Regardless of which side you are on in regards to the current war, you will be entranced by Enemies of Happiness . It is an important film festival Games missions|https://moviefestivalhub.com/ which humanizes the people of Afghanistan by showing the daily struggles of everday people and how the lingering ways of the previous regime still hover over their li

Surprisingly, neither Steven Spielberg's The Adventures of Tintin nor Disney's 2D animated critical darling, Winnie the Pooh , is a contender for Best Animated Feature. However, despite Stephen Daldry's critic-dividing Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close landing a Best Pic nod over a more universally-beloved title like, say, Warrior , that selection was (unfortunately) expec

The films opens at a government meeting in 2003, where Malalai Joya, then a 25 year old woman and outspoken critic of the Taliban (which marks her as incredibly brave right from the start) is given the opportunity to speak to the hundreds of people present. She criticisizes the government for still allowing tribal warlords to be in power and function as part of the government, pointing out the atrocities that they have committed, particularly against women, over many years. Although we are shown some nods of agreement with her statement in the audience, the official presiding over the meeting has her thrown out and banned permanently from any future meeting of this t

If you missed our live-chat for the 83rd Annual Academy Awards this evening, don’t fret, we have the winners and a brief recap of the ceremony for you. In short, Inception took home the technical categories, The Social Network took a few, notably for its score and The King's Speech was the big winner, coming in with 12 nominations and walking out with four big wins, including best pict

Jakes Gyllenhaal said it best this evening, pointing out that it would be the shorts that make or break our Oscar Pools. I am usually able to get half of them right by watching them and picking favorites but this year I got them all wrong. Amongst the big categories there were few surprises though, outside of Tom Hooper ( The King's Speech ) beating out David Fincher ( The Social Network ) for achievement in directing. But hey, Chris Nolan wasn't even nominated for Inception so without further

Malalai is not only a politician - she also serves as a counsellor and and lawyer to the locals, offering advice to a young girl of 13 who is in danger of being forced into marriage with an opium dealer old enough to be her grandfather, and to a married couple whose marriage is being destroyed by a husband who is an opium addict. At one point she sits down with the opium dealer in an effort to talk him out of forcing the young girl into marriage (he already has multiple wives) and although we certainly don't side with him, we get to see that perhaps there is more than one side to this story and that although the father of the young girl wants to protect her desperately he may not have been completely honest with Malalai about what he accepted in exchange for his daughter. It is heart wrenching to see this young girl come to Malalai pleading for help, not wanting to marry this man and saying that if worse comes to worse she would rather set herself on fire than marry

From Melissa Leo's F-bomb, Kirk Douglas' never-ending jokes and womanizing to Hathaway's fun anti-Wolverine solo and Christian Bale actually shedding a tear, it was another long night at the Oscars defined by its little moments scattered through

Cut to three years later, in 2006, where Malalai is running for Paliament in the first-ever free elections in Afghanistan history. Her life has been in danger since that day in 2003 and she has had to move constantly, never living in one place too long. Although she despises the traditional burka that women have been forced to wear for so long, she must wear it when she goes outside. Ironically that sign of oppression of women now serves to hide her from her enem

Other notable wins in the film category were Meryl Streep as Best Actress (drama) for portrayal as Margaret Thatcher in The Iron Lady , Best Actress (comedy or musical) Michelle Williams for My Weekend With Marilyn and Octavia Spencer for Best Supporting Actress in The He

Some interesting notes: True Grit didn't get a single award despite ten (10!) nominations; Christopher Nolan didn't receive any awards despite Inception being entirely original and praised for its design, winning 4 other awards no less; Anne Hathaway, poking fun at the Academy's attempt at appealing to a younger demographic is the presentation's youngest host ever at 28 and last but not least, 8-time Oscars host Billy Crystal made a friendly and fun appearance making some wish he was back to host ag

The love and dedication that Malalai has for her people and to the idea of freedom is obvious and geniune, and that is what has contributed to her popularity and status as a folk hero among her people. At one point a very elderly woman arrives to visit her, who has walked with cane for two hours to come see her. She is obviously over 80 years old and claims to be 100 although she probably doesn't really know her own age. Her belief in Malalai is touching and humbling: She has seen much in her life and seeing her hope that Malalai can actually change things that have been the status quo for so long is very moving and shows the faith the people have in