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Showing posts from July, 2011

Cowboys & Aliens

Starring: Daniel Craig, Harrison Ford, and Olivia Wilde Directed by: Jon Favreau Screenplay by: Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman     The time: late 1800s.  The place: the Wild West (somewhere in New Mexico).  The event: an alien invasion?  Interesting.     We meet our eventual hero (Daniel Craig) just waking up from some traumatic experience, an event which we never see.  He has some sort of bracelet around his left wrist.  Initially, he doesn't even know his name.  He stumbles into a small town and everyone recognizes him as Jake Lonergan, one of the region's most wanted men.  As he is being arrested, aliens attack the small town and begin taking people away.  What do the aliens want?  Turns out they want to mine for gold and will stop anyone who gets in their way.  Lonergan's goal is to get the aliens to return the hostages and then leave.  The key to accomplishing this goal is the bracelet on Lonergan's arm.  It's a powerful weapon he can use against the alien

Captain America: The First Avenger

Starring: Chris Evans, Hayley Atwell, Tommy Lee Jones, and Hugo Weaving Directed by: Joe Johnston Screenplay by: Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely     It's 1943 and the world is at war.  So, who's going to save us this time?  Captain America!     Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) is a small kid from Brooklyn who just wants to serve his country in the biggest war in history, but he is deemed unfit for service.  Fortunately for him, Dr. Abraham Erskine (Stanley Tucci) finds Rogers a candidate for an experiment to make soldiers bigger, faster, and stronger.  Rogers accepts and becomes a recruiter for the military.     Meanwhile, the evil Johann Schmidt (Hugo Weaving) is developing weapons which use an extremely powerful technology that he wants his organization, Hydra, to use to win the war.  He is on nobody's side but his own.     So, Rogers finds out where his imprisoned friend is and attempts to free him, along with the rest of the brigade.  Everyone then believes Roge

Friends With Benefits

Starring: Mila Kunis and Justin Timberlake Directed by: Will Gluck Screenplay by: Keith Merryman and David A. Newman !!!!!!!WARNING!!!!!!!!! THIS IS A SPOILER ALERT.  IF YOU DO NOT WANT TO FIND OUT THE END OF THIS MOVIE, READ NO FURTHER.     For those of you who thought that this was an original idea for a film, it's not.  Is it funny?  It's hilarious.     Dylan Harper (Justin Timberlake) is moving to New York from Los Angeles.  As soon as he gets there, he meets Jamie (Mila Kunis).  She is helping him find a new job at GQ magazine.  They develop a strong friendship and try to avoid the classic Hollywood cliche of a relationship.  But when they try to add sex into their friendship, complications arise.  So, after their friendship begins to diminish during a trip to Los Angeles for Jamie to meet Dylan's family, they decide to take a break from each other.  Jamie abruptly leaves the vacation.  But then, Dylan realizes he wants his best friend back so he goes back to Ne

Horrible Bosses

Starring: Jason Bateman, Charlie Day, and Jason Sudeikis Directed by: Seth Gordon Screenplay by: Michael Markowitz and John Francis Daley     So what do you do if you hate your boss because they're making your life a living hell?  Not what these guys want to do.     Three friends, Nick Hendricks (Jason Bateman), Dale Arbus (Charlie Day), and Kurt Buckman (Jason Sudeikis), all hate their respective bosses, Dave Harken (Kevin Spacey), Dr. Julia Harris, D.D.S (Jennifer Aniston), and Bobby Pellitt (Colin Farrell).  Harken won't let Nick move up in the company or be with his family when his grandmother is dying.  Pellitt wants to run his company into the ground so he can take all the profits for himself.  And Julia is doing anything and everything she can to make Dale have sex with her before he gets married to his fiance. Now is that so bad?  Probably.      Anyway, these guys are miserable at their jobs, but they don't want to quit.  Instead they want to kill them for the

Bad Teacher

Starring: Cameron Diaz, Justin Timberlake, and Jason Segel Directed by: Jake Kasdan Screenplay by: Gene Stupnitsky and Lee Eisenberg      We always enjoy making fun of teachers and often they enjoy making fun of their students.  Well, here's one teacher who is rather hard to make fun of.  Why?  Because she's the teacher that we all want.      Elizabeth Halsey (Cameron Diaz) is a recently divorced, drug using, yet extremely gorgeous middle school teacher who just shows movies in her class and makes her students do nothing.  Sound like the class we all want to take yet?  Her goal, to save up enough money to have her breasts enlarged, and she'll do just about anything to get that money, such as steal the answer key to the state standardized test so her students can get the best scores in the entire county thus making her eligible to receive a large bonus.  Another teacher comes along, Scott Delacorte (Justin Timberlake) who she likes quite a bit.  But there isn't much

Larry Crowne

Starring: Tom Hanks, and Julia Roberts Directed by: Tom Hanks Screenplay by: Tom Hanks, and Nia Vardalos      Finally, in a summer full of sequels, prequels, and other action packed films, here's one that's different from the summer trend, but still entertaining.      Larry Crowne (Tom Hanks) is a divorced, sales associate at a major retail store.  The film opens up with him getting fired because he didn't go to college.  So, he goes to community college where he meets some new friends, and is in Speech 217 with Mrs. Tainot (Julia Roberts) as the teacher.  So, if you've seen the trailer, you can already guess what's going to happen next.  Larry's life has fallen apart and now he has to pick up the pieces and move on.  And it will be quite interesting to watch.      The first thing that should be mentioned is that the romance between Larry and Mrs. Tainot is not the main point of the story.  In fact, it's hardly about their romance, but more about Larry