College Road Trip
Melanie is eagerly looking forward to taking her first big step towards independence when she plans a ‘girls only’ road trip to check out prospective universities. However, when her imposing police-chief dad insists on escorting her instead, she soon finds her dream trip turning into a nightmare full of misfortune and turmoil. Dad wants to assure total security and safety for his precious daughter, while Melanie has a 17-year-old’s need to become a grown woman and have her own sense of independence. Now, even as dad and daughter bicker, banter and careen from one disaster to the next on their journey, they are about to discover that, sometimes, going that extra mile to be together can forge a family bond so strong it can withstand anything–even wild curves ahead.
An aspiring medical student whose sister has recently died and who may be forced to relocate from a private school to the neighbourhood in which she was raised enters a step-dancing competition in hopes of securing the funds needed to continue her education. Unable to afford the tuition needed to fund her private-school education, ambitious teen Raya (Rutina Wesley) returns to her family home in the city while reluctantly forced to re-evaluate her future. Upon learning that the top prize for an upcoming step-dancing competition is $50,000, Raya uses her impressive moves to earn a coveted slot in her good friend Bishop’s (Dwain Murphy) predominately male JSJ crew. Isolated from the local females due to jealousy and separated from her fellow dancers by gender, the ambitious dancer is subsequently kicked-off the team for showing off during a preliminary competition. Now, if Raya has any hope of realizing her medical school dreams, she will have to either earn back Bishop’s trust or organize her own dance crew and start over from scratch.
Andy Hanson (Philip Seymour Hoffman), a finance executive in desperate need of money, convinces his also strapped brother Hank (Ethan Hawke) to rob their parents’ jewelry store. Hank, in turn, hires an acquaintance, Bobby (Brian F. O’Byrne), to help him in the robbery, but the heist goes awry, as Bobby and the brothers’ mother Nanette (Rosemary Harris) fatally shoot each other. Hank has secretly been having an affair with Andy’s wife Gina (Marisa Tomei), while Andy is secretly a drug addict who embezzles to fund his lifestyle. Hank and Andy labor to try to get away with their botched crime, but ultimately their father Charles (Albert Finney) discovers their involvement and tracks them as they make their final desperate moves. In the end, after Andy is shot and Hank flees, Charles visits Andy in the hospital and uses a pillow to suffocate him.
The movie opens in the fall where after three pregnancy tests in Rollo’s (Rainn Wilson) store, Juno MacGuff (Ellen Page) discovers she is twelve weeks pregnant by her close friend Paulie (Michael Cera). She calls her best friend, Leah (Olivia Thirlby), and decides to schedule an abortion. In front of the clinic, Juno encounters a pro-life classmate protesting, but she enters the clinic nonetheless only to leave after being unnerved by the other patients’ nervous fingers. She returns home intent on carrying the pregnancy to term and to give the infant up for adoption. Juno and Leah look through the penny-saver magazine looking for couples seeking to adopt children and find an ad from a yuppie-couple, Mark and Vanessa Loring (Jason Bateman and Jennifer Garner). She breaks the news of her pregnancy to her father Mac MacGuff (J.K. Simmons) and her stepmother, Bren MacGuff (Allison Janney) who both support her decision. Juno and Mac visit the affluent Lorings in their hygienic suburban home where the high-strung and maternalistic Vanessa is put off by Juno’s diffidence and sarcasm but Juno and Mark form a bond over their shared musical interests. Mark reveals that he was once in a punk band but now writes commercial jingles; Juno teases him because Vanessa has restricted all his hobbies – Les Paul guitars, song writing, and comic books – to a single room in the house.
Just after the end of the Civil War, John Wilkes Booth and another man enter a bar and approach Thomas Gates (Ben Gates’ great-great grandfather). They produce a diary containing an encrypted message, and entice Thomas, a well-known puzzle solver, to decode it. Thomas recognizes the message as using the Playfair cipher and begins to translate it. While he does so, Booth leaves for the theater to assassinate President Lincoln. Thomas Gates solves the puzzle, a clue to a treasure map, and realizes the men are still loyal to the Confederate cause and have a sinister motive for finding the treasure. The Confederate man pulls a gun on him, threatening to shoot him if he doesn’t hand over the diary, however he is distracted from Gates by the chaos errupting in the bar over news of Lincoln’s assassination. Thomas rips several pages from the diary and throws them in the fireplace. The second man shoots him and attempts to retrieve the pages, only succeeding in saving a small piece. The dying Gates gasps, "The war is over," but the man disagrees, stating, "You’re wrong about that, the war has only just begun," and rushes from the bar. With his dying breath, Thomas Gates tells his young son Charles, "The debt that all men pay."
The Water Horse: Legend of the Deep is a 2007 fantasy film directed by Jay Russell. The screenplay was written by Robert Nelson Jacobs, based on the novel The Water Horse by Dick King-Smith. The film stars Alex Etel as the juvenile lead, and Emily Watson and David Morrissey as the principal adult characters. The film was released in the United States on December 25, 2007 and will be released in the United Kingdom on February 1, 2008.
Benjamin Barker is a barber unfairly sentenced to a life of hard labor by Judge Turpin, who lusted for the man’s beautiful and virtuous wife Lucy and daughter Johanna. Assuming the name Sweeney Todd, he escapes from prison and returns to London, assisted by sailor Anthony Hope. There he is told his wife has poisoned herself and his daughter has become the ward of the villainous judge. The home he once shared with his wife and daughter has now been transformed into the worst pie-shop in London by his departed wife’s former friend, Nellie Lovett, and she takes him in and becomes his sole confidante and co-conspirator in revenge. Not distracted by Mrs. Lovett’s bourgeois ambitions or attempts at seduction, Todd spirals deeper into despair, nihilism, violence and insanity, slitting the throat of most customers who enter his shop. Due to the high price of meat, the bodies of his victims go into Mrs. Lovett’s pies, allowing her shop to finally prosper. The first to fall is Adolfo Pirelli, a rival barber who threatens to expose Todd’s past; his young assistant Toby, who knows nothing of this murder, goes to work for Mrs. Lovett.
Irishman Gerry Kennedy (Gerard Butler) and Holly (Hilary Swank), are a happily married couple living in Manhattan. When Gerry dies of a brain tumor, Holly is devastated. The grieving young widow and her friends begin to periodically receive letters written by Gerry, each with a task intended to ease Holly out of grief and transition her into a new life.
Fictional musician Dewey Cox skyrockets from humble beginnings in Springberry, Alabama and eventually gets caught up in the fame of rock and roll. He begins to hang out with the big time people such as Elvis Presley and the Beatles. Jenna Fischer plays his backup singer and second wife, Darlene. His was first married to his first wife Edith with whom he had many kids, but the marriage was over when she found Dewey about to have sex with Darlene. One of the pervasive themes of the movie is the fact that he accidentally cut his brother in half at the waist when he was a child (a reference to Johnny Cash’s older brother Jack, who was almost cut in half by a table saw and died from his injuries).
The movie begins long ago in a land far, far away with Mother Claus giving birth to a baby, with her husband and son in the background. As the baby is born, the midwife comments on how its the biggest baby shes ever seen. Within a few minutes of his birth, the baby starts giggling and saying, Ho, ho, ho! Mother Claus calls her other son, Fred, over to meet his new brother, who she has decided to name Nick. Mother Claus refers to the new baby as her little Saint Nick, while Fred promises to be the best big brother ever.
