Dredd 3D (2012)
95 min - Action | Sci-Fi | Thriller
In a violent, futuristic city where the police have the
authority to act as judge, jury and executioner, a cop teams with a trainee
to take down a gang that deals the reality-altering drug, SLO-MO.
Director:Stars: |
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The Buzz: Honestly, I was
not dying to see this movie until reports surfaced that director Pete Travis (Vantage Point) had been locked
out of the editing room and writer Alex Garland was overseeing completion of
the project. (How long until Garland directs his first project, anyway?) The
initial story was refuted, but, really, we will never know the true story
unless Travis pulls a Michael Bay and starts trashing things after his new take
on the old judge is released.
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End of Watch (2012)
109 min - Crime | Drama | Mystery | Thriller
Two young officers are marked for death after confiscating
a small cache of money and firearms from the members of a notorious cartel,
during a routine traffic stop.
Director:Stars: |
The Buzz: No to be rude,
but didn't David Ayer (Street
Kings' director, Dark Blue's
writer) make this film already? Like, at least twice.
 |
House at the End of the Street (2012)
101 min - Horror | Thriller
A mother and daughter move to a new town and find
themselves living next door to a house where a young girl murdered her
parents. When the daughter befriends the surviving son, she learns the story
is far from over.
Director:Stars: |
The Buzz: The trick here
will be to distinguish this thriller from Dream House, the Daniel
Craig/Rachel Weisz bomb that director Jim Sheridan wanted his name removed
from. Expect Jennifer Lawrence to be placed front and center of all marketing
since The Hunger Games
should still be riding high in the box office charts at this time.
 |
The Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012)
103 min - Drama | Romance
An introvert freshman is taken under the wings of two
seniors who welcome him to the real world.
Director:Stars: |
The Buzz: While I don't
think this movie, director Stephen Chbosky's adaptation of his best-selling
novel, is likely launch a franchise or become a global brand with its own
clothing line and signature fragrance, there is a certain breathless
anticipation for its release. What seemed to resonate most with fans of
Chbosky's novel was the story's structure, a series of letters penned to an
ambiguously defined recipient as the wallflower Charlie navigates both the
familiar (the mechanics of high school) and the intimate (his grief over his
best friend's suicide). Respectfully skipping over star Logan Lerman, our
interest thus far is honed on Ezra Miller, who here plays one of Charlie's
senior-year mentors; what a way to follow up We Need to Talk About Kevin.
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How to Survive a Plague (2012)
120 min - Documentary | History | News
The story of two coalitions -- ACT UP and TAG (Treatment
Action Group) -- whose activism and innovation turned AIDS from a death
sentence into a manageable condition.
Director:Stars: |
The Buzz: In recent
years, with the queer-rights movement trained on the issue of marriage
equality, and as sectors of the HIV+ population have achieved and maintained
undetectable status, the AIDS/ARC timeline has blurred for some of us. What
first shook me back into consciousness in David France`s documentary was the
footage from the first ACT UP event, which went down on Wall Street in March,
1987. Those wavy videotaped moments reminded me that the response to the AIDS
epidemic was started by a few and embraced by many. This was a time when Mark
Harrington and Peter Staley became community leaders and people who had never
been politically involved, such as chemist Iris Long, emerged to help put
together a plan of action for treatment. Whether you are a survivor of that
time period or a member of the generation that followed, How to Survive a Plague is a
radical and inspiring document of a social movement that has not lost its
power, influence and hope over the last 35 years.
 |
Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel (2011)
86 min - Documentary
A look at the life and work of the influential fashion
editor of Harpers Bazaar, Diana Vreeland.
Directors:Stars: |
The Buzz: "I wasn't
A fashion editor, I was THE ONE AND ONLY fashion editor." The fashion
documentary was temporarily derailed by Whitney Smith's shamefully
self-indulgent Ultrasuede: In
Search of Halston, but this look at Diana Vreeland, a pioneer in the world
of print editing, will overwrite that woeful experience for those of us who
could watch Bill Cunningham New
York and like documentaries everyday.
 |
War of the Buttons (2011)
100 min - Adventure | Family
In occupied France, Lebrac leads a play war between two
rival kid gangs, but his feelings for Violette, a Jewish girl in danger of
being discovered by the Nazis, encourage Lebrac to face the reality of what's
happening around him.
Director:Stars: |
The Buzz: Harvey
Weinstein said he has no plans to wage an Oscar campaign for the new film The Chorus director Christophe
Barratier, who co-wrote the script with The Artist's Thomas Langmann.
But the trailer and all attendant promotional materials reference both movies
in all caps, reinforcing the war drama's kid-powered sentimentality. If the
Best Foreign Language category ever were to reflect popular opinion ...
 |
Unconditional (2012)
Drama
A woman's idyllic life is shattered when her husband is
killed in a senseless act of violence. As she prepares to take matters into
her own hands, two unexpected encounters begin to change everything.
Director:Stars: |
The Buzz: Lyn Collins was
last seen on the big screen in John
Carter - the captive princess with the flowy garments and armor that
couldn't shield her from co-starring in a box-office bomb. But here she stars
alongside the talented and often under-utilized Michael Ealy in a
Christian-themed drama that should benefit from niche marketing and perhaps eke
out a couple million collars over opening weekend.
September 28
 |
Looper (2012)
118 min - Action | Sci-Fi
In 2072, when the mob wants to get rid of someone, the
target is sent 30 years into the past, where a hired gun awaits. Someone like
Joe, who one day learns the mob wants to 'close the loop' by transporting
back Joe's future self.
Director:Stars: |
The Buzz: Rian Johnson
developed a cult audience with his first film, the teen noir mystery Brick, and while his follow-up,
The Brothers Bloom, wasn't
the breakthrough it could have been, his upcoming movie is a sci-fi departure
that began test screenings nearly a year in advance and has earned such
encouraging reviews that I wouldn't be surprised if it is repositioned for
summer viewing. Reportedly more of a heady meditation on a man's encounter with
his future self, comparisons to Moon
abound, which is definitely not a bad sign.
 |
Hotel Transylvania (2012)
91 min - Animation | Comedy | Family
Dracula, who operates a high-end resort away from the
human world, goes into overprotective mode when a boy discovers the resort
and falls for the count's teen-aged daughter.
Director:Stars: |
The Buzz: Pixar vet Jill
Culton moved over to the then-fledgling Sony Pictures Animation and co-directed
Open Season (we forgive
you!) and has been mostly quiet professionally up until she landed the role of
guiding this story through its prolonged development. Frankly, we think this
premise is totally promising and it could rival SPA's best movie to date, Monster House.
 |
Won't Back Down (2012)
Drama
Two determined mothers, one a teacher, look to transform
their children's failing inner city school. Facing a powerful and entrenched
bureaucracy, they risk everything to make a difference in the education and
future of their children.
Director:Stars: |
The Buzz: First thing
that comes to mind is the release date, which could capitalize on Viola Davis's
Oscar buzz for The Help if she
does indeed walk away with a Best Actress award. This drama seems ready to bait
some of the audience who turned the adaptation Kathryn Stockett's novel into
one of the most enduring hits in recent memory, and I'm interested, slightly,
in seeing whether director Daniel Barnz (Beastly, Phoebe in Wonderland) fares
better with adult oriented material.
 |
Trouble with the Curve (2012)
111 min - Drama
An ailing baseball scout in his twilight years takes his
daughter along for one last recruiting trip.
Director:Stars: |
The Buzz: Robert Lorenz,
Clint Eastwood's longtime producer, directs his first film and the highly
anticipated pairing of Clint and Amy Adams as his daughter. But it's the
supporting cast -- John Goodman and Matthew Lillard specifically -- that has
our interest piqued for what could be awards-baiting drama and the kind of movie
adults see with their parents.
 |
Pitch Perfect (2012)
112 min - Comedy | Music
Beca, a freshman at Barden University, is cajoled into
joining The Bellas, her school's all-girls singing group. Injecting some much
needed energy into their repertoire, The Bellas take on their male rivals in
a campus competition.
Director:Stars: |
The Buzz: Avenue Q
director Jason Moore moves to the big screen with a project that will be unable
to shake comparisons to "Glee" though it's a separate and established
story that was adapted by one of the main brains at "30 Rock." We can
picture a Gothed-out Anna Kendrick running this dialogue.
 |
The Other Dream Team (2012)
89 min - Documentary
The incredible story of the 1992 Lithuanian basketball
team, whose athletes struggled under Soviet rule, became symbols of
Lithuania's independence movement, and - with help from the Grateful Dead -
triumphed at the Barcelona Olympics.
Director:Stars: |
The Buzz: Hopefully this
documentary will have the crossover appeal that Senna and Buck enjoyed. It's a thoroughly
immersive look at the formation of the 1992 Lithuanian Olympic basketball team,
the personal histories of its players, and the sport's legacy as the country
fought for its independence from Russia. Then, somehow, The Grateful Dead factor
into the events, and I think there's only one or two jokes about weed. The work
is also reminiscent of "30 for 30", and director Marius Markevicius
has a couple vets from that ESPN series on his crew. A handful of studios
chased distribution rights, and fortunately the talk of turning the story into
a feature film have died down.
 |
The Waiting Room (2012)
Documentary
Go behind the doors of an American public hospital
struggling to care for a community of largely uninsured patients.
Director: |
The Buzz: The staff and
patients of an Oakland, California hospital serve as the foundation for this
exploratory documentary on more than just the American health care system; what
looks to keep the film from being a total downer is the notion of a community
working together no matter what the financial or human costs.
 |
Starbuck (2011)
103 min - Comedy
As his lover announces her pregnancy, a fortysomething
slacker receives other life-changing news: 142 people, all of them the result
of artificial insemination, have filed a class action lawsuit against him,
their biological father.
Director:Stars: |
The Buzz: Hollywood has
struck out over the last few years, having released several variations on the
artificial-insemination comedy, so we were surprised to see that Canadian
filmmaker Ken Scott has successfully mounted an A-list remake that will
shoot later this year.
 |
Solomon Kane (2009)
104 min
- Action |
Adventure | Fantasy
A 16th Century killing machine who finds his spirituality
after an encounter with the Devil's own Reaper embarks on a mission to take
down the Overload, whose human Raiders are ravaging England.
Director:Stars: |
The Buzz: James Purefoy
stars in this probable VOD favorite from director Michael J. Bassett, who will
be back in theaters in October with another assured cult hit, Silent Hill: Revelation 3D.
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