For a limited time you may now watch SPOTLIGHT, the Oscar
pick for Best Picture, back at select cinemas: Eastwood, Gateway, Powerplant, Robinsons
Galleria, and the newly opened Cinema '76.
The movie won two Oscars for Best Original Screenplay and
Best Picture in the recently concluded 88th Academy Awards. It also
had four other nominations with Mark Ruffalo and Rachel McAdams in the
Actor/Actress in a Supporting Role category,
Film Editing for Tom McArdle, and Directing for Tom McCarthy.
In his acceptance speech, producer Michael Sugar said he
hoped the film had given a voice to the survivors of the abuse that would
“become a choir that would resonate all the way to the Vatican.” He continued
with a direct call to Pope Francis that “it’s time to protect the children and
restore the faith.”
The Vatican newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, has praised Spotlight for its “convincing attempt to show abuse and cover-ups in the Catholic church”. The newspaper published a front-page editorial on Monday hailing Tom McCarthy’s film and calling it “not anti-Catholic”. The editorial said Spotlight, which centers on the work of a group of Boston Globe reporters to uncover abuse by Roman Catholic priests, faithfully presented the church’s attempts to defend itself in the face of “horrendous realities”.
According to Justin Cheng, Chief Film Critic of Variety,
Spotlight’s Oscar win is a meaningful victory on a number of levels. It has
brought attention the testimony of those who have endured grave abuse at the
hands of the Catholic Church — and perhaps, too, it will help hold abusers and
conspirators to ever higher standards of reform and accountability.
Spotlight’s Best Picture win also offers a rare and
significant validation for the many journalists who have seen their proud
profession become a downsized shadow of its former self, bereft of the
resources that make such patient, vital investigative work possible. But social
conscience alone is never a good enough reason to declare a movie the best of
its class. No one disputes that “Spotlight” is an important movie, but its far
more praiseworthy attribute is that it so skillfully avoids the trap of
self-importance.
After SPOTLIGHT, Solar Pictures is set to release another
Oscar favorite TRUMBO,starring Bryan Cranston who earned an Academy Award
nomination for his role as Dalton Trumbo. He is joined by Helen Mirren and
Diane Lane, both no strangers to the Academy.