Monster's Ball

Monster's Ball is a 2001 American romantic drama film directed by German-Swiss director Marc Forster and starring Billy Bob Thornton, Halle Berry, and Heath Ledger. The film tells the story of a poor Southern woman who falls for a widowed prison-guard after the execution of her husband.

Berry won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her leading performance, and, as of 2015, is the only African-American woman to do so.

Plot

Hank Grotowski (Billy Bob Thornton), a widower, and his son, Sonny (Heath Ledger), are corrections officers in a local state prison. They reside in Georgia with Hank's ailing father, Buck (Peter Boyle), a racist whose wife committed suicide.

Hank as a deputy warden oversees the execution of convicted murderer Lawrence Musgrove (Sean Combs). As explained to Sonny by Hank, at the diner bar the night before, the movie title is what the execution team calls that night's get-together. The proceedings prove too intense for Sonny, who begins to vomit and then collapses as he is leading Lawrence to the electric chair. Hank confronts Sonny in the jail's bathroom afterwards and slaps him for being so "soft" and ruining a man's last walk. At home, Hank attacks Sonny in his bed and tells him to get out of the house. Sonny grabs a gun, and threatens his father, who backs off. The confrontation ends in their living room with Hank at gunpoint, lying on the carpet, and Sonny in Buck's customary chair. Sonny asks his father if he hates him. After his father calmly confirms that he does and always has, Sonny responds, "Well I always loved you," and then shoots himself in the heart. Hank subsequently buries Sonny in the back garden with no real funeral because, as Buck observes, "He was weak." Hank subsequently quits his job, burns his uniform in the backyard, and locks the door of Sonny's room.

Bob Thornton

Robert George "Bob" Thornton (born July 10, 1962) is a retired American professional basketball player whose career lasted from 1985 to 1996 and a current assistant coach for the Memphis Grizzlies of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He was a 6'10" 225 forward. He holds NBA career averages of 3.0 points and 2.5 rebounds in 283 total games.

Thornton played college basketball at University of California, Irvine and Saddleback Community College, and was selected by the New York Knicks with the 87th pick of the 1984 NBA Draft.

Thornton, an eight-year NBA veteran, played for five NBA teams (New York Knicks, Philadelphia 76ers, Minnesota Timberwolves, Utah Jazz and Washington Wizards) and played three seasons in the Italian A-1 league with Rome, Siena and Pavia. He later held coaching positions with the CBA's Yakima Sun Kings and Quad City Thunder, the NBDL's Huntsville Flight, and the Chicago Bulls and Minnesota Timberwolves. From 2007 to 2011, he worked as an advance scout for the Oklahoma City Thunder. He was hired as an assistant coach by the Memphis Grizzlies on December 5, 2011.

Billy Bob Thornton

Billy Bob Thornton (born August 4, 1955) is an American actor, filmmaker, singer, songwriter, and musician.

Thornton had his first break when he co-wrote and starred in the 1992 thriller One False Move, and came to international attention after writing, directing, and starring in the independent drama film Sling Blade (1996), for which he won an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor. He appeared in several major film roles in the 1990s following Sling Blade, including Oliver Stone's neo-noir U Turn (1997), political drama Primary Colors (1998), science fiction disaster film Armageddon (1998), which was the highest-grossing film of that year, and the crime drama A Simple Plan (1998), which earned him his third Academy Awards nomination.

In the 2000s, he achieved further success in starring dramas Monster's Ball (2001), The Man Who Wasn't There (2001), and Friday Night Lights (2004); comedies Bandits (2001), Intolerable Cruelty (2003), and Bad Santa (2003); and action films Eagle Eye (2008) and Faster (2010). In 2014, Thornton starred in the first season of the anthology series Fargo, earning a nomination for the Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries or TV Movie at the Emmy Awards and won Best Actor in a Miniseries or TV Film at the 72nd Golden Globe Awards.

Halle Berry

Halle Maria Berry (born Maria Halle Berry; August 14, 1966) is an American actress, film producer, and former fashion model. She won an Academy Award for Best Actress in 2002 for her performance in the romantic drama Monster's Ball (2001), which made her the only woman of color to win a Best Actress Academy Award to date, as of 2016.

Berry was one of the highest paid actresses in Hollywood during the 2000s and has been involved in the production of several of the films in which she performed. She is also a Revlon spokesmodel. Before becoming an actress, she started modeling and entered several beauty contests, finishing as the 1st runner-up in the Miss USA Pageant and coming in 6th place in the Miss World Pageant in 1986. Her breakthrough film role was in the romantic comedy Boomerang (1992), alongside Eddie Murphy, which led to roles in films such as the comedy The Flintstones (1994), the political comedy-drama Bulworth (1998) and the television film Introducing Dorothy Dandridge (1999), for which she won the Emmy Award and Golden Globe Award for Best Actress, among many other awards.

Marc Forster

Marc Forster (born 30 November 1969) is a German and Swiss filmmaker and screenwriter. He is best known for directing the films Monster's Ball, Finding Neverland, Stranger than Fiction, The Kite Runner, Quantum of Solace, and World War Z.

Life and career

Forster was born in Au (today Illertissen), in the Neu-Ulm district of Bavaria, Germany. When he was 9 years old, the family moved to Switzerland. The son of a German doctor and a Swiss architect, Forster grew up in Davos, a winter resort in eastern Switzerland.

In 1990, when he was 20 years old, Forster moved to New York, in the United States. For the next three years, he attended New York University's film school, making several documentary films. In 1995, he moved to Hollywood and shot an experimental low-budget film ($10,000) called Loungers, which won the Slamdance Audience Award. Forster's first feature-length motion picture was the psychological drama Everything Put Together (2000), which was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival.