The Queen (2006)

The Queen is a 2006 British drama film directed by Stephen Frears, written by Peter Morgan, and starring Helen Mirren as the title role, HM Queen Elizabeth II. Released almost a decade after the event, the film depicts a fictional account of the immediate events following the death of Diana, Princess of Wales on 31 August 1997.

The main plot focuses on the differing views in how to deal with the death of Diana. The Royal Family, while on their summer residence at Balmoral Castle, sees her death as a private affair, not to be treated as an official Royal death, in contrast with newly appointed Prime Minister Tony Blair and Diana's ex-husband Prince Charles, who attempt to reflect the public wish for an official expression of grief.

Matters are further complicated by the media, royal protocol regarding Diana's official status, and wider issues about republicanism. The views of Diana's two sons throughout the film are only portrayed through other characters.

The film's release coincided with a revival of favourable public sentiment with respect to the monarchy and a downturn in fortunes for Blair, whose resignation came less than a year later.


Michael Sheen reprised his role as Blair from the Channel 4 television film The Deal, and did so again in The Special Relationship. The film also earned critical and popular acclaim for Mirren, and some controversy as she had originally refused appointment into the Order of the British Empire in 1996, only to accept the offer in 2003.

Mirren praised the Queen in her Academy Awards acceptance speech and was invited to dinner at Buckingham Palace on 10 May 2007, but declined to attend due to filming commitments in the United States.

Reception
Box Office
The film exceeded box-office expectations; with a budget of $15 million the film has earned $56.4 million in the United States and has a worldwide gross of $120 million.

Critical Reception
Before the film was released, critics praised both Stephen Frears and Peter Morgan, who later garnered Golden Globe and Academy Award-nominations for Best Director and Best Screenplay. Michael Sheen's performance as Tony Blair earned him particular acclaim. Helen Mirren's portrayal garnered her acclaim from critics around the world.

Her portrayal made her a favourite for the Academy Award for Best Actress well before the film was released in theatres. After its showing at the Venice Film Festival, Mirren received a five-minute-long standing ovation. Roger Ebert came out of recovery from surgery to give the film a review.

He called it "spellbinding" and gave it four out of four stars. The Queen was the most critically acclaimed film of 2006 with Mirren being the most critically acclaimed actress of the year. The Queen has 97% positive reviews on the film-critics aggregate site Rotten Tomatoes.

Amongst the few negative reviews, Slant Magazine's Nick Schager criticised the insider portraiture of the film as "somewhat less than revelatory, in part because Morgan's script succumbs to cutie-pie jokiness [...] and broad caricature", mentioning particularly "James Cromwell's Prince Philip, who envisions the crowned heads as exiled victims and the gathering crowds as encroaching "Zulus"".


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The Pursuit of Happyness (2006)

The Pursuit of Happyness is a 2006 American biographical drama film based on Chris Gardner's nearly one-year struggle with homelessness. Directed by Gabriele Muccino, the film features Will Smith as Gardner, an on-and-off-homeless salesman-turned stockbroker. Smith's real-life son Jaden Smith co-stars, making his film debut as Gardner's son Christopher Jr.

The screenplay by Steven Conrad is based on the best-selling memoir written by Gardner with Quincy Troupe.


The film was released on December 15, 2006, by Columbia Pictures. For his performance, Will Smith was nominated for an Academy Award and a Golden Globe for Best Actor.


Production
Development
Chris Gardner realized his story had Hollywood potential after an overwhelming national response to an interview he did with 20/20 in January 2002.[1] He published his autobiography on May 23, 2006, and later became an associate producer for the film. The unusual spelling of the film's title comes from a sign Gardner saw when he was homeless. In the film, "happiness" is misspelled (as "happyness") outside the daycare facility Gardner's son attends.

The movie took some liberties with Gardner's true life story. Certain details and events that actually took place over the span of several years were compressed into a relatively short time and although eight-year-old Jaden portrayed Chris Jr. as a five year-old, Gardner's son was just a toddler at the time.

Casting
Chris Gardner reportedly thought Smith, an actor best known for his performances in action movies, was miscast to play him. However, he said his daughter Jacintha "set him straight" by saying, "If Smith can play Muhammad Ali, he can play you!"[2]

Filming
Gardner makes a cameo appearance in the film, walking past Will and Jaden in the final scene. Gardner and Will acknowledge each other; Will then looks back at Gardner walking away as his son proceeds to tell him knock knock jokes.


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The Guardian (2006)

The Guardian is a 2006 action-adventure drama film starring Kevin Costner, Ashton Kutcher, and Melissa Sagemiller. The film was released on September 29, 2006, and was directed by Andrew Davis, director of The Fugitive. The setting for the film is the United States Coast Guard and their Aviation Survival Technician (AST) program.

The plot follows Ben Randall (Kevin Costner) and Jake Fischer (Ashton Kutcher) at the United States Coast Guard's Aviation Survival Technician (AST) Program.


Randall is the top rescue swimmer who continues to work against regulation past the age of 40. Fischer is a hot-shot candidate for AST who was ranked as a top competitive swimmer in high school with scholarships to every Ivy league college and university but opted to enlist in the Coast Guard.


The film's title is introduced by a mythic tale: people lost at sea often claim they feel a presence lifting them to the surface, breathing life into their bodies while they are waiting for help to arrive. They call this presence "The Guardian."

Box Office
The film earned $18 million on its opening weekend, and almost $95 million worldwide by January 4, 2007.

Critical Reception
The Guardian received average reviews: Rotten Tomatoes currently has it at 37% rotten (141 reviews: 52 fresh, 89 rotten) while Metacritic rates it a 53/100 based on 29 reviews.

Stephen Hunter pans it in The Washington Post, calling it "a good little film" for the first hour then it "begins to overload its frail reed of a structure with giant sloppages of cliches from other movies, some so bad it's almost comical", concluding that the movie "veers off into slobbery touchy-feeliness, and the tone becomes mock-religious, almost liturgical." Wesley Morris of The Boston Globe called it "dutiful but dull."

For The New York Times, A.O. Scott notes that participation by actual members of the Coast Guard "lends an air of authenticity" and concludes "[i]t’s not a great movie, but it’s certainly one of the finest Coast Guard pictures you’re likely to see anytime soon."

In a Variety review, Joe Leydon says the movie is "overlong but [the] involving drama has obvious cross-generational appeal."

Ed Blank in The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review acknowledges there is plenty to snipe at yet also adds The Guardian "regurgitates formulaic elements in a way that pays off repeatedly and potently.


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Marley & Me (2008)

Marley & Me is a 2008 American comedy-drama film directed by David Frankel. The screenplay by Scott Frank and Don Roos is based on the memoir of the same name by John Grogan. The film was released in the United States and Canada on December 25, 2008, and set a record for the largest Christmas Day box office ever with $14.75 million in ticket sales.

Plot
Soon after their wedding, John and Jenny Grogan (Owen Wilson and Jennifer Aniston) escape the brutal Michigan winters and relocate to a cottage in southern Florida, where they are hired as reporters for competing newspapers. At The Palm Beach Post, Jenny immediately receives prominent front-page assignments, while at the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, John finds himself writing obituaries and two-paragraph articles about mundane news like a fire at the local garbage dump.


When John senses Jenny is contemplating motherhood, his friend and co-worker Sebastian Tunney (Eric Dane) suggests the couple adopt a dog to see if they're ready to raise a family. From a litter of newborn yellow labrador retrievers they select Marley (named after reggae singer Bob Marley), who immediately proves to be incorrigible. They take him to Ms. Kornblut (Kathleen Turner), who firmly believes any dog can be trained, but when Marley refuses to obey commands, she expels him from her class.

Editor Arnie Klein (Alan Arkin) offers John a twice-weekly column in which he can discuss the fun and foibles of everyday living. At first stumped for material, John realizes the misadventures of Marley might be the perfect topic for his first piece. Arnie agrees, and John settles into his new position.

Marley continues to wreak havoc on the household, providing John with a wealth of material for his column, which becomes a hit with readers and helps increase the newspaper's circulation. Jenny becomes pregnant, but loses the baby early in her first trimester.

She and John travel to Ireland for a belated honeymoon, leaving the rambunctious dog in the care of a young woman who finds him impossible to control, especially during the frequent thunderstorms that plague the area. Soon after returning from their vacation, Jenny discovers she is pregnant again, and this time she delivers a healthy boy, Patrick.

When she has a second son, Connor, she opts to give up her job and become a stay-at-home mom, prompting John to take on a daily column for a pay increase. Due to the crime rate, the couple decides to move to a larger house in the safer neighborhood of Boca Raton, where Marley delights in swimming in the backyard pool.

Although she denies she is experiencing postpartum depression, Jenny exhibits all the symptoms, including a growing impatience with Marley and John, who asks Sebastian to care for the dog when Jenny insists they give him away. She quickly comes to realize he has become an indispensable part of the family and agrees he can stay. Sebastian accepts a job for The New York Times and moves away. A few years later, John and Jenny welcome a daughter, Colleen, to their family.

John celebrates his 40th birthday. Increasingly disenchanted with his job, he decides to accept a position as a reporter with The Philadelphia Inquirer with Jenny's blessing, and the family moves to a farm in rural Pennsylvania. John soon realizes that he is a better columnist than reporter and pitches the column idea to his editor.

Life is idyllic until the aging Marley begins to show signs of arthritis and deafness. An attack of gastric dilatation volvulus almost kills him, but he recovers. When a second attack occurs, it becomes clear surgery will not help him, and Marley is euthanized with John at his side. The family pay their last respects to their beloved pet as they bury him beneath a tree in their front yard.


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Aftershock (2010)

Aftershock or Aftershocks (Chinese: 唐山大地震; Pinyin: Tángshān Dàdìzhèn) is a 2010 Chinese drama film directed by Feng Xiaogang. The film stars Xu Fan and Zhang Jingchu, with a supporting cast including Li Chen. It was released in China on July 22, 2010, and is the first "big commercial film" IMAX film created outside the US.

In 1976 Tangshan, Yuan Ni lives in a small apartment with her husband and their twins Fang Deng and Fang Da.

Yuan Ni expresses to her husband her desire to have one more child, and they get into the back of their truck after putting their son and daughter to bed.

Suddenly the ground shakes, and buildings begin tumbling down. Running back to save their kids, Yuan Ni is pulled back by her husband, who runs ahead of her and is instantly crushed. Their house falls down, trapping her two kids.

In the aftermath of the 1976 Tangshan earthquake, a rescue team informs Yuan Ni that her twins Da and Deng are trapped together under a slab of concrete. Lifting the slab in any way will kill one of her children - lifting it one way will save the daughter at the expense of her son; lifting it the other will save the son at the expense of her daughter. Heartbroken, she is forced to choose between her children, and finally decides to save the boy.

Her decision, however, is overheard by her daughter, who tearfully whispers "Ma..." as the screen goes black. The mother clings to her daughter's body before being pulled away to take care of Da, "her one child who still lives." Later, in the midst of the rains following the earthquake, Deng wakes up in a sea of bodies, next to the body of her deceased father.

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The film was produced by HuaYi Bros., which partnered with IMAX to produce three Chinese films (of which Aftershock is the first). In Singapore, it is distributed by Homerun Asia with Scorpio East and Golden Village Pictures.

Aftershock was released in over 5000 conventional and 14 IMAX theaters in late July. In early August 2010, the film surpassed The Founding of a Republic as the highest-grossing locally-made film in China, with a RMB532 million gross.

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Hachiko: A Dog's Story (2009)

Hachiko: A Dog's Story is a 2009 American drama film based on the true story of the faithful Akita Hachikō. It is a remake of the 1987 Japanese film Hachikō Monogatari. It was directed by Lasse Hallström, written by Stephen P. Lindsey and stars Richard Gere, Joan Allen and Sarah Roemer.

The first foreign premiere was on August 8, 2009, in Japan. To date, the film has opened in over 20 countries over the past year and continues to open in foreign territories throughout 2010. In the United States, the movie was first shown at the Seattle International Film Festival on June 13, 2009. Sony Pictures Entertainment decided to forgo a U.S. theatrical release and is sending it straight to DVD in the USA on March, 9, 2010. According to the Odeon Cinema website the film will be given a UK theatrical release on March 12, 2010, courtesy of Entertainment Film Distributors. Box Office Mojo reports that total foreign box office has reached $41,492,583 as of April 4th, 2010.

Cast
* Richard Gere as Parker Wilson, the professor
* Joan Allen as Cate Wilson, the professor's wife
* Sarah Roemer as Andy Wilson, the professor's daughter
* Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa as Ken Fujiyoshi
* Eric Avari as Jasjeet, the Indian vendor
* Jason Alexander as Carl
* Davenia McFadden as Mary Anne
* Kevin DeCoste as Ronnie
* Tora Hallstrom as Heather
* Robbie Sublett as Michael
* Hachiko is played by three Akitas named Chico, Layla and Forrest - each playing a different period in Hachiko's life.

Production
The majority of filming took place in Bristol, RI, and Woonsocket, RI. Additional locations included the University of Rhode Island in Kingston, RI, along the Providence and Worcester Railroad Mechanical, and the Columbus Theater located in Providence, RI. A second production unit filmed some scenes on-location in Japan.


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Titanic (1997)

Titanic is a 1997 American disaster/romantic/drama film directed, written, co-produced, and co-edited by James Cameron about the sinking of the RMS Titanic. It stars Leonardo DiCaprio as Jack Dawson and Kate Winslet as Rose DeWitt Bukater, two members of different social classes who fall in love aboard the ill-fated maiden voyage of the ship. The main characters and the central love story are fictional, but some characters (such as members of the ship's passengers and crew) are based on historical figures. Gloria Stuart portrays the elderly Rose, who narrates the film in a modern day framing device, and Billy Zane stars as Cal Hockley, the overbearing fiancé of Rose's younger self.

Production of the film began in 1995, when Cameron shot footage of the real wreck of the RMS Titanic. He envisioned the love story as a means to engage the audience with the real-life tragedy. Shooting took place on board the Akademik Mstislav Keldysh – which aided Cameron in filming the real wreck – for the modern scenes, and a reconstruction of the ship was built at Playas de Rosarito, Baja California. Cameron also used scale models and computer-generated imagery to recreate the sinking. At the time, the picture became the most expensive film ever made, costing approximately US$200 million with funding from Paramount Pictures and 20th Century Fox.

The film was originally to be released on July 2, 1997, but post-production delays pushed back the film's release to December 19, 1997. The film turned out to be an enormous critical and commercial success. Nominated for fourteen Academy Awards, it won eleven, including Best Picture.[8] It became the highest-grossing film of all time, with a worldwide total of over $1.8 billion, and remained so for twelve years until Cameron's directorial follow-up, Avatar, surpassed it in 2010.

The film is due to be re-released in theatres in 2012 after Cameron completes its 3-D transformation.

Release
Paramount Pictures and 20th Century Fox financed Titanic, and expected Cameron to complete the film for a release on July 2, 1997. The film was to be released on this date "in order to exploit the lucrative summer season ticket sales when blockbuster films usually do better". In April, Cameron said the film's special effects were too complicated and that releasing the film for summer would not be possible.[16] With production delays, Paramount pushed back the release date to December 19, 1997. "This fueled speculation that the film itself was a disaster." Though a preview screening in Minneapolis on July 14 "generated positive reviews" and "[c]hatter on the Internet was responsible for more favorable word of mouth about the [film]". This led to more positive media coverage.

The film premiered on November 1, 1997, at the Tokyo International Film Festival, where reaction was described as "tepid" by The New York Times. However, positive reviews started to appear back in the United States; the official Hollywood premiere occurred on December 14, 1997, where "the big movie stars who attended the opening were enthusiastically gushing about the film to the world media".

Box Office
The film received steady attendance after opening in North America on Friday, December 19, 1997. By the end of that same weekend, theaters were beginning to sell out. The film debuted with $8,658,814 on its opening day and $28,638,131 over the opening weekend from 2,674 theaters, averaging to about $10,710 per venue, and ranking #1 at the box office, ahead of the 18th James Bond film, Tomorrow Never Dies. By New Year's Day, Titanic had made over $120 million, had increased in popularity and theaters continued selling out. Its biggest single day took place on Saturday February 14 (Valentine's Day) 1998, making $13,048,711, more than six weeks after it debuted in North America. After it was released, it stayed at #1 for 15 consecutive weeks in the United States and Canada box office, which remains the record for any film. By March 1998, it was the first film to earn more than $1 billion worldwide. The film stayed in theaters in North America for almost ten months before finally closing on Thursday October 1, 1998 with a final domestic gross of $600,788,188. Box Office Mojo estimates that after adjusting for ticket price inflation, Titanic would be the sixth highest-grossing film of all time in the United States and Canada. The film made double that amount overseas with an international gross of $1,248,025,607 and accumulated a grand total of $1,843,201,268 worldwide to become the highest-grossing film in history, and remained so for twelve years, until Avatar (also written and directed by Cameron) surpassed it in 2010.

Awards and Honors
Titanic began its awards sweep starting with the Golden Globes, winning four, namely Best Motion Picture (Drama), Best Director, Best Original Score, and Best Song. Kate Winslet and Gloria Stuart were also nominees but lost. It won the ACE "Eddie" Award, ASC Award, Art Directors Guild Award, Cinema Audio Society Award, Screen Actors Guild Awards, (Best Supporting Actress Gloria Stuart), The Directors Guild of America Award, and Broadcast Film Critics Association Award (Best Director James Cameron), and The Producer Guild of America Awards. It was also nominated for ten BAFTA awards, including Best Film and Director.

The film was nominated for a record-tying 14 Academy Awards and won 11, including the Best Picture and Best Director. It also picked up Best Cinematography, Best Costume Design, Best Visual Effects, Best Sound Mixing, Best Sound Editing, Best Original Score, Best Film Editing, Best Original Song, and Best Art Direction awards.Kate W inslet, Gloria Stuart and the make-up artists were the three nominees that did not win. James Cameron's original screenplay and Leonardo DiCaprio were not nominees. It was the second film to win eleven Academy Awards, after Ben-Hur. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King would also match this record in 2004, with its 11 wins from 11 nominations.

Titanic won the 1997 Academy Award for Best Original Song, as well as three Grammy Awards for Record of the Year, Song of the Year, and Best Song Written Specifically for a Motion Picture or Television. The film's soundtrack became the best-selling primarily orchestral soundtrack of all time, and became a worldwide success, spending 16 weeks at #1 in the United States and was certified diamond for over 11 million copies sold in the United States alone. The soundtrack also became the best-selling album of 1998 in the U.S. "My Heart Will Go On" won the Grammy Awards for Best Song Written Specifically for a Motion Picture or for Television. The film also won Best Male Performance for Leonardo DiCaprio and Best Movie at the MTV Movie Awards, Best Film at the People's Choice Awards, and Favorite Movie at the 1998 Kids' Choice Awards. It won various awards outside the United States, including the Awards of the Japanese Academy as the Best Foreign Film of the Year. Titanic eventually won nearly 90 awards and had an additional 47 nominations from various award-giving bodies around the world.[104] Additionally, the book about the making of the film was at the top of The New York Times' bestseller list for several weeks, "the first time that such a tie-in book had achieved this status".

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