The

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Fabulous
looks of
Inside
Tina Fey
Movie
Hollywood’s Reviews
Bankable
Stars Available
Norway
to Own
Wins 54th on DVD
Eurovision
Song
Contest
Coming
Soon to
Theaters
:
62nd Annual Cannes Film Festival
$ FREE (US)
Founder’s Message
In life things happen so unexpected, and it’s so out
of control. I find myself wanting to do more in my
lifetime, but never being motivated enough to do
it. It seems that when I want to get something
done it never happens the right way. But it all
seems to change at the most unexpected times.
When you least expect it!

As you all know I really enjoy writing and creating

these newsletters, it inspires me to work harder at
what I do so I can pursue whatever I desire. If I find
myself in a writer’s block, I listen to music, which
actually works wonders for me.
So, if getting inspired is something that you truly wish to do, then my
suggestion for you is to just open up your mind to things that you've never seen
or done before. Go out into the world around you and see what you can
discover. It doesn't really matter what you find yourself doing. There's no use of
doing any of it unless you can find a way to get inspired by it.

I just find that things are so much better for you and your soul if you are
inspired and motivated about what you do. Most importantly, it'll make your
job or anything for that matter so much better. So if you’re trying to get
inspired by anything around you…it can be as simple as listening to a song, or
even looking at a picture…

Even though it may seem like a lot of work getting inspired it can help you in life
and your career, or anything else that you wish to do. For me getting inspiration
is nothing more than experiencing new things in life. It gives me the chance to
show the world what I really have to offer!

p.s. I would like to dedicate this newsletter to my mother, sisters, brother, step-
father, nephews, Jose, and Julia for their hard work everyday and for being the
people that inspire me.

- Javier Serrano, founder

 Editor’s Message
I completely understand writer’s block and am
always looking for points of inspiration! I too listen
to music, read, watch movies and just observe
everyday life to find my inspiration. What I’ve
found is that people inspire me the most, the little
things people say when they are just being
themselves, not thinking someone like me will
remember and quote them later (or use them to
base a character in my novel…)!

So, some of you spoke up, and I listened! Here are

some comments we received from last months
issue:
“I really enjoyed the 7 tips for success...great advice for anyone that has a passion
in life!” –James M.

“…this is great!” –Marty S.

“I think that your advise on Goals and their achievement is excellent [and] I can
relate to. I absolutely enjoyed…Roles That Got Away.” –Steve W.

“I've been enjoying your newsletters…” –Samantha S.

“[I] like the Roles that Got Away.” –Angela C.

Please keep sending-in those comments and wonderful messages!!! We really

appreciate them and you WILL be featured (unless you don’t want to of course) in
the next issue! We also personally respond to each email we receive, as well as any
Facebook message or blog comment.
*** Remember our new email is: montepictures@ymail.com
*** Blog: mpictures.tumblr.com

“Happiness can be found in even the darkest of places, if one only remembers to turn on the light.”
–Albus D.

- julia wieczorek, editor-in-chief

Exclusive photos - ->
Norway wins its third
Eurovision Song Contest.

Alexander Rybak winning

Song: “Fairytale”.
Belgium's Hadise
captures 4th Place
for Turkey with her
song: “Crazy for You
(Dum Tek Tek).”
Urban Symphony
takes 6th place
for Estonia in
Eurovision Song
Contest.
“Randajad”
Jade Ewen sung her way to
5th place marking the
United Kingdom’s personal
best since 1997, when they
captured first in the
Eurovision Song Contest.

“It’s My Time”
Lejsi Tola placed
17th for Albania.
“Carry Me In
Your Dreams”

Noa and Mira Awad took

16th place for Israel.
“There Must Be Another Way”
 Anastasiya Prikhodko
won the 11th place
for Russia, the hosted
nation for this year’s
Eurovision contest.
“Mamo”
Romania sent “The
Balkan Girls” to
Eurovision, where
the song placed 19th.

Croatia glided their

way to 18th place.
“Lijepa Tena”
The Land of the Fire:
Azerbaijan won third
place for “Always”.

The biggest surprise

of the night went to
Yohanna’s “Is It
True?” placing 2nd.
 Soraya glittered her
way to 23rd place,
tied second to last.

“La Noche Es Para Mi”

 Alex Swings and
Oscar Sings! Placed
20th for Germany
in this year’s
Eurovision contest.

“Miss Kiss Kiss Bang”

Tina
Fey

What you don’t know about Tina Fey:

She is a five time Emmy Award Winner
Tina Fey, whose full name is Elizabeth Stamatina Fey, is a well rounded entertainer. Born on May 8,
1970, Fey is a writer and a comedian, as well as an actress. Born in Upper Darby, Pennsylvania, Fey
graduated from the University of Virginia with a B.A. in Drama in 1992. She then moved to Chicago,
and got a job at YMCA to supplement her night classes at The Second City, an improvisational
comedy troupe. Nine months after, she was encouraged by her teacher to audition for the Second
City Training Center, which she did, but failed. Some two months later, she tried again and this time,
she was selected to join in the year-long program. This is a pivotal move on her part as she spent a
significant amount of years at the Second City in Chicago, the launching pad of many Saturday Night
Live cast members.
It was also the same case for Fey. Thanks to encouragement from her
friend, Adam McKay, she made a submission to SNL and was accepted.
She made history by being the first female writer on the show, ever,
in 1999. She also made her screen debut during the 25th season in
2000 on, Weekend Update with Jimmy Fallon. Her time on Weekend
Update with Fallon was considered to be the best. She went on to
become a regular cast member. Apart from her work on SNL, she also
found time to pen the screenplay to the popular 2004 teen flick, Mean
Girls. The characters were based on Fey's own experience
with real life mean girls from her high school, as well as the non-fiction
book, Queen Bees and Wannabes: Helping Your Daughter Survive
Cliques, Gossip, Boyfriends, and Other Realities of Adolescence by
author Rosalind Wiseman.

Fey is also the creator and star of 30 Rock, a sitcom starring Alex Baldwin, Jane Krakowski and Tina
Fey herself. The show revolves around Fey's character, Liz Lemon, the head writer of "The Girly
Show", who must handle her arrogant new boss as well as an outrageous new star. The series has
won Fey an Outstanding Female Lead in a Comedy Series from the Gracie Allen Awards.
In 2006, Fey was working on the script for Curly Oxide and Vic Thrill, based loosely on the story of
Hasidic rock musician Vic Thrill. Also on the cards is the movie Baby Mama, Fey's collaboration with
Amy Poehler, her ex- SNL cast mate. This time, she was not involved in the writing process, but
stared as a single woman who hires a surrogate mother to have her baby while she pursues her
career. On her personal front, Fey married Jeff Richmond, a composer for SNL, in 2001. The couple
had their first child, Alice Zenobia Richmond in 2005.

Writer:
Curly Oxide and Vic Thrill (2007)
30 Rock (2006-2007)
Saturday Night Live (1997-2006)
Mean Girls (2004) (screenplay)
The Colin Quinn Show (2002)
Saturday Night Live: The Best of Molly Shannon (2001)
Saturday Night Live: 25th Anniversary (1999) (TV)

Actress:
Baby Mama (2008) as Kate
30 Rock (2006-present) as Liz Lemon
Saturday Night Live (2000-2006)
Mean Girls (2004) as Ms. Norbury
Coming Soon to Theaters . . ..
 My
Sister’s
Keeper
Release date:
26 June 2009

Based on the award winning novel from best-selling author Jodi Piccoult,
MY SISTER’S KEEPER tells the story of Sara and Brian who live a peaceful
life with their young son and daughter. But their family is rocked by
sudden, heartbreaking news that forces them to make a difficult and
unorthodox choice in order to save their baby girl’s life. The parents’
desperate decision raises both ethical and moral questions and rips away
at the foundation of their relationship. Their actions ultimately set off a
court case that threatens to tear the family apart, while revealing
surprising truths that challenge everyone’s perceptions of love and
loyalty. From the director of The Notebook, MY SISTER’S KEEPER
stars Cameron Diaz (In Her Shoes, Charlie’s Angels, There’s Something
About Mary), Jason Patric (In the Valley of Elah, Sleepers, The Lost Boys)
and Alec Baldwin (30 Rock, The Departed, Glengarry Glen Ross) alongside
Abigail Breslin (Little Miss Sunshine) and Sofia Vassilieva (Day Zero).
 The Hurt Locker

Release date:
26 June 2009

Director Kathryn Bigelow's first film in six years, THE HURT LOCKER follows three
American soldiers (Jeremy Renner's cocky James, Anthony Mackie's pragmatic
Sanborn, and Brian Geraghty's jittery Owen) as they encounter a series of
perilous situations during the last few weeks of their tour in Iraq. The episodic
structure employed by screenwriter Mark Boal admittedly does take some getting
used to, as the film - which is essentially plot-less - consists primarily entirely of
stand-alone sequences detailing the central characters' various day-to-day
escapades. There's little doubt, however, that the almost unbearably suspenseful
nature of some of these scenes - one in which James must disarm an explosive
strapped to a reluctant suicide bomber - effectively ensures that one's interest
rarely flags, although it's worth noting that the movie does start to run out of
steam towards the end (with the inclusion of a fairly tedious nighttime mission
certainly not helping matters). That's an awfully minor complain for a war film
that is otherwise uncommonly taut and uniformly well acted; in terms of the
latter, Renner delivers a breakthrough performance that's nothing short of
stunning in terms of its power and effectiveness (Mackie and Geraghty, along
with cameo players Guy Pearce, Ralph Fiennes, and David Morse, are also quite
good).
The 62nd edition started on 13
May and ended on 24 May, 2009.

Exclusive photos available. . .

 Isabelle Huppert
This year, the Cannes Film festival selected a
female president, the formidable French
actress Isabelle Huppert. It is worth pointing
out that she is only the fourth woman in 62
years to chair the jury that will decide the
Palme d'Or, also known as, Best Picture of the
year..

Reasons why the Festivities de Cannes Jurors selected French actress as Madame President: "[Huppert] has
to rate as one of the most accomplished actresses in the world today, even if she seems short of the passion
or agony of her contemporary," – David Thompson and "This is surely one of the greatest performances of
Huppert's already illustrious acting career, though it is one that is very hard to watch," (1999, The Piano
Teacher) – Stuart Jeffries.

A short history about Cannes: The Cannes Film Festival hasn't just produced six decades of fabulous films,
but each year it has also created a unique and artistic representation of the world's most glamorous film
festival. The inaugural Cannes Film Festival was held in September 1939, but it was not held again until after
World War II. The event moved to April during the 1950s and the Palme d'Or prize was introduced in 1955.
The festival established itself during the 1960s, and has since secured its status as the world's most
prestigious.

French translation:

Cette année, le Festival de cinéma Cannes a choisi le président femelle, l'actrice française formidable
Isabelle Huppert. Il vaut la peine de montrer qu'elle est seulement la quatrième femme dans 62 ans pour
présider le jury qui décidera le Palme d'Or, aussi connu comme, la Meilleure Peinture de l'année. À
l'exception de l'auteur Francoise Sagan, tous les Présidents de Madame précédents ont été des acteurs et
tous étaient parmi les grandes beautés de leur temps.

Raisons pour lesquelles les jurés des festivités De Cannes ont choisi l'actrice française comme Madame le
président : « [Huppert] doit évaluer en tant qu'une des actrices les plus accomplies au monde aujourd'hui,
même si elle semble short de la passion ou de l'agonie de son contemporain, Isabelle Adjani, » - David
Thompson et « ceci est sûrement l'une des plus grandes exécutions de la carrière temporaire déjà illustre
de Huppert, bien qu'il soit une il est très difficile d'observer que, » (1999, le professeur de piano) - Stuart
Jeffries.

Une histoire courte au sujet de Cannes : Le festival de film de Cannes n'a pas simplement produit six
décennies des films fabuleux, mais tous les ans il a également créé une représentation unique et artistique
du festival du film le plus fascinant du monde. Le festival inaugural de film de Cannes a été tenu en
septembre 1939, mais on ne l'a pas tenu encore jusqu'à après la deuxième guerre mondiale. L'événement
déplacé à avril pendant les années 50 et le prix de d'Or de Palme a été présenté en 1955. Le festival s'est
établi pendant les années 60, et a depuis fixé son statut comme monde le plus prestigieux.
 CANNES Winners:
Top Five Major Prizes

White Ribbon wins Palm d'Or at Cannes Film Festival!

The White Ribbon, a black and white parable about the rise of fascism in
pre-war Germany from director Michael Haneke, has won the Best
Director at the Cannes Film Festival.
Prix d'interprétation féminine - Best Actress

French actress Charlotte Gainsbourg

poses with the Best Actress award she
received for the film Antichrist, at the
awards ceremony.

Prix d'interprétation masculine –

Best Actor
Austrian soap star Christoph Waltz
clinched the Cannes film festival's best
actor award Sunday for his role as a
multilingual Nazi in Quentin Tarantino's
Inglourious Basterds.

Waltz plays the smooth-talking villain

of the flick, SS colonel Hans Landa,
whose memorable one-liners had the
Cannes audience chortling throughout
the film.
 Prix de la mise en scène - Best Director
Brillante Mendoza for “Kinatay”

Grand Prix - Grand Prize of the Festival

UN PROPHÈTE (A PROPHET)
directed by Jacques AUDIARD
 Hollywood’s Bankable Actors of 2009
We're in a worldwide recession, but theater attendance is up in both the UK and the US alone. James
Bird, of the Cinema Exhibitors Association, representing 90% of UK cinemas, states: "When people are
feeling gloomy about the economy, the cinema offers good, value for money escapism." (Lucy Tobin,
UK Cinemas Dodge Recession www.thisismoney.co.uk)

Theater attendance went up 40% in the crash of 1929, a phenomenon that's been repeated during
other downturns in the past 70 years. Hollywood magazine Variety last summer reported that against
the odds, the box office was doing great. John Fithian of the National Assosiation of Theater Owners
commented: "Though we don't wish hard times on anyone, the cinema business tends to do very well
during challenging economic times." It seems that when money is tight, people are prepared to spend
money on treats that provide escapism for a few hours. DVDs will always have their place for
watching old favorites or catching up on movies you missed, but for seeing a movie at its best you
can't beat the theater.

1. Will Smith $80 million 2. Johnny Depp $72 million

3. Eddie Murphy $55 Million 4. Mike Myers $55 Million
5. Leo DiCaprio $45 million 6. Bruce Willis $41 million
7. Ben Stiller $ 40 million 8. Nicolas Cage $31 million
9. Will Farrell $31 million 10. Adam Sandler $20 million
Hollywood’s Bankable Actresses of 2009

Sadly, Hollywood actors still earn higher wages than

actresses…

1. Angelina Jolie $27.7 million 2. Nicole Kidman $26 million

3. Julia Roberts $23 million 4. Reese Witherspoon $21 million
5. Cameron Diaz $15.5 million 6. Jennifer Aniston $14 million
7. Kate Hudson $10. million 8. Katherine Heigl 9.3 million
9. Anne Hathaway $8.1 million
Movie

Reviews
 Nina’s
Tragedies

A coming-of-age story about losing a loved one

Nadav (Aviv Elkabets), a 14-year-old Israeli boy, is desperately in love with his Aunt Nina (Ayelet
July Zurer, Angels & Demons), the beautiful younger sister of his recently divorced mother. He's
resigned to love her as Nina has recently married Haimon, her long-term boyfriend, who's a
soldier in the Israeli military. When Haimon is killed in a terrorist attack outside Tel Aviv, Nina is
devastated for the loss of the husband, and Nadav is sent to live with her to offer comfort and
company. He sees this as a chance to proclaim his love, all of which is documented very carefully
and graphically in his diary, which, he loses on the grounds of his school.

Writer/director Savi Gabizon's bright and insightful film might play as unseemly in less capable
hands, particularly when involving the tragedy of losing a loved one to a terrorist attack. As Nina
finds herself attracted to a handsome and emotional photographer, Avinoam, whom she met on
the evening she was notified of Haimon's death, Nadav becomes jealous and withdraws, leaving
Nina much more alone. Nina becomes immersed in guilt for thinking of another man, and begins
to believe that she is seeing her late husband walking about the city naked and lurking at her
bedroom window. Meanwhile, Nadav's very religious father falls ill and wants to reconcile with
his son, which confuses Nadav's emotions that much more.
With the help of a number of striking performances, especially from the devastatingly beautiful
Zurer and the young Elkabets, this is a thoughtful and satisfying film of the sort American
filmmakers rarely achieve.
 Anastasia
The Infamous Story of Anna Anderson aka Anastasia
After being blacklisted (due to her desertion of husband Petter Lindstrom and
their daughter Pia and subsequent affair with Italian director Roberto Rossellini),
Ingrid Bergman received her second Best Actress Oscar for her big comeback
Hollywood performance in Anastasia. Bergman plays the title role, an amnesiac
refugee chosen by scheming conman (Yul Brynner) as the woman (Anna Anderson)
to be passed off as the last surviving daughter of Tsar Nicholas and Alexandra of
Russia. Up to a point, Anatole Litvak's picture blends skillfully mystery, romance,
and melodrama Hollywood style. In Arthur Laurents' script, based on a popular
play by Marcelle Maurette and Guy Bolton, Russian exiles in Paris conspire to
present someone as Anastasia, the daughter of Czar Nicholas in order to collect
the 10 million pounds held in her name by the Bank of England.

General Bounine (Brynner) finds a destitute girl on the verge of suicide, takes her
under his care, and grooms her in all of Russian royal ways. In due process, in this
Pygmalion-like saga, the more Bounine learns of her, the more he begins to believe
that she is the real Anastasia. Mystery persists up until the end, when she is
presented to the Empress (poorly cast Helen Hayes), who will identify her as "true"
heiress in a series of test and rituals.
 Persepolis

Marjane Satrapi’s Memior on the Islamic Revolution

In translating her popular graphic novels to the screen, Marjane Satrapi, along with fellow comic book
writer Vincent Paronnaud, has brought her static images to vivid life, while keeping intact all the humor,
pathos and emotional honesty that graced the page. Satrapi’s memoir about growing up in Tehran during
the end of the Shah’s regime, the Iranian Revolution, the Iran-Iraq war and the rise of Islamic
fundamentalism, remains a great personal story, one that is leavened by Satrapi’s perceptive look at the
cultural and political forces that shaped it. Persepolis is a spectacular movie, an endless stream of
pungent experiences—both ordinary and calamitous—that made up Satrapi’s childhood. These events
are rendered in stark black and white images and punctuated with her sharply astute and self-aware
observations, delivered in voice-over by French actress Chiara Mastroianni, whose dark vocal tones
create a perfect funnel for Satrapi’s deliciously down-to-earth commentary.

Persepolis is an animated film, but even though there is not a live person in sight, it’s an extraordinary
visual expression of the human condition. Satrapi describes her animation style as “stylized realism,”
where scenes are based in realism, but the images are design-oriented—sometimes almost to the point
of abstraction. But this is no distancing device; on the contrary, the stylized images end up heightening
the emotional impact of the story. For example, when a young man is shot to death during a police
crackdown of a demonstration against the Shah, the blood seeps from the body in a pool of black ink that
covers the screen in darkness. By rendering her incredible story in these starkly expressive images,
Satrapi not only adds intensity, but also strips the movie of cultural ornamentation, and the story
becomes a universal one that we all can relate to, no matter what country we were born in.
 The Return

Fatherless Boys see the Return of their Father

Being a teenager is not as easy as one remembers it when one is already well
advanced into adulthood. It’s about not being a child anymore but not quite being an
adult yet: it is a bit of both worlds and yet a bit of neither. Vozvrashcheniye (The
Return), the debut of Russian filmmaker Andrei Zvyagintsev, is a beautifully filmed
parable about just that niche: walking the thin line between the joys of an innocent life
as a child and aspiring to be a grown-up but having to carry the responsibilities that
come with it.

Andrey (Vladimir Garin) and Ivan (Ivan Dobronravov) are two brothers that live with
their mother and grandmother in the Russian countryside. It is summer and they love
to go out fishing and swimming. Andrey, the elder brother, teases Ivan with his fear of
heights and calls him names as big brothers do. Ivan tries to stand up against him but
when they have to jump off a tower into the lake, his fear of heights is greater than his
fear of being called names. He remains on top of the tower until his mother convinces
him to come down.

The day after they are out playing again and return home in the afternoon to find a car
parked in front of their house. It is their father’s, who has just returned. Andrey and
Ivan cannot believe it. But who exactly has returned? They go and check on the man
who is sleeping in their mother’s bed and run off to compare him with a picture taken
twelve years prior, when their father still lived with them. Could it be the same man?
 Ransom

One of Mel Gibson’s High Profile Films

Gibson and Russo play Tom and Kate Mullen, he a successful airline magnate, she his glamorous
wife. They have it all--a penthouse in New York, money up to their ears, and a young son, Sean. Alas,
things fall apart when Sean is kidnapped and held for $2 million ransom, which Tom eventually
refuses to pay and instead offers as a bounty on the head of the kidnapper, much to the dismay of
Kate and an FBI agent (Delroy Lindo) dealing with the case.

It is always a disappointment when the filmmakers have a good thing going then botch things up
through carelessness. While the makers of Ransom don't botch the film, carelessness does lead to
the film's two major gaffes- the clear presence of boom microphones in two different scenes. This is
especially a shame, since both boom cameos take place during some key dramatic moments; in one,
the drama and passion of a Gibson monologue is severely undermined by the boom. Instead of
listening intently to the speech and paying attention to the story, the audience at the press
screening could not help but roar with laughter.

An unwanted boom aside, Ransom is first-rate entertainment. Richard Price and Alexander Ignon's
smart script wisely does not make Tom into a hero of impossible goodness; in fact, Tom is more than
a little unsympathetic and morally ambiguous. His virtue and sanity is naturally called into question
when he offers the ransom as a bounty, but his values are even more questionable when we learn
that he paid a bribe to save his airline, yet won't pay for the safe return of his son. Gibson, in a fine
performance, does not sugarcoat anything and creates a complex, difficult character. We see and
feel his genuine love and concern for his son and can understand his desperation, but one cannot
help but think that he's going about the whole thing wrong, that maybe he's lost his mind.
 Ever After

Modern Version of the Famous Story: Cinderella

Drew Barrymore’s got charm and sweetness in this fairytale film, Ever After. This time
she plays Cinderella in a lovely update of the Grimm Brothers' tale. In fact, the story
begins with Cinderella's great great granddaughter (played by a regal Jeanne Moreau),
who is a French royal; informing the Grimms that the folk tale they adapted was
actually based on a true story. She presents a true-life Cinderella without a carriage
that turns into a pumpkin. The glass slipper is merely a bejeweled shoe and the fairy
godmother turns out to be Leonardo, the genius of Vinci, visiting France.

Cinderella's real name is Danielle. When she was 8, her dearly beloved father died
after bringing his horrid new bride home. Once the loving father died, the stepmother,
Rodmilla (Anjelica Huston), turned Danielle into a servant and focused on getting the
king's son Henry (Dougray Scott) to marry one of her nasty daughters. As everyone
knows, the prince is destined to fall in love with Cinderella. But Cinderella is no mere
pretty face. When she meets Henry by chance, she lectures him on the unfairness of
indentured servitude and gets him to free a friend from bondage.
The Third Man

An Iconic Film Noir that’s Still Fresh for Hollywood

The perfect psychological film ever made? Orson Welles's Harry Lime steals the show in this
stunning film noir, The Third Man, set in the ruins of post-War Vienna, and featuring perhaps the
most memorable chase sequence in cinema history. Holly Martins (Cotten) is a hack writer
arriving in Vienna shortly after the end of WWII. He plans to meet up with his old friend, Harry
Lime, but discovers that he has recently been killed in a road accident. He is told a few home
truths about his old chum by a British Army officer (Howard) and from Lime's distraught girlfriend
(Valli), and focuses his own energies on trying to discover the identity of the third man who
helped carry Lime's body from the street.

Eleven minutes was excised from the original US edit, supposedly to lessen the seedy tone. In fact
it's this creeping sense of corruption and moral ambiguity that makes the film so fascinating. It
was producer Korda's idea to set the action in a divided Vienna, and, in the course of Greene's
research, he happened upon the city's thriving post-War trade in black-market penicillin, and the
illicit use of the city's sewer network. The film's success was sealed by Welles's film-stealing
extended cameo, the off-kilter, Oscar-winning photography of Krasker, and the instantly evocative
and unforgettable score by Anton Karas, who Reed discovered while scouting locations in Vienna.
 “Richly satisfying serving of deep-dish Hollywood
storytelling,“
- Todd McCarthy, Vanity

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is a beautiful,

compelling, and heartbreaking film by the acclaimed
director David Fincher. I must proclaim admirably that the
film’s performances are exquisite and some of the visual
effects are astounding, which a majority of drama films lack
in the effects department. The story begins with
Benjamin’s birth in New Orleans in 1918 on the year that
marked the end of World War I. After the sudden death of
his wife during childbirth, Thomas Button abandons his son
immediately on the steps of a nursing home because of his
disfigurement. A worker at the nursing home, Queenie,
finds the abandoned baby and takes him in, even though
her husband rejects the idea.

Benjamin does not die, which doctors had expected because of Benjamin’s rare condition,
that causes him to suffer the effects of old age as an infant and child and appear to gro
younger as he actually grows older. However, Benjamin does what every young boy does
through life: he grows up. Despite his condition, Queenie loves Benjamin as if he is her own
son, and why not? Queenie is the only person who loves and cares for Benjamin. Brad Pitt,
Fincher's favorite leading man, having collaborated with him in numerous films like Se7en
and Fight Club, is sensational as the title character, living up to his movie star and character
actor sensibilities. Though he has never won an Oscar, but I do imagine, the Academy
members will acknowledge his career sooner or later.

Pitt's performance is made possible by makeup and effects that place his aged face onto
other actors to portray Benjamin at different stages in his life. It's done so seamlessly that it's
almost startling when Benjamin has aged to the point where he is readily recognizable as
Pitt. Technical advancement allows the always luminous Cate Blanchett to portray Daisy from
a young woman to her deathbed. As she lies in a hospital, Hurricane Katrina bearing down on
New Orleans, she has her daughter, Caroline (Julia Ormond), read to her from Benjamin's
diary…
Benjamin and Daisy meet as children, and Daisy innately recognizes that Benjamin is not the
old man he appears to be. They go their separate ways—Benjamin to work on a tugboat that
gets recruited to join the U.S. Navy during World War II, and Daisy to follow her dream of
becoming a professional dancer—but they eventually find their way back to each other.

With its decades-long story and somewhat passive protagonist, Benjamin Button’s closest
cinematic relative is Forrest Gump (1994) —which does not come as a surprise since Eric
Roth scripted both (Gump won him an Oscar). Button goes much deeper than Gump, though.
Benjamin is not an idiot stumbling through history; he's a man quietly playing with the hand
he has been dealt, determined to make the best of it. Their physical ages meeting in the
middle, Benjamin and Daisy experience a few years of pure bliss together. Daisy dares to
hope they can start a family; Benjamin knows he can never be the father a child needs.
 “Tom Cruise’s role is Perfectly satisfactory, if
not electrifying, in the leading role,“
- Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

It’s difficult to examine Bryan Singer’s World War II

thriller Valkyrie without placing actor Tom Cruise,
and the entire mechanism of the Hollywood star
system, under the microscope. Originally conceived
as a lower budget, altogether smaller piece of
cinema, Cruise’s involvement changed many aspects
of the film’s development – most pointedly its
budget. In the final analysis, he sits rather awkwardly
in the film – the glazed fruit on a savory dish, the
attraction rather than the meal itself.

But there’s a great feast to have here beyond the star. Singer (who made Superman Returns and
X-Men 2) understands how to build the pace and maintain the dramatic tension of this story –
one that has an ending we must all know. He surrounds Cruise with the cream of Britain’s senior
male actors – Bill Nighy, Kenneth Branagh, Tom Wilkinson, and Terence Stamp – and focuses the
piece as a racy thriller rather than probing the trickier political and psychological issues that
would have perhaps exposed Cruise’s limitations as a performer. It’s a great political war story,
brought beautifully – if not a little self-consciously – to the screen.

Cruise is Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg, war hero and true believer in a noble Germany.
Dismayed by Adolf Hitler’s leadership and the obvious decline in Germany’s fortunes against the
Allies, he joins forces with Generals Olbricht (Bill Nighy) von Tresckow (Kenneth Branagh) and
Fromm (Tom Wilkinson) in a political and military plot to assassinate the Fuhrer, dismantle the
SS, and start negotiating to save Germany from total destruction. The story follows the delicate
political maneuvering that has to take place in order to get operation Valkyrie underway, and
then its aftermath, a tortuously short moment in time when no one involved was sure which
way history was to play out. In the heat of the operation – a coup by any other name - a German
communications Sergeant comments to a superior officer that “when this thing’s over us better
make sure we’re on the right side.” This is the real drama of the piece – both at the level of the
individuals involved – with the lives of their families and selves at stake - and for the German
nation as a whole. Singer flirts with these moments – and they’re the best written parts of the
film, but he keeps moving on - building the tension and over-idealizing Von Staffenburg – or
perhaps the bankable star Tom Cruise - as noble but wooden hero.
MONTE PICTURES

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