The Last Witch Hunter (2015) Review

The Last Witch Hunter is a 2015 American fantasy action film directed by Breck Eisner and written by Cory Goodman, Matt Sazama, and Burk Sharpless.

The film stars Vin Diesel as an immortal witch hunter who must stop a plague from ravaging the entire world. The film was released on October 23, 2015, grossing $147 million while receiving generally unfavorable reviews from critics.

Eight hundred years ago, the Witch Queen unleashes the Black Plague to wipe out humanity. A band of knights, including a widowed Kaulder, whose family had died in the plague, storms her lair and in the ensuing battle, Kaulder manages to defeat her. Before dying, the Witch Queen curses Kaulder with eternal life.

In the present day, Kaulder prevents a teenage witch, Bronwyn, from unintentionally destroying an airplane with weather controlling runes stored in her luggage.

Kaulder is revealed to be working as a witch hunter for the Order of the Axe and Cross, an organization which aims to keep the truce between humans and witches (allowing witches to live freely providing they do not use magic on humans) and either executes or imprisons the witches who break the law.

He is aided by a priest called "Dolan", a tradition carried from the first priest who fought in the battle to destroy the Witch Queen.

XOXO (2016) Review

xoxo is a 2016 American drama film directed by Christopher Louie and starring Sarah Hyland, Graham Phillips, Brett DelBuono, Hayley Kiyoko, Colin Woodell, Ryan Hansen, Ione Skye, and Chris D'Elia. It is based on a story by Louie and is written by Dylan Meyer.
It was produced by Joe Russell p.g.a. and released on August 26, 2016, by Netflix.
The lives of six strangers collide during a frenetic night of romance and dream chasing when a young DJ is given a chance to perform at a festival.
In July 2015, it was announced Sarah Hyland, Chris D'Elia, and Graham Phillips, had joined the cast of the film, with Dylan Meyer writing the screenplay, while Netflix will produce and distribute the film.
That same month, Hayley Kiyoko and Colin Woodell joined the cast of the film, while Christopher Louie wrote the story and directed the film. In June 2016, Pete Tong joined the film as a producer and music supervisor.

The Hunger Games (2012) Review

The Hunger Games is a 2012 American tragic sci-fi experience movie coordinated by Gary Ross and dependent on Suzanne Collins' 2008 novel of a similar name. It is the principal portion in The Hunger Games film arrangement and was delivered by Nina Jacobson and Jon Kilik, with a screenplay by Ross, Collins, and Billy Ray. The film stars Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth, Woody Harrelson, Elizabeth Banks, Lenny Kravitz, Stanley Tucci, and Donald Sutherland. Set in a tragic dystopian future in the country of Panem, where a kid and a young lady from every one of the country's 12 Districts are picked yearly as "recognitions" and compelled to contend in The Hunger Games, an expand broadcast battle until the very end, Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) volunteers to assume her more youthful sister's position. With her area's male recognition, Peeta Mellark (Josh Hutcherson), Katniss goes to the Capitol to prepare and contend in the games.

Advancement of The Hunger Games started in March 2009 when Lions Gate Entertainment went into a co-creation concurrence with Color Force, which had procured the rights half a month sooner. Collins worked together with Ray and Ross to compose the screenplay. The screenplay extended the personality of Seneca Crane to permit a few advancements to be demonstrated straightforwardly to the crowd and Ross added a few scenes among Crane and Coriolanus Snow. The principle characters were projected among March and May 2011. Head photography started in May 2011 and finished in September 2011, with shooting occurring in North Carolina.

The film was delivered on March 21, 2012, in some European nations and in the US and UK on March 23, 2012, in both ordinary theaters and computerized IMAX theaters. Japan got it keep going, on September 28. At the point when the film was delivered, it set precedents for first day of the season ($67.3 million) and opening end of the week for a non-spin-off. At the hour of its delivery, the film's initial end of the week net ($152.5 million) was the third-biggest of any film in North America. It is the main film since Avatar to stay in the lead position at the North American film industry for four successive ends of the week. The film was a gigantic film industry accomplishment by netting over $694 million worldwide against its spending plan of $78 million, making it the third-most elevated earning film in the United States and ninth-most noteworthy earning film of 2012. It was delivered on DVD and Blu-beam on August 18, 2012. With 7,434,058 units sold, the DVD was the top rated DVD of 2012. The subsequent portion, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, was delivered on November 22, 2013, in the United States.

The Hunger Games got positive audits from pundits, with acclaim for its topics and messages, just as Jennifer Lawrence's depiction of Katniss; some analysis was leveled at the film's dependence on flimsy cam, particularly in the activity groupings, and its similitudes to different works. The film's soundtrack highlighted the melody "Safe and Sound", which was sung by American artist Taylor Swift including The Civil Wars; it won a Grammy Award and was assigned for a Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song. For her presentation, Lawrence won the Saturn Award for Best Actress, the Broadcast Film Critics Association Award for Best Actress in an Action Movie, the Empire Award for Best Actress and was likewise assigned for the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress.

Contagion (2011) Review

Contagion is a 2011 American thriller film directed by Steven Soderbergh. Its ensemble cast includes Marion Cotillard, Matt Damon, Laurence Fishburne, Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow, Kate Winslet, Bryan Cranston, Jennifer Ehle, and Sanaa Lathan.

The plot concerns the spread of a virus transmitted by respiratory droplets and fomites, attempts by medical researchers and public health officials to identify and contain the disease, the loss of social order in a pandemic, and the introduction of a vaccine to halt its spread.

To follow several interacting plot lines, the film makes use of the multi-narrative "hyperlink cinema" style, popularized in several of Soderbergh's films.

Following their collaboration on The Informant! (2009), Soderbergh and screenwriter Scott Z. Burns discussed a film depicting the rapid spread of a virus, inspired by epidemics such as the 2002:2004 SARS outbreak and the 2009 flu pandemic. Burns consulted with representatives of the World Health Organization as well as medical experts such as W. Ian Lipkin and Larry Brilliant. Principal photography started in Hong Kong in September 2010, and continued in Chicago, Atlanta, London, Geneva, and San Francisco until February 2011.

Contagion premiered at the 68th Venice International Film Festival in Venice, Italy on September 3, 2011, and was theatrically released on September 9, 2011. Commercially, the film made $136.5 million against its $60 million production budget.

Critics praised the film for its narrative and the performances, as did scientists for its accuracy. The film received renewed popularity in 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Begin Again (2013) Review

Begin Again is a 2013 American musical comedy-drama film written and directed by John Carney and starring Keira Knightley and Mark Ruffalo.

Knightley plays a singer-songwriter who is discovered by a struggling record label executive (Ruffalo) and collaborates with him to produce an album recorded in public locations all over New York City.

After the success of his 2007 musical film Once, Carney wrote the script for Begin Again in 2010 and employed Gregg Alexander to compose most of the film's music.

With a US$8 million budget, production began in July 2012 with filming taking place in various locations around New York City.

The film premiered in September 2013 at the Toronto International Film Festival and was released theatrically on June 27, 2014, in conjunction with the release of the film's soundtrack.

It has grossed over $63 million worldwide and received mostly positive reviews from critics. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song for "Lost Stars".

Salt (2010) Review

Salt is a 2010 American action thriller film directed by Phillip Noyce, written by Kurt Wimmer, and starring Angelina Jolie, Liev Schreiber, Daniel Olbrychski, August Diehl, and Chiwetel Ejiofor. Jolie plays Evelyn Salt, who is accused of being a Russian sleeper agent and goes on the run to try to clear her name.

Originally written with a male protagonist, with Tom Cruise initially secured for the lead, the script was ultimately rewritten by Brian Helgeland for Jolie.

Filming took place on location in Washington, D.C., the New York City area, and Albany, New York, between March and June 2009, with reshoots in January 2010.

Action scenes were primarily performed with practical stunts, computer-generated imagery being used mostly for creating digital environments.

The film had a panel at the San Diego Comic-Con on July 22 and was released in North America on July 23, 2010, and in the United Kingdom on August 18, 2010.

Salt grossed $294 million at the worldwide box office and received generally positive reviews, with praise for the action scenes and Jolie's performance, but drawing criticism on the writing, with reviewers finding the plot implausible and convoluted.

The DVD and Blu-ray Disc were released December 21, 2010, and featured two alternate cuts providing different endings for the film.

Interstellar (2014) Review

Interstellar is a 2014 American British epic science fiction film directed and produced by Christopher Nolan.

It stars Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway, Jessica Chastain, Bill Irwin, Ellen Burstyn, John Lithgow, Michael Caine, and Matt Damon. Set in a dystopian future where humanity is struggling to survive, the film follows a group of astronauts who travel through a wormhole near Saturn in search of a new home for mankind.

Brothers Christopher and Jonathan Nolan wrote the screenplay, which had its origins in a script Jonathan developed in 2007.

Christopher produced Interstellar with his wife, Emma Thomas, through their production company Syncopy, and with Lynda Obst through Lynda Obst Productions. Caltech theoretical physicist and 2017 Nobel laureate in Physics Kip Thorne was an executive producer, acted as scientific consultant, and wrote a tie-in book, The Science of Interstellar.

Paramount Pictures, Warner Bros., and Legendary Pictures co-financed the film. Cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema shot it on 35 mm in the Panavision anamorphic format and IMAX 70 mm. Principal photography began in late 2013 and took place in Alberta (Canada), Iceland and Los Angeles.

Interstellar uses extensive practical and miniature effects and the company Double Negative created additional digital effects.

The Rebound (2009) Review

The Rebound is a 2009 American romantic comedy film directed by Bart Freundlich, starring Catherine Zeta-Jones and Justin Bartha.

It was released in theaters in several countries in late 2009. It was originally scheduled to be released in the United States on 25 December 2010, but was cancelled due to the film's distributor shutting down.

It ended up going direct-to-DVD in the United States on 7 February 2012.

A housewife and mother of two, Sandy (Catherine Zeta-Jones), discovers that her husband has been unfaithful. After a hasty divorce, she moves to New York City with her young son and daughter. There, they begin a new life. Sandy rents an apartment above a coffee house and befriends one of the baristas, Aram Finklestein (Justin Bartha).

At age 25, Aram is not sure what he wants to do with his life having just separated (his wife was a French woman who married him for a green card).

Despite having a college degree, he is aimless and gets a job at a women's center.

During a self-defense class at the women's center where Aram plays the perpetrator, Sandy unleashes an "ocean of anger" on him. The next day, she goes to the coffeeshop to apologize to him and asks him to babysit her kids. He becomes a full-time nanny for the family and develops a close-knit relationship with the children; and a chemistry starts to brew between Aram and Sandy, ensuing in an awkward sexual encounter that the children come to know about.

Oye Lucky! Lucky Oye! (2008) Review

Oye Lucky! Lucky Oye! is a 2008 Indian comedy film starring Abhay Deol, Paresh Rawal, Neetu Chandra, Manu Rishi, Richa Chadda, Manjot Singh and Archana Puran Singh. It was directed by Dibakar Banerjee. The film won the National Film Award for Best Popular Film.

The film is inspired by the real life shenanigans of Devinder Singh alias Bunty, a real-life "super-chor", originally from Vikaspuri, Delhi.

A boy from a poor, dysfunctional family from suburban West Delhi grows up to become a charismatic and fearless man who robs the elite of several major cities in India in a unique fashion, often not out of necessity, but just for fun.

After being arrested by Special Crime Branch Inspector Devender Singh, Lucky Singh reflects upon his life: his childhood, his father's second marriage, his siblings; his entry into crime and association with Gogi Arora; his romance with and subsequent marriage with the lovely Sonal; and his subsequent betrayal by his hanger-on and a business partner.

Meanwhile, the media speculates on how he got away with stealing 140 TV sets, 212 Video cassette recorders, 475 shirts, 90 music systems, 50 jewellery boxes, 2 dogs, and a greeting card – in a spree of burglaries that included households in Bangalore, Chandigarh, Mumbai, and other cities in India.

The Lucky One (2012) Review

The Lucky One is a 2012 American romantic drama film directed by Scott Hicks and released in April 2012. It is an adaptation of Nicholas Sparks’ 2008 novel of the same name.

The film stars Zac Efron as Logan Thibault, a US Marine who finds a photograph of a young woman while serving in Iraq, carries it around as a good luck charm, and later tracks down the woman, with whom he begins a relationship.

The movie received negative reviews but grossed over $99.4 million.

Logan Thibault (Zac Efron), a US Marine serving in Iraq, witnesses a Marine called "Aces" die attempting to aid one of his men during an ambush.

The following morning, he finds a picture of a young woman on the ground just before a mortar attack destroys where he had been sitting, killing many around him.

Unsuccessful at finding the photo's owner, Logan keeps it. Logan's squad-mate declares the woman in the picture as Logan's "guardian angel," just before an explosion destroys their Humvee.

Logan returns to Colorado to live with his sister's family, who have been looking after his dog, Zeus. Suffering from posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and survivor guilt, he decides it is best to leave and departs to search for the woman in the photo.

Logan and Zeus walk to Louisiana, where a lighthouse in the picture has provided a clue. He shows the photo around town and a local resident tells him that the woman used to be married to a friend of his, a local deputy sheriff.

Goosebumps (2015) Review

Goosebumps is a 2015 American live-action/computer-animated comedy horror film written by Darren Lemke and directed by Rob Letterman. Based on R. L. Stine's children's horror book series of the same name, it follows a teenager who tries to save his town with Stine's help after all the monsters from the Goosebumps franchise begin to escape from their books, wreaking havoc in the real world. The film stars Jack Black, Dylan Minnette, Odeya Rush, Amy Ryan, Ryan Lee, and Jillian Bell.

The development of a Goosebumps feature film adaptation began in 1998, with Tim Burton attached to direct. After failing to find a script to determine which book to adapt, the project was halted. In early 2008, Columbia Pictures acquired the rights to create a Goosebumps-based film, and the project reentered development. Principal photography lasted from April to July 2014 in Candler Park, Atlanta.

Goosebumps was theatrically released in the United States on October 16, 2015, by Columbia Pictures.

The film was a commercial success and garnered generally positive reviews from critics, with praise for its humor, usage of the Goosebumps characters, and grossed $158 million against its $84 million budget.

A sequel, Goosebumps 2: Haunted Halloween, was released on October 12, 2018.

The Social Network (2010) Review

The Social Network is a 2010 American biographical drama film directed by David Fincher and written by Aaron Sorkin.

Adapted from Ben Mezrich's 2009 book The Accidental Billionaires, it portrays the founding of social networking website Facebook and the resulting lawsuits.

It stars Jesse Eisenberg as founder Mark Zuckerberg, along with Andrew Garfield as Eduardo Saverin, Justin Timberlake as Sean Parker, Armie Hammer as Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, and Max Minghella as Divya Narendra.

Neither Zuckerberg nor any other Facebook staff were involved with the project, although Saverin was a consultant for Mezrich's book. The film was released in the United States by Columbia Pictures on October 1, 2010.

A major critical and commercial success, the film grossed $224 million on a $40 million budget and was widely acclaimed by critics, who praised Fincher's direction, the performances (particularly that of Eisenberg), screenplay, editing and score. It was named one of the best films of the year by 78 critics, and named the best by 22 critics, the most of any film that year.

It was also chosen by the National Board of Review as the best film of 2010. At the 83rd Academy Awards, it received eight nominations, including for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actor for Eisenberg, and won three: Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Original Score, and Best Film Editing.

It also received awards for Best Motion Picture – Drama, Best Director, Best Screenplay, and Best Original Score at the 68th Golden Globe Awards. In 2016, it was voted 27th among 100 films considered the best of the 21st century by 117 international film critics.

27 Dresses (2008) Review

27 Dresses is a 2008 American romantic comedy film directed by Anne Fletcher and written by Aline Brosh McKenna. The film stars Katherine Heigl and James Marsden. The film was released January 10, 2008 in Australia and opened in the United States on January 18.

Jane Nichols (Katherine Heigl) has been a bridesmaid for 27 weddings. One night when she is attending two weddings almost simultaneously, she meets Kevin Doyle (James Marsden), who helps her get home but discusses with her his cynical views of marriage.

He finds her day planner in the cab they shared. Meanwhile, Jane's sister Tess (Malin Åkerman) arrives from Europe and falls in love with Jane's boss George (Edward Burns) at first sight. Tess pretends to like the same things that George does to get him to like her.

Despite being in love with George herself, Jane does not reveal the truth and her sister's courtship progresses rapidly. Soon the new couple announce that they intend to marry in three weeks and Jane becomes the wedding planner.