Wednesday, December 14, 2011

War Horse

          The Official Synopsis:
From director Steven Spielberg comes “War Horse,” an epic adventure for audiences of all ages. Set against a sweeping canvas of rural England and Europe during the First World War, “War Horse” begins with the remarkable friendship between a horse named Joey and a young man called Albert, who tames and trains him. When they are forcefully parted, the film follows the extraordinary journey of the horse as he moves through the war, changing and inspiring the lives of all those he meets—British cavalry, German soldiers, and a French farmer and his granddaughter—before the story reaches its emotional climax in the heart of No Man’s Land.
The First World War is experienced through the journey of this horse—an odyssey of joy and sorrow, passionate friendship and high adventure. “War Horse” is one of the great stories of friendship and war—a successful book, it was turned into a hugely successful international theatrical hit that is arriving on Broadway next year. It now comes to screen in an epic adaptation by one of the great directors in film history.
         See some of the movie clips.

Friday, September 23, 2011

Contagion

It starts with a cough. It ends with death on an unimaginable scale.

"Contagion," the new thriller by Steven Soderbergh, tells a story for our time, a story of raging menace and out of control fear. It offers us thirtysomething days in the life of a global pandemic, a lethal virus that travels like the wind and kills without a trace of mercy. This may not fit any conventional definition of entertainment, but it certainly keeps your eyes on the screen. -- Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles times

Click here for video trailers.

Thursday, June 2, 2011

Water for Elephants

The story is told as a series of memories by Jacob Jankowski, a "ninety or ninety-three year-old" man who lives in a nursing home. Jacob is told what to eat and what to do.

As the memories begin, Jacob Jankowski is twenty-three years old and preparing for his final exams as a Cornell University veterinary student when he receives the news that his parents were killed in a car accident. Jacob’s father was a veterinarian and Jacob had planned to join his practice. When Jacob learns that his father was deeply in debt because he had been treating animals for free as well as mortgaging the family home to provide Jacob an Ivy League education, he has a breakdown and leaves school just short of graduation. In the dark of night, he jumps on a train only to learn it is a circus train belonging to The Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth. When the owner of the circus, Uncle Al, learns of his training as a vet, he is hired to care for the circus animals. This consequently leads Jacob to share quarters with a dwarf named Walter (who is known as Kinko to the circus) and his dog Queenie. A few weeks later Jacob is summoned to take a look at Camel, an old man who, after drinking Jamaican ginger extract for many years, can't move his arms or legs. Fearing Camel will be "red-lighted" (referring to the practice of throwing circus workers off a moving train as either punishment or as severance from the circus to avoid paying wages),[3] he hides him in his room.

The head trainer, August, is a brutal man who abuses the animals in his care (such as the new elephant Rosie) as well as the people around him. Alternately, he can be utterly charming. Jacob develops a guarded relationship with August and his wife, Marlena, with whom Jacob falls in love. August is suspicious of their relationship and beats Marlena and Jacob. Marlena subsequently leaves August and stays at a hotel while she's not performing. Uncle Al then informs Jacob that August is a paranoid schizophrenic and then utters a threat: reunite August and Marlena as a happily married couple or Walter and Camel get red-lighted.

A few days later after discovering that August has tried to see Marlena, Jacob visits her in her hotel room. Soon after he comforts her however, the couple sleep together and then eventually declare their love for each other. Marlena soon returns to the circus to perform (and also to have secret meetings with Jacob), but refuses to have August near her, which makes Earl and Blackie furious.

One night Jacob climbs up and jumps each car, while the train is moving, to August's room, carrying a knife between his teeth intending to kill August. However, Jacob backs out and returns to his car, only to find no one there but Queenie. He then realizes that Walter and Camel were red-lighted and Jacob himself was supposed to be too.

As the story climaxes, several circus workers who were red-lighted off the train come back and release the animals causing a stampede during the performance. In the ensuing panic, August is killed by Rosie the elephant, who plunges the stake which had secured her to the ground into his head. The only one who sees the incident is Jacob. As a result of this incident, which occurred during a circus performance, the circus is shut down. Soon after, Uncle Al's body is found with a makeshift garrote around his neck. Marlena and Jacob leave, along with several circus animals (Rosie, Queenie and others), and begin their life together.

Ninety-three year old Jacob is waiting for his family to take him to the circus. It is revealed that Jacob and Marlena married and had 5 children spending the first 7 years at another circus before Jacob got a job as a vet for the zoo. Marlena is revealed to have died a few years before Jacob was put into a nursing home. After finding out no one is coming for him, elderly Jacob goes to the circus on his own. He soon meets the manager Charlie and begs him to accompany the circus by selling tickets. Charlie agrees and Jacob believes he has finally come home.

Source: Wikipedia

Thursday, September 9, 2010

The American

Jack (Clooney), a seasoned assassin, is constantly on the move/under attack. After a job in Sweden ends in unexpected disaster (including a bullet to his girlfriend’s skull) Jack retreats to the Italian countryside to work on a more low-key assignment: constructing a weapon for a mysterious contact, Mathilde. Happy to finally reside in a danger-free zone, Jack befriends a local priest and falls in love with a local prostitute (very New Testament!). All seems relatively peaceful at surface level, but is it really possible for Jack to put his precarious existence as an international assassin on hold? Of course not!  (Plot summary by Screen Crave)

Thursday, August 26, 2010

The Expendables

An all-star cast of action-movie icons headline Sylvester Stallone's explosive action thriller about a group of hard-nosed mercenaries who are double-crossed during a treacherous mission. Approached by the shadowy Church (Bruce Willis) to overthrow tyrannical South American dictator General Gaza (David Zayas) and restore order to the troubled island country of Vilena, stoic soldier of fortune Barney Ross (Stallone) rounds up an unstoppable team that includes former SAS soldier and blade specialist Lee Christmas (Jason Statham); martial arts expert Yin (Jet Li); trigger-happy Hale Caesar (Terry Crews); and cerebral demolitions expert Toll Road (Randy Couture). Traveling to Vilena on a reconnaissance mission with his old pal Christmas, Barney meets their local contact, a cagey guerrilla fighter named Sandra (Giselle Itie), and together the trio scopes out the landscape.. It isn't long before Barney and Christmas have discovered that their actual target is not General Gaza but James Monroe (Eric Roberts), a former CIA operative who has recently gone rogue. Monroe won't be easy to get to either, because his hulking bodyguard Paine (Steve Austin) is a force to be reckoned with. When their mission is compromised, Barney and Christmas are forced to flee, leaving Sandra behind to face almost certain death. But Barney isn't the kind of soldier to abandon a mission, or a hostage, and now in order to get the job done he'll need the help of his old crew. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

Sunday, August 1, 2010

Inception

Dom Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) is an extractor. An extractor is an individual who steals information by tapping into a person’s deep subconscious during a dream. This is the new way of doing corporate espionage and Cobb is the best of his kind. Unfortunately, Cobb has been accused of killing his wife Mal and is unable to go back home due to his fugitive status. The story starts when Cobb has been hired by Cobalt Industries to extract confidential data from their business rival Saito (Ken Watanabe). When Cobb and his team fail to get the proper information from Saito, they are forced to flee for their safety from Cobalt. Saito catches up with them before they can leave and gives Cobb an offer he cannot resist. Saito demands that Cobb do an inception to Robert Fischer (Cillian Murphy) and in exchange he will be able to go back home to his family in the United States. Cobb agrees and he forms a stronger team to do the seemingly impossible job of controlling indirectly the thoughts of a different person without him even noticing.  (Summary by Reel Advice Movie Reviews)

Wednesday, July 7, 2010

The Twilight Saga: Eclipse (2010)

The story begins with the revelation that Seattle is being plagued by a string of unsolved murders, which Edward suspects to be the cause of a newborn vampire that is unable to control its thirst.  Edward and Bella fill out college applications, while Bella explains to Edward her desire to see Jacob, her werewolf friend, again so she can make things right with him. Meanwhile, Alice Cullen has a vision that Victoria, a vampire that is hunting Bella, is back in town.  Although Edward fears for her safety, Bella insists that Jacob and the rest of the werewolf pack would never harm her, but Edward is still not convinced. Bella escapes to La Push to see Jacob while Edward is away, and arrives afterwards at her house unharmed. This convinces Edward that the La Push werewolves are harmless to her and he allows Bella to visit Jacob once in a while, as long as she keeps a phone with her at all times. During one of these trips, Jacob confesses that he loves Bella and forcibly kisses her. Bella punches him which breaks her hand. When Edward finds out, he threatens to break Jacob's jaw if he ever kisses Bella without her consent again. A few days later Bella tries to get Edward to make love to her before turning her into a vampire. Edward initially refuses, explaining to Bella that he could very easily kill her. Eventually, upon realizing how much it means to Bella, he says that he is willing to try in the future as long as they are married first. Despite having an aversion to marriage, Bella realizes that spending eternity with Edward is more important to her than anything else and accepts his proposal.  Bella and the Cullens realize that the murders in Seattle are being committed by Victoria and an "army" of newborn vampires that she has created. The Cullen family, abandoned by the Denali Coven, joins forces with the La Push werewolf pack in order to combat this threat. As everyone else prepares for battle, Edward and Bella camp up in the mountains, where they are later joined by Jacob and Seth Clearwater, a young member of the werewolf pack, to wait out the light. Bella, as a delicate human, starts to freeze in the harsh weather of the mountain. Jacob warms up Bella with his abnormal body heat, much to Edward's horror. During the night, Bella overhears a conversation between Edward and Jacob, in which they temporarily forget about their hatred towards each other. In the morning, Jacob overhears Edward and Bella discussing their engagement and becomes very upset. He runs off, but at Bella's request, Edward brings Jacob. He threatens to join the fight and get himself killed because he feels that Bella doesn't love him. When Bella begs him not to, Jacob insists that he will unless she asks him to kiss her. Furious, she does so, and while kissing him she realizes that she is in love with him as well. Edward finds out about this, but isn't angry. Bella realizes that she loves Edward more than Jacob.

Victoria eventually finds Bella's hiding spot, but Edward kills her while Seth kills her partner Riley. The Cullens and the Quileute werewolves, meanwhile, destroy her "army", though Jacob is injured when saving Leah Clearwater from a newborn. He heals swiftly under the supervision of Carlisle. Several members of the Volturi arrive to destroy Victoria's army, and end up only killing the one newborn who surrendered. They are also told that while Bella hasn't become a vampire yet, the date for her transformation has been set. Bella visits Jacob in his home to tell him that she has chosen to be with Edward. Heartbroken by her choice, Jacob reluctantly agrees to stop trying to come between her and Edward. Bella then goes back to Edward. They go to Alice, who already knows they're getting married.  Alice has already made a number of plans for the wedding, but Bella edits some of them. After this, they go to Edward's meadow. Edward says that they can make love before marrying if she wants to, but Bella has decided to do things his way: marriage, making love, and then becoming a vampire. They then decide they need to tell Charlie about their engagement. The epilogue is told from Jacob's point of view, who is suffering from a broken heart. He receives an invitation to Bella and Edward's wedding. Inside it is a letter from Edward, thanking him for "everything," and saying that if Jacob didn't want to come, he didn't have to. Jacob, after reading the letter, runs away in his wolf form to escape the pain he feels.

Plot Summary by Wikia Entertainment