Based on actual events, Miranda’s Victim examines the court case which created the Miranda warning. Prior to the ruling by the Supreme Court, criminal suspects had no legal protection or recourse before eventually walking into a court of law. However, while the ruling led to the creation of those rights and broad protection under the law, its origins are less well known and such a ruling did put one young woman in the crosshairs of history.
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A longtime fan of Orson Scott Card’s book, I was pleased enough with the recent adaptation of Ender’s Game to the big screen to find a spot for it on my Top 13 Movies of 2013. The movie holds up well on Blu-ray as we follow young Ender Wiggin‘s (Asa Butterfield) story as child prodigy sent to Battle School to transform him into to humanity’s best hope in their war against the ant-like race known as Formics.
Adapted and directed by Gavin Hood, the script streamlines Ender’s journey while ignoring large subplots from the book including that of Ender’s siblings (Abigail Breslin, Jimmy ‘Jax’ Pinchak) on Earth after his departure. What the film does deliver on is the complicated character study of a child genius striving to understand the aggression both in himself and the enemy he will be ordered to destroy, all set inside a collection of amazing effects and production design. For more on the film check out my original review.
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Ain’t family dysfuncion fun? If you could condense a single message from the two-hour running time of August: Osage County this, it appears, is all the film has to say. Having not seen the play of the same name by Tracy Letts I don’t know if the source material was any deeper, but since Letts alone adapted the play for the big screen I’m betting he didn’t make many significant changes.
The movie’s plot centers around the various troubled, bitchy, deceitful, and argumentative women of the Weston family who all return home to (theoretically) help their cancer-ridden mother (Meryl Streep) after their father (Sam Shepard) runs off and leaves her only a Native American nurse (Misty Upham) for support, because apparently Indians and racially-inappropriate comments from seniors are hilarious.
What follows, of course, is a series of fights, disagreements, the airing of family laundry and secrets, and the long overdue discovery by the entire group that they are all far better off separated by great distances.
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Personal journeys, isolation, the style of the 60’s and 70’s, self-destructive acts and debauchery, troubled romance, rivalries, and overcoming hardships – these were the major themes of the films that composed my list of the Top Movies of 2013. It turned out to be a strong year in movies as several films I thoroughly enjoyed failed to make this list. Rather than doing honorable mentions, I decided to stretch the list from 10 to 13 allowing me to include three more films I wanted to discuss but weren’t otherwise going to earn a mention on a list of the Top 10 Movies of 2013. Here then are the The Top 13 Movies of 2013.
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The Top 13 Movies of 2013 Read More »
Originally written as a short story published in the August 1977 issue of Analog Science Fiction and Fact, author’s Orson Scott Card‘s story of a complicated boy who is humanity’s best chance at survival took another eight years before it was released as the full novel Ender’s Game. I first read the novel more than two decades ago. It’s held-up remarkably well, although given its subject matter I doubted would ever be made into a movie.
Adapted and directed by Gavin Hood the story of Andrew “Ender” Wiggin isn’t an easy one to pull off, especially in under two hours. Although the timeline is heavily condensed, and the subplots involving Ender’s siblings is largely ignored, the movie gets far more right than I expected.
A lonely child with a good heart but a special talent for measured brutality, Ender Wiggin isn’t the easiest of protagonists to put on screen. The best choice Hood makes is to cast Asa Butterfield in the complex role that requires us to feel for the situation the young man finds himself in but also be a little taken aback by the methods he uses.
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