As explained in the trailer for this upcoming animated action adventure film, the protagonists of Rise of the Guardians go by many names and take many forms. They bring wonder, hope, joy and dreams. And they take their job to protect the children of the world very, very seriously. Who are they? They are the Sandman, Jack Frost (Chris Pine), the Easter Bunny (Hugh Jackman), the Tooth Fairy (Isla Fisher) and Santa Claus (Alec Baldwin). Their powers are greater than we ever imagined. As long as children believe in them, these Guardians will guard the children with their own lives. Which is …
In what has been called a wholly unique film by Magnolia Pictures, Jack and Diane is a drama thriller that is essentially a teenage lesbian werewolf love story. Tomboy Jack (Riley Keough) and bubbly Diane (Juno Temple) are two teenage girls who meet in New York City. After spending the night ferociously kissing, the two fall head over heels in love. In fact, their first love feelings are so intense that neither is prepared for the joys and terrors that it brings. When Diane reveals that she must leave the country in a week to head off to school in Europe, Jack tries to push her away. Unab…
In this upcoming biographical drama from Focus Features, Bill Murray is cast in the role of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR). Set in June 1939, Hyde Park on Hudson focuses on a curious moment in FDRs life and sheds light on his love affair with his distant cousin, Margaret Stuckley (Laura Linney). Seen through Stuckleys eyes, the movie recounts the story of a weekend visit by the British King (Samuel West) and Queen (Olivia Colman) to the Roosevelts vacation home, which was located at Hyde Park on Hudson in upstate New York. At the time that this first-ever visit of a reigning E…
In a comedy that many will view as a not-so-thinly-veiled political commentary, Butter is a story of cut-throat competition in a closely watched Iowa contest: the annual butter carving championship. After 15 years in the limelight as the beautiful assistant to her artistically gifted husband, Bob Pickler (Ty Burrell), Iowas long-reigning butter carving champ, Laura Pickler (Jennifer Garner) is ready to tackle a new challenge. When her hubby is pressured to retire from the butter carving world, Laura decides to enter the championship herself. Standing at the front of the line on sign-up da…
Life as a character in a video game can get old especially when youre playing the role of the bad guy. In fact, after decades of doing the same thing and always being overshadowed by good guy Fix-It Felix (voice of Jack McBrayer from 30 Rock), Ralph (voice of John C. Reilly from Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby and Step Brothers) decides to make matters into his own hands. Leaving his own video game behind, Ralph takes off into the arcade on a game-hopping journey through every generation of video games. His mission: to prove that hes not such a bad guy after all, and that in …
When a couple desperately wants to have a child, infertility can drive them to the brink of despair. This is the situation in which happily married couple Cindy Green (Jennifer Garner) and Jim Green (Joel Edgerton) find themselves. They are childless and unable to conceive. Then, on a wine-fueled evening at home, they dream up all of their wishes for their ideal child. He would score a winning goal, just once. He would be honest to a fault. And so forth. They write down all of these ideas on slips of paper and then bury the papers in a box in their backyard, believing they will always rema…
The Great Depression is in full swing, and ambitious country boy Jack Bondurant (Shia LaBeouf) dreams of becoming a rich and famous gangster public enemy number one. His plan is to expand his familys moonshining business and launch a vast criminal empire. Of course, he also hopes to win the heart of a beautiful girl, Bertha (Mia Wasikowska), who happens to be the daughter of a Mennonite preacher. Jacks older brother Howard (Jason Clarke) provides the brawn to make his gangster dreams possible. Their eldest sibling, Forrest (Tom Hardy), becomes the strong leader of the trio. A very stoic …
Luke Wright (Jason Statham), a second-rate cage fighter, is living an unenviable life in the mixed martial arts circuit inNew Jersey. But things quickly spiral even further downwards for him after he blows a rigged fight. Deciding to make an example of him, the Russian Mafia murder his family, threaten to kill anyone else that he forms any kind of friendship or relationship with, and banish him to live completely isolated from society. Homeless and destitute, Luke wanders the streets of New York haunted by guilt and hovering on the edge of suicide. Mei (Catherine Chan) is a 10-year-old Ch…
Magnolia Pictures Bel Ami, directed by Declan Donnellan and written by Rachel Bennette, is based on the French author Guy de Maupassants 1885 novel, Bel Ami, or, The History of a Scoundrel: A Novel. Set for a limited released onJune 8, 2012, Bel Ami is the story of George Duroys (Robert Pattinsons) corrupt rise from poverty to wealth, from pennilessness to one of the most successful men in Paris. Although Paris in the 1880s was obstensibly a mans world, as Duroy quickly learned, the most important people in Paris were not actually the men, but their wives. Upon returning from three years …
What happens when two twelve-year-olds (newcomers Jared Gilman and Kara Hayward) fall in love, make a secret pact and then flee their New England town to run away together into the wilderness? All heck breaks lose, thats what happens! As the entire town and various authorities mobilize to hunt down the runaways, a violent storm brews off coast and the peaceful island community is turned upside down in more ways than anyone would have predicted. Set on an island off the coast of New England in the summer of 1965, Moonrise Kingdom is a new drama directed by two-time Academy Award-nominated…
Beasts of the Southern Wild, directed by feature film newcomer Benh Zeitlin and written by Zeitlin and Lucy Alibar, took the recent Sundance Film Festival by storm, winning both the Grand Jury Prize for U.S. Dramatic, and the Excellence in Cinematography Award for U.S. Dramatic. Hailed as stunning, magnificent, magical, and unforgettable, Beasts of the Southern Wild is both a magical tale and a heros journey. Set is a part of the Louisiana Delta swampland known as the Bathtub, Beasts stars newcomer Quvenzhané Wallis as six-year-old Hushpuppy, a courageous girl who lives with her hard-drin…
Hailed by critics as breathtaking, astounding, and the best nature film ever made, Chimpanzee is a G-rated family film that takes viewers deep into the African forest to meet an adorable baby chimp named Oscar. Smart and playful, Oscar has a natural curiosity that makes him want to discover all he can about the complex world around him. Through his interactions with his chimpanzee friends and family including his mother, the groups leader, and other young chimps in the group Oscar learns how to live, love and navigate through the world. In fact, the forest world is an exciting playgrou…
On April 27, 2012, the creators of Chicken Run and Wallace and Gromit will release their latest animation feature: The Pirates! Band of Misfits. Coming to theatres in both3D and 2D, The Pirates! stars Hugh Grant in his first animated role, as the luxuriantly bearded Pirate Captain. Although hes certainly not the best pirate captain on the seas, the Captain is filled with boundless enthusiasm and is on a mission: to win the coveted Pirate of the Year Award. To catch this prize, though, hell have to best his bitter rivals Black Bellamy (Jeremy Piven) and Cutlass Liz (Salma Hayek). With his…
What is real? What is it that makes reality, well, reality? Total Recall, a new action thriller from Columbia Pictures (Sony) directed by Len Wiseman, explores this question in vivid detail. What if it were possible to take a mind trip from reality, and experience a dream that can create real memories? In Total Recall, a company called Rekall specializes in making this happen. For factory worker Douglas Quaid (Colin Farrell), the possibility is just too enticing to ignore. Although Quaid has a beautiful wife (Kate Beckinsale) that he loves, his real life is very frustrating, and the though…
Set for release on July 6, 2012, Savages is directed by three-time Oscar-winning filmmaker Oliver Stone. A ferocious crime-thriller, Savages features an all-star ensemble cast of Taylor Kitsch, Blake Lively, Aaron Johnson, John Travolta, Uma Thurman, Benicio Del Toro, Salma Hayek, Emile Hirsch and Demian Bichir. The film is based on the best-selling crime novel of the same name by Don Winslow; Winslow, Stone and Shane Salerno co-wrote the script. On the surface Ben, a peaceful and charitable Buddhist and Chon, a former U.S. Navy SEAL and ex-mercenary, may not appear to have a lot in commo…
