Movie Monday - 1/14/2013

This week's comments:

Jessica Chastain is a pretty versatile and talented actress, and in Zero Dark Thirty, she does not disappoint. The movie takes us from 9/11 to the point where Osama Bin Laden is taken out by a team of Navy Seals.  Chastain plays Maya, a CIA agent who is convinced that Bin Laden is hiding in plain sight, and spends many years looking for him.  Also starring in this movie are Jason Clarke, Jennifer Ehle, Joel Edgerton, Mark Strong, Kyle Chandler and Edgar Ramirez.  There were some scenes that were hard to watch, but it was a good movie.

Hysteria is a movie about how the portable home massager was developed. Maggie Gyllenhaal, Hugh Dancy, Jonathan Price, Felicity Jones and Rupert Everett star in this comedy. A young doctor (Dancy) joins the practice of an older physician (Price) who treats the hysteria of women that was common at the time with manual stimulation. The older doctor is pleased with the younger one's help and wishes him to take over the practice and marry one of his daughters (Jones). The older daughter (Gyllenhaal) is more socially sympathetic and works to better the lives of women and children. It was funny and cute...good for a rainy day.

In Urdu (although they spoke mostly English in the version I saw) with English sub-titles; Khuda Kay Liya focuses on how difficult it is for a Muslim to live in the before and after 9/11 world.  The movie shows two Pakistani brothers who are popular musicians in their country before 9/11.  The conservative Muslims condemn music in general.  Soon, one of the brothers becomes influenced by the stricter laws and the other moves to America to study music.  They also have a female cousin who is fairly westernized and living in London. Then, 9/11 happens and the brother in Chicago finds his freedoms are being restricted in the Land of the Free.  The cousin is forced to marry the brother in Pakistan by her father, because she has a Caucasian boyfriend and she shouldn't marry outside of the Islam faith.  The title of the movie translates to "In the name of God."  It is interesting the things that all people do, using religion as their justification. The story was good, but the acting in this movie was terrible.  In general though, I liked it.

That's all for this week.

MK out.