So there were a couple of standout items in the news this past week, one of which was China disregarding it's one child policy in favor of a two child policy due to their declining in age population and a smaller workforce unable to adequately meet the needs of the apparently booming Chinese economy. Which is probably too little too late with how many decades it will take their population to recover. The other bit of news is that President Obama is sending US soldiers to Syria to....well, I'm not really sure to do what, or if the general public really knows what either. I was never for that, and think that it is a grave tactical error currently as well. I'm not certain what the current solution should be to solve the mess of the crisis in the Middle East, but I doubt that it should be that; too little, too late. Speaking of crises, I watched the film Bridge of Spies today and received an interesting, if not pop cultured centered education in life during the early part of the Cold War thanks to the film directed by Steven Spielberg. Once again he showcased his talent as a fantastic director in all of the usual areas; I wouldn't say that this film stands out in any particular way, but it was definitely worth seeing and was well done. It is about an attorney who defends an accused Soviet spy and receives a lot of negative attention because of it, but then he becomes wrapped up in prisoner exchange involving an American pilot who gets captured. He then has to navigate the treacherous politics of Soviet tactics in East Berlin and carefully reach his objective without getting himself killed or anyone else. Tom Hanks who plays the main character, James Donovan, does masterfully. He comes off as genuine, competent, empathetic, yet has a sense of depth to his character as well; definitely not static. However, it wasn't that impressive of a character either; basically in his repertoire nothing that would really stand out. Mark Rylance, who played the spy Rudolf Abel, was a fun character that I would have liked to see more character development from, but he did really well with what was there. He and Tom Hanks together in scenes were awesome. Those two were really the main attraction of the film, but Alan Alda, Amy Ryan, and Dakin Matthews had some nice roles as well, none were very large but it added to the overall high quality of the cast present. The writing of the film was well done by Ethan and Joel Coen, as well as Matt Charman, but I'm not not entirely certain about the screenplay. It seemed fragmented; like a one man show, and I'm not certain how well that plays out as opposed to something that could have included more drama between a few more characters. The music by Thomas Newman was a huge surprise as I feel this is the first Steven Spielberg film in over forty years that he hasn't used John Williams, and that's all I can say about that as I have never cared for Thomas Newman's music. The cinematography was well done by Janusz Kaminski, but seemed like it lacked a certain edge to give it that dark, spy like feel. It was a good film, and a pleasant watch and it is something that I would definitely watch again.Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks interview
Bridge of Spies scene
