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.
Alex Cross, which was previously named «I, Alex Cross» on early development stage, was renamed lately by the distributional company Summit Entertainment , due to the marketing reasons. The movie follows the steps of police detective Alex Cross as he chases a serial killer, who murdered Alex's pregnant wife. This cold-blooded murder was committed as revenge. Just before his wife was killed Alex takes the wind out of the serial killer's sails while he planned another contract killing. The assassination was failed and the murderer in a fit of rage commits a vengeance by killing Alex most loved one. After these the hitman hides and waits for Alex next move. His masterplane is to evade Cross and put him on the edge, between his lust for revenge and ethical principles. However, as Alex Cross gets close to the murderer, it becomes clear that the unbelievable evidences point on everything-changing revelation. Besides the twisted plot, the movie features quite a peculiar cast ensemble: Dr. Alex Cross is portrayed by Tyler Perry, you may recognize him as Madea, if you are quite insightful; while the main antagonist Michael "The Butcher" Sullivan/"Picasso" is played by Matthew Fox, who may be familiar to you by his roles in such movies as Vantage Point as Kent Taylor and We Are Marshall as Red Dawson.
The premise of Here Comes the Boom is ludicrous and absurd yet funny and preposterous. A tired of cost cutting school plans, 42- years old biology teacher dares to change how thing run and the extra-curricular music program from being closed and his teacher from being laid off. The way he chooses to raise the money for school budget is quite extraordinary one. He decides to start a career as the professional mixed-martial arts fighter. There is one only problem that stands between him and preventing the financial collapse – he cannot fight. But an incredible luck combined with a strong will work wonders together, because even if you lose the fight you get your money anyway. This simple idea motivates Scott Voss (Kevin James: Zookeeper, The Dilemma) to raise the money for the school and impress the nurse he unsuccessfully trying to seduce. You would perhaps be trying too, if you know that the nurse is portrayed by a sultry beautiful woman, Salma Hayek.
Sitting on the 15th place in The Greatest Directors of All Time list, Woody Allen is a talented writer, who has got more Oscars than fingers on both of your hands. And his next masterpiece To Rome with Love is likely to bring him another one (an Oscar, of course, not a finger). The events of the movie, that seem to be unconnected at the first blush, are masterfully intertwined with each other, mostly not physically, but spiritually, which is an Allen's bonanza anyway. The first story follows a famous NY architect, Jack (Jesse Eisenberg: 30 Minutes or Less, The Social Network) who is nothing more than a younger "reflection" of John (Alec Baldwin: The Good Shepherd, The Departed), who is trying to go back in the past to his youth. Another story is Antonio (Alessandro Tiberi) and Milly's (Alessandra Mastronardi) amorous drama which they are going through separately. This story also involves an Italian prostitute Anna (Penélope Cruz: Broken Embraces, Vicky Cristina Barcelona), and Italian cinema celebrity Luca Salta (Antonio Albanese). There are two other stories (or vignettes) that seem to be separated and unconnected but all of them are nothing more than beads on a curved string of life. By the way, Woody Allen has refuted the assumption of vignette intersection, leaving the audience an opportunity to decide what unites the stories.
It doesn't even matter if you've ever read the novel written by the greatest Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy, or, maybe, you doesn't even heard about Anna Karenina (what is unlikely.) Anyway, this awesome story deserves to be laid on film tape more and more times. And for those, who plans to get an Oscar in this year there are no better way to do it than to make a movie using the unparalleled Tolstoy's masterpiece. The whole plot of the novel has been left intact: the action unfolds in the 19th century Russia, where the social elite have its own rules and traditions, and where adultery is counting as the worst sin ever. In those classy times, the story follows a young woman Anna (Keira Knightley), who is happily married to top-echelon officer Alexei Karenin (Jude Law). She unexpectedly meets the man of her dreams, Count Vronsky (Aaron Johnson) and falls in love with him. Their mutual romantic relationship leads the cinematic adaptation's plot to the predictable dramatic end, where a train plays a crucial and a final role.
For those who can't get enough of Glee, Universal Studios created an out-loud musical, Pitch Perfect which acclaimed to be a successful hit in 2012 alongside with Step Up Revolution. The story of Pitch Perfect is revolving around a girl Beca, which is portrayed by Anna Kendrick (if you have no idea, who Anna Kendrick is – just remember Rosie from Twilight Saga and you will get a clue). In Pitch Perfect, Anna plays a music-addicted teenager who just arrived to her new college and seems to be mismatch for any clique there. Nevertheless, she herds a group of mean and weird girls that are climbing their way to the heights of recognition as college acappella. Fortunately, Beca features a strong and beautiful vocal talent which will be certainly very helpful in their music battle against male acappella of the college. Namely around that battle most of the Pitch Perfect action revolves.
Ralf is a lonesome antagonist from arcade video game Fix-It Felix Jr. He is nine-foot-tall, 643-pound anti-hero whose goal is to crash everything that main protagonist Fix-It Felix fixes. Ralf is representing the "Evil Forces" for almost 30 years and tired to be just a number two in the shadow of Fix-It Felix success. In his desperation, Ralph decides to break up with the arcade and escapes thru the power cord out to the world of other video games where he hopes to prove himself as a true hero. His first stop is first person shooter Hero's Duty, where he meets cold-blooded and tough-as-nails Sergeant Calhoun fighting with Cy-Bugs invading her planet. After Ralph helps Calhoun to get rid of the alien invasion he finds himself in the thick of things boiling in racing video game Sugar Rush, where encounters Vanellope von Schweetz facing serious troubles and the only person to help her is Ralph. Initially Disney was planning to name the movie Joe Jump or Reboot Ralph, but at the time when whole conception was assembled, the 3D animated story was decided to rename in Wreck-it-Ralf as the same name arcade game. Wreck-it-Ralf is full of gimmicks, spoofs, allusions and allegories – you will be pleased to meet here the orange colored little ghost from Packman, a Zombie and lots of others funny villains from 30 years old videogames. You should add here the astonishingly matching voices of John C. Reilly, Jane Lynch, Sarah Silverman in perfect combination with soundtracks of Flo Rida (remember 'Good Feeling'?) and all what you get is another Disney's unquestionable success.
In a small silent American city five are shot dead. The local policemen make a rapid investigation and quickly arrest the culprit. It seems like everything is clear and the case is closed. But the guy accused in five death makes a strange declaration in front of cameras "Get Jack Reacher", claiming himself innocent. The crystal clear case turns out to be a complicated chain of events, when Reacher, who saw the accused man's request, heads to the city in order to restore the justice. The movie is solely based on Lee Child's series of novels about the giant military professional Jack Reacher. In the Christopher McQuarrie's movie Jack is portrayed by Tom Cruise. Although Cruise is not as tall as Jack Reacher described in Lee Child's books, he manages the role in very persuasive way. Furthermore, Tom looks perfectly adequate for the role of Reacher, mostly because we are to accustomed to his previous roles as special agents or military professionals in the movies like Valkyrie, Knight and Day, Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol.
The" found footage" genre was used almost to death in the period of 2005-2012. However, Scott Derrickson's Sinister is something bigger than regular "found footage scary movie". In Sinister, where Derrickson's talent is multiplied on Ethan Hawke's play, the old fashion draggy movie blossoms with new fruitful flowers conceiving the new levels of horror film's quality. The story begins, when the main protagonist, Ellison finds a footage which was made a long time ago by the previous inhabitants of his new house. As it follows from the footage, four members of the family were hanged on the nearest trees, while fifth one; a little girl has disappeared somewhere and hasn't been found since. As the professional writer, specializing on the scandalous crime stories, he begins his own investigation with the help of local deputy sheriff (James Ransone, who may be familiar to you as Officer Thomas Prudenti in The Son of No One). As they excavate new facts and stories about this mysterious murder they find similar cases where entire families was killed besides the little girls which are still missing. Step by step Ellison immerses deep into the horror of these mysterious deaths becoming increasingly unsettled mentally, as the rest of his family show the sings of serious emotional distress. His wife Tracy (Juliet Rylance, who played in Adam Shaw) and 12-year-old Trevor (Michael Hall D'Addario who played in People Like Us) hear strange frightening voices that are coming out from the attic where the scary footage was found.
Filmed in 2012, Taken 2 is Olivier's Megaton sequel of Taken which was previously produced in cooperation with Luc Besson in 2008. The sequel's scenario was written by Luc Besson and Robert Mark Kamen who wrote the screenplays for Besson's Transporters and Fifth Element. The plot of Taken 2 is continuing the story of the first movie, where special agent Bryan Mills (Liam Neeson) rescues his daughter Kim (Maggie Grace) from taken as the hostage by Albanian mobs specializing in kidnapping teenagers to sell them into sexual slavery. The events of Taken 2 start just after the father of one of trhe Albanian mobs, who was killed by Bryan Mills, learns about murder of his son and swears to kill Bryan. This Albanian Mafioso, who is called Murad (Rade Е erbedЕѕija) abducts Byan's ex-wife Lenore (Famke Janssen), while she is on her vacation in Istanbul, counting on Bryan to come and rescue her. His masterplan seems to be successful one and he captivates Bryan alongside with Lenore hoping to kill them both. In this situation Bryan enlists their daughter Kim instructing her how to rescue them using special tactic: to kill Albanian mobs one by one in some specific ways.
Inspired by California's Parent Trigger law in 2010, a Daniel Barnz's movie Won't Back Down is telling a story about two mothers, who are adamant in their decision to change things in downgrading school of their city. Their strong will and resoluteness to override the sequence of mediocre performance reports issued by the school year after year leads them to fierce battle with corruption and indolence prevailing behind the school officers and government officials. Two mothers, a bartender (Maggie Gyllenhaal) and a teacher Nona Alberts (Viola Davis) maybe belonging two different backgrounds, but they are very eager to fight the bureaucracy personalized in Principal Thompson and Teacher's Union President (portrayed by Holly Hunter, Grace Hanadarko from Saving Grace TV series). It seems like the mothers are going to lose everything in this unequal combat, however their good will to change things for better will bring them victory and safe education for their children, which deserve the best future.