“The Big Short” (2015). Cast: Christian Bale, Steve Carell, Ryan Gosling, Brat Pitt, Melissa Leo, Marisa Tomei, Finn Wittrock, John Magaro, Rafe Spall, Hamish Linklater, Jeremy Strong, Adepero Oduye, Tracy Letts, Byron Mann, Rajeev Jacob, Jeffry Griffin, Karen Gillan, Billy Magnussen, Max Greenfield, Margot Robbie, Selena Gomez, Anthony Bourdain, Richard Thaler. Director: Adam McKay. Screenplay: Charles Randolph and Adam McKay. Book: Michael Lewis, The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine. Web site. Trailer.The Great Recession of 2008 is all too well known to a great many people. Much of the blame was placed on the collapse of the home mortgage market, and, at least superficially, that might be true. But what was behind that debacle, the underlying cause of an [...]

“Hitchcock/Truffaut” (2015). Cast: Interviews: Martin Scorsese, David Fincher, Arnaud Desplechin, Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Wes Anderson, James Gray, Olivier Assayas, Richard Linklater, Peter Bogdanovich, Paul Schrader, Mathieu Amalric (narrator). Archive Footage: Alfred Hitchcock, François Truffaut, James Stewart, Henry Fonda, Cary Grant, Anthony Perkins, Martin Balsam, Kim Novak, Tippi Hendren, Janet Leigh, Vera Miles, Doris Day, Veronica Cartwright, Rod Taylor, Jessica Tandy, Montgomery Clift, Alma Reville. Director: Kent Jones. Screenplay: Kent Jones and Serge Toubiana. Book: François Truffaut, Hitchcock/Truffaut (originally released as Le Cinéma selon Alfred Hitchcock (The Cinema According to Alfred Hitchcock)). Web site. Trailer.The creative mind is something to behold. How it functions in realizing its goals is mesmerizing and, for many of us, mysterious. But understanding its workings need not [...]

Check out three new Conscious Cinema Reviews on the New Consciousness Review web site -- "Fully Charged," "The Physics of the Soul" and Time Is Art," all available by clicking here.

“Concussion” (2015). Cast: Will Smith, Alec Baldwin, Albert Brooks, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, David Morse, Arliss Howard, Mike O’Malley, Eddie Marsan, Paul Reiser, Hill Harper, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Richard T. Jones, Luke Wilson, Matthew Willig, Dan Ziskie, Sara Lindsey. Director: Peter Landesman. Screenplay: Peter Landesman. Magazine Article Story Source: Jeanne Marie Laskas, “Game Brain,” GQ magazine. Web site. Trailer.Even if it’s not always apparent, we all have a purpose in life. In some cases it will be patently obvious, while in others it’s about as seemingly unlikely as one can imagine. And it’s that latter scenario that provides the basis for the story line in the new fact-based sports drama, “Concussion.”When forensic neuropathologist Dr. Bennet Omalu (Will Smith) performs autopsies in the morgue [...]

“Joy” (2015). Cast: Jennifer Lawrence, Robert De Niro, Bradley Cooper, Édgar Ramírez, Diane Ladd, Virginia Madsen, Isabella Rossellini, Dascha Polanco, Elisabeth Röhm, Susan Lucci, Laura Wright, Jimmy Jean-Louis, Ken Howard, Melissa Rivers, Drena De Niro, Isabelle Crovetti-Cramp, Emily Nuñez, Madison Wolfe, Aundrea Gadsby, Gia Gadsby, Alexander Cook, Bates Wilder, Bill Thorpe, Marianne Leone, Donna Mills. Director: David O. Russell. Screenplay: David O. Russell. Story: Annie Mumolo and David O. Russell. Web site. Trailer.It’s a pretty safe bet to say that most of us have dreams we would like to see realized. But how many of us actually follow through even partially, let alone at all? Perhaps it’s because we don’t know how to make them happen. Or maybe we don’t [...]

“The Danish Girl” (2015). Cast: Eddie Redmayne, Alicia Vikander, Matthias Schoenaerts, Ben Whishaw, Amber Heard, Adrian Schiller, Sebastian Koch, Pip Torrens. Director: Tom Hooper. Screenplay: Lucinda Coxon. Book: David Ebershoff, The Danish Girl. Web site. Trailer.To get through awkward times during our upbringing, most of us were probably advised at one point or another to “just be yourself,” a nebulous suggestion we likely found difficult to fathom. But consider what that might mean for someone who lacks a clear sense of his or her own identity, even when it comes to something as fundamental as gender. Imagine how frightening such a prospect would be. If you can appreciate that, then you’ll have an idea of what goes on in the [...]

“Youth” (2015). Cast: Michael Caine, Harvey Keitel, Paul Dano, Rachel Weisz, Jane Fonda, Abe Macqueen, Dorji Wangchuk, Madalina Ghenea, Luna Mijovic, Roly Serrano, Wolfgang Michael, Ed Stoppard, Paloma Faith, Robert Seethaler, Lee Artin Boschin, Sumi Jo, Nate Dern, Alex Beckett, Mark Gessner, Tom Lipinski, Chloe Pirrie, Sonia Gessner, Emilia Jones, Heidi Maria Glössner, Helmut Förnbacher. Director: Paolo Sorrentino. Screenplay: Paolo Sorrentino. Web site. Trailer.The meaning of life is something that has mesmerized, perplexed and confounded mankind throughout the ages. And, much of the time, we come away from asking this question with no definitive conclusions. But making the effort to find answers is ultimately what counts, especially before the end arrives, an undertaking pursued in earnest by a colorful cast [...]

Why are these people smiling? They just got their copies of Get the Picture?!: Conscious Creation Goes to the Movies and Consciously Created Cinema: The Movie Lover’s Guide to the Law of Attraction!Photo by David Castillo Dominici, courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.netThese books, available in print and ebook formats, make ideal gifts for movie lovers and followers of conscious creation/law of attraction principles, so pick up copies for everyone on your holiday shopping list – including yourself if that’s you! For a sample of Get the Picture?!, click here, and for a sample of Consciously Created Cinema, click here.To find our more about these titles, visit their dedicated web sites. For Get the Picture?!, click here, and for Consciously Created Cinema, click [...]

In case you missed last week's broadcast of my interview on the Project Bring Me To Life radio show with host Christopher Closson, you can now hear it in podcast format for on-demand listening from the following sources: iTunes, Stitcher, Spreaker, Reality Sandwich and Disinfo. And, while you're at it, check out the show's YouTube preview and my PBMTL profile on the web site's home page. Tune in for a lively discussion about conscious creation/law of attraction principles in the movies.

If once is fun, twice is nice, so, to say thank you again to my loyal readers who have supported me and my writing over the years (and to share my gratitude with those who are still learning about it), I’d like to present everyone a second gift for the holidays – an excerpt from my book, Consciously Created Cinema: The Movie Lover’s Guide to the Law of Attraction, my review of the emerging Christmas favorite, “The Blind Side.”* * *What You Don’t See Coming“The Blind Side”Year of Release: 2009Cast: Sandra Bullock, Tim McGraw, Quinton Aaron, Jae Head, Lily Collins,Ray McKinnon, Kathy Bates, Adriane Lenox, Sharon Morris, Omar DorseyDirector: John Lee HancockScreenplay: John Lee HancockBook: Michael Lewis, The Blind Side: [...]