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Nominated for eight Academy Awards, and winner of four Oscars including Best Picture, A Beautiful Mind is one of the premier dramas of the decade. The brainchild of popular director Ron Howard (Opie from The Andy Griffith Show), A Beautiful Mind debuted to widespread critical acclaim due to the depth of its screenplay, the brilliant performances of Russell Crowe and Jennifer Connelly, and the in-depth portrayal of a victim of mental illness. Based on the true story of John Nash, a schizophrenic mathematical genius who overcame his illness and went on to win the prestigious Nobel Prize for his “Game Theory,” A Beautiful Mind is one of the best films of the decade…

A young mathematical genius, John Nash (Russell Crowe) enjoys the early success of a budding career in academia. Able to complete mathematical formulas that baffle many of the greatest minds of his time, a young Nash stands on the brink of profound discovery with a limitless future and seemingly inevitable fame at his doorstep. Meeting a beautiful girl at an evening party, Alicia (Jennifer Connelly) would later become Nash’s wife. The two seem destined for a life of bliss. But Nash’s problems were not confined to the mathematical arena…

Suffering from schizophrenia, Nash develops an acute sense of paranoia, decoding encrypted non-existent Soviet spy messages from comic books and newspaper advertisements. The reality in which he lives does not exist, and it threatens to tear apart his marriage, his career, and the very life which he holds dear… Can Nash overcome his debilitating disease and pursue the course of excellence to which he once seemed destined? The cast and crew of A Beautiful Mind allow us to see a whole new world through the eyes of suffering genius…

Russell Crowe’s follow up performance to smash hits LA Confidential and Gladiator, A Beautiful Mind is an unbelievable journey into one man’s reality. Russell Crowe’s brilliant portrayal of the schizophrenic Nash and Jennifer Connelly’s standout performance as the woman who loved him form an onscreen synergy that continually drives the screenplay of A Beautiful Mind. Exhibiting quality direction from Ron Howard, the film stands as an eternal testament to the beauty of the human mind and the durability of the human spirit to overcome obstacles and shine at its brightest.

A fascinating film which successfully blurs the lines between John Nash’s imagination and the world of reality, A Beautiful Mind vividly illustrates one man’s struggle against great odds. As Nash’s paranoia and hallucinations collude to blot out the genius of a beautiful mind, the power of the human spirit rallies to great heights - achieving a Nobel Prize and even the immortalization of one’s own life in film! Nash should be lauded for his triumph against a paralyzing disease, and Ron Howard should be praised for delivering a cinematic masterpiece that shows us the true beauty of one man’s plight. For these reasons and more, A Beautiful Mind is definite must-see film - perhaps one of the fifty best films of all time…

About the Author

Britt Gillette is author of The DVD Report, a blog where you can find more reviews like this one of the A Beautiful Mind (DVD).

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Plot points are linear links that make up the chain of traditional Aristotelian 3-act dramatic structure. This classic structure worked well in Hollywood for almost a century now. Although young movie makers are forcing the limits of this structure, plot points still rule the day as the “tent poles” that hold up of the circus of our dreams. Here are the plot points of Hitchcock’s great and often underrated classic, Notorious (1946), as I see them.

Notorious (1946)

Starring: Cary Grant, Ingrid Bergman, Claude Rains, Louis Calhern, Reinhold Schunzel
Directed by: Alfred Hitchcock
Writers: Ben Hecht (Screenwriter)

ESTABLISHING SHOT: Miami Courtroom. Journalists waiting outside.

INCITING INCIDENT: German spy Huberman is sentenced to 20 years in jail.

PLOT POINT 1: CIA agent T. R. Devlin proposes Alicia Huberman, the daughter of traitor Huberman, to spy for USA by going down to Rio, Brazil for an unspecified mission. Devlin is counting on Alicia’s patriotism and her disagreement with her father’s vocation.

MID POINT EVENT: Alicia, although in love with Devlin, agrees to marry Sebastian, the local aristocratic contact for the German spy ring in Brazil and her father’s old friend, in order to to report as an insider about the things going on around Sebastian.

PLOT POINT 2: Sebastian finds that Alicia and Devlin have been to the wine cellar where “uranium sand” was hidden in wine bottles for a secret German project.

3rd ACT RESOLUTION: Devlin finds the poisoned Alicia in her Sebastian mansion bedroom. Devlin eats his pride and admits he loves her, and runs away with her leaving Sebastian to the mercy of his German collaborators who had punished a similar case of “incompetence” with death.

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