With Gangs of New York (released in 2002), Martin Scorsese was back to where he makes his mark, the gritty streets of New York, with lots of hard violence, mafia and gangs, rock music based soundtrack, and people with an inclination for violence. However, with the movie, Scorsese starred a different set of characters, with the starring roles being taken up by Daniel Day-Lewis, Leonardo DiCaprio and Cameron Diaz. The movie was set at the time of the American Civil War of the 1960′s, and was based on a pretty old book by Herbert Asbury, with the same name “The Gangs of New York”.
This was another movie that Scorsese had been wanting to make for a long time, but kept on getting put off for various reasons (over a period of greater than 2 decades); even when the movie was finally made in 2001, the release was delayed for a period of around an year while Scorsese and the producer Harvey Weinstein negotiated on the final cuts in the movie, and the actual length of the movie. The movie was finally released to a majority of critical acclaim, although many critics found the movie not as good as some of his better movies. The movie, made at a budget just under $100 million, went on to make approximately $200 million worldwide.

The movie is about a conflict between 2 warring gangs, led by their leaders. William “Bill the Butcher” Cutting (Daniel Day-Lewis) is a White Protestant Anglo-Saxon and leads the gangs called ‘The Natives’, since they are already residing there; further, Bill has a hatred of immigrants and their attempts to muscle into the territory where he is the primary gang leader. He comes into conflict with a gang comprised of recent immigrants, with the gang called “Dead Rabbits,” led by Priest Vallon (Liam Neeson). He has a young son called Amsterdam (who will later become Leonardo DiCaprio when he grows up). These 2 gangs have a bloody fight in which Bill kills Vallon, witnessed by Amsterdam. Amsterdam finds the knife with which his father is killed and buries it, and then is taken to an orphanage. This entire situation is set in the year 1946.
Change to 16 years later, when Amsterdam is now an adult, the Civil War between the North and the South is in full swing, and the draft is in commission. Amsterdam finds that his father’s old gang members are mostly now part of Bill’s gang. Amsterdam is introduced to Bill by an old friend, Johnny (without telling Bill who Amsterdam actually is). Amsterdam also meets a pickpocket called Jenny Everdeane (Cameron Diaz), and is attracted to her (although his friend Johnny is also attracted to her); Bill starts trusting Amsterdam more and Amsterdam keeps on gaining some amount of influence, and also saves Bill once in an assassination attempt.
Bill trusts Amsterdam enough to talk about Priest Vallon with him, including the fact that he respected Vallon, and it was that incident that gave him strength and character to fight all his enemies. The rest of the movie is about the final fight between Bill and Amsterdam, once Bill has learnt who Amsterdam actually is, while the Union Soldiers are quelling riots that have broken out in the city over the draft laws.

After a couple of movies such as Casino and Kundun, Martin Scorsese returned to the same location that is a staple of his movie, the gritty New York areas where he takes people with deep emotional conflicts and shows up the progression of these conflicts. In ‘Bringing Out the Dead’, Scorsese made a movie where he depicts the life of a deeply traumatized paramedic working the night shift in a New York Hospital (he has been traumatized by some of the experiences that he has seen, especially that of a young homeless girl; and his job is one that exposes him to profound grief shown by others – typically the relatives of people who area admitted to emergency services and who often do not survive). He is what you would call a typical recipe for a person heading to a collapse, with his nerves and emotions driving him to a point of collapse.
He realizes that he is headed to towards burnout, already suffers from insomnia, and wonders whether he will, in his current condition, meet another victim whom he cannot save; and he attempts to try and get fired. And then he gets salvation.
The movie was based on a novel by Joe Connelly (screenplay for the movie by Paul Schrader); but even though the movie is now considered a pretty good movie, it was a disaster at the box office with the US box office collections only making half of the $32 million budget.

The movie is a frantic 3 days, where the main character has 3 different partners in terms of his work as a paramedic (and the 3 partners also portray their roles – with 3 entirely different types of characters, one being very engaging, the second being more of a stirring type of person, and the third being more crazy). The path to salvation for Frank Pierce (Nicholas Cage in a pretty fine performance) comes from his meeting with the daughter of a heart attack victim that Frank had helped save; he meets Mary (Patricia Arquette) when she often comes to visit her father in the hospital.
It is Mary who, in her interactions with Frank, passes on her compassion and her feelings of helping others, which finally takes Frank out of his depression; repair his feelings about the people he was not able to save, and finally cure his insomnia.

This is another book by Agatha Christie which does not have either of her main 2 detectives, Hercule Poirot or Miss Marple. This book was also published in the United States under a different name – The Boomerang Clue. The book got a good review from the press upon its release.
The book is about a man found murdered near a cliff at the seaside resort town of Marchbolt, who dies shortly after being found by the hero of the book, but before dying, he utters the words “Why didn’t they ask Evans?”. He also has a photo in his pocket, that of a young beautiful girl. The book is about the quest of the person who found the dead man, Bobby Jones (the son of the vicar) to explore the mystery of the dead man. In this quest, he runs into danger himself, with an attempt made on his own life through poison. He has a friend, “Frankie” – Lady Frances Derwent, who helps in the quest to first identify the man who died, then find out the overall mystery about why the man died, and who was the person who killed the dead man. As always, Christie does not put too much of romance in these books, but by the end of the book, the lead pair realize that they are indeed in love with each other and get engaged.

Bobby is playing golf with a friend, and when the ball goes over the cliff, he finds a man on the ground who is unconscious, and clearly in a bad way. The man dies, but just before dying, he utters a few words to Bobby. Bobby also has an immediate alternate assignment, and to stay with the dead body, another man known as Roger Bassington-ffrench steps in. Soon, the photo in the dead man’s pocket comes forward, identifies herself as Amelia Cayman, and identifies the man as Alex Pritchard.
Bobby gets a job offer from Buenos Aires, but declines. Soon after, he is struck by poisoning when drinking beer, but the police don’t find any clues. Soon after, he sees the photograph again which was used for the identification, but realizes that the photo he saw and that in the paper was different (so Roger must have changed the photo). This ensures that Bobby now wants to investigate further, and the best way (as decided and Bobby and Frankie) was to find Roger Bassington-ffrench. Do they manage to find Roger, who was the murdered man, and why was he killed ? Is there any movie involved ? Read the book to find out.

Martin Scorsese is persona non grata in China, and will never be allowed there. But I guess he would have expected that if he made a movie about the Dalai Lama. The Dalai Lama, the 14th in line, is the spiritual leader of the people of Tibet and the administrator before the Chinese invaded the region and took complete control of Tibet (declaring that Tibet was always a part of China and another province); the Dalai Lama now has a base in the northern Indian town of McLeodganj and no longer supports the concept of Tibetan and independence, instead asking for more autonomy for Tibet inside China. However, China, mindful of the position of the Dalai Lama in the minds of the people of Tibet, considers the Dalai Lama as a separatist leader and refuses to try and let him get any legitimacy. Any film maker who makes a movie on the Dalai Lama that does not position China’s viewpoint will be viewed with hostility by the Government of China; and that is what Martin Scorsese has faced (in fact, the first studio that was to make the movie, Universal backed down once it became clear that China will be openly hostile; the second one, Disney refused to back down).
The movie is called Kundun (another title for the Dalai Lama, which means ‘The Presence’) is made very beautifully, but for a movie with drama and wonderful scenes, the movie did pretty badly at the box-office, earning only around $6 million. The movie was written by Melissa Mathison, and is based on the life and stories of the Dalai Lama.

The Dalai Lama is typically selected by a test where a young child (often as old as 2-4 years) must satisfy a group of experts that the child is the incarnation of the previous Dalai Lama,and so it was with the 14th Dalai Lama; the regent Reting Rinpoche had a vision, and based on that, senior lamas go to the location of the vision, finding a young child who is able to identify objects that belong to the previous Dalai Lama. On completion, he along with family come to the Potala Palace in Lhasa (the traditional headquarters of the Dalai Lamas); once he comes of age, then he will be enthroned.
The Dalai Lama is a young child after all, and passes through some emotional trauma including becoming homesick, but is comforted by the regent (regent Reting however loses a power struggle and is imprisoned), with the Dalai Lama becoming more active. However, this is the same time in which the Communists have taken over China and claim Tibet to be a part of China. They soon invade, and after some initial reconciliation, the Communists are recognized as oppressors. The Dalai Lama even meets Mao in Beijing, but the Dalai Lama will not fit in the overall plans of the Communists and is seen as a powerful influence against the interests of China. When he is threatened, the Dalai Lama makes his escape to India through a difficult journey ahead of the pursuing Communists.