Actor Jack Thompson (1940)

The film adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s classic novel, The Great Gatsby (2013), follows the story of World War I veteran Nick Carraway as he recounts his encounter with the enigmatic Jay Gatsby to his doctor while receiving treatment at a psychiatric hospital in December 1929. Encouraged by his doctor to channel his passion for writing, Nick begins documenting the events that led him to New York seven years prior. He had moved from the Midwest and abandoned writing to rent a cottage in West Egg near Gatsby’s extravagant mansion. One evening he has dinner with his cousin Daisy Buchanan and her ...

Baz Luhrmann’s epic adventure drama, Australia (2008), follows Lady Sarah Ashley as she travels to her husband’s faltering cattle station, Faraway Downs. It is 1939, just before the start of World War II, and Lady Sarah hopes to make her husband sell the station and save their marriage. However, upon arriving in Australia from England, she learns that her husband has been murdered by an Aboriginal elder known as ‘King George’. The vast Faraway Downs spans across Western Australia and the Northern Territory, reaching all the way to the Timor Sea. In order to secure control of the station for ...

The Good German (2006), an American neo-noir crime film, was directed by Steven Soderbergh and based on Joseph Kanon’s 2001 novel of the same name. It follows Jacob Geismer, an American war correspondent for The New Republic, as he returns to Berlin during the Potsdam negotiations after World War II in Europe (May 1945), but before the end of hostilities in Asia (August 1945). While there, he witnesses his driver Tully’s murder and discovers that Tully had been involved in black-market activities. As Geismer investigates further, he becomes entangled in the ...

In the epic sci-fi film Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones (2002), directed and co-written by George Lucas, the Galactic Republic faces a new threat ten years after the events on Naboo. The Separatist movement, led by former Jedi Master Count Dooku, poses a danger to the Republic. Senator Padmé Amidala, who was once Queen of Naboo, travels to Coruscant to vote against creating an army to assist the Jedi in fighting this threat. However, upon her arrival, she narrowly escapes an assassination attempt and is placed under the protection of Obi-Wan Kenobi and his apprentice Anakin Skywalker. After foiling ...

Original Sin (2001), an American erotic romantic thriller, stars Antonio Banderas and Angelina Jolie. Based on the novel Waltz into Darkness by Cornell Woolrich, it is a remake of the 1969 François Truffaut film Mississippi Mermaid. The story takes place in late 19th century Cuba during Spanish rule, and alternates between scenes of a woman confessing her past to a priest as she awaits execution and the events leading up to her impending fate. Luis Vargas, a ...

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (1997), an American mystery thriller directed and produced by Clint Eastwood, stars John Cusack and Kevin Spacey. The screenplay was adapted from John Berendt’s 1994 book of the same name. Set in Savannah, the story centers around a fatal shooting and the ensuing trial of Jim Williams—self-made man, art collector, antiques dealer, bon vivant, and semi-closeted homosexual. New York magazine reporter, John Kelso—author of Before the ...