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Arbitrage -nf

The wonderful thing about watching a movie on Netflix that has a good reputation but never made the awards, is   that all you need is an interesting subject, a good storyline and some excellent actors. In this case we start with Robert Miller (Richard Gere) hedge fund tycoon who is  about to sell his company. Unbeknown to the buyer and to his daughter Brooke ( Brit Marling) who is one of his closest executives in his  company, he has been cooking the books.. Would you believe he is doing this because Mr Genius business man invested most of his money in a copper mining scheme in Russia that didn’t work out. His wife Ellen (Susan Sarandon) is mainly preoccupied with her husband’s promised 2 million dollar gift to her favorite charity but that will change. Mr. Miller is of course interested in his mistress (Laetitia Casta) But this is not half the story. Soon we meet a “Colombo like” NYPD homicide detective (Tim Roth) working a case which might make a good CSI plot. On top of this we bring forth Jimmy (Nate Parker) a black young man  who is the son  of the deceased loyal chauffer of Mr. Miller and is asked to keep quiet about what he did on a certain evening but possibly take a rap of 10-15 years. You may not like the character Gere portrays but you will feel his pain.  This is 25 year old screenwriter and director Nicloas Jarecki’s first feature film. (2012)

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Amelia – sp – Most people know the story of Amelia Earhart, the famous female pilot who tried to fly around the world and disappeared. So when Hollywood decides to make a biopic about this famous aviatrix, it might not be easy to come up with any big surprises in the story, which was the case with this movie. Ted Waitt a wealthy businessman was always interested in this story and decided to put up all the money if necessary, and produce this movie. He brought in Oscar awardee screen writer Ron Bass (Rainman) who told us that he wrote 7 drafts of the movie and emphasized the fact that Ms Earhart had an alcoholic father who rejected her and led to her trying to achieve some kind of affirmation from men and also through her accomplishments of doing what no one has ever done. The Director whom they had on board left the project and Mira Nair came on to direct and brought on well know writer Anna Hamiliton Phelan (Gorillas in the Mist) who did 13 rewrite versions and ultimately emphasized Amelia’s love of flying and the great feminist hero status that she became. Hilary Swank was chosen for the lead and Richard Gere was given the role of her promoter and the person whom she ultimately married. Swank gave the character great likeability and conveyed the determination, which dominated her. Ultimately we found there was not enough of this character to hold our attention. Not only were there no surprises in the movie but despite Ms Swank’s fine performance, there was not much depth or intrigue in the film’s portrayal of this great American hero. We believe that Mr. Bass’s vision of the character perhaps would have offered more to the movie. There were some wonderful flying scenes, beautiful landscapes, well done period clothes and a full strong soundtrack. The interspersing of some actual newsreels was also a nice touch. (2009)