Unthinkable (2010)

There are terrorist movies and then there are TERRORIST movies.  Unthinkable, in my opinion, falls into the latter.  We’ve all seen the films that have the Islamic-motivated individuals who have done something extreme to prove either a political or personal point at the expense of others.  They are fearless, clever and more than willing to die for their country and beliefs.  This thriller has all of this but it takes it to another level.

 

Steven Arthur Younger (Michael Sheen) or Yusuf Atta Mohammed, which he prefers to be referred as is an American man who has made the conversion to Islam.  He has placed three bombs in three American cities, all set to explode on the same day at the same time.  Yes, and all of them are of the nuclear nature.  He purposely allows himself to be captured by the U.S. government and is then subjected to special forms of "interrogation" by a man called "H" (Samuel L. Jackson). H has been specially hired by the government for his unique skills to deal with these specific kinds of situations.  In addition, an FBI Special Agent, Helen Brody (Carrie-Ann Moss) is requested by H to assist him in extracting the unknown locations of the nuclear 

bombs from Younger.

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Black Swan (2010)

Met with critical acclaim after it was first released at the 67^th Venice International Film Festival in September of 2010, Black Swan has since gone on to gather even more fame and hype.  Mostly due to its’ combination of elegant dance and the deep psychological portrayal of a person under pressure to simply be perfect.   Natalie Portman headlines a film filled with sex, drugs, emotional & physical stress and just plain paranoia.

Nina (Natalie Portman), an aspiring and paralyzingly-timid ballet dancer, competes and is ultimately chosen to dance the lead role in an upcoming production of the classic Swan Lake.  In order to completely pull this role off, she must take on the duties of portraying two characters.  The first persona that she must accept is that of the White Swan, a role in which the ballet director, Thomas Leroy (Vincent Cassel), finds her perfect for.  Her desire to be perfect in every move and motion plays directly into what is needed to be a great White Swan.  The White Swan’s evil twin, the Black Swan, is slightly more difficult for her to grasp.  She isn’t used to dancing with the recklessness and abandon that is encouraged to dance this role.

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Takers (2010)

With all of the films chronicling the schemes and usually well thought out plans of bank robbers and thieves, the introduction of Takers didn’t really have me too excited.  The only difference that I could really see judging from all of the trailers and sneak peeks were that these particular robbers were very well dressed.  The John Luessenhop directed project takes us into the lives of a pretty close knit bunch living the high life and reaping the benefits of their chosen illegal career field.

            The team of takers consist of a rather ensemble cast headed up by Gordon Cozier (Idris Elba).  His second in command and best friend, John (Paul Walker), helps to run their crew of determined heister's.  The film begins with the group about to pull off another job on an unsuspecting banking establishment.  They are crisp, fast, strategic and downright perfect in their execution of obtaining their goal without managing to hurt any innocent patrons or employees.  Detectives Jack Welles (Matt Dillon) & Eddie Hatcher (Jay Hernandez) are the police officials assigned to the case.  Both cop with their own personal story among the many sub-plots included in this film.

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The Girl who Played with Fire (2009)

The famous Lisbeth Salander has returned along with all of the complicated character attributes that her personality carries. Stieg Larsson’s second installment in his Swedish Millennium trilogy, The Girl Who Played with Fire, continues the intriguing story of Salander and her criminal-journalist friend, Mikael Blomkvist. After the opening chapter, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, proved to be so successful, audiences couldn’t wait for this equally compelling sequel.

After Blomkvist is released from prison and Lisbeth takes up an indefinite absence from the world, she continually checks in on her rapist parole officer Nils Erik Bjurman (Peter Andersson). She threatens him to make sure he keeps up his role of their agreement to continue writing positive reports about her. Having had enough, Bjurman hires an unknown figure to “take care of her” for him. As this shady deal is coming together, a new journalist who has been recently welcomed onto Blomkvist’s team at Millennium, is found murdered along with his girlfriend. The two were planning on writing and releasing an expose about illegal sex trafficking along with all of its orchestrators and participants.

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Oh, the Horror! pt. 5...

Tamara (2006)

Add the on-going high school tradition of hazing and bullying that will most likely carry on forever with the practice of witchcraft and you get this film, Tamara. Usually revenge based horror films are “A-ok” with me. They make for some pretty entertaining shots of viciously getting back at those who did the main character wrong. Look at the perfect template for that, Carrie. This film, on the other hand, could not hold that movie’s hair if it had to throw up from watching this one.

The basic premise consists of a teenage girl, Tamara (Jenna Dewan), who dresses with no self esteem, is constantly teased and whose father rather give affection to his collection of beer bottles than to his own daughter. She develops a crush on a teacher in school and decides to try a love spell on him after she makes a move on him and is rejected. A couple of mean teens decide to play a cruel joke on her by pretending to be the teacher and invite her to be with him at a motel. Bottom line, things go horribly wrong and she winds up on the other side of the living, or so they think. She goes through the rest of the movie magically controlling them into doing whatever she wishes, some in the bloodiest of ways.

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Oh, the Horror! pt. 3...

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2009)

Not exactly a horror film per say keeping up with my scary movie theme to go along with this very special time of year, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo does contain shades of horror movie lore. The story and scenes of suspense will keep you captivated until the very end just like a good horror movie would. Hearing of all the praise and accolades this film was receiving, I couldn’t wait until next week to check it out.

The plot revolves around two main characters; Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist), an ace reporter who has been seemingly framed for gun-running among other crimes after he tries to take down a tycoon of a major corporation. The other is an expert computer hacker and researcher, Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace), who is hired to follow Blomkvist and keep tabs on his life. After he is found guilty on the afore-mentioned charges, he is hired by a wealthy man named Henrik Vanger to solve the 40-year old disappearance of his niece, Harriet before his jail sentence begins.

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Legion (2010)

           Say your prayers, be nice to your fellow man, stop all the hatred and fighting, live in peace and harmony and most of all honor and praise Him.  There’s a lot more to it than that obviously, according the Good Book itself, but those are a couple of the basics.  Legion provides a look at a possible result of what can happen if we all don’t follow these rules.  Taking it just a smidgen past living by the Ten Commandments, this film shows us that the Lord is not always all merciful and his Army will do what is necessary to get His point across.

            Basic plot: God is pissed off and sends his Army of angels to take out an unborn child who is destined to lead humanity out of our period of darkness.  Whoever stands in the way of this mission will suffer a similar fate.  Basically, we’ve had our chance to live in His vision and have failed miserably.  Michael the Archangel (Paul Bettany) takes it upon himself to disobey his orders to kill the child and decides instead to try to protect it.  His faith in mankind hasn’t wavered and he alone stands in the way of humanity and complete extermination.

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Devil (2010)

Some of the past creations of M. Night Shyamalan have been scrutinized for trying too hard to boggle the mind and push the limits of normal storytelling.  While some have been met with rave reviews and been considered classics, others have melted and withered into the “why did I just pay money to see that?” category.  After The Last Airbender, M. Night returns to his area of expertise: the supernatural thriller.  This time around, the genres of supernatural & thriller have been combined with a case of whodunit.  Although still mildly skeptical, I found myself quite eager to catch this one.  Devil delivers suspense and thrills that will keep most of the audience, including those who feel that they are quite proficient in solving mysteries.

            This one gets set-up pretty quickly which plays into the uncommonly short run-time of only an hour and 20 minutes.  We begin with a seemingly random suicide by way of a man jumping out of a window and falling to his death onto a truck.  A small group of four people sign in and board an elevator within the same building that produced the jumper along with a security guard who also works there.  The elevator car doesn’t seem to travel but a couple of floors before it suddenly stops.  Then all of the fun…and terror begins.  Along with the security guard in the stuck elevator is a young woman, a mattress salesman, a guy on his way to an interview, and an older lady.  All strangers to each other, they are all obviously uncomfortable being trapped in a tight space with people they don’t know.

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Armored (2010)

Ever think about what it would be like to transport large sums of money back and forth? The excitement, the anticipation of possibly something happening. The awareness that you must have in order to become accustomed to new surroundings again and again. But what about the temptation? The feeling that you can just take this valuable cargo and no one would be the wiser. That’s what Armored directed by Nimrod Antal brings into the picture. A team of armored truck security guards try their luck and take a chance at early retirement when a 42 million dollar package drops in their lap.

The decently put together cast includes Laurence Fishburne, Jean Reno with Columbus Short as the rookie Ty Hackett and Matt Dillon as their leader Mike Cochrane. Hackett is left to care for his younger brother after their parents passed away leaving them with two mortgages and a slew of hospital bills.

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Salt (2010)

The Russian spies are among us! Even as I am writing this, there are hundreds of sleeper agents living among us who are patiently waiting…patiently waiting for their perfectly planned time of attack to strike against our country and way of life. At least that’s what the action-thriller Salt leads us to believe. Although it is simply a product for our entertainment, it cuts pretty close to reality which will probably have you leaving the theater looking over your shoulder.

The ever impressive Angelina Jolie stars as Evelyn Salt, a CIA agent who is accused of being a Russian spy by a Russian national defector named Orlov. His accusation of course raises more than a few eyebrows within her agency. A manhunt then ensues for her capture after she seemingly flees to protect her husband and attempt to clear her name.

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Repo Men (2010)

Blood, guts, on-the-spot surgery, blood, action, and oh yeah some more blood. If you like blood, well I mean seeing it on screen and not in real life, then you will love the bloody Miguel Sapochnik directed film, Repo Men. Powered by other aspects other than just blood, such as the creative story line, Repo Men might have the small beginnings of a becoming a cult favorite.

Jude Law and Forest Whitaker star as the aforementioned repossession specialists, Remy and Jake. After growing up and serving in the military together, the two friends take jobs as repo men for a company known as the Union. A company that provides artificial organs and body parts to the unfortunate who are dying or in need of some kind of transplant in order to stay alive. This, of course, all comes at a price, which can be split into monthly payments at a seemingly low interest rate. If they happen to fall behind on their payments, however, then that’s where Remy and Jake come in. If you see them in your home, then… let’s just say you rather be on the phone arguing with a collections agency.

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Wolfman (2010)

Man learns of brother’s death. Man returns home in search of brother’s killer. Man finds brother’s killer. Man sees full moon and becomes a killer. The man is Lawrence Talbot (Benicio Del Toro), and he has a less than cordial relationship with his father, Sir John Talbot (Anthony Hopkins). He becomes aware that his brother has gone missing and has also left behind a quite beautiful fiancée, Gwen Coliffe (Emily Blunt). He promises her that he will find her late future husbands murderer but in doing so finds much more than he expected. It is believed by the townspeople where his father and brother resides that a monster is on the loose. A monster feared to be a werewolf. During a scuffle with the creature, he is bitten and learns first hand “the legend of the wolf”.


There were a total of three films with the “wolf man” concept before this modern version. This particular remake is based off of the 1941 version of the classic story. The film, directed by Joe Johnston, is laced with some very well done special effects. In fact, the effects are possibly the best aspect of this movie. Having never seen the original story, I cannot make a personal comparison but read that the second half of the film was altered for the remake.

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The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008)

The first time The Day the Earth Stood Still was presented to movie goers it fit right in with the science fiction genre. I haven’t seen the original, which is considered a classic that was directed by Robert Wise, but its predecessor won’t be classified under the same file of great movie lore. Many films are trying to resurrect that feel of impending Armageddon by way of an unknown interstellar force that was hugely popular in the sci-fi driven 50s and 60s. War of the Worlds did a wonderful job of having everyone completely paranoid about thoughts of a possible alien invasion. Unlike its remake, the recent Day the Earth Stood Still doesn’t offer that same aura.

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Inception (2010)

Since I don’t know him personally, I can’t say what goes on in the mind of Christopher Nolan. All I can do is guess and speculate based upon his work. The writer/director has brought us gems like The Prestige, Batman Begins and one of my personal favorites of all time, The Dark Knight. The screenplays that he has developed are original, creative, sometimes complex, but the best of all, they grab your attention and hold it in their clutches way after the film has ended. They make you think; make you consider and then re-consider any options or possibilities about the plot that you may have been wondering about. Furthermore, since he has had the luxury of having some very good actors in his projects, it makes his films even that much better. His latest work, Inception, follows the same signature blueprint.

Dom Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) is what you would call an Extractor, but what he extracts is contained in people’s dreams. With the help of his partner, Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), they enter an individual’s dream and steal, or extract, something of dire importance to that person and relinquish it to whomever they were hired to do it by. For example, if I wanted to get your ATM pin number, they could go in and get you to give it to them or just retrieve it from somewhere in your dream. A businessman, Saito (Ken Watanabe), hires the two to do just the opposite, however. He would like them to create a new idea and implant it into someone’s dream. That act is called, you guessed it, inception. But this procedure is far more difficult than merely taking something out of someone’s head. They would have to get it to stick and seem so real that it would manifest in the persons subconscious and cause them to make real life choices because of it.

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Daybreakers (2010)

Question…if you had the chance to become a vampire, would you take it? An age old question stemming from many, wait, no, a rather substantial amount of vampire films throughout the history of horror movies. I think it really became prominent with the release of the cult classic The Lost Boys. I am still a little undecided on my own answer. I mean it would be cool to have super strength and never get sick but living forever might become sort of boring. You get see everyone you care about die around you and when the apocalypse happens, you get to be super strong all by yourself. Plus, you would need a rather lush dental plan and being African American myself, I don’t think the pale look would suit me very well. Michael and Peter Spierig take the vampire craze to a rather new level with Daybreakers.

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The Taking of Pelham 123 (2009)

This present-day New York City thriller remake has two of the most well known, great actors of our time revamping roles by two other well known, great actors of an earlier time. Denzel Washington and John Travolta taking over for classic actors Walter Matthau and Robert Shaw respectively. New York always seems to be the dead on target for some kind of threat or disaster. Out of towner’s wonder why we are called “the city that never sleeps”. Yes, it is because we usually don’t sleep, from round the clock jobs to hanging out or partying, there is always something going on there. But, it may also be because some of us are just downright paranoid as hell that something horrible might happen to our city again. Films such as this from the point of view of director Tony Scott remind all of us why.

Denzel Washington plays Walter Garber, a NYC transit official who is in charge of running the subways beneath the streets of the city.

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The Crazies (2010)

In the last couple of years, the horror genre has seemed to be dominated by the can’t go wrong slasher flick. Remake upon remake upon similar storylines have been the norm. From the re-imaging of classics such Halloween and Friday the 13th to less well known films being reproduced like My Bloody Valentine; in 3-D nonetheless. Others have combined the thriller and gore aspects with horror to make films like the “Saw” series and the “Collector”. I, personally, enjoy the casual break from these to take in the biological terror storyline. This is not only highly possible in real life but would affect way more than just a handful of people. Plus, we are just not prepared to defend against an antagonist of that caliber such as possibly killing or at least slowing down a killer who is trying to catch you. Unless that killer is Michael Myers or Jason Voorhees of course. The latest addition to this genre is “The Crazies”, a remake of the George A. Romero 1973 film. This one stars Timothy Olyphant and Radha Mitchell.

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Shutter Island (2010)

In 2003, author Dennis Lehane wrote a suspense novel named Shutter Island which was highly acclaimed by readers and now made into a film of the same name by legendary director Martin Scorsese. He decided to re-team yet again in this film with Leonardo DiCaprio who has all ready put out stellar performances with Scorsese at the helm in films such as The Departed and The Aviator.

We are taken back in time to the year 1954 where U.S. Marshall and
World War II vet Teddy Daniels has been assigned to find an escaped prisoner/patient, Rachel Solando (Emily Mortimer), who disappeared from Ashecliff Hospital. The hospital is an institution for

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Brooklyn's Finest (2010)

Having already brought us action thrillers like The Replacement Killers and Shooter along with classic stories like Tears of the Sun and the highly acclaimed Training Day, director Antoine Fuqua reloads his chamber for another police drama with Brooklyn’s Finest. What caught my attention immediately from the advertisements was that this film, which Fuqua also helped produce, took place completely within the borough of Brooklyn where as the norm has been to use the island of Manhattan as the backdrop whenever it came to portraying New York City. The well written story by Michael C. Martin revolves around three New York City Police officers, each with their own role in the film and in the department.

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9 Dead (2010)

As a pre teen, I will put it out there that I watched a rather good number of Sabrina the Teenage Witch. I will also put it out there that before that, as a kid I watched a decent number of episodes of Clarissa Explains it All. I only checked out the latter because I thought Clarissa was pretty. I only checked out the witch series quite frankly because there was nothing else on television and I kind of felt like it was dishonoring ABC’s then famed TGIF lineup if I didn’t watch every show within the two hours. Now that I look back at them, I really don’t think I ever laughed once at either show. Maybe a couple of times at Salem the cat in Sabrina but that was it. Besides some big screen projects, I actually don’t know why anyone ever thought Melissa Joan Hart could actually play anything but a teenager. To her credit, she did play those roles really well and was a famed child star and has been a writer/director/producer/singer and owns a candy shop. She will probably never go broke. But I can’t say I’ve ever seen her in anything memorable. I haven’t caught many of her adult roles, and I eventually will, but her film, Nine Dead, falls a little short.

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