Armed men hijack a New York City subway train, holding the passengers hostage in return for a ransom, and turning an ordinary day’s work for dispatcher Walter Garbe into a face-off with the mastermind behind the crime.

It’s Deja-Vu all over again as Scott and Denzel reunite for this remake of a remake. I can’t help but wonder if the hijackers in this version will still ask for one meeee-lee-ion dollars or if today’s New Yorkers would seriously sit in a subway car with these goons for an hour (even if one of ‘em looked like an aging Tony Manero).

Rated R for violence and pervasive language.

Director: Tony Scott
Stars: Denzel Washington, John Travolta
Studio: Columbia Pictures
Release Date: 12 June 2009 (USA & Canada), 9 July 2009 (Argentina), 23 July 2009 (Australia)
Genre: Crime, Drama, Thriller

Sam Bell (Sam Rockwell) is nearing the end of his contract with Lunar. He’s been a faithful employee for 3 long years. His home has been Selene, a moon base where he has spent his days alone, mining Helium 3. The precious gas holds the key to reversing the Earth’s energy crisis.

Isolated, determined and steadfast, Sam has followed the rulebook obediently and his time on the moon has been enlightening, but uneventful. The solitude has given him time to reflect on the mistakes of his past and work on his raging temper. He does his job mechanically, and spends most of his available time dreaming of his imminent return to Earth, to his wife, young daughter and an early retirement.

But 2 weeks shy of his departure from Selene, Sam starts seeing things, hearing things and feeling strange. And when a routine extraction goes horribly wrong, he discovers that Lunar have their own plans for replacing him and the new recruit is eerily familiar.

Before he can return to Earth, Sam has to confront himself and the discovery that the life he has created, may not be his own. It’s more than his contract that is set to expire.

Writer-director Duncan Jones is the son of David Bowie, but I swear: If anyone uses the term “space oddity” to describe this movie, I will petition to have their blog shut down. What this film really is: A wonderfully composed, thoughtful, even funny addition to the list of elite science-fiction films, which offers a major twist in its first act.

Rated R for language.

Director: Duncan Jones
Stars: Sam Rockwell
Studio: Sony Pictures Classics
Release Date: 17 July 2009 (UK), 12 June 2009 (USA)
Genre: Sci-Fi, Thriller

A loan officer ordered to evict an old woman from her home finds herself the recipient of a supernatural curse, which turns her life into a living hell. Desperate, she turns to a seer to try and save her soul, while evil forces work to push her to a breaking point.

Foreclosure would be a kinda scary title, too … Check out Sam Raimi, returning to the horror genre before travels back to Gotham City for a couple more Spider-Man movies. With a tip of the hat to George A. Romero, Raimi has found a way to comment on the housing crisis, and I can imagine his tones will be bitter, wicked, and (hopefully) subtle. No offense to Ellen Page, but I am relieved she opted out of the movie, making room for Lohman, who is starting to take on more mainstream roles, albeit ones that are offbeat and, like, interesting.

But what is the film going to look like? And will it be funny? Here’s proof that the answer to both questions is YES!

And a quote from this year’s South by Southwest festival: “Any inkling that Raimi’s soul might have been irretrievably chewed up by the Hollywood studio machinery — a well-founded concern after the disappointing Spider-Man 3 — quickly evaporates once the story gets underway.”

Rated PG-13 for sequences of horror violence, terror, disturbing images and language.

Director: Sam Raimi
Stars: Alison Lohman, Justin Long, Ruth Livier
Studio: Universal Pictures
Release Date: 29 May 2009 (USA)
Genre: Horror, Thriller

Set in post-apocalyptic 2018, John Connor is the man fated to lead the human resistance against Skynet and its army of Terminators. But the future Connor was raised to believe in is altered in part by the appearance of Marcus Wright, a stranger whose last memory is of being on death row. Connor must decide whether Marcus has been sent from the future, or rescued from the past. As Skynet prepares its final onslaught, Connor and Marcus both embark on an odyssey that takes them into the heart of Skynet’s operations, where they uncover the terrible secret behind the possible annihilation of mankind.

Terminator Salvation reminds me of Iron Man in that it capitalized on Comic-Con to get fans of the saga off of McG’s back and on his side instead. After a spirited presentation in San Diego last year, where the director eloquently described the story’s theme of an individual’s free will versus their destiny, the haters unfolded their arms and realized that the man up on the stage isn’t the same guy who made Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle. In all honestly, once Christian Bale signed up to play John Connor, I sensed that TS might wind up being the second best Terminator movie ever. And with Sam Worthington bending the story’s mythology a bit more, do you really need a Schwarzenegger cameo here? (No, but I, in narrator mode, give a roar of approval for the presence of Linda Hamilton.) More memorable awesomeness from Comic-Con was Anton Yelchin’s quote regarding his ambition for his character, Kyle Reese: To show “how Michael Biehn became so awesome that Linda Hamilton would sleep with him.”

Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of sci-fi violence and action, and language.

Director: McG
Stars: Christian Bale, Sam Worthington, Anton Yelchin
Studio: Warner Bros. Pictures
Release Date: 27 May 2009 (Indonesia)
Genre: Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi, Thriller

When Langdon discovers evidence of the resurgence of an ancient secret brotherhood known as the Illuminati – the most powerful underground organization in history – he also faces a deadly threat to the existence of the secret organization’s most despised enemy: the Catholic Church. When Langdon learns that the clock is ticking on an unstoppable Illuminati time bomb, he jets to Rome, where he joins forces with Vittoria Vetra, a beautiful and enigmatic Italian scientist. Embarking on a nonstop, action-packed hunt through sealed crypts, dangerous catacombs, deserted cathedrals, and even to the heart of the most secretive vault on earth, Langdon and Vetra will follow a 400-year-old trail of ancient symbols that mark the Vatican’s only hope for survival.

Angels and Demons was the reclusive authors third novel after he gave up his job as an English teacher. It tells the story of Langdons brush with a shadowy secret society, the Illuminati, and his frantic quest for the worlds most powerful energy source, in the company of a beautiful Italian physicist whose father, a brilliant physicist, has been murdered.

The team behind the global phenomenon “The Da Vinci Code” returns for the highly anticipated “Angels & Demons,” based upon the bestselling novel by Dan Brown. Tom Hanks reprises his role as Harvard religious expert Robert Langdon, who once again finds that forces with ancient roots are willing to stop at nothing, even murder, to advance their goals. Ron Howard again directs the film, which is produced by Brian Grazer, Ron Howard, and John Calley. The screenplay is by David Koepp and Akiva Goldsman.

Angels & Demons … read more »