Sunday, April 19, 2015

"I'll Follow You Down" (2013)

Starring Haley Joel Osment, Victor Garber and Gillian Anderson
Written and directed by Richie Mehta
Rated R — Language
Running Time: 93 Minutes
Trailer

When Erol (Haley Joel Osment) was nine years old, his father Gabe (Rufus Sewell) disappeared. Twelve years later, his mother Marika (Gillian Anderson) has never managed to climb out of her depression. After her third suicide attempt proves successful, Erol is approached by his grandfather Sal (Victor Garber) who reveals that Gabe may have actually created a time machine and gotten lost in the past.

Thinking that if he can travel back in time to prevent his father's disappearance, Erol attempts to recreate his father's work. But as he gets closer and more obsessed with figuring it out, his girlfriend Grace (Susanna Fournier) wonders what their lives will be like in the new timeline. Will they still be together? Is their life together worth risking?

"Falcon Rising" (2014)

Starring: Michael Jai White, Neal McDonough and Jimmy Navarro
Written by Y.T. Parazi
Directed by Ernie Barbarash
Rated R — Violence, language, brief nudity
Running Time: 100 Minutes
Trailer

The poster says "America's new
action hero" even though the majority
of the movie takes place in Brazil.
Former marine John "Falcon" Chapman (Michael Jai White) is in trouble. Suffering from PTSD after his time in the military, he has descended into a pit of alcoholism and obsessive behavior. When he learns that his sister Cindy (Laila Ali) has been beaten nearly to death in a favela in Rio, he travels to Brazil and meets up with his old friend Manny Ridley (Neal McDonough) who works at the US Consulate.

Despite warnings that the favelas are dangerous and that he should let the local authorities handle the case, Chapman throws himself into the investigation. Rio detective Thiago Santo (Jimmy Navarro) decides to placate Chapman, but tells uniformed officer Katarina Da'Silva (Millie Ruperto) to keep him out of trouble. Not content to be sidelined, Chapman barrels his way through all obstacles, finding that his sister's beating was no simple mugging, putting him in the sights of a powerful conspiracy with global reach.

Sunday, April 12, 2015

'Daredevil' - Season One (2015)

Starring Charlie Cox, Vincent D'Onofrio and Deborah Ann Woll
Developed by Drew Goddard and Stephen S. DeKnight
Trailer

Matt Murdock (Charlie Cox) is blind lawyer, and he's just opened a new practice with his best friend, Franklin "Foggy" Nelson (Elden Henson). Their first client is Karen Page (Deborah Ann Woll), who has proof of shady dealings at a construction company dealing with contracts after the Battle of New York.

Karen has been framed for the murder of a coworker, and when she's nearly killed in her cell, Murdock and Nelson get her freed and promise to protect her. Thankfully, Murdock is more than just any regular blind man.

Due to a childhood accident involving dangerous chemicals, Murdock's senses beyond his sight have been heightened to superhuman levels, and he's been given some kind of sixth sense that functions almost like sight. For years, he's trained to become a masked vigilante. He patrols the neighborhood of Hell's Kitchen by night, stopping criminals and helping people. The newspapers call him the Devil of Hell's Kitchen. But with Karen's case, he starts to realize that there's more going on than just simple street crime.

Murdock, Foggy and Karen, along with newspaper reporter Ben Urich (Vondie Curtis-Hall) find themselves embroiled in a conspiracy that seems to turn the entire world against them. The police, business leaders, the media, even the drug trade, they're all owned or controlled by Wilson Fisk (Vincent D'Onofrio).

As things go from bad to worse, as Fisk seems to grow more powerful and gets closer to enacting his mysterious plan for Hell's Kitchen, Murdock begins to realize that he can't just be any plain vigilante with a mask. The Devil of Hell's Kitchen will have to be something more...

Sunday, April 5, 2015

"Kingsman: The Secret Service" (2015)

Starring Taron Egerton, Colin Firth and Samuel L. Jackson
Written by Jane Goldman and Matthew Vaughn
Directed by Matthew Vaughn
Rated R: Violence, strong language
Running Time: 129 Minutes
Trailer

Gary "Eggsy" Unwin (Taron Egerton) is a young man with a lot of potential. Unfortunately, Eggsy squanders it by tooling around with his friends and not accomplishing much of anything except pissing off his mother's abusive boyfriend and getting into scrapes with the law. One day when one of those scrapes ends up involving a stolen car and a high-speed chase, he calls the number on the back of an old pendant given to him years earlier when his father died. He's soon in touch with Harry Hart (Colin Firth), who Eggsy learns is actually a secret agent working for a covert independent agency known as Kingsman. Years earlier, Eggsy's father had been on a mission with Hart and saved the man's life.

Hart, codenamed "Galahad," introduces Eggsy to the Kingsman service, run by "Arthur" (Michael Caine), and Eggsy soon begins his training under "Merlin" (Mark Strong). Meanwhile, Hart investigates the death of another Kingsman agent, "Lancelot" (Jack Davenport). Lancelot's last transmission leads him to a climate change professor named James Arnold (Mark Hamill), who is killed before he can tell Hart what he knows. But soon enough, as Eggsy continues to impress his training masters, his new skills will be put to the test as Hart uncovers a nefarious plan by billionaire philanthropist Richmond Valentine (Samuel L. Jackson) which has the potential to destroy the entire human race.

Saturday, April 4, 2015

"Furious Seven" (2015)

Starring: Vin Diesel, Paul Walker and Jason Statham
Written by Chris Morgan
Directed by James Wan
Rated PG-13: Violence, language
Running Time: 140 Minutes
Trailer

After defeating Owen Shaw and finally returning home to the United States with full pardons for their crimes, Dom Toretto (Vin Diesel) and Brian O'Conner think they're in the clear. But while Dom struggles to help Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) deal with her amnesia and Brian can't quite seem to settle into domestic life with his wife Mia (Jordana Brewster) and his son Jack, something is going quite wrong. Shaw's brother Deckard (Jason Statham) is out for revenge. In short order, he puts Hobbs (Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson) in the hospital in LA and kills Han (Sung Kang) in Tokyo.

A CIA agent calling himself Mr. Nobody (Kurt Russel), in need of some help, makes Dom an offer he can't refuse: rescue a genius hacker named Ramsey (Nathalie Emmanuel) from a terrorist organization led by Mose Jakande (Djimon Hounsou) and Dom will be granted use of a top-secret surveillance system that can find anyone, anywhere in the world, to track Deckard Shaw and end their feud once and for all.

To pull off this job, Dom reassembles his crew including Brian and Letty, as well as Tej (Chris 'Ludacris' Bridges) and Roman (Tyrese Gibson). And then it's on.

Sunday, March 29, 2015

"Dead Snow: Red vs Dead" (2014)

Starring Vegar Hoel, Orjan Gamst and Martin Starr
Written by Tommy Wirkola, Stig Frode Henriksen and Vegar Hoel
Directed by Tommy Wirkola
Rated R - Strong violence and language
Running Time: 100 Minutes
Trailer

Following the events of the first film, Martin (Vegar Hoel) barely manages to escape the Nazi zombies that killed all his friends on their mountain vacation in Norway. He crashes his car, and is brought to a nearby hospital where he's horrified to hear upon waking up that not only is he being charged with the murders of all his friends, but also that the doctors say they've reattached his severed arm. The only problem with that is it's not his arm they found — it's Herzog's, (Orjan Gamst) the zombie leader. The arm turns out to be super-strong and have something of a mind of its own and a lust for blood.

To find out why, Martin contacts the Zombie Squad, a group of Americans he thinks will be able to help him kill the zombies once and for all. The Squad, led by Daniel (Martin Starr) is actually just a trio of nerds who have seen too many movies, but they come to Norway anyway. Along with a World War II museum guide named Glenn (Stig Frode Henriksen), they'll have to figure out a way to stop Herzog from completing the last mission given to him by Hitler decades earlier: the destruction of an entire town as revenge for sabotaging Nazi war plans.

"Mission: Impossible" (1996)

Starring Tom Cruise, Jon Voight and Emmanuelle Beart
Written by David Koepp and Robert Towne
Directed by Brian de Palma
Rated PG-13 - Violence, language
Running Time: 110 Minutes
Trailer

Agent Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) of the IMF has just been framed for the murder of his entire team. They were tasked with preventing the theft of a non-official cover or NOC list from an American embassy in Prague, but the mission went disastrously wrong. Worse, Hunt learns that as the only survivor, he's now the prime suspect in the agency's mole hunt and that the list was a fake to draw out the mole.

Hunt has no other choice but to go on the run. He soon finds another member of the team has survived: Claire (Emmanuelle Beart), wife of team leader Jim Phelps (Jon Voight). Together, Hunt and Claire hatch a plan to draw out the real mole, this time by stealing the actual NOC list which happens to be kept in one of the world's most secure locations: CIA headquarters.