear for Best Director. The film was nominated for five Golden Globe Awards, winning Best Motion Picture – Drama, Best Director and it also was nominated for five BAFTA awards, winning for Best Director and Best Film. Additionally, it was nominated for six Academy Awards including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Supporting Actor for Hawke and Best Supporting Actress for Arquette, in 2002, six-year-old Mason Evans, Jr. and his older sister Samantha live with their single mother Olivia in Texas. Mason overhears Olivia arguing with her boyfriend, saying she has no time due to parenting. In 2003, Olivia moves the family to Houston, so she can attend the University of Houston, complete her degree, in 2004, Masons father, Mason Sr. visits Houston and takes the children bowling. He promises to spend time with them. When he drops the kids off at home, he argues with Olivia while Mason, Olivia takes Mason to one of her classes, introducing him to her professor, Bill Welbrock, Mason sees them flirt. By 2005, Olivia and Bill have married and blended their two families, including Bills children from a previous marriage and they share experiences such as playing video games and attending a midnight release of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Mason and Samantha are enrolled in the school as their step-siblings, where Mason meets and befriends a girl named Nicole. In 2006, Mason and Samantha bond with their father Mason Sr. as he takes them out for a day in Houston, culminating in a Houston Astros game and a sleepover at his house with his roommate Jimmy. Olivia continues her education and is supportive of Bills strict parenting style, which includes many chores for the kids. In 2007, Bill becomes abusive as alcoholism takes over his life, after Bill assaults Olivia and endangers the kids, Olivia moves the family to a friends house and files for divorce. In 2008, Mason Sr. learns that Samantha has a boyfriend and talks to her and he and Mason go camping at Pedernales Falls State Park and bond over the music of Wilco, Star Wars, and Masons blossoming interest in girls. Mason and Samantha have grown into their new lives in San Marcos, in 2009, Mason is bullied by other students at school and teased on a camping trip but starts receiving attention from girls
28.
Richard Linklater
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Richard Stuart Linklater is an American filmmaker, screenwriter, and actor. Linklater is mostly known for his realistic and natural humanist films which mainly revolve around suburban culture, in 2002 he began filming Boyhood, a passion project which took over twelve years to finish. The film was premiered in 2014 to critical acclaim, Linklater won the Golden Globe, Critics Choice Movie Awards and BAFTAs for Best Director and Best Picture. He also received his first nomination for the Academy Award for Best Director, along with nominations for Original Screenplay, in 2015, Time magazine named Linklater one of the 100 most influential people in the world on the annual Time 100 list. Many of his films are noted for their loosely structured narrative, films and Boyhood – feature the same actors filmed over an extended period of years. He is also known for loyalty to his actors, having worked with Ethan Hawke, Linklater was born in Houston, Texas, the son of Diane Margaret, who taught at Sam Houston State University, and Charles W. Linklater, III. He attended Huntsville High School in Huntsville, Texas, during grades 9-11, as a teen, Linklater also won a Scholastic Art and Writing Award. Linklater studied at Sam Houston State University, until dropping out to work on an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico. He frequently read novels on the rig and, upon returning to land, at this point, Linklater realized he wanted to be a filmmaker. He used his savings to buy a Super-8 camera, a projector, and editing equipment and he was influenced by Martin Scorsese Robert Bresson, Yasujirō Ozu, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Josef Von Sternberg, and Carl Theodor Dreyer. He enrolled in Austin Community College in the fall of 1984 to study film, since his early 20s, Linklater has been a vegetarian. In 2015, he explained the dietary lifestyle in a Boyhood-style documentary for PETA, Linklater founded the Austin Film Society in 1985 together with his frequent collaborator Lee Daniel. One of the mentors for the Film Society was former New York City critic for the Soho Weekly News George Morris who had relocated to Austin, Morris had previously written articles on Leo McCarey, Vincente Minnelli, George Sidney, and Douglas Sirk. For several years, Linklater made many films that were exercises. He finally completed his first feature, the rarely seen Its Impossible to Learn to Plow by Reading Books, the film is significant in the sense that it establishes most of Linklaters preoccupations. The film has his trademark style of camera movements and lack of narrative. These idiosyncrasies would be explored in detail in future projects. To this end Linklater created Detour Filmproduction, and subsequently made Slacker for only $23,000 and it went on to gross more than $1.25 million
29.
Jake Gyllenhaal
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Jacob Benjamin Jake Gyllenhaal is an American actor. He subsequently appeared in indie film, The Good Girl. In 2005, Gyllenhaal portrayed Anthony Swoff Swofford in Jarhead, Gwyneth Paltrows love interest in Proof, Gyllenhaal was born in Los Angeles, California, the son of film producer and screenwriter Naomi Foner and film director Stephen Gyllenhaal. Actress Maggie Gyllenhaal, his sister, appeared with him in the film Donnie Darko. Gyllenhaals father, who was raised as a Swedenborgian, is of Swedish and English descent, jakes last ancestor to be born in Sweden was his great-great-grandfather, Anders Leonard Gyllenhaal. Jakes mother is Jewish, she was born in New York City, to a family from Russia, Gyllenhaal has said that he considers himself Jewish. His parents insisted that he have summer jobs to support himself and he worked as a lifeguard. Gyllenhaal said his parents encouraged artistic expression, I do have parents who supported me in certain ways. In other ways, they were lacking, definitely, its in expression and creativity where my family has always been best at. As a child, Gyllenhaal was regularly exposed to filmmaking due to his familys ties to the industry. He made his debut as Billy Crystals son in the 1991 comedy film City Slickers. His parents did not allow him to appear in the 1992 film The Mighty Ducks because it would have required his leaving home for two months, in subsequent years, his parents allowed him to audition for roles but regularly forbade him to take them if he were chosen. He was allowed to appear in his fathers films several times, Gyllenhaal appeared in the 1993 film A Dangerous Woman, in Bop Gun, a 1994 episode of Homicide, Life on the Street, and in the 1998 comedy Homegrown. Along with their mother, Jake and Maggie appeared in two episodes of Molto Mario, an Italian cooking show on the Food Network. Prior to his year in high school, the only other film not directed by his father, in which Gyllenhaal was allowed to perform, was the 1993 film Josh. Gyllenhaal dropped out two years to concentrate on acting but has expressed intentions to eventually finish his degree. The film earned $32 million and was described in the Sacramento News, Donnie Darko, Gyllenhaals second film, was not a box office success upon its initial 2001 release but eventually became a cult favorite. After the critical success of Donnie Darko, Gyllenhaals next role was as Pilot Kelston in 2002s Highway alongside Jared Leto and his performance was described by one critic as silly, cliched and straight to video
30.
Nightcrawler (film)
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Nightcrawler is a 2014 American thriller film written and directed by Dan Gilroy. The film stars Jake Gyllenhaal as Lou Bloom, a stringer who records violent events late at night in Los Angeles, rene Russo, Riz Ahmed and Bill Paxton also star. A common theme in the film is the relationship between unethical journalism and consumer demand. Gilroy originally wanted to make a film about the life of Weegee and he wrote Bloom as an antihero, based on the ideas of unemployment and capitalism. Gyllenhaal played a role in the films production, from choosing members of the crew to watching audition tapes. Filming took place over the course of four weeks, and was a process that included over eighty locations. Nightcrawler premiered at the 2014 Toronto International Film Festival, and grossed $50.3 million on a budget of $8.5 million. The film was met with praise, with critics highlighting Gilroys screenplay. Several critics listed Nightcrawler as one of the best films of 2014 and it received various accolades, petty thief Louis Lou Bloom is caught stealing from a Los Angeles construction site by a security guard. He attacks the guard, steals his watch and leaves with the stolen material, after selling the material at a scrap yard, Lou asks for a job, but the foreman says he does not hire thieves. While driving home, Lou sees a car crash and pulls over, stringers—freelance photojournalists—arrive and record two police officers pulling a woman from the wreck. One of the stringers, Joe Loder, tells Lou that they sell their footage to local news stations, inspired, Lou steals a bicycle and trades it for a camcorder and a police radio scanner. After two unsuccessful attempts at recording incidents, Lou records the aftermath of a fatal carjacking and sells the footage to KWLA6, the morning news director Nina Romina tells him the station is especially interested in footage of violent incidents in affluent areas. Lou hires an assistant, Rick, a man desperate for money. To give his footage more impact, Lou begins tampering with crime scenes, as Lous work gains traction, he buys better equipment and a faster car. Lou coerces Nina into a date and threatens to end his business with her unless she has sex with him, knowing her job depends on his footage, she reluctantly agrees. The next day he turns down an offer from Loder. Nina berates Lou to get better footage and keep his end of their bargain, Lou sabotages Joes van, when it crashes, Joe is severely injured and Lou records the aftermath
31.
Marion Cotillard
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Marion Cotillard is a French actress, singer-songwriter, musician, environmentalist and spokesperson for Greenpeace who achieved international fame with the film La Vie en Rose. She is the recipient of an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award, Cotillard has appeared in more than 50 feature films and is also known for being the face of Lady Dior handbags since 2008. She became a Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters in France in 2010 and she received Frances highest honor and was made a Knight of the Legion of Honour in 2016. She made her Hollywood debut as Joséphine Bloom in Tim Burtons Big Fish and her performance of Luisa Contini in the musical Nine, earned her a second Golden Globe nomination. She next starred in Michael Manns Public Enemies as Billie Frechette, Cotillard became one of only six actors to receive multiple Academy Award nominations for foreign-language performances. Cotillard played Joan of Arc on stage in different countries between 2005 and 2015 in the oratorio Jeanne dArc au bûcher. She provided voice acting for animated films as The Rose in The Little Prince, April in April and the Extraordinary World and Scarlet Overkill in the French version of Minions. Her other notable French and Belgian films include La Belle Verte, Furia, War in the Highlands, Lisa, Pretty Things, Love Me If You Dare, Innocence, Toi et Moi and Dikkenek. Cotillard was born in Paris, and grew up around Orléans, in an inclined, bustling. Her father, Jean-Claude Cotillard, is an actor, teacher, former mime, Cotillards mother, Niseema Theillaud, who has Kabyle ancestry, is also an actress and drama teacher. Her two younger brothers Quentin and Guillaume are twins, Guillaume is a screenwriter and director. Cotillard began acting during her childhood, appearing in one of her fathers plays, or How I Got into an Argument, and the comedy La Belle Verte, directed by Coline Serreau. In 1998, she appeared in Gérard Pirès action comedy Taxi, playing Lilly Bertineau, the film was a hit in France and she was nominated for a César Award for Most Promising Actress. Cotillard reprised the role in two sequels, Taxi 2 and Taxi 3 and she then ventured into science fiction with Alexandre Ajas post-apocalyptic romantic drama, Furia in 1999. That same year, Cotillard starred in the Swiss war drama film War in the Highlands, in 2001, she appeared in Pierre Grimblats film Lisa, playing the title role and younger version of Jeanne Moreaus character, co-starring with Benoît Magimel and Sagamore Stévenin. In the same year, she starred in Gilles Paquet-Brenners film Pretty Things, in the drama, Cotillard portrayed twins of completely opposite characters, Lucie and Marie, and she was nominated for a César Award for Most Promising Actress for her performances. In 2002, Cotillard starred in Guillaume Niclouxs thriller A Private Affair, in 2003, Cotillard had a notable supporting role in Tim Burtons film Big Fish. In the same year, she starred in the French romantic comedy film Love Me If You Dare, as Sophie Kowalsky, the film was directed by Yann Samuel and was a box office hit in France
32.
Two Days, One Night
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Two Days, One Night is a 2014 Belgian-French-Italian drama film written and directed by the Dardenne brothers, starring Marion Cotillard and Fabrizio Rongione. It competed for the Palme dOr in the competition section at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival. In Seraing, a town near Liège, Belgium, Sandra is a young wife and mother. She suffers a breakdown and is forced to take time off from her job. However, most of the co-workers need the proposed bonus for their own families, in the final scene, the factory workers have a second ballot, in which eight vote for her to keep the job, and eight vote to keep the bonus. As a result, Sandra will not keep her position, however, the manager of the factory calls her into his office and agrees to give her the job of one of the others, a contract worker who voted in her favour. She turns it down – she now has the confidence to start anew, dumont The film was a Belgian production with French and Italian co-producers. It was produced by Dardennes Les Films du Fleuve with co-production support from Frances Archipel 35, Italys BIM Distribuzione and it received funding from the Flemish Audiovisual Fund, RTBF and Centre du cinéma et de laudiovisuel. It received 500,000 euro from Eurimages, the total budget was seven million euros. Filming began in late June 2013 in Seraing, Belgium and was wrapped in September 2013, Two Days, One Night premiered at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival on 20 May 2014. The film was released in France on 21 May 2014 through Diaphana and it was screened at the Sydney Film Festival on 9 June 2014 and at the Munich Film Festival on 29 June 2014. It was the film of the Norwegian Film Festival on 20 August 2014. It was the film of Valladolid Film Festival on 18 October 2014 and was screened at the Savannah Film Festival on 28 October 2014. The film was released in the United Kingdom via Artificial Eye on 22 August 2014, sundance Selects distributed the film in the United States on 24 December 2014. Two Days, One Night received critical acclaim after its premiere at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival, Cotillards performance was highly praised and earned a 15-minute standing ovation. The film has a fresh score of 97% on Rotten Tomatoes based on 160 reviews with an average rating of 8.4 out of 10. The critical consensus states, Another profoundly affecting work from the Dardenne brothers, Two Days, One Night delivers its message with honesty. The film also has a score of 89 out of 100 on Metacritic indicating universal acclaim, empire gave the film five out of five stars and described it as a rare film of unforced simplicity, with an outstanding lead performance
33.
J. K. Simmons
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Jonathan Kimble J. K. Simmons is an American actor and voice actor. In television, he is known for playing Dr. Emil Skoda on the NBC series Law & Order, neo-Nazi Vernon Schillinger on the HBO prison-drama Oz and his film roles include J. Jonah Jameson in Sam Raimis Spider-Man trilogy and music instructor Terence Fletcher in 2014s Whiplash. He is also known for voicing Cave Johnson in the video game Portal 2, Tenzin in The Legend of Korra, Stanford Pines in Gravity Falls, Kai in Kung Fu Panda 3, and Mayor Lionheart in Zootopia. Simmons also reprised his role as J. Jonah Jameson in various Marvel animated series and he has also appeared in a series of television commercials for Farmers Insurance. Jonathan Kimble Simmons was born on January 9,1955 in Grosse Pointe, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit, the son of Patricia, an administrator, and Donald William Simmons, in 1965, when he was 10 years old, his family moved to Worthington, Ohio. In 1973, when he was 18, they moved to Missoula, Montana, the younger Simmons graduated from the University of Montana in 1978 with a music degree. During his tenure, he was part of the music-oriented fraternity Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia. Later, Simmons moved to Seattle and became a member of the Seattle Repertory Theatre, on Broadway, Simmons played Benny Southstreet in the 1992 revival of Guys and Dolls. In 1994 he sang roles in the Wagner opera satire. He also played the role of Jigger in a revival of Carousel with the Houston Grand Opera and he also stars as Ralph Earnhardt, the father of race-car driver Dale Earnhardt, in 3, The Dale Earnhardt Story. He plays Will Pope, Assistant Chief of the LAPD, in the series The Closer. In an interesting precursor to his joining the Law & Order cast as Skoda, Simmons appeared in Homicide, Life on the Street, portraying a criminal in a Law & Order cross-over episode. Other roles include that of a general in the television sitcom Arrested Development. He played B. R. in the film Thank You for Smoking and has been praised for his performance in Juno as Mac McGuff, in all three of Sam Raimis Spider-Man films, Simmons played J. Jonah Jameson, editor-in-chief of the newspaper Daily Bugle. In 2008, he played a CIA superior in Burn After Reading and he also appeared in I Love You, Man. Simmons starred in films produced or directed by his friend Jason Reitman, including Thank You for Smoking, Juno, Up in the Air. In 2013, he had a role as Mr. Jervis in Reitmans film Labor Day. He voices Tenzin, an Airbending master and the son of Aang and Katara and he starred as blind lawyer Mel Fisher in Growing Up Fisher
34.
Whiplash (2014 film)
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Whiplash is a 2014 American drama film written and directed by Damien Chazelle, depicting the relationship between an ambitious jazz student and an aggressive instructor. Paul Reiser co-stars as the students father, the film opened in limited release domestically in the US and Canada on October 10,2014, gradually expanding to over 500 screens and finally closing after 24 weeks on March 26,2015. Over this time the film grossed $49 million, against a budget of $3.3 million. Whiplash premiered in competition in the US Dramatic Category at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival on January 16,2014, sony Pictures Worldwide acquired the international distribution rights. At the 87th Academy Awards, Whiplash won Best Film Editing, Best Sound Mixing, and Best Supporting Actor for Simmons, Andrew Neiman is a first-year jazz student at the prestigious Shaffer Conservatory in New York. He has been playing drums from an age and aspires to become like Buddy Rich. Famed conductor Terence Fletcher discovers Andrew practicing in the room late one night. At a jazz competition, Andrew misplaces Carls sheet music, since Carl cannot play without it, Andrew steps in, telling Fletcher that he can perform Whiplash from memory. After a successful performance, Fletcher promotes him to core drummer, soon after, Fletcher recruits Ryan Connolly, the core drummer from Andrews former lower-level class. Andrew believes Connolly is the talented and experienced drummer, and is infuriated when Fletcher promotes him to core. Determined to impress Fletcher, Andrew practices until his hands bleed and breaks up with his new girlfriend Nicole, believing she will hold him back. He endures a grueling 2 A. M. tryout session with Fletcher, on the way to another competition, Andrews bus breaks down. He rents a car but arrives late, and realizes he left his drumsticks at the rental office, after a dressing-down from Fletcher, Andrew races back to the rental office to retrieve the drumsticks, but his car is broadsided by a semi-trailer. He crawls from the wreckage, runs back to the theater and arrives on stage bloody, when he struggles to play Caravan due to his injuries, Fletcher halts the performance to tell Andrew he is done. Enraged, Andrew attacks Fletcher in front of the audience and is dismissed from Shaffer Conservatory, at his fathers request, Andrew meets with a lawyer representing the parents of Sean Casey, a former student of Fletchers. Seans parents want to prevent Fletcher from teaching again, Andrew agrees to testify on the condition of anonymity, and Fletcher is fired from Shaffer Conservatory. Months later, Andrew has abandoned drumming and is working in a restaurant while applying to different colleges, one evening he discovers Fletcher performing at a jazz club. After the performance, Fletcher invites Andrew to drink him, seeming more hospitable
35.
Tilda Swinton
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Katherine Matilda Tilda Swinton is a British actress, performance artist, model, and fashion muse, known for her roles in independent and Hollywood films. She is the recipient of two BAFTA Awards, one BIFA Award, an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress and has received three nominations for a Golden Globe Award. She began her career in films directed by Derek Jarman, starting with Caravaggio, followed by The Last of England, War Requiem, Swinton won the Volpi Cup for Best Actress at the Venice Film Festival for her performance as Isabella of France in Edward II. She next starred in Sally Potters Orlando, and was nominated for the European Film Award for Best Actress, Swinton was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for her performance in The Deep End. She followed this with appearances in Vanilla Sky, Adaptation, Young Adam and she then starred in the crime drama Julia, I Am Love, and the psychological thriller We Need to Talk About Kevin. Swinton later starred in the romantic fantasy drama, Only Lovers Left Alive. She is also known for her performances as the White Witch in the Chronicles of Narnia series, Swinton won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress and the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role for her performance as lawyer Karen Crowder in Michael Clayton. In 2005, Swinton was given the Richard Harris Award by the British Independent Film Awards in recognition of her contributions to the British film industry, in 2013 she was given a special tribute by the Museum of Modern Art. Swinton was born in London, the daughter of Judith Balfour and her father is a retired major general in the British Army, and was Lord Lieutenant of Berwickshire from 1989 to 2000. Her paternal great-grandfather was a Scottish politician and herald, George Swinton, the Swinton family is an ancient Anglo-Scots family that can trace its lineage to the Middle Ages. The family is one of three families that can trace their unbroken land ownership and lineage to before the Norman Conquest. Swinton attended three independent schools, Queens Gate School in London, the West Heath Girls School and also Fettes College for a brief period, West Heath was an expensive boarding school where she was a classmate and friend of Princess Diana. Children need their parents and the parents can provide. Swinton went to volunteer in Kenya during a break from college with a charity called Project Trust. In 1983, Swinton graduated from New Hall at the University of Cambridge with a degree in Social and Political Sciences, while at Cambridge, she joined the Communist Party, she later joined the Scottish Socialist Party. It was in college that Swinton began performing on stage, Swinton joined the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1984, appearing in Measure for Measure. She also worked with the Traverse Theatre in Edinburgh, starring in Mann ist Mann by Manfred Karge in 1987, on television, she appeared as Julia in the 1986 mini-series Zastrozzi, A Romance based on the Gothic novel by Percy Bysshe Shelley. Her first film was Caravaggio in 1986, directed by Derek Jarman, Swinton also played the title role in Orlando, Sally Potters film version of the novel by Virginia Woolf
36.
Snowpiercer
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Snowpiercer is a 2013 English-language Czech-Korean science fiction thriller film based on the French graphic novel Le Transperceneige by Jacques Lob, Benjamin Legrand and Jean-Marc Rochette. The film is directed by Bong Joon-ho, and written by Bong, the film marks Bongs English-language debut, approximately 80% of the film was shot in English. The film stars Chris Evans, Song Kang-ho, Tilda Swinton, Jamie Bell, Octavia Spencer, Go Ah-sung, John Hurt, and Ed Harris. Evans stars as Curtis Everett, a member of the tail section passengers as they lead a revolution against the elite of the front of the train. Filming was done on train car sets mounted on gimbals at Barrandov Studios in Prague to simulate the motion of the train, Snowpiercer was well received by critics, and appeared on many film critics top ten film lists of 2014 following its international release. Praise was primarily directed towards its vision, direction, and performances, particularly Evanss, produced at a budget of $40 million, it remains as the most expensive Korean production ever. By 2031, elites inhabit the extravagant front cars and the scum inhabit the tail in squalid and brutal conditions. Under watch by Wilfords guards, they are brought only gelatinous protein bars to eat and kept in their place in the order by Minister Mason. Conspiring with his mentor Gilliam, Curtis Everett leads the tail passengers in a revolt that he plans will take all the way up to the engine. Overpowering the guards, they release security expert Namgoong Minsu and his clairvoyant daughter Yona from the car so as to disable the locks between cars. They take the car where insects are ground up to make their protein bars, instead, they are ambushed by a mass of masked men with hatchets led by Franco the Elder under Masons orders, after a bloody battle Curtis sacrifices his second-in-command Edgar to win the fight. They travel through several luxurious cars and arrive at a classroom, where the teacher expounds to the children and the rebels on the greatness of Wilford and the sacred engine. While distracted by the celebration of the New Year marking one circumnavigation of the globe, further back, Franco and Masons soldiers use the same distraction to kill the rebel army and many of the tail passengers. Franco executes Gilliam, and Curtis kills Mason in revenge, Curtis group continues forward, followed by Franco, leading to a violent fight in a sauna car during which Franco kills Grey and Tanya before Curtis and Namgoong seemingly kill him. Curtis confesses to him shortly after boarding the train, the tail passengers resorted to cannibalism to survive. He was nearly ready to kill infant Edgar when Gilliam offered his own arm instead, after years of disdain for Wilford, Curtis seeks to learn what Wilfords intentions were. Franco is revealed to have survived and makes his way toward the engine, Wilfords assistant Claude emerges from the engine, shoots Namgoong, and invites Curtis inside where he meets an aging Wilford. He explains the importance of using fear and chaos to maintain a necessary order, after letting Curtis experience being alone for the first time in seventeen years, Wilford asks Curtis to replace him
37.
Mad Max: Fury Road
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Mad Max, Fury Road is a 2015 action film directed and produced by George Miller, and written by Miller, Brendan McCarthy and Nico Lathouris. The fourth installment in the Mad Max franchise, it is an Australian and American venture produced by Kennedy Miller Mitchell, RatPac-Dune Entertainment, the film is set in a future desert wasteland where gasoline and water are scarce commodities. It follows Max Rockatansky, who joins forces with Imperator Furiosa to flee from cult leader Immortan Joe and his army in a tanker truck. The film also features Nicholas Hoult, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, Riley Keough, Zoë Kravitz, Abbey Lee, Fury Road was in development hell for many years, with pre-production starting as early as 1997. Attempts were made to shoot the film in 2001 and 2003, but were delayed due to the September 11 attacks, in 2007, after focusing on Happy Feet, Miller decided to pursue producing the film again. He briefly considered producing it as a film but abandoned it in favor of live-action. In 2009, Miller announced that filming would begin in early 2011, Hardy was cast as Max in June 2010, with production planned to begin that November. Principal photography was delayed several times before beginning in July 2012. The film wrapped in December 2012, although additional footage was shot in November 2013, the film had its world premiere on 7 May 2015 at the TCL Chinese Theatre. It began a theatrical release on 14 May 2015, including an out-of-competition screening at the 68th Cannes Film Festival, in 2D, 3D, IMAX 3D. It has grossed over $378 million worldwide, making it the film in the Mad Max franchise. The film was ranked by critics as the best film of 2015, and is considered one of the greatest action films ever made, acclaim went to its screenplay, action sequences. Fury Road won multiple critical and guild awards, and received ten Academy Award nominations including Best Picture and it won six, Best Costume Design, Best Production Design, Best Makeup and Hairstyling, Best Film Editing, Best Sound Editing, and Best Sound Mixing. Following a nuclear holocaust, the world has become a desert wasteland, Max Rockatansky, a survivor, is captured by the War Boys, the army of the tyrannical Immortan Joe, and taken to Joes Citadel. Designated a universal donor, Max is imprisoned and used as a blood bag for a sick War Boy called Nux. Meanwhile, Imperator Furiosa, one of Joes lieutenants, is sent in her armoured semi-truck, when she drives off-route, Joe realizes that his five wives—women selected for breeding—are missing. Joe leads his army in pursuit of Furiosa, calling on the aid of nearby Gas Town. Nux joins the pursuit with Max strapped to his car to continue supplying blood, a battle ensues between the War Rig and Joes forces
38.
George Miller (director)
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George Miller AO is an Australian film director, screenwriter, producer, and former medical doctor. He is best known for his Mad Max franchise, with The Road Warrior, aside from the Mad Max films, Miller has been involved in a wide range of projects. These include the Academy Award-winning Babe and Happy Feet film series, Miller is co-founder of the production houses Kennedy Miller Mitchell, formerly known as Kennedy Miller, and Dr. D Studios. His younger brother Bill Miller and Doug Mitchell have been producers on almost all the films in Millers later career, in 2006, Miller won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature for Happy Feet. Miller was born in Brisbane, Queensland, to Greek immigrant parents, Dimitri Castrisios Miller, the couple married and settled in Chinchilla and had four sons, fraternal twins George and John, Chris, and Bill. George attended Ipswich Grammar School and later Sydney Boys High School, while in his final year at medical school, George and his younger brother Chris made a one-minute short film that won them first prize in a student competition. In 1972, Miller completed his residency at Sydneys St Vincents Hospital and that same year, Miller and Kennedy founded Kennedy Miller Productions. The pair subsequently collaborated on numerous works, after Kennedy died in 1983, Miller kept his name in the company. It was later renamed Kennedy Miller Mitchell in 2009 as a way to recognize producer Doug Mitchells role in the company, in 1979, Miller made his feature-length directorial debut with Mad Max. Based on a written by Miller and James McCausland in 1975. During the time between the second and third Mad Max films, Miller directed a remake of Nightmare at 20,000 Feet as a segment for the anthology film Twilight Zone and he also co-produced and co-directed many acclaimed miniseries for Australian television including The Dismissal and The Cowra Breakout. In 1987, Miller directed The Witches of Eastwick, starring Jack Nicholson, Susan Sarandon, Cher, the film, a black comedy, was centred around three women whose magical power is released after they meet a millionaire bachelor in a puritanical and wealthy New England town. The Witches of Eastwick proved to be an experience for Miller. I quit the film twice and Jack held me in there and he said just sit down, lose your emotion, and have a look at the work. If you think the work is good, stick with the film, I learnt more from him than anybody else I think I’d worked for – he was extraordinary. Following The Witches of Eastwick, Miller focused primarily on producing Australian projects and his role as producer of Flirting, Dead Calm and the TV miniseries Bangkok Hilton and Vietnam, all starring Nicole Kidman, was instrumental in the development of her career. Miller returned to directing with the release of Lorenzos Oil, which he co-wrote with Nick Enright, in 1993, Miller was hired to direct Contact based on the story by Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan. After working on the film for over a year, Warner Bros. and Miller mutually agreed to part ways, Miller also co-wrote the comedy-drama Babe and wrote and directed its sequel Babe, Pig in the City
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Leonardo DiCaprio
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Leonardo Wilhelm DiCaprio is an American actor and film producer. He began his career by starring as Josh in Critters 3. He starred in the adaptation of the memoir This Boys Life. Since 2000, DiCaprio has received acclaim for his work in a wide range of film genres. Edgar, the western Django Unchained, and the period drama The Great Gatsby and he also won his first Academy Award and BAFTA Award for his performance in The Revenant. DiCaprio is the founder of his own company, Appian Way Productions. Leonardo Wilhelm DiCaprio was born on November 11,1974 in Los Angeles and he is the only child of Irmelin, a legal secretary, and George DiCaprio, an underground comics artist and producer/distributor of comic books. DiCaprios father is of Italian and German descent, DiCaprios maternal grandfather, Wilhelm Indenbirken, was German. His maternal grandmother, Helene Indenbirken, was a Russian-born German citizen, in an interview in Russia, DiCaprio referred to himself as half-Russian and said that two of his grandparents were Russian. DiCaprios parents met while attending college and subsequently moved to Los Angeles, DiCaprio was named Leonardo because his pregnant mother was looking at a Leonardo da Vinci painting in a museum in Italy when he first kicked. His parents separated when he was an old, and he lived mostly with his mother. The two lived in several Los Angeles neighborhoods, such as Echo Park and Los Feliz, while his mother worked several jobs, DiCaprio attended Seeds Elementary School and John Marshall High School a few blocks away, after attending the Los Angeles Center for Enriched Studies for four years. However, he dropped out of school following his third year. DiCaprio spent part of his childhood in Germany with his grandparents, Wilhelm. He is conversant in German and Italian, DiCaprios career began with his appearance in several commercials and educational films. In 1990, he got his break on television when he was cast in the series based on the movie Parenthood. After Parenthood, DiCaprio had bit parts on several shows, including The New Lassie and Roseanne, as well as a stint on the soap opera Santa Barbara. His involvement in Parenthood and the daily soap earned him a nomination for the Young Artist Award for Best Young Actor each, released in 1991, the movie went direct-to-video
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The Revenant (2015 film)
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It stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Tom Hardy, Domhnall Gleeson and Will Poulter. Development began in August 2001 when producer Akiva Goldsman purchased Punkes manuscript, principal photography began in October 2014. Location and crew concerns delayed the film from May to August 2015, the film premiered at the TCL Chinese Theatre on December 16,2015 and had a limited release on December 25, expanding on January 8,2016. It received positive reviews critics, with the performances, direction. In 1823, Hugh Glass guides Andrew Henry’s trappers through unorganized territory, while he and his half-Pawnee son, Hawk, are hunting, the companys camp is attacked by an Arikara war party. Glass recommends that the travel on foot to Fort Kiowa. After docking, the crew stashes the pelts near the shore, Glass is badly mauled by a grizzly bear and left close to death. Trapper John Fitzgerald, fearful of another Arikara attack, argues that the group must mercy-kill Glass, Henry agrees, but is unable to pull the trigger, instead, he offers money for someone to stay with Glass. When the only volunteers are Hawk and the young Jim Bridger, after the others leave, Fitzgerald attempts to smother Glass but is discovered by Hawk. Fitzgerald stabs him to death as Glass watches helplessly, the next morning, Fitzgerald convinces Bridger that the Arikara are approaching and they must abandon Glass. After they depart, Fitzgerald admits he lied, when Fitzgerald and Bridger meet Henry at the fort, Fitzgerald tells him that Glass died and Hawk vanished. Glass begins a journey through the wilderness. He performs crude self-surgery and eludes the pursuing Arikara who are looking for the Chiefs kidnapped daughter, Glass encounters Pawnee refugee Hikuc who says that revenge is in the Creators hands. The men share bison meat and travel together, after an hallucinogenic experience, Glass discovers Hikuc hanged by French hunters. He infiltrates their camp and sees the leader raping Powaqa and he frees her, kills two hunters, and steals Hikucs horse, leaving his canteen behind. The next morning, Glass is ambushed by the Arikara and driven over a cliff on his horse and he survives the night by eviscerating the horse and sheltering inside its carcass. A French survivor staggers into Fort Kiowa and Bridger recognizes his canteen as Glasss, believing it stolen, Henry organizes a search party. Fitzgerald, realizing Glass is alive, empties the outpost’s safe, the search party finds the exhausted Glass
