"Bull Durham" is a 1988 sports romantic comedy film directed by Ron Shelton. The story revolves around the world of minor league baseball and follows the lives of three main characters: Crash Davis, a veteran catcher; "Nuke" LaLoosh, a talented but inexperienced pitcher; and Annie Savoy, a passionate baseball groupie who chooses one player each season to mentor.
As the baseball season progresses, Crash takes Nuke under his wing, teaching him not just about the game but also about life and love. Meanwhile, Annie finds herself caught in a love triangle between Crash and Nuke, leading to amusing and heartfelt moments of romance and rivalry.
The film explores themes of love, loyalty, and the pursuit of dreams. It has been praised for its witty dialogue, authentic portrayal of the baseball world, and the chemistry between the lead actors. "Bull Durham" is often considered one of the best sports films ever made and has become a cult classic. It stars Kevin Costner as Crash Davis, Tim Robbins as "Nuke" LaLoosh, and Susan Sarandon as Annie Savoy.
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.
Iron Man 3 is an American super-hero fantasy film scheduled to release in 2013. The movie is mostly based on the best of Marvel's Iron Man comics' series, "Extremis". In Iron Man 3, Tony Stark finds himself helpless before the menace that looms on him, his beloved ones and all the civilized humanity. His feels guilty for numerous deaths of his friends in the previous "Good vs. Evil" fights. He decides to change the world around himself, to make it less harmful both for personal guilt and happy and restful life of his folks. These attempts make world better break into pieces when powerful "Extremis" break loose in its turn. Referred as a virus, "Extremis" is not exactly what you think. It's a Super-Soldier Serum that consists of billions of programmable nano-robots. This army of robots invades the human brain and affects so called "Body's Repair Center". These nano-mediums totally erase all the original instructions that allows as to recover from wounds and replace these instructions with preprogrammed ones. The body fails to perform its basic functions and fails covered with serious injuries caused by "Extremis" action. Then the new program tells body's repair how to repair these wounds by replacing old tissues by new ones and even how to grow new organs. The better ones. The fact that this serum was produced at one of Stark factory's makes him feeling even guiltier. But there is no time to regrets, the Evil equipped with "Extremis" attacks a human world, and Iron Man is our last hope. Being defeated by virus-powered evil forces in the first round, Tony takes a frantic pace – he enchants his body with "Extremis" too. But his program for body's repair center makes quite big difference with the "bad guy's" one.
One of the most anticipated westerns of 2013, The Lone Ranger's script was rewritten for several times to be finally approved by Disney Pictures and Jerry Bruckheimer Films. Johnny Depp and Armie Hammer were confirmed for leading roles in the movie by director Gore Verbinski, and filming has began soon after Johnny Depp completed his role in Dark Shadows. The movie tells a story about a ranger, John Reid who tries his best as serious man serving the justice in the town. In one day he meets Tonto,a native American who practice some mysterious spiritual cult. They befriend and travel along time to time getting into serious troubles. Tonto's tranquility and self-control alongside with Reid's braveness helps them to defeat their enemies. Meanwhile, Tonto's spiritual techniques make lots of changes their ways of life. John Reid becomes stronger, but not physically, he develops "superhuman" traits making him a true legend standing behind a justice in this Wild Wild West. While the action unfolds in the fictional American Old West, Tonto and Rider have to survive not only human greed and aggression, but some mystical forces standing far beyond their understanding.
Directed and produced by Allen Hughes, Broken City, stars quite stellar cast: Catherine Zeta-Jones, Russell Crowe and Mark Wahlberg. The movie tells a story about a policeman, Billy Taggart (Mark Wahlberg) who finds himself in the midst of serious issues aroused after a questionable shooting on the New York streets. Faced the 99% probability to be sentenced and jailed for indefinite period of time, he cross his steps with NY Mayor, Nicholas Hostetler (Russell Crowe), who helps him to get out of troubles. Meanwhile, Billy starts a private investigator career thanks to help of his new "friend", Nicholas. The friendship has its additional advantages: Billy gets some" bonus jobs". The only doubts he has about these "bonuses" - how lawful they are. Soon, he gets quite unordinary task from Mayor: to trail Mrs Hostetler and investigate her extra-martial adventures. The "bonus" worth 50,00USD – a quite desirable sum of money for Billy. He is eager to make a deal and manages to gather facts of Mrs Hostetler adultery in very timely manner. However, an easy task turns out be even worse nightmare then troubles that left him stripped of badge.
A prehistoric man, Grug, and his ferocious family awake, when an earthquake strikes. All they have to do is to run out of their comfortable cave-apartments and accept their fate of "caveless" wanderers traveling uncharted and fantastical world. As they travel, a prehistoric genius meets them on their way. His name – Guy, and he tries to use his brain, not strength, in contrast as Grug does. This unusual, as per those times, behavior makes him derelict in eyes of contemporaries. Especially in the eyes of Crug, whose oldest daughter, Eep, seems to be fallen in love with Guy. This inappropriate order of things: a sudden earthquake, a crazy nerd, and unexpected maturing of the daughter makes Crug's world being ruining. However, the rest of his family is less worried of these events: Ugga, Grug's wife; Thunk, their fat but kind son; and Gran Grug's mother-in-law and his main enemy in this world. If you are not excited with the story, think about how The Croods was made. Produced by Kirk De Micco, Chris Sanders and voiced by Nicolas Cage, Ryan Reynolds and Emma Stone, the animated movie looks much better then How to Train Your Dragon, the one that has put The Croods on hold in 2010.
Could you imagine what would happen if your identity had been stolen: your good name had been used by another person, who easily would completely destroy your credit history by being a "Shopping Queen" with your credit card? The Identity Thief, filmed in 2013 telling us exact story about unlucky businessman living in Denver, NY whose identity was stolen by a woman living in Miami. How is that possible, you say? Easily, if man's name is Sandy, there is no problem for woman to be Sandy too -Sandy Bigelow Patterson, to be accurate. The movie storyline revolves around the real Sandy Bigelow Patterson, who is traveling across the half-country to catch the thief and to get real Sandy's financial personality back. This unlucky character is impersonated by Jason Bateman, who may be familiar to you as Michael Bluth in Arrested Development and Keith Yert in Hit and Run. You may also remember him in one of the leading roles in Horrible Bosses (as Nick Hendricks).