Thursday, December 10, 2009
All About Steve
Extract
SAW VI
Ninja Assassin
The Blind Side
The Fourth Kind
The following morning, Tyler arrives at work to discover Campos waiting for her, worried after hearing of the Fisher shootings. She assures him that she is all right, and hands her tape recorder to her secretary, asking her to transcribe it. In her office, Scott Stracinsky, another of Tyler’s patients, and his wife are waiting. Stracinsky decides to be hypnotized despite the recent tragedy. During the session, he beings shaking and gagging, and Tyler has a difficult time snapping him out of the hypnosis. When she finally does, he reveals that nonhuman creatures had invaded his room. The couple leaves moments before Tyler’s secretary enters and tells Tyler that she cannot transcribe the tape. Curious, Tyler and Campos listen to the tape; moments after Tyler finishes her notes and falls asleep, mechanical noises are heard followed by terrifying, heart-stopping screams coming straight from Tyler’s own throat and a distorted voice speaking in an unknown language. She cannot remember anything that had happened that night, but discovers a bruise-like mark on her shoulder and scratches in the floorboards from her fingernails, as if she’d been trying to prevent someone from dragging her out.
In her husband’s research she finds the name and number of author Dr. Awolowa Odusami. Tyler calls the number and asks Odusami if he knew her husband. He claims he didn’t, but says that someone using the alias of “John” had called him from that number before. They set up a meeting between Tyler, Odusami, and Campos; during this, Odusami listens to the tape and concludes that the language is Sumerian, a dead language. He mentions that in ancient Sumerian artifacts pictures of men in space suits and UFOs were depicted, and that the voice on the tape speaking the language – saying words such as “destroy” and “ruin” – did not sound human. During the meeting, Stracinsky’s wife calls Tyler and begs her to come to their house. She, along with her colleagues, arrives at the house to find Scott in bed, a large bruise on his arm similar to the one on Tyler’s shoulder. He wants to be put under hypnosis, because he can’t quite remember what happened. Almost immediately after being put under Stracinsky jerks into an upright position with his head thrown back and his eyes and mouth open wide. He soon begins to levitate off the bed and screams in the Sumerian language. His body is distorted and dropped back onto the bed, seemingly lifeless.
Terrified, Tyler hurries to her house and starts packing, intending to flee to North Carolina. Sherriff August comes in; Stracinsky is now paralyzed from the neck down, and August believes that Tyler did it. As he is arresting her, Campos comes in and firmly states that Tyler had nothing to do with the accident. August agrees to leave Tyler at her house under constant surveillance by an officer of his. In the early hours of the morning, the officer spots an object flying over the household and calls August, who arrives to find a sobbing Tyler in Ashley’s room; Tyler claims that a beam of light appeared and took her daughter. August demands Tyler to stop her nonsense, believing that she was the cause behind Ashley’s disappearance. When she continues to insist that it was the work of extraterrestrials, he takes Ronnie, who also believes that his mother was the cause of his sister’s kidnapping, out of her custody.
Firmly believing that her daughter was abducted, Tyler asks Campos and Odusami to put her under hypnosis to bring her back to the night her tape recorder caught her screaming – which she believes was a recording of her own personal abduction – in an attempt to directly contact the aliens and demand for Ashley back. Campos puts Tyler into a deep sleep, and an inhuman voice speaking through her begins screaming in Sumerian. Tyler begins an almost schizophrenic scene where she and the Sumerian voice speaking through her start arguing. She begs them to bring her daughter back, and yet the voice refuses before it drops Tyler back on the couch. Campos and Odusami try to revitalize her when they themselves start screaming. When the static halts, the camera is now on the floor of an empty room; the three doctors are missing.
Osunsanmi asks Tyler what had happened the night of her hypnosis. She tells him that they were abducted, though they were unsure where they had gone or what had been done to them. The interview fades as the film itself continues; Tyler is now in a hospital bed, August and Campos at her bedside. August asks her who killed her husband, and she says all she was aware of was that he was stabbed while they were asleep. Countering her story, August holds up a picture of Will’s head with a bullet hole through it alongside a picture of a gun, and tells Tyler that her husband had committed suicide. He asks her yet again where Ashley was, and Tyler swears that her daughter was abducted. She begs Campos to speak up, reminding him that they had gone through the same things. He keeps quiet, and August is forced to remove Ronnie from a worn-down Tyler’s custody.
Tyler continues to stay true to the story of Ashley’s abduction by aliens. As she becomes emotional, Osunsanmi finally concludes the interview. It is then that the camera zooms out, and the audience is made aware of the fact that Tyler is in a wheelchair, paralyzed. The end credits reveal that no one involved in the real events had wanted to participate in the creation of the film, and that Tyler is under constant surveilance as her health deteriorates day by day ever since her abduction. Ashley has never been found. The end credits role with 911 calls reporting UFO’S
Jennifers Body
Demon possession, devilish cheerleaders, and Satanic rock stars are all on the chopping block with this horror comedy from the production team behind Juno. Screenwriter Diablo Cody provides the script, with producing duties handled by Jason Reitman and Dan Dubiecki. Girlfight’s Karyn Kusama directs the Fox Atomic production
Monday, December 7, 2009
The Cove
Dead line
Thursday, November 26, 2009
Worlds Greatest Dad
Robin Williams stars as Lance Clayton, a man who has learned to settle. He dreamed of being a rich and famous writer, but has only managed to make it as a high school poetry teacher. His only son Kyle (Daryl Sabara) is an insufferable jackass who wont give his father the time of day. He is dating Claire (Alexie Gilmore), the schools adorable art teacher, but she doesnt want to get serious — or even acknowledge publicly that they are dating .
Then, in the wake of a freak accident, Lance suffers the worst tragedy and greatest opportunity of his life. He is suddenly faced with the possibility of all the fame, fortune and popularity he ever dreamed of, if he can only live with the knowledge of how he got there.
Written and directed by Bobcat Goldthwait, “World’s Greatest Dad” stars Robin Williams, Alexie Gilmore, Daryl Sabara, Geoff Pierson, Henry Simmons and Mitzi McCall. The film was produced by Tim Perrell, Howard Gertler, Sean McKittrick and Richard Kelly and co-produced by Sarah de Sa Rego
Banlieue 13 Ultimatum
The Twilight Saga New Moon
Saturday, November 21, 2009
Gamer
The Final Destination 4
Thursday, November 19, 2009
The Informant
In a stunning turn of events immediately following the covert portion of the case in 1995, headlines around the world reported that the whistleblower defrauded $9 (or maybe $11.5) million from his company at the same period of time he was secretly working for the FBI and taping his co-workers. No sooner did an army of federal agents stage a dramatic raid on ADM’s Illinois headquarters, than the company hit back with damning evidence that the government’s star witness had his own agenda. Whitacre became delusional with the FBI in his failed attempt to save himself. After a suicide attempt, Whitacre and the FBI learned that he was suffering from manic-depression, also known as bipolar disorder with the resulting grandiosity and embellishments in full bloom. Before the ADM price fixing trial began, the FBI learned that their star witness was suffering from mental illness.
The film focuses on Whitacre’s meltdown which occurred from the pressures of working for the FBI. It goes into great detail about Whitacre’s bizarre behavior and how he cracked under pressure working undercover. After working undercover for years, he became extremely manic, stopped sleeping during most nights, and was seen using a gas leaf blower on his driveway during a thunderstorm at three o’clock in the morning. A vintage bipolar symptom, Whitacre attempted suicide a few months later, but he was saved by his groundskeeper.
Whitacre–who is extremely well educated with B.S. and M.S. from Ohio State and a Ph.D. from Cornell University in nutritional biochemistry–was still the most improbable figure of the story. With his extremely poor judgment associated with bipolar disorder that became worse the longer he worked undercover, he believed up to the end that he would become chief executive officer of ADM when the dust settled. His wife tried to convince him otherwise. He also became peculiarly suggestible as his mental state diminished. For example, after seeing the movie, ”The Firm”, he imitated its hero, Mitch McDeere played by Tom Cruise, and began taping the FBI agents and storing the tapes for later use.
In the end, because Whitacre violated his immunity agreement with the government, he was also charged for price-fixing, the same case that he exposed for the FBI, in addition to wire fraud, tax fraud, and money laundering. In order to save Whitacre, his first attorney, James Epstein, presented a sterling performance to the top U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) officials convincing them that the government was not duped by Mark Whitacre, but instead the government created him. Whitacre was the highest-ranked executive to ever turn whistleblower. Epstein emphasized that Whitacre was not trained for FBI undercover work; he was simply thrown in there without any training whatsoever and without any support to prevent him from cracking under pressure. He argued that FBI undercover agents get training for several years, and still do not go undercover longer than a year because they can crack due to the pressure. Whitacre, without training went undercover for almost three years. Epstein told the DOJ officials that he would go public in a trial with everything that Whitacre went through for three years working undercover, and to only be punished after he helped break one of the largest white-collar cases in history. He convinced the government that Whitacre solved a billion dollar case for the FBI, and that the case was a hundred-fold larger than Whitacre’s fraud. Epstein was successful in getting a very light sentence for Whitacre. He saved Whitacre. However, Whitacre, with his manic-depression fully out of control by then, saw it differently and he fired Epstein because he was not willing to do any jail time.
Whitacre then hired another attorney and they distanced themselves from the government where Whitacre was no longer of value to them as a witness. The government used the tapes in the ADM trials, but not Whitacre. In turn, Whitacre received a federal prison sentence that was three-times longer than the white-collar criminals he exposed in a much larger criminal conspiracy. Kurt Eichenwald, author of ”The informant” which was the source for this film, and several FBI agents adamantly disagreed with the nine-year sentence that Whitacre received. The story ends with the three FBI agents, and a former prosecutor involved with the case, working on their attempt to obtain clemency or a presidential pardon for Whitacre in return for his substantial assistance with one of the largest and most important white-collar cases in U.S. history.
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
The Break Up Artist
Inglourious Basterds
The film tracks the separate attempts to kill Hitler by two disparate forces, one being the “Basterds“, a motley crew of Jewish American soldiers out for revenge against the Nazis. The Basterds have a modus operandi whereby each man must cut off the scalp of a dead Nazi soldier, with orders to get 100 scalps each. The Basterds allow one German soldier to survive each incident so as to spread the news of the terror of their attacks. However, the Basterds carve a swastika into the forehead of that German. The other force concerns Shosanna (Mélanie Laurent), the only survivor of a Jewish family killed by the Jew Hunter, who plots her own revenge on the Nazis. The Basterds and Shosanna remain unaware of each other throughout the film.
The film opens in 1941 with Colonel Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz) of the Waffen-SS, proudly known as the “Jew Hunter”, interrogating Perrier LaPadite (Denis Menochet), a French dairy farmer, over rumours that he had been hiding a Jewish family. By dropping a subtle hint about whether or not to leave LaPadite’s family alone in the future, Landa manages to break down LaPadite and locates the hiding place of the Jews underneath the floorboards. He orders his soldiers to fire into the floorboards, killing all but the teenage Shosanna.
Four years later, by 1944, Shosanna has assumed the identity of “Emmanuelle Mimieux”. How she manages to do so is not revealed. She has also become the proprietress of a cinema, which is chosen by Frederick Zoller (Daniel Brühl), a spotlight-hungry sniper-turned-actor whose exploits are celebrated in the Nazi propaganda film, Stolz der Nation (A Nation’s Pride), as the setting for the film premiere. He is attracted to Shosanna and convinces Goebbels to hold the premiere in her cinema. Shosanna does not reciprocate Zoller’s feelings.
Shosanna realizes that the presence of so many high ranking Nazi officials and officers provides an excellent opportunity for revenge. She resolves to burn down her cinema using the massive quantities of flammable nitrate film in her storage rooms during the premiere and makes a fourth reel in which she tells the Nazis present of her Jewish identity and revenge.
In the meantime, the British have also learned of the Nazi leadership’s plan to attend the premiere and dispatch a British officer, Lt. Archie Hicox (Michael Fassbender), to Paris to lead an attack on the cinema with the aid of the “Basterds” and a German double agent, an actress by the name of Bridget von Hammersmark (Diane Kruger).
Hammersmark arranges to meet Hicox and the Basterds in the basement of a French tavern. Unbeknown to her, however, the night of the rendezvous is also the occasion of a German staff sergeant (Alexander Fehling) celebrating the birth of his son with his soldier comrades. One of the German soldiers present strikes up a conversation with Hicox and notices that his accent is “odd”. An SS officer (August Diehl) who is in the tavern as well also notices that odd accent. When Hicox gives the wrong three fingered order for whiskies (without using his thumb, a traditional German gesture), the SS officer realizes their deception. A firefight breaks out in which the British officer and two of the “Basterds” are killed as is everyone in the tavern except Hammersmark, who is wounded in her left leg.
Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt), a U.S. Army second lieutenant in the First Special Service Force [7] and the commanding officer of the Basterds, interrogates Hammersmark and decides to continue the operation against the cinema under the guise of Italians as suicide bombers. Colonel Landa, now an SD officer, is able to retrieve one of Hammersmark’s shoes from the scene of the firefight at the tavern and also an autographed napkin which Hammersmark had signed for the staff sergeant’s son. He approaches Hammersmark and Raine in the cinema lobby and is able to easily see through their disguises, as none, even Raine, can speak any Italian or German. He questions Hammersmark alone and makes her try on the shoe he had retrieved from the tavern. It is a perfect fit. He violently strangles her to death as a traitor, and orders the arrest of Raine. As Raine is driven off in a truck, he discovers one of his men, Private Utivich (B.J. Novak), has also been captured and is in the truck with him.
In the closing stages of the film Quentin Tarantino sets the quirks which show that the film is in an alternative universe. Landa reveals himself to be a turncoat. While speaking with Raine and Utivich, he tells them that four major Nazi leaders must all be killed to end the war immediately. They are all attending Nation’s Pride, and he is prepared to let the assassination continue– for a price. He has no intention of helping end the war only to be tried by a Jewish tribunal for war crimes and end up facing the gallows. In order to help end the war, he wants to make a deal, one Raine cannot authorize, but his commanding officer (Harvey Keitel) can. Landa has his radio operator help Raine reach his general, where Landa states the terms of his deal– he wants full military pension and benefits under his current rank, a medal of honor for everyone involved in the operation, American citizenship and a home on Nantucket Island. He also reveals that he had planted Raine’s stick of dynamite in Hitler’s box at the cinema, meaning that there are now three attempts against Hitler’s life. Raine is placed on the radio and his general tells him that Landa and his radio operator will drive him and Utivich in a truck to American lines, then surrender to them, whereupon Raine will drive the truck to base and bring Landa and the operator to him for debriefing.
Meanwhile, during the showing of Stolz der Nation, Shosanna and her assistant (and lover) Marcel (Jacky Ido) are manning the projection booth when he tells her it is time. He needs to lock the auditorium and go behind the screen. As Marcel makes his way toward the auditorium, two of the Basterds, Sgt. Donny Donowitz (Eli Roth) and Pvt. Omar Ulmer (Omar Doom), leave their seats and exit the auditorium heading upstairs to the balcony level. Donowitz carefully spies on the guards watching the entrance to Hitler’s opera box from the nearest bathroom.
Shosanna loads the doctored fourth reel of Stolz der Nation onto the projector camera as Marcel locks the auditorium doors, sliding the safety locks at the tops and bottoms of the doors into place, and then slides a heavy iron crowbar through the door handles, further barring them. He steps behind the screen where Shosanna had placed her entire stack of nitrate film. Shosanna pulls a lever to switch the projector to the doctored reel. Watching from behind the screen, Marcel lights up a smoke and waits.
Meanwhile, Zoller, uncomfortable with the way he is portrayed killing Americans in Stolz der Nation, leaves the cinema auditorium and makes his way to the projectionist’s room to hit on Shosanna. She is deeply concerned at his intrusion and tries to get rid of Zoller, but he pushes his way into the room and angrily confronts Shosanna about her treatment of him, warning her that she’s no longer in a position to disrespect him. Needing to get Zoller out of the way, she asks him to lock the door, dropping a subtle hint, ‘we don’t have much time.’ Soon as Zoller’s back is turned to her, she pulls her gun from her purse and shoots him in the back, mortally wounding him. Quickly she glances into the auditorium to make sure she wasn’t heard. Suddenly, she hears Zoller groan and realizes he’s still alive. In an apparent moment of pity, she turns him over, and he shoots her dead.
We see Donowitz and Ulmer preparing their ambush to take out the opera box guards. Donowitz is dressed as a waiter delivering a glass of champagne. The ambush goes off without a hitch and they kill both guards, taking their machine guns.
Meanwhile, we see Hitler greatly enjoying the battle scene in the movie, where Zoller is taking out numerous American soldiers by himself. But his joy comes to a quick end when Zoller’s challenge (in Stolz der Nation) is answered with the changes Shosanna made to the fourth reel. She tells the audience that they’re all going to die, and she is a Jew ready to take revenge. On her cue, Marcel flicks his cigarette into the pile of nitrate film, igniting it. The fire bursts through the screen, causing a pandemonium in the auditorium. Just then, Donowitz and Ulmer burst into Hitler’s box and gun down Hitler, Goebbels and the other Nazi leaders. As the cinema is engulfed in flames, they fire randomly into the crowd, who are attempting to flee, but escape is impossible, as the auditorium doors are now locked and barred. Finally, the dynamite that Landa had planted in Hitler’s box, as well as the dynamite strapped to the Basterds‘ legs, now goes off. The cinema is destroyed in the subsequent inferno, killing all inside.
In the final scene, Landa and his radio operator set off with Raine and Utivich towards the American lines in Normandy, as part of the deal he had made with Raine’s commanding officer. At the American lines, he surrenders to Raine and hands over his gun and sword. Raine orders Utivich to handcuff Landa, and shoots the driver dead, ordering Utivich to scalp him over Landa’s outraged protest. Raine reveals that while he appreciates Landa’s underhanded deal and all the perks he’s secured for himself, he is incensed that on arriving in America, Landa intended to take off his SS uniform and blend in to the American populace, with nobody remembering all the heinous deeds he committed as a Nazi officer. Raine plans to remedy that. The film ends with Raine carving a swastika into Landa’s forehead and declaring that it may just be his greatest ‘masterpiece.’
Funny People
George Simmons (Adam Sandler) is a very successful yet self-involved stand-up comedian who learns that he has an incurable blood disorder and is given less than a year to live. Ira Wright (Weiner is his actual last name) (Seth Rogen) is a struggling up-and-coming stand-up comedian who works at a deli and has yet to figure out his onstage persona. One thing these different men have in common is that neither of them have any close friends. One night, George takes notice of Ira when they perform at the same club and he hires him to be his semi-personal assistant and opening act at his performances. George and Ira form a close bond as George teaches Ira how to win the crowd and Ira helps the dying George find closure in his legacy. However, when George learns that his disease has gone into remission and an old flame (Leslie Mann) reenters his life, his recent near death experience inspires him to reevaluate what is important to him and what truly gives meaning to his life.
Sunday, November 15, 2009
2012
The group lands in Las Vegas and they meet yuri, and yuri lets him board his plane. Las Vegas is destroyed by earthquakes and ravaged by the impeding volcanic ash cloud of Yellowstone. Yuri has 2 children and his girlfriend with him.
While in the air, the group learns that the plane does not have enough fuel to reach China: they’ve passed Honolulu, Hawaii, which has been inundated in lava. As they’re about to ditch the plane they discover that they are no longer above the ocean: the Earth’s crust has shifted thousands of miles and they are heading towards the Himalayas. During a crash landing on a glacier they manage to escape from the plane safely by using one of the luxury vehicles in cargo as a raft. The group ditches the car and a helicopter lands, they ask for tickets and yuri shows the his three tickets. He abandons the group and heads for the ships.
The group eventually find their way to the ships with the help of some locals and are smuggled aboard with the help of a Buddhist monk and a construction worker. Gordon dies as they board. Tsunamis begin to engulf the Indian peninsula, and a giant wave eventually reaches the ships, which turn out to be arks constructed to save the heads of state, hand-picked individuals chosen to repopulate the earth and the rich elite, who could afford to buy tickets. A massive flood is heading towards the ship, and due to a wire left by Jackson in the ships gate, the gate isnt able to close, and the engines arent able to start. Jackson manages to get the gates closed just in time, and the ships cruise off. A title appears that says Day 27 Month 01 Year 01 The group is living on the ark, and Jackson and Kate seem to have gotten back together. The captain of the ship learns that Africa was able to miss catastrophe and is safe to venture too. The ship heads for Africa, and a view from space shows a massive land mass in the shape of Africa.
A Christmas Carol
Jim Carrey plays four separate roles in this updated version of A Christmas Carol. Carrey portrays Scrooge, as well as the three ghosts (Past, Present, and Yet-to-Come). His dynamic character roles keep the four characters as diverse as being played by four actors.
Pandorum
Sunday, November 8, 2009
State of Play
Friday, November 6, 2009
Julie & Julia
Aliens In The Attic
It's the Pearsons versus the aliens who "came from upstairs," in an all-out battle that will decide the fate of the Earth - and kick-off the ultimate summer vacation.
It all starts as a meteor shower rockets across the dark galaxy. Four glowing pods sparkle and crackle while hiding behind the meteor show. A mysterious force makes the meteor shower turn a hard right towards a bright blue ball in the distance - planet Earth.
In a comfortable suburban house in Michigan, Stuart Pearson (Kevin Nealon) and his wife Nina (Gillian Vigman) head a family that includes adorable seven-year-old Hannah (Ashley Boettcher); 15-year-old Tom (Carter Jenkins), a techno-geek whose grades have gone south; and big sister Bethany (Ashley Tisdale), who's just returned from a secret outing with boyfriend Ricky Dillman (Robert Hoffman).
Deciding the family needs some good old-fashioned togetherness, Stuart packs up the clan and heads to a three-story holiday house in the middle of nowhere. Joining them is Uncle Nate (Andy Richter), Nate's son Jake (Austin Butler), dear old Nana Rose (Doris Roberts), and identical 12-year-old twins Art (Henri Young) and Lee (Regan Young). An unexpected arrival is Bethany's beau Ricky, who wrangles an overnight visit with the extended family.
As day turns to night, dark storm clouds start swirling around the house. Suddenly, four glowing objects shoot toward the roof. The alien crew inside the objects is made up of Skip, the tough commander, Tazer, a muscle-bound dude armed to the teeth, Razor, a lethal female alien soldier; and Sparks a geeky four-armed techie, who is the only non-threatening alien intruder.
Ricky is placed under the spell of the aliens, courtesy of a high-tech mind-control device and plug implanted into the base of his skull; Ricky's mind and actions now belong to the alien crew. The alien "Zirkonians," via Ricky, lay claim to the planet. Like a puppet/robot/zombie, Ricky moves towards the boys - but Tom and Jake break free.
It isn't long before all five kids see the strange new arrivals. Tom takes charge and the kids come to realize the alien mind control device only works on grownups, giving them a fighting chance against the invaders - and the responsibility to protect the adults by keeping the aliens' existence a secret. Left to their own devices, the kids unleash their imaginations, creating makeshift weapons, like piping ingeniously rigged as a home made potato spud gun. They even learn to use the mind controller. First order of business: taking control of Ricky - and turning his robot/zombie/ idiot actions against himself and the aliens.
The adults remain oblivious to the alien presence and figure the kids are being...kids...and insist that the youngsters partake in a fishing expedition. Meanwhile, a touching friendship is struck between Hannah and Sparks, the friendly alien with four arms and hands. Unlike his alien cohorts, Sparks has no stomach for battle; he just wants to return home to his Zirkonian family.
Nana Rose comes under the spell of the alien mind control device, which gives her super-human powers. She comes to the kids' rescue -and into a battle with Ricky, who is again under alien control. Nana Rose gives Ricky a huge jolt causing the alien plug to dislodge. Skip joins the kids fight and uses his four arms relentlessly creating devices that eventually help the kids fight on.
As the battle continues, the laughs, action and danger escalate. But the kids rise to the occasion, finding new strengths and self-sufficiency. And it becomes clear that the aliens never stood a chance
Ink
There are other forces in the world we don't know. One of these is the brutal mercenary named Ink. Ink is on a mission for those who give the nightmares though he has his own unknown purposes.
Tonight as the city sleeps, the 8 year old Emma awakens in the dream world. Before she can catch her breath, she is ripped from her sleeping body by Ink.
The fight is on for Emma's life, as Ink races her through the many dimensions of the dreamworld. To save her, the dream-givers marshal all their resources. They focus in the real world on winning back the soul of Emma's tragically broken father, trying to pull him out of his ever-increasing downward spiral.
The motion picture Ink is the allegorical story of good and evil and those trapped in between. No matter how safe you feel, evil may find you. But no matter how far you've fallen, redemption is possible.