Star Pick with Kurt Angle

Hollywood studios have long used focus groups as a way to determine if audiences like a film. And, for just as long as they’ve been around, there have been complaints about them: ‘Who are the people who comprise the focus groups?’, ‘Do they have any insider movie knowledge?’, ‘Why are they more knowledgeable than the screenwriters and directors who have made the film?’, "Why are studios changing the ending of a movie just because a few random people disliked it?’.

Often considered the best film of 1989, Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing sets the tone early with Rosie Perez (who plays Tina) dancing to Public Enemy’s song "Fight the Power". It was rather interesting to learn that Lee was actually influenced by Ann Margret’s opening in Bye Bye Birdie (which has a very different vibe). In any case, what follows is a powerful, character driven dramedy that widely encompasses life, death, race, poverty and everything in between – all found within the neighbourhood of Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn.

There was always something highly entertaining about the late Patrick Swayze, whether he was having a comedic dance off against Chris Farley on Saturday Night Live, or he was the criminal mastermind of a surfer gang in the action flick Point Break. He always brought a charming, entertaining and realistic human side to the characters that he portrayed. One role that epitomises his varied career is the romantic dramedy Ghost.

Interweaving multiple stories can be a complicated thing to do. For every film that succeeds at structuring several tales into one powerful story, there are twice as many that fall flat. One movie that takes on this challenging task, tackling three separate narratives that take place in very different eras, is the 2002 dramatic motion picture The Hours. The film features several powerhouse performances from three superb actresses (Nicole Kidman, Meryl Streep and Julianne Moore), so it is perhaps not surprising that actress Jenny Lampa, who has earned rave reviews and has received a number of acting nominations for her performance in the Swedish thriller The Break-In, selected this as one of her favourite movies.

One of the more critically acclaimed films to come out of 2014 was the World War 2 drama The Imitation Game, which follows Alan Turing, a mathematical prodigy who builds a machine that can break the Enigma – a German device that decodes their secret military messages. Someone who wholeheartedly agreed with the praise this movie received is former Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper – who proclaimed that it was easily his favourite film of 2014.

As you probably read previously, Marcus Ovnell, the writer/director of the outstanding Swedish dramatic thriller The Break-In, explained that his favourite film of all-time was the 1990's classic Shawshank Redemption. Though he said that this was his clear favourite, he also highlighted a lesser known movie as one that I (and others) should watch – the 1999 thriller Arlington Road.