American Hustle

The 86th Academy Awards are in just a few days, and the movie American Hustle has been nominated for 10 awards including Best Original Screenplay, Best Film Editing, and Best Production Design.  Not only is the story captivating, but the acting is phenomenal.  When watching the film, you truly believe you're in the disco era.  The costuming, hair, and makeup was spot on, and accompanied by a "groovy" 70s soundtrack. The movie is built around reinvention -- a concept of the American Dream. During the 2 hours and 20 minutes the audience follows a scam-artist (played by Christian Bale) as he ambitiously pushes boundaries.  American Hustle perfectly balances comedy, tragedy, and romance.

American Hustle will be most closely competing with Gravity this year at the Oscar's...both films were nominated for 10 awards, and 12 Years a Slave follows closely behind with 9 nominations.  All 3 films are nominated for Best Directing and Best Picture.  While I can't speak for Gravity and 12 Years a Slave (I still have yet to see them), I am very optimistic that American Hustle will walk away from the Oscar's with a few awards.  I guess we just have to wait until March 2nd to find out!

Kiefer Sutherland

     My single favorite show of all time is 24.  The show follows the character Jack Bauer who is a federal agent that stops terrorists from destroying the country.  The idea of the show is that this terrorist attack takes place within the course of 24 hours.  Each episode is an hour long and the show builds on itself with worse and worse things happening while Jack Bauer saves the day whether he gets into trouble or not.  The character of Bauer is an extremely well trained fearless person who will do whatever it takes to save his country which rarely thanks him or pays him back.  The show is extremely well casted and should go down in television history as one of the best.
     The show first aired in 2001 on Fox and was an immediate hit.  I started watching the show during its second season and I fell in love.  The show aired for 8 seasons over the course of 9 years because of the writers strike in 2007-2008.  This was Sutherland's break through TV show that received 9 awards for through many different ceremonies and 7 of the awards were for Sutherland's performance.  The show also received countless nominations for awards especially during seasons 4 and 5.

     Since the show ended in 2010 Sutherland has been playing small roles in a few movies and has made some cameo appearances.  His latest work is staring in a new television series called Touch which is also aired by Fox.  I have not seen the show yet but maybe I will start watching the second season and love it just like 24, I highly doubt something like that will happen but I love Kiefer as an actor.