Best leadership movies so far

Here is a compilation of some of my film reviews so far: the best movies that contain no 'hide behind the sofa' violence (which was a request of a colleague of mine):

You can always tell you are sitting in a cinema full (mainly) of women: they laugh louder than when more men are present. And so it was with The Other Woman, which my wife & I went to see on Friday night. It is an enjoyable romcomromp with some predictable and some unpredictable comedic moments with all the actors turning in good & funny performances. It is not going to win any cinematic prizes but it is going to give a large number of women and quite a few men (including me) a good few chortles, belly laughs and guffaws: especially when the anti-hero gets his just desserts...

Tracks was one of those delightful films that I stumbled into, almost by accident, having not read any of the reviews or crits beforehand. It is beautifully humble film with no pretensions and quietly tells a moving story of a young woman who decides to trek from Alice Springs to the Indian Ocean with her dog and several camels. The cinematography is understated until near the end when it explodes into a sea of colour. And not much happens in the story but there again, it kind of does...

Locke is one of the best films you are ever likely to see. It is an exquisite and sublime blend of taut editing, compelling direction, hypnotic cinematography, and incandescent acting. The script is bursting with power, emotion and aching understatement. This is a movie that you simply cannot, must not and should not miss...

I do not usually write about DVDs that I have seen but I feel compelled to blog about Hugo, which I watched yesterday afternoon, while doing my ironing. First thing I would say is that I need to watch this again without my shirts in the way. This is beautiful film, with glorious use of colour and framing. It is a marvelous and enchanting story which, like a magical mystery tour, takes you to places you could not imagine. I won't breathe a single word about what happens. This is a film to be seen and be delighted, (especially if you are film hack like me)...

I have woken to the news that Matthew McConaughey & Jared Leto have won the Oscars for Best Actor and Supporting Actor for their parts in the Dallas Buyers Club. I saw this movie a few days ago and privately predicted a win for Mr McConaughey and I am delighted that his colleague has picked up an Oscar too. The central character begins the film as a dishonest, womanising, drug taking, alcohol abusing homophobic cowboy. What makes Mr McConaughey's performance so electrifying is that you are made to love this man with all of his faults and frailities. Equally, Jared Leto is a pitch perfect blend of strength, weakness, despair, humour, vulnerability and defiance in the face of raging HIV...

I was half expecting Jeremy Kyle to feature in August: Osage County as this is a family that collect more secrets than most and express their feelings in somewhat dramatic ways. I am aware that this film has attracted some criticism for being just too darn contrived to win a set of Oscars. For me that is churlish and possibly misogynist: there are performances here by the main characters that rivet you to your cinema seat. This is a powerful movie of an extraordinary play, which will leave you spinning and catching up on the breaths you forgot to take during the film...

Wadjda is quite honestly one of the most amazing films I have ever seen.It is the first ever feature film, directed by a woman, to be made in Saudi Arabia. Yes, you read that correctly. The film tells the simple story of young girl who falls in love with a bicycle and enters a school competition to win the money needed to buy it. But that is where the simplicity ends...

Reviews of The Secret Life of Walter Mitty have been mixed. As it happens, I think it is one Ben Stiller's finest movies (he directed it too). As it is (loosely) based on the Thurber short story, it is fair to say that the narrative is pretty uncomplicated. Although the film contains some troubling contradictions (would a highly skilled skateboarder become a negative images manager?), it ends up delivering a thumping good message interspersed with comedic magic (the helicopter pilot) and some quiet moments of Zen (the leopard and the football game)...

And, each link has a take on the leadership theme within each movie.