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Going the Distance

Going the Distance

Erin’s (Drew Barrymore) wry wit and unfiltered frankness charm newly single Garrett (Justin Long) over beer, bar trivia and breakfast the next morning. Their chemistry sparks a full-fledged summer fling, but neither expects it to last once Erin heads home to San Francisco and Garrett stays behind for his job in New York City. But when six weeks of romping through the city inadvertently become meaningful, neither is sure they want it to end. And while Garrett’s friends, Box (Jason Sudeikis) and Dan (Charlie Day), joke about his pre-flight calorie-cutting and his full-time relationship with his cell phone, they don’t like losing their best drinking buddy to yet another rocky romance.

At the same time, Erin’s high-strung, overprotective married sister, Corrine (Christina Applegate), wants to keep Erin from heading down an all-too-familiar road. But despite the opposite coasts, the nay-saying friends and family, and a few unexpected temptations, the couple just might have found something like love, and with the help of a lot of texting, sexting and late-night phone calls, they might actually go the distance.

Directed by: Nanette Burstein
Starring: Drew Barrymore, Justin Long, Charlie Day, Jason Sudeikis, Ron Livingston
Screenplay by: Geoff LaTulippe
MPAA Rating: R for sexual content including dialogue, language throughout, some drug use and brief nudity.
Release Date: September 3rd, 2010
Studio: New Line Cinema

Mesrine: Killer Instinct

Mesrine: Killer Instinct

The story of Jacques Mesrine, France’s public enemy No. 1 during the 1970s. After nearly two decades of legendary criminal feats — from multiple bank robberies and to prison breaks — Mesrine was gunned down by the French police in Paris.

Continuing France’s love affair with the American gangster movie, Mesrine: A Film in Two Parts (formerly known as Public Enemy Number One) tells the true story of Jacques Mesrine who became his country’s most notorious bad guy throughout the 1970′s. Arch-fiend to some and folk hero to others, Mesrine’s criminal career spanned nearly two decades of brazen bank robberies, breathtaking prison breaks, and ingenious identity changes – all meticulously and stylishly recreated on an epic scale. Vincent Cassel (Eastern Promises, Ocean’s 12), one of France’s most magnetic leading men, heads a heavyweight cast (including Oscar-nominee Gerard Depardieu) and gives a star-making performance as Mesrine.

Directed by: Jean-François Richet
Starring: Vincent Cassel, Ludivine Sagnier, Mathieu Amalric, Gérard Lanvin, Samuel Le Bihan
Screenplay by: Abdel Raouf Dafri, Jean-François Richet
MPAA Rating: Not Rated.
Release Date: August 27th, 2010
Studio: Music Box Films

The American

The American

Jack (George Clooney) is an artful assassin with a lengthy track record, constantly on the move and always watching his back. When an assignment goes wrong and a lover ends up dead, he vows that the next job will be his last. This final obligation takes him to a picturesque town nestled amongst lush Italian hills, its historical piazzas bursting with life. But to Jack, every location is a trap and every person a potential threat. Still, he surprises himself, enjoying confessional conversations over Armagnac with an insightful priest and slipping into an affair with a local beauty. But by letting his guard down, Jack may be tempting fate.

A dangerous shadow-dweller shows every sign of closing in, and the mysterious woman who has hired him may not be all that she seems. As an increasingly wary Jack contemplates life, love and death in Italy, the film escalates into a climactic showdown through the cobbled maze of age-old alleyways. This sexy, suspenseful and intricate story blends intrigue and passionate romance within a searing morality tale to finally reveal the heart of this deeply private man.

Directed by: Anton Corbijn
Starring: George Clooney, Bruce Altman, Thekla Reuten, Paolo Bonacelli, Violante Placido
Screenplay by: Martin Booth, Rowan Joffe
MPAA Rating: Not Rated.
Release Date: September 1st, 2010
Studio: Focus Features

Machete

Machete

Machete is based on the fake trailer in Robert Rodriguez’s 2007 Grindhouse, featuring Danny Trejo and Jeff Fahey reprising their original roles.

The feature version of the trailer finds Machete (Trejo) a renegade former Mexican Federale, roaming the streets of Texas after a shakedown from drug lord Torrez (Steven Seagal). Reluctantly, Machete takes an offer from spin doctor Benz (Fahey) to assassinate McLaughlin (Robert De Niro) a corrupt Senator. Double crossed and on the run Machete braves the odds with the help of Luz (Michelle Rodriguez), a saucy taco slinger, Padre (Cheech Marin) his holy brother, and April (Lindsay Lohan) a socialite with a penchant for guns. All while being tracked by Sartana (Jessica Alba), a sexy ICE agent with a special interest in the blade slinger.

Directed by: Robert Rodriguez, Ethan Maniquis
Starring: Danny Trejo, Robert De Niro, Jessica Alba, Michelle Rodriguez, Steven Seagal
Screenplay by: Robert Rodriguez
MPAA Rating: R for strong bloody violence throughout, language, some sexual content and nudity.
Release Date: September 3rd, 2010
Studio: 20th Century Fox

Alpha and Omega

Alpha and Omega

What makes for the ultimate road trip? Hitchhiking, truck stops, angry bears, prickly porcupines and a golfing goose with a duck caddy. Just ask Kate and Humphrey, two wolves who are trying to get home after being taken by park rangers and shipped halfway across the country.

Humphrey is an Omega wolf, whose days are about quick wit, snappy one-liners and hanging with his motley crew of fun-loving wolves and video-gaming squirrels. Kate is an Alpha: duty, discipline and sleek Lara Croft eye-popping moves fuel her fire. Humphrey’s motto – make ‘em laugh. Kate’s motto – I’m the boss. And they have a thousand miles to go.

Back home rival wolf packs are on the march and conflict is brewing. Only Kate and Humphrey can restore the peace. But first, they have to survive each other.

Directed by: Anthony Bell, Ben Gluck
Starring: Justin Long, Hayden Panettiere, Christina Ricci, Danny Glover, Dennis Hopper
Screenplay by: Chris Denk, Steve Moore
MPAA Rating: PG for rude humor and some mild action.
Release Date: September 17th, 2010
Studio: Lionsgate Films

Devil

Devil

A group of people, including a formerly alcoholic homicide detective (Messina), trapped in an elevator discover that one of them is the devil. Written and produced by M. Night Shyamalan.

Directed by: John Erick Dowdle, Drew Dowdle
Btarring: Chris Messina, Geoffrey Arend, Caroline Dhavernas, Jacob Vargas, Matt Craven
Screenplay by: Brian Nelson, M. Night Shyamalan
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for violence and disturbing images, thematic material and some language including sexual references.
Release Date: September 17th, 2010
Studio: Universal Pictures

Jack Goes Boating

Jack Goes Boating

Jack Goes Boating is a tale of love, betrayal, friendship and grace centered around two working-class New York City couples. The film stars John Ortiz (American Gangster), Daphne Rubin-Vega (Broadway’s “Rent”), Amy Ryan (Gone Baby Gone) and Philip Seymour Hoffman (Capote), with Hoffman making his feature directorial debut. Bob Glaudini (“A View From 151st Street”) adapted his acclaimed Off Broadway play for the screen.

Jack (Philip Seymour Hoffman) and Connie (Amy Ryan) are two single people who on their own might continue to recede into the anonymous background of the city, but in each other begin to find the courage and desire to pursue their budding relationship. In contrast, the couple that introduced them, Clyde (John Ortiz) and Lucy (Daphne Rubin-Vega), are confronting unresolved issues in their marriage.

Jack is a limo driver with vague dreams of landing a job with the MTA and an obsession with reggae that has prompted him to begin a half-hearted attempt at growing dreadlocks. He spends most of his time hanging out with his best friend and fellow driver Clyde and Clyde’s wife Lucy.

The couple set Jack up with Connie, Lucy’s co-worker at a Brooklyn funeral home. Being with Connie inspires Jack to learn to cook, pursue a new career and take swimming lessons from Clyde so he can give Connie the romantic boat ride she dreams of. But as Jack and Connie cautiously circle commitment, Clyde and Lucy’s marriage begins to disintegrate. From there, we watch as each couple comes face to face with the inevitable path of their relationship.

Directed by: Philip Seymour Hoffman
Starring: Philip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Ryan, John Ortiz, Daphne Rubin-Vega, Tom McCarthy, Elizabeth Rodriguez
Screenplay by: Bob Glaudini
MPAA Rating: R for language, drug use and some sexual content.
Release Date: September 17th, 2010
Studio: Overture Films

Never Let Me Go

Never Let Me Go

Kathy, Tommy and Ruth live in a world and a time that feel familiar to us, but are not quite like anything we know. They spend their childhood at Hailsham, a seemingly idyllic English boarding school. When they leave the shelter of the school and the terrible truth of their fate is revealed to them, they must also confront the deep feelings of love, jealousy and betrayal that threaten to pull them apart.

Directed by: Mark Romanek
Starring: Keira Knightley, Andrew Garfield, Carey Mulligan, Charlotte Rampling, Sally Hawkins
MPAA Rating: None.
Release Date: September 15th, 2010
Studio: Fox Searchlight Pictures

Easy A

Easy A

After a little white lie about losing her virginity gets out, a clean cut high school girl (Emma Stone) sees her life paralleling Hester Prynne’s in The Scarlet Letter, which she is currently studying in school – until she decides to use the rumor mill to advance her social and financial standing.

Easy A is an ensemble 2010 romantic comedy film written by Bert V. Royal and directed by Will Gluck. Partially inspired by the novel The Scarlet Letter, the film was shot at Screen Gems studios and in Ojai, California. Screen Gems distributes with an expected release on September 17, 2010.

Directed by: Will Gluck
Starring: Emma Stone, Stanley Tucci, Amanda Bynes, Cam Gigandet, Patricia Clarkson
Screenplay by: Bert V. Royal
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for mature thematic elements involving teen sexuality, language and some drug material.
Release Date: September 17th, 2010
Studio: Sony ScreenGems

Heartbreaker

HeartbreakerA terrifically entertaining new romantic comedy from first time director Pascal Chaumeil, may just be the answer to all of your summer blockbuster woes. Re-envigorating an often tiresome formula as only the French can, this effortlessly charming romp stars the suave Romain Duris (The Beat that My Heart Skipped) as Alex, a globe-trotting playboy ingenue with a business all his own – he’s hired by friends, family or jealous lovers to break up relationships. But when this professional casanova meets his toughest mark yet in the gorgeous Juliette (Vanessa Paradis), will his game finally change?

Charming, funny and effortlessly cool, Alex (Romain Duris) is a professional Don Juan who makes a living breaking up couples with his sister Mélanie (Julie Ferrier of Micmacs). Because business is slow, they go against their principles to break up only unhappy couples and agree to work for M. Van Der Bercq.

Alex has only one week to stop the wealthy man’s daughter Juliette (Vanessa Paradis) from marrying the man she is madly in love with. Alex is soon thrown into his own hilarious seduction “mission impossible” that risks him being caught by his ruthless personal creditors, angry exes and the beautiful and independent Juliette herself. But worst of all, will he discover to his own cost that when it comes to love, the perfect plan doesn’t exist?

Directed by: Pascal Chaumeil
Starring: Romain Duris, Vanessa Paradis, Julie Ferrier, François Damiens, Amandine Dewasmes
Screenplay by: Laurent Zeitoun, Jeremy Doner, Yohan Gromb
MPAA Rating: None.
Release Date: September 10th, 2010
Studio: IFC Films

The Romantics

The Romantics

Over the course of one raucous night at a seaside wedding seven close friends, all members of a tight, eclectic college clique, reconvene to watch two of their own tie the knot. Laura (Katie Holmes) is maid of honor to Lila (Anna Paquin), her golden girl best friend.

The two have long rivaled over the groom, Tom (Josh Duhamel). Friendships and alliances are tested and the love triangle comes to a head the night before the wedding, when the drunken friends frolic in the nearby surf and return to shore… without the groom.

Based on the heralded novel by producer, novelist, director Galt Niederhoffer, The Romantics is a Zeitgeist love story and generational comedy that breathes new life into the genre and recaptures the camaraderie of youth.

Laura and Lila were once as close as could be–college roommates at the center of a tight-knit group of friends. But the friendship has wilted a bit. Now, ten years after college, the friends–and the boyfriend they shared–have reunited for Lila’s wedding at her family’s seaside estate in Maine. Laura is reserved, single, and the only Jew in the group, while the bride, Lila, is a WASP-y moneyed golden girl, and the groom, Tom, a swim team star from a working class Catholic background, is a perfect paradox of confidence and confusion.

As the wedding draws near and wine flows faster, the disappointments and desires of the reuniting friends come quickly to the surface. A drunken game on the estate’s dock goes awry when the revelers are pulled out to sea by the current. When they swim back to shore, they are short by one—the groom. The search throws the group’s shifting allegiances into relief and results in new betrayals as well as confessions.

Directed by: Galt Niederhoffer
Starring: Katie Holmes, Anna Paquin, Josh Duhamel, Malin Akerman, Jeremy Strong
Screenplay by: Galt Niederhoffer
MPAA Rating: None.
Release Date: September 10th, 2010
Studio: Paramount Pictures

Tomorrow, When the War Began

Tomorrow, When the War Began

When their country is invaded and their families are taken, eight unlikely high school teenagers band together to fight.

Tomorrow, When the War Began follows the journey of eight high school friends in a remote country town whose lives are suddenly and violently upended by a war that no-one saw coming. Cut off from their families and their friends, these eight extraordinary teenagers must somehow learn to escape, survive and fight back.

Directed by: Stuart Beattie
Starring: Rachel Hurd-Wood, Phoebe Tonkin, Caitlin Stasey, Lincoln Lewis, Masa Yamaguchi
Screenplay by: John Marsden, Stuart Beattie
MPAA Rating: None.
Release Date: September 2nd, 2010
Studio: Paramount Pictures

Basement

Basement

Five diverse people inadvertently enter an underground base. They run into a nightmare scenario. Through a series of flashbacks we get clues and hints to why they are there and we realize that all have an important connection to each other and the place. But they soon learn that this situation is far bigger than them alone; it affects us all.

Returning from an anti-war demo, the chaos of horror ensues when stoner Gary (Danny Dyer – Severance), quiet and insular Sarah (Kierston Wareing – Fish Tank), vain Saffron (Lois Winstone – Beyond The Rave), posh Pru (Emily Beecham – 28 Weeks Later) and Pru’s arrogant boyfriend Derek (Jimi Mistry – RocknRolla) stop in the country.

When Derek and the flirtatious Saffron find an unexplained metal hatch in the middle of the forest, curiosity wins and they decide to explore inside. Searching for their missing friends, Gary, Pru and Sarah are forced to follow but the hatch locks behind them, and the shadows that lurk in the darkness force the whole group to run for their lives… In this fight of good versus evil – only the most evil will survive.

Directed by: Asham Kamboj
Starring: Danny Dyer, Jimi Mistry, Emily Beecham, Kierston Wareing, Christopher Ellison
Screenplay by: Ewen Glass, Asham Kamboj
MPAA Rating: Not Rated.
Release Date: August 20th, 2010
Studio: Revolver Entertainment

Avatar (Re-Release)

Avatar

Director James Cameron’s eye-popping sci-fi action epic returns to the big screen with never before seen footage.

Avatar takes us to a spectacular world beyond imagination, where a reluctant hero embarks on an epic adventure, ultimately fighting to save the alien world he has learned to call home. James Cameron, the Oscar-winning director of “Titanic,” first conceived the film 15 years ago, when the means to realize his vision did not exist yet. Now, after four years of production, Avatar, a live action film with a new generation of special effects, delivers a fully immersive cinematic experience of a new kind, where the revolutionary technology invented to make the film disappears into the emotion of the characters and the sweep of the story.

We enter the alien world through the eyes of Jake Sully, a former Marine confined to a wheelchair. But despite his broken body, Jake is still a warrior at heart. He is recruited to travel light years to the human outpost on Pandora, where corporations are mining a rare mineral that is the key to solving Earth’s energy crisis. Because the atmosphere of Pandora is toxic, they have created the Avatar Program, in which human “drivers” have their consciousness linked to an avatar, a remotely-controlled biological body that can survive in the lethal air. These avatars are genetically engineered hybrids of human DNA mixed with DNA from the natives of Pandora… the Na’vi.

Reborn in his avatar form, Jake can walk again. He is given a mission to infiltrate the Na’vi, who have become a major obstacle to mining the precious ore. But a beautiful Na’vi female, Neytiri, saves Jake’s life, and this changes everything. Jake is taken in by her clan, and learns to become one of them, which involves many tests and adventures. As Jake’s relationship with his reluctant teacher Neytiri deepens, he learns to respect the Na’vi way and finally takes his place among them. Soon he will face the ultimate test as he leads them in an epic battle that will decide nothing less than the fate of an entire world.

Directed by: James Cameron
Starring: Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Sigourney Weaver, Stephen Lang, Michelle Rodriguez Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Sigourney Weaver, Stephen Lang, Michelle Rodriguez
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for intense epic battle sequences and warfare, sensuality, language and some smoking.
Release Date: December 18th, 2009 (wide), August 27th, 2010 (Re-Release)
Studio: 20th Century Fox

Mao’s Last Dancer

Mao's Last Dancer

The rags-to-riches story of Chinese ballet dancer Li Cunxin who, at age 11, was chosen to train at Madam Mao’s Beijing Dance Academy and later went on to become one of the world’s greatest dancers.

Mao’s Last Dancer will be opening in select US cities on Friday, August 20th. The movie first premiered at the prestigious Toronto International Film Festival between September 10th and 14th of 2009 as a Special Presentation film. It then be followed with four gala premiers in Australia to benefit the Australian Ballet and the Bionic Ear Institute, which are the two non-profit organizations that Li supports and is involved with.

Li has screened the film twice now, and he thought that it’s a very good film. Li is very happy with how it portrayed his life. Bruce Beresford has done wonders bringing his story to the screen. The entire cast of actors and dancers are wonderful. And Li also liked the music very much.

In Australia, Village Roadshow, Hoyts, as well as other independent cinemas such as Palace and Dendy, exhibits the film. The official release in Australia and New Zealand is Oct 1st.

Continue reading ‘Mao’s Last Dancer’ »

Resident Evil: Afterlife

Resident Evil: Afterlife

In a world ravaged by a virus infection, turning its victims into the Undead, Alice (Milla Jovovich), continues on her journey to find survivors and lead them to safety. Her deadly battle with the Umbrella Corporation reaches new heights, but Alice gets some unexpected help from an old friend. A new lead that promises a safe haven from the Undead takes them to Los Angeles, but when they arrive the city is overrun by thousands of Undead – and Alice and her comrades are about to step into a deadly trap.

Directed by: Paul W.S. Anderson
Starring: Milla Jovovich, Ali Larter, Kim Coates, Shawn Roberts, Sergio Peris-Mencheta
MPAA Rating: Not Rated.
Release Date: September 10th, 2010
Studio: Sony ScreenGems