Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is a 2023 animated superhero film produced by Columbia Pictures and Sony Pictures Animation, and distributed by Sony Pictures Releasing. Directed by Joaquim Dos Santos, Kemp Powers, and Justin K. Thompson, it is the sequel to the Academy Award-winning Into the Spider-Verse (2018).
Shameik Moore returns as Miles Morales, who is pulled across the multiverse and introduced to the Spider-Society — an interdimensional task force of Spider-People led by the severe Miguel O'Hara/Spider-Man 2099 (Oscar Isaac). When Miles learns the Society operates on a rigid doctrine about which tragedies must be allowed to happen, he finds himself at odds with hundreds of versions of himself. Hailee Steinfeld returns as Gwen Stacy, with Jason Schwartzman voicing the villainous Spot.
Released on June 2, 2023, the film grossed over $690 million worldwide and drew rapturous reviews, with critics calling its animation among the most ambitious ever committed to a mainstream feature. It received an Academy Award nomination for Best Animated Feature and ends on a cliffhanger leading into Beyond the Spider-Verse.
American Pie franchise ex-director, Paul Weitz, tries himself on a quite new territory. Released in 2013, Admission tells an ordinary story about a middle age woman, who gave up her son for adoption many years ago and now are filled with regrets about sins of youth. A self-confident, law abiding admission officer in Princeton, Portia Nathan, tries her best to live her life "by the book" both at the workplace and in the private life. This approach is a nuisance for Portia's boyfriend, Mark, a local faculty member. He knows nothing about his girlfriend's past and he is much surprised when Portia meets a young student Jeremiah, who supposedly is her son. Nobody knows if this true, including Portia, but all the circumstances point to that. Nevertheless, Portia decides to turn the life road of the young gentleman in more perspective direction, in spite of her law-abiding way of life. Where will this decision lead Portia, Jeremiah and Mark? Admission's ensemble cast features Michael Sheen (Crooked House, Cut Bank, The Twilight Saga, Midnight in Paris, Tron: Legacy) as Mark, unparalleled writer and actress Tina Fey (30 Rock, Saturday Night Live) as Portia Nathan and Nat Wolff (The Last Keepers, Stuck in Love, New Year's Eve) as Jeremiah Balakian.
The story of Stoker is revolving around a teenager with a uncommon name, India, who lost his father. In those sad circumstances, her Uncle decides to move to India's house to join the teenager and her mother. Uncle Charlie seems to be a solicitous, attentive man who really cares about India and her mother. But, what she knows about him. Before her father dies, she doesn't even hear about Charlie. Who is he? What are his real intentions? Is he really her Uncle? There are more questions than answers left. The movie is filmed by unparalleled Chan-wook Park on the screenplay written by Wentworth Miller and Erin Cressida Wilson. It features quite stellar ensemble cast including: Mia Wasikowska (Alice in Wonderland, The Kids Are All Right, Jane Eyre) playing India Stoker, Nicole Kidman (Just Go with It, Rabbit Hole, Nine) playing India's mother - Evelyn 'Evie' Stoker, while Matthew Goode (Leap Year, Watchmen, A Single Man) plays Uncle Charlie.
No one expected that on the edge of the war between Boston Police Department and local Russian drug mafia, two policewomen will stand against the cruel mob boss from Moscow. His gang strikes fear on Boston's citizens and his corruption network seems to be protective enough to feel himself invulnerable. Nothing can stop him. Nothing but two crazy policewomen, no one could ever imagined are able to work together. Neither Special Agent Sarah Ashburn, nor Detective Shannon Mullins knows anything about friendly support; it looks like they hated each other from the very first moment they met – but, what's really important they hate gangsters. And as they approach the target, Sarah and Shannon became deadly cohesive team…Sarah Ashburn is portrayed by Sandra Bullock (The Proposal, Miss Congeniality, Premonition, Infamous, The Lake House), while Melissa McCarthy (leading role in Mike & Molly, This Is 40, Identity Thief ) plays Det. Shannon Mullins.
Directed by Louis Leterrier and filmed on screenplay written by Ed Solomon, Boaz Yakinand Edward Ricourt, Now You See Me follows a strange sequence of events centered on weird show group of magicians named The Four Horsemen. Their show features neither rabbits out of top hat nor playing cards out of sleeves. There is something much more valued by audience in modern world than these old fashioned tricks, and The Four Horsemen have a proposition for this demand. Meet their tricks: a real bank robbery, a million dollars heist, a white collar blackmailing. How it's possible to be real? The question that demands some non-magic answers, at least such question has FBI – and these guys will play hard to get an answer. The stakes are raising when magic hunters get to know that weird magicians have some plan to shock the audience with their next incredibly risky yet audacious robbery has ever happened in the history of FBI, the robbery that probably will occupy number one in The Hall of Fame of Robberies, if such ever existed. Unfortunately, the attempts of FBI agents to discover what are really standing behind the magic tricks break on their suspiciousness to each other. Finally, as the day X comes closer they decide to ask for help from world most known magic mythbusters, with ambiguous reputation Thaddeus (played by Morgan Freeman). The greatest crime of the century is about to happen, however neither FBI agents, not Thaddeus are approached a step closer to unlock the puzzle of The Four Horsemen's riddle. What is this- a double-cross of one agent, Thaddeus' betrayal or … real magic? Besides the twisted plot we have great pleasure to watch an unparalleled play of actors. Besides abovementioned Morgan Freeman, Now You See Me stars some truly superior actors: Dave Franco (Warm Bodies, 21 Jump Street, Fright Night), Isla Fisher (Desperados, The Great Gatsby, Rise of the Guardians, Bachelorette) and Jesse Eisenberg (To Rome with Love, 30 Minutes or Less, The Social Network.)
One of the most anticipated animated sequels of 2013, Despicable Me 2 follows the return of an ex-villain and now parental-superhero, Gru, his pretty restless "girls" and incredibly funny yet faithful minions. Now they have to withstand the next evil mind voiced by unparalleled Al Pacino. The first movie, Despicable Me released in 2010 and, as the introductory one, won the hearts of the viewers by the immediacy of its leading character turning from evil to good, unlike the 2013 movie where most of the characters are familiar to us, despite the main antagonist. Here in 2013 Despicable Me 2 the film's plot comes to the fore and the creators promised not to deceive our expectation. As in the original movie there are lots of unpredictable scenario turns and screenwriters' tricks for which we unquestionably owe Ken Daurio and Cinco Paul, two figures standing behind the previous film and another animated big hit, The Lorax. The next big thing of the movie are the voices: Steve Carell, Miranda Cosgrove, Kristen Wiig and Russell Brand are on the place voicing Gru, Margo, Miss Hattie and Dr. Nefario accordingly, in the manner they did in the first Despicable Me, which makes this movie a win-win option both for parents and kids.
Steven Soderbergh's Side Effects scheduled to hit the screens in 2013 is centered on unfortunate woman Emily Hawkins who is waiting for her husband to be released from a prison. As the release time comes closer, Emily is showing more signs of anxiety. This anxiety leads to serious psychological issues and Emily takes psychologist consultations. The doctor prescribes a new drug to heal her troubled mind – a brand new wonder of modern pharmaceutical industry. The pills help Emily but incredibly effective medication shows its side effects. Now the issues caused by the pills seem to be much more threatening than initial Emily's troubles. Previously named The Better Pills, Side Effects isn't the first Steven Soderbergh's movie project in the field of "applied psychotechnics", just remember his We Need to Talk About Kevin and Playground; neither for Rooney Mara who plays the leading role in Side Effects, her remarkable roles in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and The Social Network have showed a great potential of this brilliant actress. The rest of the cast ensemble is awesome too: Channing Tatum, Vinessa Shaw, Jude Law, Catherine Zeta-Jones, David Costabile and Mamie Gummer – not every movie can boast such a set of great actors gathered in single project.
World War Z stars Brad Pitt as Gerry Lane, an UN employee who travels the world to write down the stories of greatest world war's survivors, the war of living beings against dead, the war of humans against zombies. The war that has had a global reach and has covered entire planet: from biggest megacities to small distinct islands. The survivors' destinies and ways there are managed to overcome the zombie epidemic were quite different from country to country and from culture to culture. First signs of future tribulation have came from South Africa where cases of "African Lyssa" were initially noticed. It took almost three month for future pandemic to shown itself the next time. Next case has happened in China where Patient #0 was subjected to medical research. However, Chinese Authorities seems to be prepared this time: military forces start national mobilization. In order to hide the real reasons of military activities China foments the war conflict with Taiwan to acquit the mobilization in front of the face of rest of the world. While all of the civilized society remains calm and kept in the dark, another country Israel starts to show the strange political behavior. Israel Authorities abandons the entire disputed territories builds military fortified wall around the remains of its territory. All the Jewish from every corner of the world are strongly asked it left their places of residence and to move in Israel urgently. Meanwhile, the signs of future catastrophic events encounters all over the planet, nearly in every country. Soon after the entire civilized world enter in the state of war against zombies. The massive nuclear impact at the former Iran territory follows and the Earth enters a Nuclear Winter. Despite of the global war, there are the islands of unbelievable equanimity. Spy satellites' photos show no signs of epidemic in South Korea, however the population of this country skyrocketing reduces; and nobody knows why – an automatic military defense perimeter leaves no chances to local disquisition. The last resort of humanity is Cuba, where no zombies reached and every suspicious human being is exterminated without delay. However, apart of this story, Brad Pitt's character, Gerry Lane has its own story. The story of his family he managed to rescue from the very first moment of global zombie epidemic, the family he was asked to left in order to travel the world to gather the facts which are able to be on help to end the World War Z with human victory. The movie is loosely based on the same name modern novel of Max Brooks which has been written in 2006. It was considered that the book is totally unfilmable due to its global reach and huge quantity of crucial panoramic scenes needed be filmed with big budget. That's why the script was rewritten for several times after it was finalized. And even then it has been underwent some significant changes which caused lots of scenes to be reshoot and release date to be postponed for half of the year. Another interesting fact about the movie – World War Z filming right were subject of severe bidding war between two high-profile Hollywood studios Plan B Entertainment and Appiean Way owned by two high profile Hollywood celebs Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio accordingly.
Guillermo del Toro once again tries to horrify as after a spooky Don't Be Afraid of the Dark - now, with his next horrendous creature Mama (2013). The story of Mama starts from scene where two sisters Victoria (Megan Charpentier) and Lilly (Isabelle Nélisse) mysteriously disappear in the nearby forest, after their mother was ferociously killed by their father. Lilly's and Victoria's uncle, Lucas (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) tries his best to investigate this strange disappearing and to find little girls, if it's possible. But days has pass, and his rescue expedition hasn't show any results. In desperation he seeks and seeks his nieces again making it almost the main mission of his life. Finally, when he is about to give it up, he encounters a weird cabin in the forest, where two girls are living on their own, safe and in the good health. And there would be nothing extraordinary, if we talked about days of searching. But, almost five years have passed since, Victoria and Lilly were missed… That asks lots of questions. How little girls survived in the forest alone? Were they alone? And who was welcomed in Uncle Lucas's house alongside with the children? It seems like little girls' mother haunted their minds and what was taken as aftermath of the stress now turns to be a paranormal entity, Mama that has infested Lucas' house. The situation becomes really horrifying when Lucas's girlfriend, Annabel (Jessica Chastain) decides to use hidden demonic powers of Mama to resurrect her own children, which died many years ago.
Safe Haven of 2013 is loosely based on the Nicholas Sparks' best-selling novel of 2011 with same name. The movie's storyline winds around private life of Katie Feldman and her past's dark secrets. Movie starts with scenes where we see Katie - she is settling in a small touristic town Southport, located near Cape Fear (North Carolina). Being a gorgeous, lighthearted young woman, she works as a waitress in one of the local restaurants. Everything looks fine and her life is passing in calm and friendly neighborhood, but as soon as film scenes go, we notice that Katie has to cope with some problems originating from her shady past. It comes absolutely clear that something was wrong in her "previous life" when a local store owner Alex Wheatley tries to build relationships with her. Katie withdraws into herself, although it becomes clear that she has similar feeling towards Alex. Why she keep her heart locked for a new love? It's a question that could be answered by some mysterious events living in Katie's past. The situation becomes more unstable when another man, Jo with enters her live with that sort of feelings. Now, Katie is faced some though choice, a widowed ex-army-mayor, Alex, a local dreamboat, Jo, and staying alone one-on-one with her past. Mostly targeted in woman audience, Safe Haven features not only typical Sparks' signature plot, but quite a decent ensemble cast: Katie Feldman is played by cute Julianne Hough (Sherrie Christian from Rock of Ages , Ariel from Footloose, and Georgia Burlesque), while Josh Duhamel portrays Alex Wheatley. We know Josh for his roles of Jeremy Coleman in Fire with Fire and Captain William Lennox in Transformers franchise.
Stories about mysterious telekinetic abilities were extremely popular in 70s. That's way Steven King's book Carrie was adopted as movie just in 2 years after the novel was written. In 2013 Carrie returns on big screens thanks to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and Screen Gems - both invested around 75 millions USD in this reincarnation of the film. Now Carrie features lots of stunning CGI effects that makes telekinetic tricks much more spectacular than 70's adaptation. What makes this movie special besides awesome explosions and incredibly realistic bloodbaths? The perfectly combined ensemble cast: just imagine a magnificent star of (500) Days of Summer, ChloГ« Grace Moretz as Carrie White in terrifying action scenes where telekinetic powers tearing apart all the stuff around and everting human bodies. Although, Lindsey Lohan was initially promoted for this role, finally Moretz was confirmed by director Kimberly Peirce. Chloe's mother Margaret White is played by Julianne Moore an Emme-awarded actress whose filmography includes but not limited by such masterpieces as Chloe, The Kids Are All Right, A Single Man, Shelter and Next. As for the plot, Peirce's Carrie is loosely built on the novel storyline with some exceptions which caused King's sarcastic remark "The real question is why, when the original was so good?" Carrie White is a lonesome, shy girl living in suburban house with her religious mother Margaret. Chloe's only friend Sue Snell (persuasively depicted by gorgeous Gabriella Wilde) decides to help Chloe to override her lone status by asking a local dreamboat, Tommy Ross (Sue's boyfriend, by the way) to invite Carrie to prom. Unfortunate prank turns out to be a catastrophic disaster for all those present at prom and for the entire town when Carrie unleashes her powers in devastating act of desperation.