Danny Collins (R; 2015)

MoViews:   Danny Collings     Genre: Drama       Rating:  R                  Runtime: 1hr 46 mins

Overall BAGEO Rating:  A

Direction:  Dan Fogelman 

Cinematography: D

Screen Play:  Dan Fogelman

Key Actors: Al Pacino, Annette Bening, Bobby  Canavale

Summary:   A made up story of a musician (Danny Collins) who was very addicted to the life of tours, alcohol, drugs and women and has lots of money, but gets  enlightenment to come back to ethical life after reading a letter written to him by Beatles John Lennon about 30 years earlier.  Whether he really turns around is a question even at the end of the movie for me.  The story is supposed to be inspired from a real life incident of another not well known British singer (Steve Tilston), who received a letter of John Lennon very late in his musical career.  In this movie, that's the only true incident - rest of the movie story are all made up.  The story line goes slow and as expected but it I felt it kind of ends unexpectedly. The rest of the story is to be assumed by the viewer based on the suggestions from Danny to his son.  Al Pacino acts  as the musician Danny Collins in his remarkable usual way.  His son acted by Bobby Canavale also does well.   The movie gets good ratings from me on the nice background music scores and the screen play/direction.  However with many drug/alcohol scenes, a couple of full (front!) nudity and abundant expletives in the dialogues, it is only for matured adults and not for kids & children.

Other interesting points: During the end credits, a clip of a Steve Tilston (the inspiration for Danny Collins) interview and a couple of newspaper headlines (that describe Tilston's finding of the John Lennon letter) are shown.

Overall:   Average for Screen Play, Story. Good for direction, musical scores, acting            

BAGEO Rating:  Average - may be good if too generous.

Unbroken (PG-13; 2014)

MoViews:  UnBroken          Genres:   Drama          Rating:  PG-13           Runtime: 2 hrs 13 mins

Overall BAGEO Rating: E

Direction:  Angelina Joile   ;   Cinematography:

Screen Play:  Joel Coen, Ethan Coen, Richard Lagravanese, William Nicholson   Production Designer: Jon Hutman

Key Actors: Jack O'Connell

Summary:  

An amazing movie based on the real life story of Louis Zamperini who was a potential Olympic runner for the USA, but was destined to participate in a rescue mission during the war against Japanese.  The rescue mission went wrong and he along with two of his colleagues were trapped in a raft in the middle of Pacific Ocean for 47 days.  To make matters worse, he and another man Phil (the third soldier died in the ocean) were captured by Japanese soldiers and forced thro a horrible torture in different prison camps. Zamperini survives all the torture against all odds and returns back to the US and to his family.   It is said (and not in the movie though) that after a few years of recovery from the trauma, Louis becomes a spiritual man and goes back to Japan to his war camps and forgives all the Japanese soldiers who tortured him.   He was supposed to have participated in the Tokyo Olympics which was cancelled , so  he had the honor of running with the torch in Japan in 1998.

The movie is based on the book 'Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption'  by Laura Hillenbrand and directed by the celebrated movie star Angelina Jolie.

Amazing bombing scenes from fighter jet at the beginning.   Fills the screen with sound effects and realistic scenes.    Many  motivating lines in the script including  "Go on living the best you can.  Try to have some fun along the way", ""If you take it, you can make it"".    For me, the scenes in the ocean resembled the Life of Pi movie, but the story takes a drastic turn when they were captured by Japanese.    Ferocious scenes of sudden attacks from sharks.  A very tragic situation of one of their man (Mac) dying and his body respectfully lowered into the ocean.   After sometime even the viewer may start wondering when their difficulty ends when they are caught by Japanese and cruelly tortured (abused?) and even separated. A lot of cruelty in the war camps - can't believe it.    The movie sets for the war scenes are very realistic and elaborate.  Can't believe Japanese were so cruel in their treatment of prisoners.  Amazing scene of all prisoners bathing in the river   An unbelievable true story of survival, resilience and redemption indeed, as the title of the movie says.  In one of the most anguishing scenes, a malnourished and tired Louis Zamperini is ordered by his Japanese commander to lift a huge log of wood as punishment.

Got to know the movie was filmed mostly in the Gold Coast of Australia.  Not in the movie, but it is said that Louis became was suffering from trauma after the return (understandably) and became an alcoholi, but at the insistence of his wife,  started attending the sermons of Billy Graham and became a born-again Christian.  He then went back to Japan after his recovery from the trauma and met his former Japanese soldiers who tortured him and forgave them for their acts.

Other interesting points:

Overall:   An excellent movie based on a true story.  Difficult to watch for kids.                        BAGEO Rating:  E

The Theory of Everything (PG-13; 2014)

MoViews:  The Theory of Everything;   Rating: PG-13   Genres:  Drama             Language: English

Overall BAGEO Rating:  E (Excellent)

Direction: James Marsh;  Screenplay:  Anthony McCarten.;   Cinematography: Benoit Delhomme

Story:  Jane Hawking; based on her book ‘Travelling to Infinity; My life with Stephen”.

Key Actors: Eddie Redmayne (Stephen Hawking), Felicity Jones (Jane Hawking), Charlie Cox (Jonathan Jones)

Summary:   This movie has been made based on the book “ Travelling to Infinity:  My life with Stephen” by Jane Hawking. An excellent movie with realistic portraying of the life of the celebrated scientist Stephen Hawking who is handicapped due to Lou Gehrig’s disease also known as  motor neutron disease.    Due to this disease, he starts loosing control of his muscles and thereby the movements of most of his body parts.  The movie initially shows him as a young boy with some bodily defect, in the way he looks and talk and the movie very gradually slowly takes the viewer through the different stages  of his disease without putting us into major shocks.  Along with that however, it also moves the story along very nicely with his education, love with Jane and the world recognizing him as an amazing scientist.  A wonderful movie to watch, especially for teen kids to learn about this  amazing scientist  and understand how inspite of his unthinkable disease and handicap,  he has been able to achieve his passion and ambition.   Towards the end of the movie,  he  is shown addressing an audience where he says his famous quote  “There should be no boundaries to human endeavor” and “Where there is life, there is hope”!

Acting:  Exceptional acting as Stephen Hawking by Eddie Redmayne.  It seems Eddie met with the actual Stephen Hawking and observed his walk, talk, actions etc. and has been very successful in portraying it.  Felicity Jones also has done a wonderful acting as Jane Hawking and going through the emotional ups and downs.

Screenplay & Direction: The movie well crafted by James Marsh.  It is smooth flowing with no surprises nor any visible goof ups,  though IMDB has listed some interesting trivia that shows some mismatches.  However for a normal movie viewer,  none of those are conspicuous.

Other interesting points: Looks like the movie has been filmed in the actual Oxford and Cambridge campuses ( I may be wrong) which shows how the life is for kids. Stephen’s parents are shown a few times in the movie, but from a story point of view, they do not seem to be very involved with his life, even after he is severely handicapped due to the disease.  Stephen starts as an atheist at the start and does not go to church saying he has a slight problem with the whole celestial dictator premise.  As a scientist, he even discards presence of GOD and proclaims that the universe has no beginning. However towards the end,  he has not been able to find one single formula for the existence of universe and that I felt he indirectly agrees to the principle of GOD in the universe.

Overall: A must watch movie for teens and above.   BAGEO Rating: E.