All Clara (Mackenzie Foy) wants is a key – a one-of-a-kind key that will unlock a box that holds a priceless gift from her late mother. A golden thread, presented to her at godfather Drosselmeyer’s (Morgan Freeman) annual holiday party, leads her to the coveted key – which promptly disappears into a strange and mysterious parallel world. It’s there that Clara encounters a soldier named Phillip (Jayden Fowora-Knight), a gang of mice and the regents who preside over three Realms: Land of Snowflakes, Land of Flowers and Land of Sweets. Clara and Phillip must brave the ominous Fourth Realm, home to the tyrant Mother Ginger (Helen Mirren), to retrieve Clara’s key and hopefully return harmony to the unstable world.
Keira Knightley has been acting professionally since she was eight, and at 32, has an impressive resume of quality films under her belt that range from indie dramas to seafaring blockbusters. Knightley has wonderful range as a comedic actress and fits well in period dramas where she’s gotten the most awards attention (The Imitation Game and Pride and Prejudice) and modern dramas (Love Actually and Collateral Beauty). Her most famous role is that of Elizabeth Swann, female protagonist of the first three films in Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean franchise. Where she chooses to take her career at this point is up to her. She’s a proven box office draw with the respect of the critics, and she’s still so young, you get the feeling her best is still yet to come.
Collateral Beauty stars Will Smith as a man in the aftermath of an unspeakable tragedy. His way of coping of it is by writing letters. Not to the deceased. They tell you to do that in grief counseling and sometimes it helps. Smith is writing letters to Death, Love, and Time. And mailing them. This has his friends understandably concerned, but not as concerned as Smith when Death (Helen Mirren) shows up with one of his letters in hand. The film also stars Kate Winslet, Michael Pena, Edward Norton, Keira Knightley, and Naomie Harris, and has the daunting task of opening against the next Star Wars film when it debuts December 16, 2016.
Collateral Beauty stars Will Smith as a man in the aftermath of an unspeakable tragedy. His way of coping of it is by writing letters. Not to the deceased. They tell you to do that in grief counseling and sometimes it helps. Smith is writing letters to Death, Love, and Time. And mailing them. This has his friends understandably concerned, but not as concerned as Smith when Death (Helen Mirren) shows up with one of his letters in hand. Continue reading Trailer Time: Collateral Beauty Trailer #1 (2016) *A Matter of Life and Death*→
You have to be a little nuts to want to climb Mt. Everest. It’s a good kind of nuts; the kind that’s sent people to the moon and the bottom of the ocean, but it’s still nuts. I don’t think that mindset of the climbers and of the hardships involved in actually following in the footsteps of Sir Edmund Hillary and summitting Everest have ever been better captured than in the self-titled film. However, if you go past the surface of the film, there are problems, the depth of which really depends on what you want or are expecting the film to deliver. Continue reading Movie Review: Everest (2015) *Towering Adventure Still Runs A Bit Shallow*→
