Dentsu (Japan): 45

It’s Complicated (2009) is an American romantic comedy written and directed by Nancy Meyers. The film follows Jane, a successful bakery owner in Santa Barbara, California, and Jake Adler, an accomplished attorney who have been divorced for a decade. The former couple shares three children – two girls and a boy. With their youngest child off to college, Jane is left feeling lonely. Meanwhile, Jake has remarried Agness, the much younger woman he had an affair with during his marriage to Jane. While attending their son Luke’s graduation in New York City, Jane and Jake reconnect over drinks and share ...

Public Enemies (2009), an American biographical crime drama film directed by Michael Mann, follows notorious criminal John Dillinger as he attempts to evade the law and continue his life of crime in 1933. With a screenplay co-written by Ronan Bennett and Ann Biderman, the movie begins with Dillinger’s daring escape from the Indiana State Penitentiary alongside his crew. Tragically, his mentor Walter Dietrich is killed during the jailbreak. After changing their clothes and finding refuge at a safe house on Chicago’s east side, Dillinger and his accomplices carry out a series of bank robberies while FBI agent ...

The action film Fast & Furious (2009), directed by Justin Lin and written by Chris Morgan, follows Dominic Toretto and his crew as they hijack fuel tankers in the Dominican Republic. When Dom suspects they are being pursued by the police, he leaves behind his girlfriend Letty to protect her. However, months later, Dom receives news from his sister Mia that Letty has been killed. He travels to Los Angeles for her funeral and discovers traces of nitromethane at the crash site. To find out who is responsible, he pressures a local mechanic into revealing the buyer’s ...

Valkyrie (2008), a thriller directed by Bryan Singer and written by Christopher McQuarrie and Nathan Alexander, features Tom Cruise. Set during World War II, the film follows Wehrmacht Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg in Tunisia as he becomes increasingly disillusioned with Hitler’s regime. After his battalion is attacked by P-40 fighter-bombers, Stauffenberg is gravely injured and returned to Germany for treatment. However, he ultimately loses his left eye, right hand, ...

To Each His Own Cinema (2007) is a French comedy-drama anthology film created for the 60th anniversary of the Cannes Film Festival. It showcases 34 short films, each 3 minutes long, by 36 renowned directors from various parts of the world. The filmmakers were invited to express ‘their state of mind of the moment as inspired by the motion picture theatre’. The film’s subtitle, ‘a declaration of love to the big screen’, captures its overall theme. Many of the shorts touch on similar topics such as paying tribute to classic European art cinema, reflecting on the decline of movie-going, recollecting childhood awe, and exploring the ...