Theory Thursday: Tom Hanks Deserved an Oscar Nomination for "Cloud Atlas"

Scene from Cloud Atlas

Welcome to a weekly column called Theory Thursdays, which will be released every Thursday and discuss my "controversial opinion" related to something relative to the week of release. Sometimes it will be birthdays while others is current events or a new film release. Whatever the case may be, this is a personal defense for why I disagree with the general opinion and hope to convince you of the same. While I don't expect you to be on my side, I do hope for a rational argument. After all, film is a subjective medium and this is merely just a theory that can be proven either way. 

Review: "Cloud Atlas" is six solid stories meshed into madness

Left to right: Halle Berry and Jim Broadbent 

It is impossible to aptly review the latest film from collaborators Lana and Andy Wachowski and Tom Tykwer without annotating a contraction here or there. For every positive feature, there is a "but" floating nearby. Nobody can fault the movie's level of ambition and for marvelously crafting six stories from the David Mitchell novel into a sweeping epic. It is at times gorgeous, innovative, and tough to decipher actors buried under make-up. Visually, this film succeeds on all accounts. It is dissecting the rest of the film in which things get more problematic.

Can the Epic Scope of "Cloud Atlas" Win Best Picture?

Tom Hanks

Update: I have written a review that you can read here.

This Friday marks the release of the highly anticipated epic from directors Lana and Andy Wachowski (The Matrix series) and Tom Tykwer (Run Lola Run). The film is Cloud Atlas based on the best selling novel by David Mitchell that intertwines numerous stories through numerous eras. The ambitious scale of this sci-fi film has a lot to do to fill the three hour running time. However, can these three directors take the source material and turn it into a blockbuster hit of the Fall on a scale not seen since Avatar? Also, is it possible that we'll see this movie bump heads with Ben Affleck's Argo and Paul Thomas Anderson's The Master for Best Picture?

Can "Life of Pi" put Ang Lee back in the Best Picture Race?

Suraj Sharma

Update: I have written a review for the movie here.

Recently at the New York Film Festival, we saw the opening of director Ang Lee's Life of Pi. Critics like Jack Giroux have called it near perfect while Katey Rich was taken away by the visuals and believes that it will dominate the visual effects categories. Still, can this $100 production of Yann Martel's bestseller book bring Lee back to the forefront of the Oscar season, or is the idea of a man on a raft with a tiger not able to compete with Argo, The Master, and other high concept, zeitgeist-stemming movies?