Merry Christmas!
This is just a brief post about looking ahead. I’m scheduled to depart the balmy weather here in Sarasota, Florida in a few days on the 29th. I’m heading up to the far more winter-ish climate in North Central Connecticut, and will stay there until January 3rd. I’ll spend the New Years’ break taking in a few films.
So, in effect, this post is first about my plan to spend the New Year’s holiday at the movies, then second, two films in the New Year that I’m looking forward to seeing.
It doesn’t take a lot of imagination to figure out that we will be seeing the film adaption of the John Le Carre novel Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Spielberg’s War Horse, and the latest installment of the Mission:Impossible franchise: Ghost Protocol. In short – one film to make one think, another to warm the heart, and third to get your testosterone flowing.
As for early next year – I’m looking forward to watching two bio-films about a pair of famous women. These women have made their mark, not only in their own countries, but also on the world’s stage. Long after they’ve departed, our children’s children will see and read about them in their history books.
Margaret Thatcher and Aung San Suu Kyi are the subjects.
Thatcher entered the UK’s political arena in the 1950’s but it took her a while to finally win an election. Finally she won and in 1959 she became a member of Parliament. From 1979 to 1990 she was the Prime Minister of her country.
Known for her strict conservative policies, Thatcher took on labor unions on the home front and the Soviet Union in a rhetorical battle. She actually led her country into conflict with the Falkland [Islands] War in 1982.
Because of her toughness, Thatcher will be forever remembered as The Iron Lady. The bio film (The Iron Lady) has Meryl Streep starring as Thatcher.
Streep has long been considered as one of the world’s most popular and talented actresses. The Iron Lady will open in Los Angeles and New York on December 30th, and will have a wide distribution scheduled for January 13th, 2012 in the USA.
While not as well known in the West as Streep, Michelle Yeoh has been a long time popular favorite and box office champion for Asian audiences.
She’s been called the greatest action film heroine of all time. Western audiences know her best from the 1997 James Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies, and the classic Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon.
Yeoh will play Aung San Suu Kyi in the bio-film called The Lady directed by French action film auteur Luc Besson. Aung San Suu Kyi is the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize winner for her efforts to bring democracy to her home country of Burma, which is now called Myanmar.
She is considered an icon for democracy, freedom, and justice. The military junta which rules Myanmar has held her under house arrest for 15 of the last 21 years.
Against that background, The Lady is about her fight for democracy and the struggle within herself to decide about which comes first – her family or her country.
The film, The Lady, opened for a one week run in early December in the US in Los Angeles in order to secure Oscar qualifications, however the film won’t get a wider yet still limited USA distribution until February 17, 2012.
The Arts - JustMeMike's New Blog 
I’m trying to see a whole lot of indie films — We Need To Talk About Kevin (dir. Lynne Ramsay, who I love), Pariah (dir. by the hot new Black/ New York director Dee Rees), Tomboy (a French film that looks terrific), Margaret (Kenneth Lonergan’s new film). And there’s The Artist, of course. When is the artist going to filter out of major US cities??
I love this time of year. The anticipation is killing me.
Looking forward to more reports!
Hi – The Artist opened in Sarasota on December 23rd – but I’m in Connecticut now. It’s playing up here too but we are going to see something a bit more mainstream today.
Of the one’s you have listed – I know about We Need to Talk About Kevin – Tilda Swinton is in that one. But I’m not up on all those others. Time to study up.
m