STACK#127 May 2016

DVD & BD

EXTRAS

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DISC of the month:

AMERICAN SNIPER

Shailene Woodley

American Sniper is one of those rare movies about modern warfare that actually made money at the US box office – $348 million to be exact. It

One of the few people this decade who will be able to say that their brother and love interest were the same person, ShaileneWoodley is finding no faults in her status as a rising star. For someone who started out as an extra by the name of “Little Girl” in a telemovie titled

succeeded where other films concerning combat in the Middle East – like Stop-Loss , The Hurt Locker and Green Zone – have failed miserably, though not because they weren't any good. Indeed, The Hurt Locker won the Oscar for Best Picture in 2010. Conversely, where Kathryn Bigelow's film was showered in awards, Clint Eastwood's biopic on US Navy SEAL and decorated marksman Chris Kyle won a single Academy Award for Sound Editing, despite receiving nominations for Best Picture and Best Actor. It's the latter category that the film most deserved to win – Bradley Cooper delivers a career-defining performance as Kyle, yet was beaten by Eddie Redmayne's (equally) brilliant performance as Stephen Hawking. While we all know that the Academy loves a disability, could it be that to honour Cooper would also mean honouring an American military hero who claimed 160 lives? There's a scene less than five minutes into American Sniper – where Kyle's sights and trigger finger are fixed on a child who may possibly be a suicide bomber – that ensured it was never going to get a look in by the conservative Academy. It was a significant oversight not to acknowledge Cooper's committed performance with an Oscar. So the film's massive box-office returns will ultimately have to serve as sufficient reward.

The Descendants (2011)

Replacing Dad , Woodley has come a long way. “I fell into this business by accident”, she muses. “It wasn’t something I ever aspired to be – an actress. It’s my hobby, one of the ways I express myself as an artist. And the day it becomes a job, a career – I quit”. Woodley eased into the industry with stints in television series such as The District and The O.C. , making a name for herself as a potential leading lady. She eventually scored the lead in TV's The Secret Life of the American Teenager , which follows the story of a 15-year-old girl discovering she is pregnant. Her big screen breakthrough role came in 2011, when she starred alongside George Clooney in The Descendants , winning the Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Female. Woodley's tendency to pair up with fellow rising star Miles Teller began when the pair appeared side by side in The Spectacular Now . They then reunited for the adaptation of Veronica Roth’s Divergent Series , withWoodley playing the leader of the rebellion, Tris Prior. With two films already completed and two more yet to come, the fence is the limit for this newYA franchise and its young star. Leaving Teller in Divergent and departing with her onscreen brother Ansel Elgort, the actress also starred in the critically acclaimed adaptation of John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars – where Elgort andWoodley are (literally) star-crossed lovers. The actress won MTV Movie Awards for Best Kiss and Best Female Lead for her lip-locking and performance, respectively, and the film itself took out Movie of the Year. Woodley will next appear in the Oliver Stone- directed biopic Snowden , playing the girlfriend of notorious CIA employee Edward Snowden (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), who leaked thousands of classified documents to the press. The film is currently shooting and is tentatively set for release at the end of this year.

The Spectacular Now (2013)

Divergent (2014)

The Fault in Our Stars (2014)

Insurgent (2015)

COMING SOON Hitting the JB shelves in June The Theory of

Still Alice The fabulous Julianne Moore received a long overdue Oscar for her performance as Alzheimer's sufferer Alice Howland.

Foxcatcher Steve Carell is incredibly creepy and Channing Tatum incredibly good (seriously) in this true story about the eponymous wrestling team.

The Interview Seth Rogen and James Franco's controversial comedy that upset North Korea. But is it worthy of all the fuss?

Everything The fabulous Eddie Redmayne received an Oscar for his performance as genius Stephen Hawking.

MAY 2015 JB Hi-Fi www.jbhifi.com.au

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