Movie Junction

“The conflict was inevitable; the slavery lasted too long.” -- Oliver Wendell Holmes Here are some mind-boggling facts about America ’s Civil War:  Some 3,000,000 soldiers fought in a War that lasted four years.  An estimated 625,000 soldiers died, more than in America ’s two World Wars combined.  Of these dead, 400,000 died of fatal diseases, and 7,000 died in the first twenty minutes.  And the War was fought in 10,000 different places. There is no doubt that the Civil War was the bloodiest war fought on American soil. It was the the country’s most-traumatic war and transformed the country forever. The cultural landscape was changed with the abolition of slavery and the unification of the states of America . The aftermath of the War triggered a rapid growth in the manufacturing sector, a growth responsible for making what America is today.  Fought a hundred and fifty years ago, the Civil War sometimes gets lost in the heroics of the two World Wa...

The reality of losing a young child is a terrible tragedy, which I wish no parent would have to experience. But unforeseen things do happen in life, and there will always be grieving parents somewhere mourning the loss of their young ones. A recent study reveals that 20,000 kids die every day around the world as a result of poor health conditions, child abuse, gang warfare, natural disasters, accidents, wars, and many more. Nonetheless, John Cameroon Mitchell’s “Rabbit Hole” (2010) is not about drugs or a medical condition or a natural calamity, but about an unexpected, life-changing event in the lives of a couple, Becca (Nicole Kidman) and Howie Corbett (Aaron Eckhart). Based on a play by David Lindsay-Abaire, “Rabbit Hole” takes us through the aftermath of the tragic death of the Corbett’s son, Danny. The story can be called a case study of how this couple goes through an emotional upheaval in dealing with young Danny’s death and how it impacts their marital bliss. Director Mitc...

Director and writer Abbas Kiarostami formed an important part of the Iranian New Wave that started with Darius Mehrjui’s “The Cow” (1969). Abbas Kiarostami (“The Wind Will Carry Us,” 1999), Jafar Panahi (“Crimson Gold” 2003, “Offside” 2006), and Mohsen Makhmalbaf (“ Kandahar ” 2001) are some of the well-known directors of the Iranian New Wave.  The films from this period closely resembled Italian Neorealism in their tone, stories about people from the lower-middle and working classes, using nonprofessional actors. But these films in spite of their comparisons to neorealism have strong Iranian thematic elements, something that is unique to Iranian cinema. The imagery of the films associated with the Iranian New Wave is often described as lyrical--containing views of rural and urban lifestyle--set against the backdrop of the picturesque Iranian landscape.  In his first twenty years (1970-1989) as a filmmaker, Kiarostami mainly wrote and created several short films. With the r...