A SWAT team becomes trapped in a tenement run by a ruthless mobster and his army of killers and thugs.
Director: Gareth Evans
Writer: Gareth Evans
Stars: Iko Uwais, Ananda George and Ray Sahetapy
The Raid: Redemption
A SWAT team becomes trapped in a tenement run by a ruthless mobster and his army of killers and thugs.
Director: Gareth Evans
Writer: Gareth Evans
Stars: Iko Uwais, Ananda George and Ray Sahetapy
The Cabin in the Woods
Five friends set out on a carefree weekend in a remote cabin in the woods in the middle of nowhere. They do not realize that they are checked step by step to a group of scientists who manipulate from a laboratory deep beneath the earth of all its steps and control. It is not long since the five awaken in the basement of the creepy cabin evil spirits: A family of redneck zombies makes hunting them. Rescue seems hopeless, because the scientists the killers play all balls.
Five friends go for a break at a remote cabin in the woods, where they get more than they bargained for. Together, they must discover the truth behind the cabin in the woods.
Director: Drew Goddard
Writers: Joss Whedon, Drew Goddard
Stars:Kristen Connolly, Chris Hemsworth and Anna Hutchison
The Hunger Games
Another director may have exploited the extreme kid-on-kid violence that fills the pages of "The Hunger Games." But Gary Ross adeptly plays it down in his film adaptation, instead focusing on the sheer horror and emotional toll of such barbarism. The film plays out from the point of view of Katniss, an archer and overall skilled survivalist played expertly by Jennifer Lawrence. She owns the role, able to convey with a simple glance extreme stress, deep concentration, and visceral anger. The brilliance of "Games" is truly in what it isn't: a "Rambo"-esque bloodbath of a spectacle, as is the similarly themed 2000 Japanese film "Battle Royale" (also based on a book). When the games start, Ross cuts all dialogue, simply showing shaky flashes of the carnage as a delicate score plays, setting the viewer at the center of the action. It is light, deliberate touches like these throughout the film that give each character their humanity, allowing moviegoers to share in the horror when they are unjustly killed and celebrate when just a few survive.
Katniss Everdeen voluntarily takes her younger sister's place in the Hunger Games, a televised fight to the death in which two teenagers from each of the twelve Districts of Panem are chosen at random to compete.
Director: Gary Ross
Writers: Gary Ross (screenplay), Suzanne Collins(screenplay),
Stars: Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson and Liam Hemsworth
Looper
Writer-director Rian Johnson's original sci-fi thriller is a crafty new take on the well-worn time travel narrative. It turns out, organized crime in the future will not be so different from the current state of things, with one significant difference: time travel. What happens when an assassin's job is to dispatch his older self, sent back 30 years from the future? Not all goes as planned. "Looper's" smart, fully realized plot includes enough great twists to keep you on your toes, and just when you think you've got it figured out, it takes a few more fearless leaps to throw you for a loop. Amid a dense release slate of tired action remakes, board game (!) adaptations, and kids-meal-friendly comic book sequels, "Looper" is a thrilling and thoughtful breath of fresh air.
Cloud Atlas
"Cloud Atlas" is an easy movie to ridicule. This is after all the flick that had Halle Berry play a male Korean doctor. But for all its goofiness, Tom Twyker and Lana and Andy Wachowski's adaptation of David Mitchell's novel is perhaps the most ambitious and unrepentantly romantic movie of the year. It is also so dense that it demands multiple viewings, jumps back and forth between six very different narratives, including an 18th-century nautical adventure and a sci-fi saga set in Korea during the 22nd century. For the first hour, the stories seem utterly unconnected, and you might be left wondering what the hell you're watching; but as the film gathers steam, the individual plots start to resonant off one another in strange and striking ways. What's the deal with the birthmark? By the end, the narrative brilliantly pulled together leaves you feeling surprisingly moved and flush with an unexpected feeling of optimism -- something of a rarity in an age of dour blockbusters. Though this film failed to find an audience in the theater, "Cloud Atlas" is a great film to watch (and rewatch) on DVD.
An exploration of how the actions of individual lives impact one another in the past, present and future, as one soul is shaped from a killer into a hero, and an act of kindness ripples across centuries to inspire a revolution.
Writers: David Mitchell (novel), Lana Wachowski
Stars: Tom Hanks, Halle Berry and Hugh Grant
Argo
Having a screenwriting background and being overly nitpicky, I don't often see a film without obvious and distracting holes. From a story standpoint, Ben Affleck's "Argo" has none, gaping or otherwise. Another thriller, "Zero Dark Thirty," may be the only other film I saw this year in which a story gap didn't jolt me from being fully immersed. Though "ZD30" is certainly one of the best films of the year, it's nowhere near as enjoyable as "Argo." Both thrillers are taut, timely, and deal in matters of perplexing gray. But "Argo" is also subtly balanced, with comic relief laced deftly throughout, luring you in with laughs, shedding just enough light to make the dark more glaringly scary. Because of this, the tension is ratcheted up nice and slow, and the result is captivating. The end of the film was the first time in two hours I realized I was actually sitting in a theater. Even when it's done, "Argo" lingers, and I've been thinking about 1979 ever since, wondering how come it looks so much like today.
A dramatization of the 1980 joint CIA-Canadian secret operation to extract six fugitive American diplomatic personnel out of revolutionary Iran.
Director:
Ben Affleck
Writers:
Chris Terrio (screenplay), Joshuah Bearman(article)
Stars:
Ben Affleck, Bryan Cranston and John Goodman
Skyfall
Bond's loyalty to M is tested as her past comes back to haunt her, bringing MI6 under attack.
Director: Sam Mendes
Writers: Neal Purvis, Robert Wade, and 2 more credits »
Stars: Daniel Craig, Javier Bardem and Naomie Harris | See full cast and crew