YOUTH IN REVOLT

The Story:
Nick Twisp (Michael Cera), lives a dull life with his cougar mother, Estelle (Jean Smart), and her truck-driving, loutish boyfriend, Jerry (Zach Galifianakis). When Jerry sells a group of strapping young sailors a lemon Chevy Nova, they want revenge. In true heroic fashion, Jerry takes the family to hide out in a trailer park until the coast is clear.

Nick is sorely out of place, thinking himself condemned to slum it with his barbaric family, until he meets Sheeni (Portia Doubleday), the precocious Ozu-loving dilettante in the nearby two-storey trailer. It's love at first sight, further cemented when Sheeni plays him French crooners on vinyl. But Nick's romanticized vision is shattered when he discovers that Sheeni is dating Trent (Jonathan B. Wright), a sickeningly handsome fop in tennis shoes and a cream-coloured sweater. With the stakes raised, Nick goes to hilarious lengths to secure Sheeni's love, including buying her a puppy named Albert (after Camus, of course) and even creating an alter ego for himself, François Dillinger. A chain-smoking Frenchman sporting a devil-may-care moustache, François gets Nick into disaster after disaster in his quest for Sheeni's attention.

Starring:
Michael Cera, Steve Buscemi, Ray Liotta, Jean Smart, Portia Doubleday, Zach Galifianakis, Justin Long

Directed By:
Miguel Arteta

Release:
2009

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LAW ABIDING CITIZEN

The Story:
Clyde Shelton (Gerard Butler) is an upstanding family man whose wife and daughter are brutally murdered during a home invasion. When the killers are caught, Nick Rice (Jamie Foxx), a hotshot young Philadelphia prosecutor, is assigned to the case. Over his objections, Nick is forced by his boss to offer one of the suspects a light sentence in exchange for testifying against his accomplice.

Fast forward ten years. The man who got away with murder is found dead and Clyde Shelton coolly admits his guilt. Then he issues a warning to Nick: Either fix the flawed justice system that failed his family, or key players in the trial will die. Soon Shelton follows through on his threats, orchestrating from his jail cell a string of spectacularly diabolical assassinations that can be neither predicted nor prevented.

Philadelphia is gripped with fear as Shelton’s high-profile targets are slain one after another and the authorities are powerless to halt his reign of terror. Only Nick can stop the killing, and to do so he must outwit this brilliant sociopath in a harrowing contest of wills in which even the smallest misstep means death. With his own family now in Shelton’s crosshairs, Nick finds himself in a desperate race against time facing a deadly adversary who seems always to be one step ahead.

Starring:

Gerard Butler, Jamie Foxx, Bruce McGill, Colm Meaney, Leslie Bibb, Michael Irby, Regina Hall, Viola Davis

Directed By:

F. Gary Gray

Release:

2009

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THE WOLFMAN

THE WOLF MAN

The Story:
Lawrence Talbot (Benicio Del Toro), a haunted nobleman lured back to his family estate after his brother vanishes. Reunited with his estranged father (Anthony Hopkins), Talbot sets out to find his brother...and discovers a horrifying destiny for himself.

Lawrence's childhood ended the night his mother died. After he left the sleepy Victorian hamlet of Blackmoor, he spent decades recovering and trying to forget. But when his brother's fiancée Gwen Conliffe (Emily Blunt), tracks him down to help find her missing love, Talbot returns home to join the search. He learns that something with brute strength and insatiable bloodlust has been killing the villagers, and that a suspicious Scotland Yard inspector named Aberline (Hugo Weaving) has come to investigate.

As he pieces together the gory puzzle, he hears of an ancient curse that turns the afflicted into werewolves when the moon is full. Now, if he has any chance at ending the slaughter and protecting the woman he has grown to love, Talbot must destroy the vicious creature in the woods surrounding Blackmoor. But as he hunts for the nightmarish beast, a simple man with a tortured past will uncover a primal side to himself one he never imagined existed.

Starring:
Benicio Del Toro, Anthony Hopkins, Emily Blunt, Hugo Weaving, Art Malik

Directed By:
Joe Johnsto

Release:
2010

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AVATAR

The Story:
Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), is a former Marine who was wounded and paralyzed from the waist down in combat on Earth. Jake is selected to participate in the Avatar program, which will give him a healthy body. Jake travels to Pandora, a lush rainforest-covered extraterrestrial moon filled with incredible life forms – some beautiful, many terrifying. Pandora is also home to the Na’vi, a sentient humanoid race that humans consider primitive, but are actually more evolutionarily advanced than humans. Standing three meters tall, with tails and sparkling blue skin, the Na’vi live in harmony with their unspoiled world. As humans encroach deeper into Pandora's forests in search of valuable minerals, the Na’vi unleash their formidable warrior abilities to defend their threatened existence.

Jake has unwittingly been recruited to become part of this encroachment. Since humans are unable to breathe the air on Pandora, they have created genetically-bred human-Na’vi hybrids known as Avatars. The Avatars are living, breathing bodies that are controlled by a human 'driver' through a technology that links the driver’s mind to their Avatar body. On Pandora, through his Avatar body, Jake can be whole once again. Sent deep into Pandora's jungles as a scout for the soldiers that will follow, Jake encounters many of Pandora's beauties and dangers. There he meets a young Na’vi female, Neytiri (Zoe Saldana), whose beauty is matched by her ferocity in battle.

Over time, Jake integrates himself into Neytiri's clan, and begins to fall in love with her. As a result, Jake finds himself caught between the military-industrial forces of Earth, and the Na’vi – forcing him to choose sides in an epic battle that will decide the fate of an entire world.

But joining the Na’vi in a battle against the human invaders comes with a terrible price: he can’t stay within his avatar forever. When the avatar sleeps, Jake wakes up in his human body, and must use an interface to rejoin his consciousness and the avatar. If he joins the Na’vi at war with the humans, he’ll lose the option to rejoin his avatar, and therefore be stuck as an immobile human without that Na’vi he’s grown to love.

Starring:
Sam Worthington, Sigourney Weaver, Michelle Rodriguez, Zoe Saldana, Giovanni Ribisi, Joel David Moore,

Directed By:
James Cameron.

Release:
2009

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UNTITLED

The Story:
Set in the artsy Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan. Adrian Jacobs (Adam Goldberg), a difficult composer of equally difficult music whose sparsely attended performances involve musicians breaking glass and kicking metal buckets.

In contrast, Adam's brother, Josh (Eion Bailey), is a commercially successful painter of vapid canvasses that corporate clients snap up by the dozen. But, Adrian's luck appears set to change when Josh brings the stunning Madeleine (Marley Shelton) to one of his concerts.

Not only does she embrace his work and ask him to perform at her gallery, she invites him into her bed. As the two embark on a fiery affair, Adrian is introduced to a world of pretentious art collectors, dueling gallerists and eccentric artists, including Ray Barko (Vinnie Jones), whose bizarre creations include chandeliers of stuffed animals and dead cows draped with jewelry.

When Josh discovers Adrian and Madeleine's relationship and Madeleine refuses to exhibit Josh's paintings—even though the money they bring in is what keeps the gallery afloat—the stage is set for a showdown as comedic and discordant as Adrian's music.

Starring:
Adam Goldberg, Marley Shelton, Eion Bailey, Vinnie Jones, Lucy Punch

Directed By:
Jonathan Parker

Release:
2009

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THE GRAVES

THE GRAVES

The Story:
Present day. Arizona. Megan (Clare Grant) and Abby Graves (Jillian Murray) are inseparable sisters that couldn’t be less alike. Megan is a self-assured, naturally attractive, ass kicker. Abby is a cute, caustic, Hot Topic Goth who’s afraid of her own shadow.They plan to visit the Skull City Mine roadside attraction in the desert. Their plight turns into a fight for survival against menaces both human and supernatural.

On their last weekend together, Megan and Abby Graves become lost in a remote part of the Arizona desert where they are lured to Skull City, an abandoned mine town. But Skull City is anything but abandoned, and there’s no way out.The sisters are now prey, forced to unleash their most primitive instincts in a desperate, fight for survival against unspeakable horrors -- both human and supernatural:

Caleb aka “Pig Man” (Bill Moseley) the twisted, wife-seeking serial killer, Reverend Abraham Stockton (Tony Todd ), the insane leader of The Church of Devout Ascension, Deacon Luke (D. Randall Blythe), the church’s enforcer who is quite possibly a cannibal, Darlene Atwood (Amanda Wyss), the seemingly friendly waitress at Screamer’s diner who delivers tourists to their doom, Jonah Lee Atwood (Shane Stevens) - the ruthlessly efficient, reluctant killer and “Mama” Heinbecker (Barbara Glover) – the cold-hearted ticket taker who’s “handy” with knitting needles.

Can Megan and Abby unlock the terrifying secrets of Skull City in time to save themselves or will they become the latest in a long line of victims?

Starring:

Clare Grant, Jillian Murray, Bill Moseley, Tony Todd, Amanda Wyss, Shane Stevens, Barbara Glover

Directed By:

Brian Pulido

Release:

2010

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MY NAME IS BRUCE

My Name is: BRUCE

The Story:
A small mining town (Gold Lick, Oregon) to rid itself of a vengeful monster. Guan-di (Jamie Peck), the Chinese god of war and protector of the dead, has been unleashed by cemetery desecrating teenagers to protect the graves of Chinese miners lost in a deadly cave-in of yesteryear.

The deadly demon’s mission is to eradicate all those who transgressed against the tomb (relatives included), which is virtually the entire population of Gold Lick. The inbred community has to find a solution so Jeff (Taylor Sharpe), the sole survivor of a deadly Guan-Di encounter, takes it upon himself to kidnap his idol, Bruce Campbell (Bruce Campbell), star of countless B-movie horror films, and recruit him to be their local savior.

Mortified at first, Bruce eventually goes along with Jeff’s prank, convinced that it’s all an elaborate birthday present from his agent (Ted Raimi), and begins to enjoy the spoils of being a movie hero, including free liquor and Jeff’s attractive mother, Kelly (Grace Thorsen).

But Jeff’s scheme goes horribly wrong when his hero, known more for fighting directors than mythical warriors, haphazardly leads the town in battle against Guan-Di. Confronted by a monster that’s not a guy in a rubber suit, and with the blood of innocents on his hands, Bruce abandons the harsh reality of Gold Lick for the sanctity of his former, artificial life.

In his ramshackle desert trailer, Bruce resumes the daily grind of genre sequels, poor housekeeping and cheap whiskey, but a gut-wrenching call from his biggest fan, Jeff - now forced to take on Guan-Di alone - prompts the actor to re-evaluate his destiny.
Against his better judgment (and the angry citizens of Gold Lick), Bruce returns to defeat Guan-Di, save Jeff, and snag his hot mother. In the climactic, mano-a-monster, Bruce tries to rise above the miserable, off-screen schmuck that he is and become a hero…in real life.

Starring:
Bruce Campbell, Ellen Sandweiss, Ted Raimi, James Peck, Ben McCain (II), Adam Boyd, Mike Estes

Directed By:
Bruce Campbell

Release:
2007

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