Posts tagged death
“The Ghost Writer” Full of Ominous Surprises
Mar 25th
“Full of Ominous Surprises”
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
THE GHOST WRITER is a political thriller of the first order with a contemporary subject and characters designed to make the audience identify them with real people in international politics.
Roman Polanski received the award for best director at the 2010 Berlin Film Festival for this film, which is as good as-if not better than-his 1968 Rosemary’s Baby and the 1974 Chinatown.
The story begins with a ferryboat crossing from an island off Massachusetts to the mainland, but when it arrives, one automobile is left on the boat and no one claims it.
Then when a man’s body is found washed up on the shore of the island, the authorities determine it was either a suicide or an accident.
The man was the ghost writer of the memoirs of Adam Lang, a former prime minister of Great Britain who lives in a mansion on the island.
However, the publisher of the book has invested $10 million on the manuscript, and so another ghost writer is hired for $250,000 to finish the book and deliver it in a month.
The new ghost writer is played by Ewan McGregor, and when he expresses some concern about the death of the first writer, his agent says, “Accident, suicide, who cares? It was the book that killed him.”
McGregor arrives at the prime minister’s estate, which is under tight security, and is shown the manuscript, which cannot be removed or copied. After examining it, he proclaims that all the words are there, but just in the wrong order.
Then Lang himself shows up at the estate. He is played by Pierce Brosnan, and McGregor interviews him to learn some interesting details about his life, such as why he got into politics in the first place, especially since he had seemed to be more interested in acting while at college.
A media circus suddenly erupts when Lang is accused of handing over prisoners to the CIA for torture when he was prime minister, and now the publisher wants the finished manuscript in two weeks.
Not only that, but the ghost writer’s hotel room was searched while he was away, he suddenly encounters suspicious people, and he has to move onto the estate, where he is put in the first ghost writer’s room.
THE GHOST WRITER is full of ominous surprises.
The Messenger – Movie Trailer
Mar 3rd
An Iraq War veteran who just narrowly escaped death in combat struggles with his new post at the Casualty Notification Office while anticipating his upcoming discharge in this military drama starring Ben Foster, Woody Harrelson, Jena Malone, and Samantha Morton. Will Montgomery (Foster) has spent his fair share of time in army hospitals, and with just three months to go before returning to civilian life, he discovers that his girlfriend back home (Malone) has decided to move on with her life. Crestfallen, Will discovers that his latest hope for a fresh start will be training to work for the Casualty Notification Office under the mentorship of senior officer Tony (Harrelson). As someone who had a close brush with death himself, Will isn’t sure that he’s the man to tell families that their own loved ones will never be coming home. Thankfully, in between his assignments, Tony offers a sympathetic ear and the two men form a bond that will ultimately help them to readjust to “normal” life. But once you’ve been in the thick of it, any true hope for a “normal” life after the military is just wishful thinking. Later, Will is drawn to the grieving widow (Morton) of a fallen soldier, a development that forces him to ponder the ethical dilemma of starting a relationship with a woman in such a vulnerable position.