Brent Marchant

In 2005, virtually everyone in the financial services industry was living high on the hog. Despite the losses that occurred in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, the economy rebounded strongly in the time since that fateful day in 2001. Money rolled in as if it were on a perpetual upward spiral, a nonstop gravy train that most insiders thought would never end. People in the business partied like there was no tomorrow, celebrating the good fortune that was now being looked on as unending and matter of fact.

In 1962, filmmaker François Truffaut (1932-1984) was a rising star in the world of cinema, having directed a small but significant number of acclaimed pictures, such as “The 400 Blows” (1959) and “Jules and Jim” (1962). Yet, when the brash young French auteur was asked to name the greatest influence on his work, he cited a veteran of the field, someone many years his senior, the legendary British director Alfred Hitchcock (1899-1980).

When forensic neuropathologist Dr. Bennet Omalu (Will Smith) performs autopsies in the morgue of the Allegheny County Coroner’s Office, he treats his subjects with a sense of respect and dignity one might not expect in such a cold, clinical setting. The highly educated Nigerian-born immigrant even speaks to his “patients,” asking them to help him discover why they died, a sensitive, humane approach that goes beyond simply cutting open the victims’ bodies and performing calculated scientific analyses to find the answers behind their demise.

Based on the lives of several successful women entrepreneurs (most notably inventor and cable television product sales mogul Joy Mangano), the film follows the misadventures, exploits and accomplishments of a composite character simply named Joy (Jennifer Lawrence). When viewers first meet the film’s heroine, she lives a harried and frustrating life. As the divorced mother of two, she works a thankless job as an airline ticket counter agent, barely eking out a living to support her largely dysfunctional family.

In 1926, life was good for Einar Wegener (Eddie Redmayne) and his wife, Gerda (Alicia Vikander). The couple lived comfortably in Copenhagen as aspiring artists; Einar specialized in landscapes, and Gerda painted portraits. When not working, they enjoyed a lively social life, hobnobbing with the city’s social elite and members of the arts community, such as their good friend, Ulla (Amber Heard), a colorful though somewhat flighty ballet dancer. But, above all, they were madly in love with one another. They were also anxious to start a family, a process that wasn’t going too well (but at which they nevertheless kept trying).

A lifelong movie fan and longtime metaphysics student, Brent Marchant is the author of “Get the Picture?!: Conscious Creation Goes to the Movies” and “Consciously Created Cinema: The Movie Lover’s Guide to the Law of Attraction,” both of which look at how conscious creation (a.k.a. the law of attraction) is illustrated through film.

For many years, troubling rumors about sexual abuse involving Roman Catholic priests and underage parishioners had been bubbling to the surface of public awareness, but few, if any, details were substantiated. That all changed in 2001, however, when an intrepid team of reporters from The Boston Globe took on the story.

Joy Newsome (Brie Larson) and her five-year-old son, Jack (Jason Tremblay), lead a rather unconventional existence. Their world is considerably smaller than what most of us are accustomed to, living their lives within the confines of a 10-foot by 10-foot backyard garden shed, a “home” Joy has generically designated “Room.” Their only view of the outside is through an overhead skylight, one that provides little illumination – and an even more limited glimpse of what lies beyond.

In 1947, screenwriter Dalton Trumbo (Bryan Cranston) was one of the most acclaimed and best paid scribes in Hollywood, having achieved success with the scripts for such films as “Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo” (1944) and the Oscar-nominated “Kitty Foyle” (1940).

On September 8, 2004, the CBS News magazine 60 Minutes II aired an investigative report that held the potential to be a real bombshell. The report, researched and written by longtime producer Mary Mapes (Cate Blanchett) and presented by veteran anchorman Dan Rather (Robert Redford), purported to reveal evidence proving that President George W. Bush had allegedly shirked his duty during his service as a Texas Air National Guard pilot from 1968 to 1974.

In 2005, decorated New Jersey police detective Lt. Laurel Hester (Julianne Moore) was living the good life. Her career was going well, she had just moved into a beautiful new home and she was enjoying her relationship with the love of her life, Stacie (Ellen Page), with whom she had formally established a domestic partnership under the state’s recently enacted law governing such arrangements. There were some trade-offs, such as Laurel’s belief in the need to keep her lifestyle secret for career advancement purposes, but, on balance, everything seemed to be going well. That all changed one day, though, when a nagging pain thought to be a pulled muscle turned out to be something far more serious – Stage IV lung cancer.

Consider the following scenario: If you were ordered to do something you fundamentally disagreed with, would you comply? Most of us would probably say “No” without hesitation. But does that reaction truly hold water? That’s a theory psychology professor Stanley Milgram (Peter Sarsgaard) put to the test in an experiment he conducted at Yale University in 1961.

Life during China’s Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) inflicted many hardships on the country’s population. As an attempt by Communist Party Chairman Mao Tse-tung (1893-1976) to purge the nation of any remnants of capitalism and traditional culture, this oppressive sociopolitical movement sought to impose the Party’s ideology on virtually all public and private aspects of Chinese society. To ensure citizen compliance with these objectives, the Party placed operatives and informants seemingly everywhere to quietly but affirmatively ensure conformity…

In August 1974, crowds of open-mouthed New Yorkers were captivated when a little-known French high-wire artist named Philippe Petit (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) undertook and achieved the unthinkable – stringing a cable and successfully traversing the space between the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center, 110 stories (1,350 feet) above the ground.

The tightly knit crew of the Ares III mission to Mars truly seems to be enjoying its adventure. Their good-natured approach to life and work on the Red Planet makes their task look like fun, despite the inherent risks involved with being in a hostile, unfamiliar environment roughly 50 million miles from home. But that joviality quickly evaporates when a severe windstorm approaches, threatening the crew’s habitat – not to mention the viability of the mission itself. Before long, howling winds and thick dust clouds inundate their settlement, and the crew is suddenly faced with having to abort their mission.

In 1972, the world was mesmerized by a seemingly unlikely event – a chess tournament. To be sure, this time-honored “game of kings” had long had more than its ample share of followers, but, in this match, the stakes were higher than just proving which participant was the better competitive strategist. The contest pitted Soviet world champion Boris Spassky (Liev Schreiber) against upstart American challenger Bobby Fischer (Tobey Maguire) at the height of the Cold War. The competition was a sort of proxy conflict between the two nations, with their respective representatives serving as surrogate warriors. And the event’s understood though unstated aim was to prove to the world which side was intellectually superior – and thus worthy of allegedly deserved respect and admiration.

It’s been said that, with great power comes great responsibility, and those who wield it had better have a good handle on how they do so. Those who are successful in business would be wise to heed such advice, for they have the potential to impact the lives of others in myriad ways. The examples set by Julius Rosenwald and Steve Jobs provide some clear-cut insights into how to proceed – and what not to do. Let us hope that today’s budding entrepreneurs make the right choices.

Writer-lecturer Elle Reid (Lily Tomlin) has experienced more than her share of upheavals of late. With the passing of her soul mate, Violet, 18 months ago, Elle found herself saddled with an inconsolable sense of loss ‒ and a mountain of medical bills. Needless to say, these circumstances weighed quite heavily on her. But, as difficult as these trials were, little does she know that there are even more to come.

“Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet” (2014 production, 2015 release). Cast (Voices): Liam Neeson, Salma Hayek-Pinault, John Krasinski, Quvenzhané Wallis, Alfred Molina, Frank Langella, Assaf Cohen, Leah Allers. Director: Roger Allers. Segment…

In 1968, the fortunes of the ABC television network were seriously flagging. As the lowest rated of the three networks, its numbers seriously trailed those of rivals NBC and CBS in both its entertainment and news programming. In fact, the network’s ratings were so dismal that TV industry insiders often joked that, if the country wanted to bring the Vietnam War to a quick conclusion, it should be broadcast on ABC, because it was sure to be cancelled after 13 weeks.

In October 1998, the death of 21-year-old Matthew Shepard came to dominate national headlines, not so much because it happened but, rather, because of how it happened. The first-year University of Wyoming student was brutally beaten and left to die on the prairie outside the town of Laramie – because he was gay. His attackers, local residents Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson, claimed that they pretended to be gay to win over Shepard’s confidence as a pretext to robbing him. However, as became apparent during the assailants’ trial, their victim’s sexuality clearly played a pivotal role in the incident. Shepard’s death thus spurred a push for passage of national hate crimes legislation that would include sexual orientation as one of the bill’s qualifying criteria, a goal realized in 2009 with the enactment of the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act.