Based on the Novel by Emma Donoghue (who is nominated here for also writing the screenplay), a young woman is locked in a room by her captor. In it, she births a son Jack, whom she protects from the man who has imprisoned her. However, inspired by her love for her child, she must attempt to escape her cell with him to return to the outside world.
From the beginning of the film, we know this is a savage world. In brilliant cinematic shorthand, Max (Tom Hardy) eats a live lizard and quickly gets picked up by skeletal warriors. Max is kept prisoner as a “blood bag,” a sort of health slave used for transfusing blood into injured fighters. He is brought to the Citadel, ruled by the Lobo-esque Immortan Joe (Hugh Keays-Byrne), who represses the population by keeping a tight control on the water supply.
![Oscar Contender Series: The Revenant [PREDICTIONS & REVIEW]](http://zerothreetwo.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/1401x788-the-revenant-DF-02339R_rgb-1080x675.jpg)
Before the West was won, it was a frontier wilderness where nature’s rule of red tooth and claw reigned. Frontiersmen went out as trappers to get pelts from these vasts forests. Hugh Glass (Dicaprio) is an experienced tracker and is working for one company who has been out in the forest for months until they are attacked by the indigenous people. The survivors, led by Captain Andrew Henry (Domhnall Gleeson) have to find a way back to their fort, and when disaster strikes, Glass is left for dead in a shallow grave. Glass miraculously survives and makes his way through dangerous terrain, predatory wildlife, unfriendly French, and angry natives, driven by a lust for revenge against the man responsible for his woes.
![Why Capitalism Sucks [The Big Short Movie Review]](http://zerothreetwo.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/the-big-short-steve-carell-ryan-gosling-1080x675.jpg)
I fully stepped into the world of capitalism this year with my new job. As a previous worker for the church and NGOs, I have found it a surprisingly easy transition. A cushy chair in an office is a lot easier a place to work than a school in the Amazon basin that takes 14 hours to get to by bus on dirt roads. And I like numbers; I am having fun with interest rates, IRRs and ROIs. I like the people I work with, who are all accommodating, and even the banks around me have never been anything other than friendly. However, when I saw The Big Short in Ayala last Wednesday, I was very unsettled. Up came the facts and figures that have made me distrustful of capitalism for a very long time, and I have not been able to shake it off.
![Can Filipinos Ever Be Too Ambitious? [Macbeth Movie Review]](http://zerothreetwo.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/macbeth-movie-review-1080x675.jpg)
Ambitiosa! I was taken aback by the complaints against a female presidential candidate in comments on Facebook. This inner dialogue came back to me when watching the most ambitious of Shakespearean couples, the Thane of Glamis and his lady.
