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All posts for the month December, 2013
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Irving and Sydney are caught in the act by undercover FBI agent Richard “Richie” DiMaso (Bradley Cooper). Sydney is arrested, but Richie, who is attracted to her, offers to release them if Irving helps him arrest four other con artists. A romantic triangle develops between the three, with Sydney keepimg a foot in both camps waiting for one of them to fully commit to her.
In order to fulfill his deal with Richie, Irving has one of his friends pretend to be a wealthy Arab Sheik looking for potential investments in America. Through this operation, an associate of Irving’s suggests that the Sheik do business with Carmine Polito (Jeremy Renner), the mayor of Camden, New Jersey. Carmine is campaigning to revitalize gambling in Atlantic City but has struggled to raise the necessary money to create Las Vegas-style casinos. Richie devises a plan to entrap Carmine over the objections of both Irving and Stoddard Thorsen (Louis C.K.), Richie’s boss. Sydney uses her skills at manipulating people to convince an FBI secretary, Brenda (Colleen Camp), to transfer $2 million to a fake account, despite Stoddard’s refusal to authorize the transaction. When Stoddard’s boss, Anthony Amado (Alessandro Nivola), hears of the operation, he praises Stoddard’s initiative, which puts Stoddard in the position of being unable to call off the plan.
A meeting with Carmine is arranged, but Richie’s over-eagerness to catch Carmine accepting a bribe causes Carmine to become suspicious and leave. Irving salvages the operation by convincing Carmine that the Sheik is legitimate, and the two begin a friendship in the process. Irving and Rosalyn have dinner with Carmine and his wife, Dolly (Elisabeth Röhm). Irving and Carmine start to bond further, leaving Irving guilt-ridden over his part in the conspiracy.
Carmine later arranges a meeting at a party between casino-running Mafiosi and the faux-Sheik, who is now played at Richie’s insistence by a Mexican-American FBI agent (Michael Peña). Irving is forced by Rosalyn’s manipulations to bring her along to the party; after angrily confronting Sydney, she befriends a mobster, Pete Musane (Jack Huston). Irving, Carmine, and the Sheik are startled to receive an audience with notoriously violent Mafia overlord Victor Tellegio (Robert De Niro), the second-in-command to Meyer Lansky, who has taken a personal interest in the Sheik’s potential investment. Although suspicious of the Sheik, Tellegio convinces Carmine to bribe several government officials into expediting United States citizenship for the Sheik in order to secure their business, in addition to requesting a $10,000,000 transfer to prove the Sheik’s legitimacy. When Richie agrees, eager to bring down Tellegio, Irving becomes convinced that the operation is spinning out of control.
Richie, who has grown increasingly attracted to “Edith,” tries to seduce her, but becomes aggressive and maniacal when she reveals her true American identity and refuses his advances. Irving intercedes to protect Sydney and attempts to call off their deal with Richie; Richie threatens them, saying that if they back out, Tellegio will learn of the scam and will take his revenge on Irving, Sydney, Rosalyn, and Rosalyn’s son. Meanwhile, Rosalyn starts an affair with Pete and mentions Irving’s involvement with a federal agency. Pete kidnaps and threatens Irving, who promises to prove the Sheik’s investment is real. Irving later confronts Rosalyn, who announces that she is divorcing him to be with Pete. Irving and Sydney realize they will have to extract themselves from both the FBI and the mob if they want to survive.
With Carmine’s help, Richie and Irving entrap several members of Congress into receiving bribes on hidden videotape. However, Stoddard refuses to authorize the $10 million demanded by Tellegio, causing Richie to assault him. Despite his insubordination, Richie manages to convince Amado of the merits of his operation, and a meeting is arranged at the offices of Tellegio’s lawyer, Alfonse Simone (Paul Herman) to further the sting operation: the FBI will transfer $2 million to Tellegio and secretly record the transaction and admission of guilt. Although Tellegio does not show up in person, the operation continues and Richie manages to record a blatant admission of criminal activities when Simone accepts the transfer. Drunk with success, Richie gloats over Stoddard and celebrates his success with other FBI agents.
Ashamed and guilt-ridden, Irving admits the scam to Carmine. Although Irving claims to have a plan to help Carmine, Carmine is distraught, claiming that he only wanted to improve New Jersey and it was Irving who entrapped him after he left the initial meeting. Their friendship is broken, and Carmine angrily ejects Irving from his home.
It is at this point that Irving and Sydney’s true plan is revealed. The $2 million that the FBI transferred to Tellegio has disappeared, and the man they believed to be Simone was an impostor placed there by Irving. As Richie personally handled the transaction, he appears either complicit in the theft or foolish for having fallen for Irving and Sydney’s duplicity. Irving offers to return the money and save the FBI from embarrassment in exchange for immunity for himself and Sydney and a reduced sentence for Carmine. Stoddard and Amado agree and remove the disgraced Richie from the case. When the indictments of politicians are revealed, Richie receives no acknowledgement. In gratitude for Irving preventing him from being caught in the sting, Tellegio agrees to leave Irving and Sydney alone.
Abandoning their lives of crime, Irving and Sydney open a legitimate art gallery and move in together, while Rosalyn goes to live with Pete, and the two couples share custody of Irving and Rosalyn’s son
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Cast:
- Mark Wahlberg as SO2 Marcus Luttrell
- Taylor Kitsch as LT Michael P. Murphy
- Emile Hirsch as SO2 Danny Dietz
- Ben Foster as SO2 Matthew Axelson
- Eric Bana as LCDR Erik S. Kristensen
- Alexander Ludwig as SO2 Shane Patton
- Yousuf Azami as Ahmad Shah
- Ali Suliman as Gulab
- Rich Ting as SO2 James Suh
- Dan Bilzerian as SOCS Dan Healy
- Jerry Ferrara as SGT Hasslert
- Scott Elrod as Peter Musselman
- Corey Large as US Navy SEAL CAPT Kenney
- Sammy Sheik as Taraq
Ninja: Shadow of a Tear (also known as Ninja II) is an American martial arts / action thriller film directed by Isaac Florentine and starring Scott Adkins, Kane Kosugi, Mika Hijiiand Shun Sugata. It is the sequel to the 2009 film Ninja. The film was shot in Bangkok, Thailand, and it made its premiere at the 2013 Fantastic Fest in Austin, Texas. It was released for download through iTunes on December 17, 2013 and is scheduled for Blu-ray Disc and DVD release on December 31.
About The Story
Cast
- Scott Adkins as Casey Bowman
- Kane Kosugi as Nakabara
- Mika Hijii as Namiko Takeda
- Shun Sugata as Goro
- Vithaya Pansringarm as General Sung
- Mukesh Bhatt as Mike
- Jawed El Berni as Lucas
- Futoshi Hashimoto as Toji
- Tim Man as Myat
- Takato as Hiroshi
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Dhoom: 3 ([ˈd̪ʱuːm 3], English: Blast 3, Hindi: धूम 3 also abbreviated and known as D:3 and D3) is a Hindi action thriller film, written and directed by Vijay Krishna Acharya and produced by Aditya Chopra. It is the third installment of the Dhoom series. Abhishek Bachchan and Uday Chopra will reprise their roles as Jai Dixit and Ali Akbar while Aamir Khan and Katrina Kaif being the antagonist duo. Believed to be one of the most expensive Indian films of all time, Dhoom 3 was released on 20 December 2013 in regular 2D and IMAX formats. It is the first Bollywood movie to be released in the IMAX format. The film was also released in Dolby Atmos.
Upon release, the film received mixed reviews from critics worldwide. The film broke several records on its opening day in India and abroad, Box Office India declared Dhoom 3 “the biggest hit of 2013” after two days of release, with the film grossing 200 crore (US$31 million) worldwide in just three days.
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Writers:
Vijay Krishna Acharya (story), Aditya Chopra (story), 1 more credit »
Stars:
Aamir Khan, Katrina Kaif, Abhishek Bachchan | See full cast and crew »
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Cast:
Sharlto Copley | … |
John
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Joseph Morgan | … |
Nathan
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Thomas Kretschmann | … |
Lukas
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Erin Richards | … |
Sharon
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Josie Ho | … |
Brown Eyes
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Max Wrottesley |
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Development of The Amazing Spider-Man 2 began after the success of The Amazing Spider-Man. DeHann, Giamatti, Jones, and Cooper were cast between December 2012 and February 2013. Filming took place in New York from February to June 2013. The film is scheduled to be released in 2D and 3D on April 18, 2014 in the UK, May 1, 2014 in Brazil and May 2, 2014 in the United States.
Cast:
- Andrew Garfield as Peter Parker / Spider-Man: An orphaned teenage boy who received amazing spider-powers after being bitten by a genetically altered spider. Peter first uses his powers to hunt down the killer of his uncle in The Amazing Spider-Man but soon decides to use his powers to fight crime as the vigilante known as Spider-Man. Garfield explained that the suit that he will wear in the film will be undergoing a new design. Garfield hopes to bring back the theme of him being an orphan stating, “I wanna keep exploring that theme of being fatherless, being motherless, searching for purpose and finding a purpose within himself”. He felt that it was a responsibility to take on the role and that he does not take it lightly.
- Emma Stone as Gwen Stacy: A high school student and Peter’s love interest.
- Jamie Foxx as Max Dillon / Electro: An electrical engineer who works for Oscorp Industries. Foxx described the character as “a nobody” who initially idolizes Spider-Man. He develops an obsession with Spider-Man after being saved by him and obtains his powers through an accident at Oscorp involving electric eels.[8]
- Dane DeHaan as Harry Osborn: An old friend of Peter and son of Norman Osborn. He was sent away to boarding school around the same time Peter’s parents disappeared, and meets him for the first time since then in the film.
- Campbell Scott as Richard Parker
- Embeth Davidtz as Mary Parker
- Colm Feore as Donald Menken
- Paul Giamatti as Aleksei Sytsevich / The Rhino: Giamatti explained that his character has a particular kind of suit. “He’s a Russian mobster. Russians are always good villains. I have an ability to just destroy things,” he said. “My accent is pretty hammy. I loved doing it. It seemed to me like an opportunity to be as over-the-top hammy as possible. It was really fun.”. It was revealed in a poster that the film’s version of Rhino wouldn’t be wearing a costume but a robotic suit designed to look like a rhino, which bears resemblance to Ultimate Marvel‘s version of Rhino.
- Sally Field as May Parker: Peter’s aunt.
- Martin Sheen as Ben Parker: Peter’s uncle who was murdered by a thief in the first film.
- Chris Cooper as Norman Osborn: The president of Oscorp and Harry Osborn’s father.
- Marton Csokas as Dr. Kafka: the head of Ravencroft Institute.
- Chris Zylka as Flash Thompson
- Denis Leary as Captain George Stacy: Gwen’s father who was murdered by the Lizard in the first film.
Felicity Jones, and B. J. Novak have also been cast in unspecified roles. According to Jones, and later clarified by Marc Webb, her character is in a “special relationship” with Norman Osborn. Sarah Gadon has been cast as an artificial intelligence officer. Spider-Man co-creator Stan Lee will once again have a cameo appearance.
About the Story:
While we’ve spotted a few cool things — an ad for The Daily Bugle Tumblr along with a few looks at the next incarnation of the Green Goblin — the best image shown in the nearly 3-minute teaser hints at what’s in store for the Spider-Man franchise down the road.
The first trailer for “The Amazing Spider-Man 2″ covers a fair amount of ground, and it looks like the way they’re making a story work with a multitude of bad guys running around is somehow tying all of them together. When Marc Webb cut back the stuff about some mystery behind the death of Peter’s mother and father, I was hoping that was the end of that story thread. Instead, it looks like it is a major part of this film as well.
There’s a lot to take in during this 2:41. I love the opening shot of him falling towards the city from above. One of the kicks of the best of the Spider-Man games is that feeling of falling as far as possible before snapping out a web to swing on. It looks like Peter and Gwen Stacy have picked up despite her father’s dying wish. It also looks like Harry Osborne is absolutely the Green Goblin, with Norman stuck upstairs in bed.
Considering Electro is supposed to be the main bad guy, there’s not a lot of him in the trailer, but I like what we see. The Rhino stuff looks like it’s going to be a subplot in the film, like he’s one more threat that Oscorp throws in his way.
Obviously they’ve been playing up the Daily Bugle as the cornerstone of their viral campaign this time around, and I spotted a few mentions of it in the trailer as well. Does that mean Peter’s working for them in this one, or are they still planning to leave out J. Jonah Jameson completely?
Whatever the case, I am curious to see if Webb’s got a better script to work with this time around. I like the way Electro looks in motion, I’m curious enough about the Oscorp storyline, and I can even learn to live with the stuff about his parents. It all comes down to just how well the story juggles everything and how much fun the film is as a whole.
Watch Official Trailer:
About:
Directed by | Vijay Krishna Acharya |
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Produced by | Aditya Chopra |
Screenplay by | Vijay Krishna Acharya |
Story by | Aditya Chopra Vijay Krishna Acharya[1] |
Starring | Aamir Khan Abhishek Bachchan Uday Chopra Katrina Kaif |
Music by | Original songs: Pritam Background Score: Julius Packiam |
Cinematography | Sudeep Chatterjee |
Editing by | Ritesh Soni |
Studio | Yash Raj Films |
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Country | India |
Language | Hindi |
Budget | 1.5 billion (US$23 million)[2] |
About the Story:
The story of Dhoom 3: The film begins with Sahir assisting his father, played by Jackie Shroff. Sahir learns all the tricks from his father. The father (Jackie Shroff) is murdered, or either killed, due to somebody or some incident at the circus. Sahir promises to take revenge.
The film then takes a leap: the young Sahir has now become hot and happening, Aamir Khan. He is working in the same circus his father used to work, and has beautiful gymnast Aaliya (Katrina Kaif) for company.
Sahir is out to rob all the money that’s made by the owners of the circus, and according to him are possibly involved in his father’s death or murder. He is successful in two attempts. Now, enters ACP Jai Dixit (Abhishek Bachchan), along with Ali (Uday Chopra). Their task: nab the master robber!
They know the master robber is Sahir, but do not have any proof. Thus, a trap is laid out to catch him red handed. Now, begins the cat and mouse game. The prime target is to catch Sahir in action.
Will Sahir be caught in the end (like John Abraham in Dhoom), or would be given a chance to start a new life (like Hrithik Roshan in Dhoom 2); what would happen in end? That’s your task to find out when the film releases!
The stunts look picture perfect, the music is already a hit. The buzz around the film is very high, and like the previous two installments, Dhoom 3 has “Blockbuster” written all over it.
Aamir Khan is paired opposite Katrina Kaif for the first time. Also, Aamir is back with the YRF camp after long time.
Vijay Krishna Acharya, the writer of Dhoom and Dhoom 2 has replaced Sanjay Gadhvi as director. Gadhvi directed the first two franchises of the series.
Dhoom:3 Trailer:
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Directed by | Scott Cooper |
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Produced by | Leonardo DiCaprio Ryan Kavanaugh Jennifer Killoran Ridley Scott Tony Scott Michael Costigan |
Written by | Scott Cooper Brad Ingelsby |
Starring | Christian Bale Casey Affleck Woody Harrelson Zoe Saldana Forest Whitaker Willem Dafoe Sam Shepard |
Music by | Dickon Hinchliffe Eddie Vedder |
Cinematography | Masanobu Takayanagi |
Editing by | David Rosenbloom |
Studio | Appian Way Scott Free Relativity Media |
Distributed by | Relativity Media |
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Running time | 116 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
About the Story:
The trailers promise a white-hot tale of revenge, with Christian Bale’s butt-kicking Jesus-with-a-rifle avenging some unspecified horrible fate that has befallen his younger brother, a veteran who has fallen in with backwoods gangsters (including Willem Dafoe and Woody Harrelson) and taken up brawling to pay off gambling debts. But the revenge portion of the film takes up maybe the last half-hour, and plays out with a haphazard literal-mindedness. The rest seems torn between two modes: the grimy yet intimate art-house drama, and the star-flattering martyr’s tale of a man more sinned against than sinning. Performances as strong as the ones the cast gives here belong in a more less cluttered, deeper film.
The first hour of this movie from director-cowriter Scott Cooper is atmospheric throat-clearing, establishing the obligation that hero Russell Baze (Bale) feels toward his family. His widowed old father is dying. His younger brother Rodney (Casey Affleck) has a gambling problem, and has fallen in with a very bad crowd that includes local nightclub owner and criminal fixer John Petty (Dafoe) and Harlan DeGroat (Woody Harrelson), a New Jersey hillbilly who lives in the Ramopo mountain forest with his gang. The brutal prologue to “Out of the Furnace” finds Harlan sexually terrorizing a date at a drive-in, then beating a man who tries to intervene. The scene effectively establishes that Harlan is not to be messed with, but it also has a whiff of macho art-house pretension, as if somebody saw “Killer Joe” and wondered what would happen if you put the harrowing climax of that film at the start of another one. It’s also dramatically unnecessary, as Harrelson exudes menace even when he’s not moving or speaking.
Russell is positioned as a figure who suffers for the sins of others. Fate treats him as a human pincushion. When the movie opens, the hero has a loving girlfriend named Lena (Zoe Saldana) and decent job at the mill (even though the economic crash of 2008, an increasingly important event in recent American cinema, is scaring everyone to death). Soon after paying off his brother’s criminal debtors, Russell lands in prison thanks to a mishap that wasn’t really his fault. He endures brutality there, and emerges years later. His dad is dead, his former girlfriend has taken up with a local cop (Forest Whitaker, doing a bizarre “character” voice that makes him sound like a Muppet), and his younger brother, now a psychologically devastated war veteran, is bare-knuckle brawling in Harlan’s secret matches to pay off his gambling debts.
You could figure out where this story is going even if the ads and trailers hadn’t made it crystal-clear. “Out of the Furnace” takes a long time to arrive at the inevitable point when Russell decides to take bloody action, without providing enough depth to make the lingering beforehand feel like time well-spent, and without envisioning the criminal showdowns in anything but the most perfunctory way. The geographic and cultural details are documentary-credible, but its situations are pure Hollywood. This is an awkward mix that not many films can pull off.
Had “Out of the Furnace” been willing to fully embrace its coincidences, overheated emotions and allegorical touches, it could have been one of the great Guy Movies of all time, a bro tragedy on the level of “The Indian Runner,” “A Perfect Storm” and, yes, “The Deer Hunter” (a film that wouldn’t be name-checked repeatedly in this review if “Out of the Furnace” didn’t strive to remind you of it, at one point brazenly lifting a key sequence involving a rifle, a deer and a moment of hesitation). Cooper’s film has every element that bro tragedy requires: decent-souled yet emotionally constipated men toiling in working-class professions; a criminal subplot that leads to a grave offense and a desire for vengeance; a sense of an old order passing and a new, diminished one taking its place; and on the soundtrack, a string-laden orchestral score, interspersed with power ballads that sound as if they’re being moaned by a man in pain. Serious or silly, this movie should have been irresistibly grand and propulsive.
Instead it limps along, occasionally seizing a glimmer of purpose but then getting distracted by a smoky sunset, a mythic silhouette, or a portentous bit of cross-cutting between moments that don’t really have all that much to do with each other. The script, co-written by Cooper and Brad Ingelsby, genuflects toward relevance, citing the War on Terror and the depression of 2008 and beyond, but rather than emerge gracefully from the story, these aspects feel as slapped-on as bumper stickers.
Bale has played a number of intriguingly closed-off characters, including Bruce Wayne in Christopher Nolan’s “Batman” movies, but his emotionally-numb-De Niro thing doesn’t cut it here, however affecting the actor is close-up. The film fetishizes Russell by filming him like an epic hero even though he’s a bit of a dope. Affleck, one of the best and most original actors in American film, fares better as Rodney, using his high voice and sinewy body as contrast against the character’s machismo. He has one scene opposite Bale—an agonized confession of how badly the war has affected him—that hints at the raw, truthful movie that “Out of the Furnace” might have been, had its priorities been different. Dafoe is believably conflicted as the guy who lets himself be shamed into hooking Rodney up with money brawls even though he fears that they’ll ruin him. Harrelson’s Harlan is leering cobra who strikes every chance he gets. Some of his intimidating moments have a Dennis Hopper-like charge that comes from realizing the character is capable of anything; this would be magnificent if Harlan weren’t written as a garden-variety thug who lacks imagination.
Most of the other actors are wasted, including Saldana, who’s stuck in a generic girlfriend role (though she has one effective, painful scene with Bale on a wooden bridge), and Sam Shepard as Russell’s uncle, who joins the hero on his adventures but doesn’t get much dialogue or meaningful action. Halfway through, there’s a scene that feels like the beginning of a tighter, tougher, wilder movie, perhaps a “Walking Tall” in steel country. You’ll know it when you’ll see it, because for a fleeting instant you’ll be fooled into thinking that “Out of the Furnace” is going somewhere.
It’s a shame, really. This is a rare big-budget American feature that’s about working class characters doing things that could actually happen. It isn’t a superhero picture, a sci-fi movie, a remake, or an adaptation of a bestselling novel. Mainstream cinema was thick with this sort of film forty years ago, but has offered fewer and fewer examples over time. I wish there were more films like “Out of the Furnace,” only good.