Movies Update

The horrifying events that took place in the Hoyt family’s vacation home at 1801 Clark Road on February 11, 2005 are still not entirely known.

Champagne. Rose petals. Candlelight. It was supposed to be a night of celebration for Kristen McKay (Liv Tyler) and James Hoyt (Scott Speedman), but after leaving a friend’s wedding reception and returning to the house, everything had collapsed for the happy couple. Then came a 4 a.m. knock on the door and a haunting voice.

Is Tamara here?

Writer/first-time director Bryan Bertino explores our most universal fears in The Strangers, a terrifying suspense thriller about a couple whose remote getaway becomes a place of terror when masked strangers invade. The confrontation forces Kristen and James to go far beyond what they thought themselves capable of if they hope to survive.

Release Date : May 30, 2008

Studio : Rogue Pictures (Universal Pictures)

Director : Bryan Bertino

Screenwriter : Bryan Bertino

Starring : Liv Tyler, Scott Speedman, Gemma Ward, Kip Weeks, Laura Margolis, Glenn Howerton

Genre : Suspense Thriller

Rating : coming soon…

Official Website : TheStrangers.net

Movie Poster : http://movies-update.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/the_strangers-202×300.jpg

Trailer :

The man in the hat is back! Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is the fourth and most daftly titled Indy movie yet, and all eyes are going to be on whether the once golden partnership between Hollywood heavyweights director Steven Spielberg and producer/writer George Lucas can turn back the clock for Ford to ensure this isn’t a film too far for the much-loved franchise.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is a Lucasfilm Ltd. and is being distributed by Paramount Pictures. It will be released in the U.S. and simultaneously in most territories worldwide on Thursday, May 22, 2008. Frank Marshall returns as producer, with Kathleen Kennedy joining George Lucas as executive producer.

Indiana Jones is back at it, this time in 1957, as he plunges into the jungles of South America to find the Mystical Crystal Skull before Soviet agents. The story was written by George Lucas of the Star Wars legacy and its screenplay by David Koepp. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was also directed by Steven Spielberg. This all-star lineup should prove to be a hit. In theaters May 23, 2008.

Star(s) to watch : Harrison Ford (”Star Wars”, “Air Force One”) as Indiana Jones, & Shia LaBeouf (”Transformers”, “Disturbia”) as Mutt.

Genre : Action, Adventure, Sequel.

Release date : May 22, 2008

Rating : Coming soon …

Official website : http://www.indianajones.com/

Poster : http://movies-update.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/indiana_jones_and_the_kingdom_of_the_crystal_skull2-202𝗬.jpg

Trailer :

One year has passed in Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy Pevensie’s world, but unknown to them about 1,300 years has passed in Narnia, where they had their last adventure in it’s hills. Now, by the means of Susan’s magical horn, they travel back to Narnia, to find that Narnia is not what it was like last, with the ruthless King Miraz planning to kill Prince Caspian, who is the rightful heir to Narnia’s throne. Now, with the help of mythical creatures named Old Narnians and Aslan, Peter, Susan, Edmund, Lucy, and Caspian fight against Miraz and his army to give the throne of Narnia to it’s true successor.

In “The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian,” the four Pevensie children – Peter (William Moseley), Susan (Anna Popplewell), Edward (Skandar Keynes), and Lucy (Georgie Henley) - are summoned back to the magical land of talking animals and mythical creatures, where they discover that more than a thousand Narnian years have passed since their last adventure and much has changed. The White Witch may be dead, but Narnia is under the sway of a tyrannical new ruler, King Miraz (Sergio Castellitto), and the Pevensies must unite with the young Prince Caspian (played by British actor Ben Barnes) in an attempt to restore peace and harmony to the once happy land.

The four children will soon meet an intriguing new character: Narnia’s rightful heir to the throne, the young Prince Caspian, who has been forced into hiding as his uncle Miraz plots to kill him in order to place his own newborn son on the throne. With the help of the kindly dwarf, a courageous talking mouse named Reepicheep, a badger named Trufflehunter and a Black Dwarf, Nikabrik, the Narnians, led by the mighty knights Peter and Caspian, embark on a remarkable journey to find Aslan, rescue Narnia from Miraz’s tyrannical hold, and restore magic and glory to the land.

Star(s) to watch : Ben Barnes (”Stardust”) as Prince Caspian.

Genre : Adventure, Fantasy, Adaptation.

Release date : May 16, 2008.

Rating : Coming soon …

Official website : http://disney.go.com/disneypictures/narnia/

Poster : http://movies-update.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/the_chronicles_of_narnia_prince_caspian1-203×300.jpg

Trailer :

In today’s episode of Boing Boing tv, Xeni visits with John Gaeta, the Academy Award-winning Visual Effects supervisor of the Matrix trilogy, to learn more about his digital craft in the new film Speed Racer. This latest Wachowski brothers project reinterprets the classic 1960s Japanese anime series of the same name, and opens in theaters nationwide on May 9.

According to HR, the big screen adventures of Speed, Racer X, Trixie and the gang have been ?tracking unimpressively in prerelease surveys. People, apparently, aren’t saying they are super excited about seeing this movie and that may result in a box office of ‘only’ $25 million to $35 million during the opening weekend. Since Iron Man made almost $100 million last weekend, it has a good chance of finishing first this weekend and keeping Speed Racer in, gasp, second place. It?s all downhill from there.

Still, it might not be as dire for the Racer family as it seems. Family films are tough to track before opening, so moms, dads, and their kids might give Hollywood the old middle finger and go see this anyway. Even a paltry $35 million dollar opening will put the film on track to be profitable, so that will make the studio happy and allow them to make more movies without coming up with any new or fresh ideas. Warner Brothers executives sound very optimistic. President Dan Fellman said, ?this is the first real family movie of the summer, and we?re going to give it out best.? Actually, that doesn?t sound very optimistic at all.

Star(s) to watch : Emile Hirsch (”The Girl Next Door”) as Speed X, & Matthew Fox (”Vantage Point”, “Smokin’ Aces”) as Racer X.

Genre : Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi, Fantasy, Adaptation.

Release date : May 9, 2008

Official website : http://speedracerthemovie.warnerbros.com/

Poster : http://movies-update.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/speed_racer1-200𝗬.jpg

Trailer :

Ashton Kutcher and Cameron Diaz hate on each other with dynamite verve in What Happens in Vegas. The Punch and Judy fireworks get off to an early start, when the two wake up in Las Vegas only to learn that they got hitched during what should have been a sloshed one-night stand.

What Happens in Vegas stars Cameron Diaz and Ashton Kutcher as two random strangers who meet one night in Vegas, get wasted and subsequently get married by drunken mistake. However, while they’re parting ways the next morning — admitting their stupid mistakes — both wind up winning a three million dollar jackpot. It was her quarter, but he put it in. When a judge sentences them to “six months of hard marriage” these two strangers — who now despise one another — will have to find a way to make it work.

Star(s) to watch : Ashton Kutcher (”Open Season”, “Dude, Where’s My Car?”, “The Butterfly Effect”) as Jack Fuller, Cameron Diaz (”Shrek”, “Charlie’s Angels”, “The Mask”) as Joy McNally, & Queen Latifah (”Taxi”, “The Bone Collector”) as Dr. Twitchell.

Genre : Comedy.

Release date : May 9, 2008

Official website : http://www.whathappensinvegasmovie.com/

Poster : http://movies-update.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/what_happens_in_vegaҀ-202×300.jpg

Trailer :

SUNDAY AM: Here are the official blockbuster numbers — Paramount Pictures release of Marvel Studios’ Iron Man, in 4,105 theaters,’made an estimated $35,125,000 on Friday 5/2, an estimated $37,500,000 on Saturday 5/3, for an estimated 3-day weekend box office of $100,750,000.’Advance screenings in select locations, about 2,500 venues, from 8:00 PM to midnight on Thursday 5/1 contributed an additional $3,500,000.’With this addition, the total estimated box office is $104,250,000. The estimated international box office for the weekend is $96,750,000 from 57 territories.?The total combined estimated global box office for Marvel Studios’ Iron Man is $201,000,000.

The remarkable tally stands as the second biggest opening day in box office history for a non-sequel trailing only the $39.4M of fellow Marvel Comics super hero Spider-Man from this very same weekend in 2002. Tony Stark and pals edged out Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone which launched in November 2001 with $32.3M on its opening Friday. That figure however, would amount to roughly $40M at today’s ticket prices. Still, Iron Man could not be in better company given that the character is not as universally known as Spider-Man, Batman, or Superman. Audience feedback has been very positive too as the Paramount release has earned a solid A- average from over 3,000 users of Yahoo Movies.

The Marvel comic book character’s suit embodies a futuristic technology that may enhance human capabilities in war, but the current battlefield belongs to a growing swarm of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) and robots that could someday give even Iron Man a run for his money. UAVs clocked more than 500,000 hours in the air by the beginning of 2008, performing many of the tasks normally done by piloted aircraft.

Star(s) to watch : Leslie Bibb as Christine Everhart, Gwyneth Paltrow (”Seven”, “Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow”, “Shallow Hal”) as Virginia “Pepper” Potts, Terrence Howard (”The Brave One”) as Jim Rhodes, Jeff Bridges (”Blown Away”, “Jagged Edge”) as Obadiah Stane/Iron Monger, &amp Robert Downey Jr. (”The Shaggy Dog”, “A Scanner Darkly”) as Tony Stark/Iron Man.

Genre : Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi, Adaptation.

Release date : May 2, 2008

Rating : 9/10

Official website : http://www.ironmanmovie.com/

Poster : http://movies-update.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/iron_man-212𝗬.jpg

Trailer :

The story is shopworn, but not without dramatic potential: Joaquin Phoenix and Mark Wahlberg play brothers on the opposite-ish sides of the law Joseph (Wahlberg) has followed in the footsteps of their father (Robert Duvall) and joined the NYPD while Bobby (Phoenix) rebels by running a seedy nightclub. With a drug dealer inching into Bobby’s territory, he’s forced to reconsider his loyalties.

With this third work, Gray sets all inhibitions aside and begins confidently with a series of black-and-white cop photos set to melancholy saxophone followed by the image of uninhibitedly sexy party girl Amada (Eva Mendes) pleasuring herself on a ’70s-style gold couch. Her boyfriend Bobby (Joaquin Phoenix) enters the frame and caresses her thigh, then her breast; there’s a cut to them waiting to kiss, with Amada’s tongue fluttering in the air, then a cut of Bobby pulling down her top, so that one of her breasts pops out?all set to Blondie’s “Heart of Glass.” This arousing vision of a warm erotic paradise, unrepentantly heightened by the use of drugs, haunts the rest of the movie, which deals with raw loss, the chill of betrayal, and the opposing institutions of the mob and the police force.

The good brother, played with sullen intensity by Mark Wahlberg, is decorated New York City policeman Joseph Grusinsky. The bad brother — well, he’s not really all that bad — is the playboy-ish Bobby Green, played at first with devil-may-care glee by Joaquin Phoenix, later with a sullen intensity that goes way beyond Wahlberg’s character. Bobby, who tells his disapproving deputy police chief father (Robert Duvall) that he has changed his last name to something easier to pronounce, runs the swanky El Caribe nightclub in an old Brooklyn movie palace that’s owned by kindly Russian immigrants. Bobby is in love with vivacious club dancer Amada Juarez (Eva Mendes), toys with drugs and knows a lot of unsavory characters, although he isn’t part of their illicit schemes that usually involve drugs and murder.

Star(s) to watch : Eva Mendes (”Once Upon a Time in Mexico”, “2 Fast 2 Furious”, “Ghost Rider”, “Urban Legends: Final Cut”, “Exit Wounds”) as Amanda Juarez, Mark Wahlberg (”The Big Hit”, “The Italian Job”, “The Departed”) as Joseph Grusinsky, &amp Joaquin Phoenix (”Signs”, “Gladiator”) as Bobby Green.

Genre : Drama, Gangster.

Release date : October 12, 2007

Rating : 7/10

Official website : http://www.sonypictures.com/movies/weownthenight/

Poster : http://movies-update.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/we_own_the_night-200×300.jpg

Trailer :

The Seeker, titled The Dark Is Rising in the United Kingdom and The Seeker: The Dark is Rising in Canada, is a 2007 film adaptation of the second book in the five-book children’s fantasy series The Dark Is Rising by Susan Cooper. The Seeker is the first film to be produced by Walden Media and 20th Century Fox as part of their Fox-Walden partnership.

Based on the book series by by Susan Cooper, Eleven-year-old Will Stanton (Alexander Ludwig) discovers he’s one of the last Old Ones - a group of immortals. And he has to save the world from the dark forces.

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Star(s) to watch : Amelia Warner (”Aeon Flux”) as Maggie Barnes.

Genre : Adventure, Fantasy, Adaptation.

Release date : October 5, 2007

Rating : 6/10

Official website : http://www.seekthesigns.com/

Poster : http://movies-update.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/the_seeker-202𝗬.jpg

Trailer :

Gang-du (SONG Kang-ho) works at a food-stand on the banks of the Han River. Dozing on the job, he is awakened by his daughter, Hyun-seo (KO A-sung), who is angry with him for missing a teacher-parent meeting at school. As Gang-du walks out to the riverbank with a delivery, he notices that a large crowd of people has gathered, taking pictures and talking about something hanging from the Han River Bridge. The otherwise idyllic landscape turns suddenly to bedlam when a terrifying creature climbs up onto the riverbank and begins to crush and eat people. Gang-du and his daughter run for their lives but suddenly the thing grabs Hyun-seo and disappears back into the river. The government announces that the thing apparently is the Host of an unidentified virus. Having feared the worst, Gang-du receives a phone call from his daughter who is frightened, but very much alive. Gang-du makes plans to infiltrate the forbidden zone near the Han River to rescue his daughter from the clutches of the horrifying Host…

Genre : Sci-Fi, Thriller, Comedy.

Release date : March 9, 2007

Rating : 8/10

Official website : http://www.hostmovie.com/

Poster : http://movies-update.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/the_host-221×300.jpg

Trailer :

Critics of Al Gore’s global-warming documentary An Inconvenient Truth derided it as more like a videotaped lecture than an actual film, but what it lacked in cinematic style, it made up for in earnest scholarship. As if providing the overbearing yang to Gore’s overly refined yin, The 11th Hour arrives as Inconvenient Truth’s evil twin: a film that’s so restlessly, numbingly cinematic that it can barely communicate its message. Viewers will disagree over the appropriateness of the movie’s fear-mongering about the incipient environmental doomsday, based on their political predispositions, but either way, 11th Hour isn’t likely to win any new converts with its oppressive style and dizzying barrage of fuzzy factoids.

Produced and narrated by Leonardo DiCaprio, Hour treads too much of the same ground paved by Al Gore’s global warming film, which won last year’s Oscar for best documentary. You’ll find some of the same charts, data and conclusions.

Though The 11th Hour presents a depressing laundry list of statistics, it’s not all doom and gloom. The film also highlights humanity’s genius and ability to continue growth and innovation with systems that sustain rather than degrade. In an effort to take An Inconvenient Truth to the next level and create action out of awareness, The 11th Hour provides a layman’s guide to existing resolutions and developing proposals. The “solution summary” covers all the bases from sustainable design to renewable energy to biomimicry. Such an overview of options is positive — a welcomed change from the reprimanding voice so often associated with the environmental movement.

Director: Nadia Conners, Leila Conners Petersen

Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Thom Hartmann

Genre : Documentary.

Release date : August 17, 2007

Rating : 8/10

Official website : http://wip.warnerbros.com/11thhour/

Poster : http://movies-update.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/the_11th_hour-202×300.jpg

Trailer :