Can one small pill change your life? That is the question that Limitless sets out to answer. Bradley Cooper takes on the role of a down-and-out author Eddie Morra who obtains the pill called NZT that allows him to access 100% of his brain turning him into an overnight genius and Wall Street success story. But soon he realizes that his new powers are putting him at risk as he races around New York City followed by a group of gangsters.
A typical spring break movie “The Exploding Girl” is not. Yes, there are parties and relationship troubles. But, when Ivy (Zoe Kazan) returns home to New York for her spring break, the filmmakers steer clear of the typical spring break cliques and delve into the complex emotions of a young woman who still trying to find her way.
Ivy arrives in New York still longing for Greg, a fellow college co-ed who audiences who only meet through a series of awkward phone conversations. She fills her vacation days with helping teach dance lessons, eating meals with her mother (Maryann Urbano), and reconnecting with her old friend, Al (Mark Rendall), who asked to stay at her mother’s apartment during the break. From listening to music together to knowing each other’s interests, it is clear that Al and Ivy share an unspoken bond.
As a child, you can only dream of where Snow White, Peter Pan, and Cinderella came to life. At that time, few would have guessed that nestled on the Disney lot in Burbank, California, animators gathered in the Inking and Painting building to draw what would likely become another of the company’s iconic characters. In the documentary, “Waking Sleeping Beauty,” director Don Hahn allows you past the studio security gate and inside a renaissance time in Disney’s animation department.
The film looks back at the decade of Disney animation from 1984 to 1994. In the mid-1980s, the once celebrated animation studios faced on uncertain future as a string of box office disappointments made executives weary of new cartoon projects. Yet, Roy Disney, Walt’s nephew and a member of the board of directors, wouldn’t give up on the flagging animation department and brought in a new group of young executives including Michael Eisner (from Paramount), Jeffrey Katzenberg, and animation president Peter Schneider.
The eyes are the window to the soul. You need to look no further than the eyes of Officer Roy Miller to discover just how true this statement is. From the day-to-day struggles of surviving in Iraq to his frustration with his own involvement in the war, Miller’s eyes are the key to his emotions and transport audiences from a dimly light movie theater to the very real conflict in the Middle East in Paul Greengrass’ thriller, “Green Zone.”
I remember as a kid excitedly watching 3-D films while wearing ill-fitting cardboard glasses but still becoming immersed in a brand-new world. 3-D is back with box office smashes like “Avatar”, “Up”, and “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs.” The latest of which is Tim Burton’s adaptation of the childhood classic, “Alice in Wonderland” but this movie may make you reconsider wanting to become part of Alice’s fantasy.
Looking for a wonderland, you won’t find it here. Instead, Burton selected to replace it with Underland. But, that’s not all that is different. This Alice is unlike any that you’ll remember from a bedtime story. She is back as a young woman, no longer the sweet little girl from the classic, and unbeknownst to her heading to her own engagement party. She escapes her fate through a rabbit hole and enters a world filled with talking creatures and more than a few characters from Lewis Carroll’s original tale.
For good or bad, you’ll be in the depths of a prison when you see “A Prophet.” Jacques Audiard, the writer and director of the film, doesn’t just give you a visitor pass to get inside the gate; instead, you are taken into the wards as you follow Malik El Djebena (Tahar Rahim), an illiterate 19-year-old man, through his six-year sentence behind bars.
The art of ghostwriting, according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, is to write for another who is the presumed author. However, the ghostwriter (Ewan McGregor) for disgraced Prime Minister Adam Lang (Pierce Brosnan) is left with no such simple task. Following the death of his predecessor, he must revise a lackluster manuscript and eventually piece together the real story of Lang’s life in Roman Polanski’s political thriller, “The Ghost Writer.”
After meeting with his agent in London, Lang’s ghostwriter, who is only referred to as “the ghost” throughout the film, reluctantly agrees to fly to Martha’s Vineyard to work with Lang on his memoirs. Arriving amidst allegations that Lang illegally seized suspected terrorists in Pakistan and allowed the CIA to use waterboarding techniques to torture them, he only wants to get down to the business of writing the book and staying out of Lang’s political crossfire.
Walk inside most classrooms across America and you are bound to find kids waiting for the afternoon school bell to ring, ready to escape from their studies of Math, English, and History. Percy Jackson (Logan Lerman) appears to be no exception as he struggles to stay focused in class and returns home to his mother who refuses to leave her less-than-stellar boyfriend. However, it’s a school trip to the Metropolitan Museum of Art that sends Percy’s ordinary existence into chaos as he realizes that he is a demigod – the son of Poseidon (Kevin McKidd), the King of the Sea.
Enter the world of Terry Gilliam’s “The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus” and you’ll soon discover that it’s unlike any other traveling theater production. Doctor Parnassus (Christopher Plummer) invites viewers into a fantasy where far-fetched desires seem possible if they will go through the aging mirror on his stage. From a ride on a gondola with a dreamy lover to an endless supply of designer shoes, the film straddles two worlds: the realistic modern-day London where the struggles of everyday life are clear and CGI fantasyland where nothing seems out of reach (but probably should be).
Few people could guess the adventures that filmmakers, Stephane Aubier and Vincent Patar, will share in their first feature film, “A Town Called Panic” as the movie opens on picturesque small town. Before long, viewers realize that it is not such an ordinary town and Aubier and Patar want viewers to escape to a place where anything can happen.
Opening the door to one of the homes in this town, there is no traditional family. Instead, viewers are introduced to Horse (voiced by creator Vincent Patar), the most responsible individual in the household, and his two far more adolescent companions, Cowboy (voiced by creator Stephane Aubier) and Indian (voiced by Bruce Ellison). Cowboy and Indian only seem concerned with fun until they forget Horse’s birthday and must scramble to find a gift. Finally, they decide to build him a present using bricks but in a technology gone wrong moment, they order far too many bricks when they accidentally add extra zeros to their online order. This sets off a series of events that could not happen in a live-action film.
Stephanie Wenger 