Shameless Self Expression

Russell Crowe stars as a Community College Professor whose whole world crashes down on him when his wife Elizabeth Banks is arrested, charged, and sentenced to 20 years in prison for the murder of her boss. She says she’s innocent, Crowe believes her because a) It’s his wife, and b) They went to dinner later that night, and only a psycho could keep up such an actor after committing a murder. He hasn’t been married to a psychopath all these years. He knows she’s innocent, and frustrated by the lack of help in the legal system (there’s not enough evidence for an appeal, apparently), the worries of having to care for their young son (Ty Simpkins), and the increasingly hopeless situation, he comes up with what he sees as the only alternative: Bust her out of prison. He meets with an author and multiple-time jail breaker (Liam Neeson) who tells him of the need for absolute water-tight planning and the absolute certainty that this is what he wants to do. He will likely be forced to commit...

Adam Sandler plays a guy whose wife cheats on him, and so he spends the next 20 or so years picking up chicks in bars by still wearing his wedding ring (a ploy stolen from an episode of “Seinfeld” , it seems) and spinning a bunch of BS. I should point out that at this time, Sandler’s character has a Cyrano/Pinocchio-esque schnoz too. Even the first time he tried to woo women with the ring, he was straying from the truth of what happened with his wedding (And on one occasion he even claims to have been physically abused by his spouse!). Now a successful plastic surgeon, he meets a beautiful young woman (played by model Brooklyn Decker) and works his magic on her. He’s actually not wearing the ring at the time, but she finds it in his bag, and is mad as hell. So what does Sandler do? Lie his arse off of course, ‘coz hey, telling the truth is totally ‘homo’, right Mr. Sandler? He purports to have an estranged ex-wife, and in order to do away with any suspicions, he proves this to Decker...

Elijah Wood plays an American Maths student who idolises professor John Hurt, a rather jaded sort who claims that there’s no way of ever really knowing the truth. Life is full of uncertainties, randomness, irrational behaviour that makes it impossible to ever truly know anything. Wood disagrees, citing pi as an example, i.e. Mathematics, which earns him the derision of both the cynical Hurt and his classmates. The two end up teaming up to solve a series of murders with mathematical calling cards (the first of a sequence), after the body of Wood’s elderly landlady (Anna Massey) turns up, Hurt being a friend of the family. Jim Carter plays the plain-speaking copper constantly feeling like a dummy opposite the two Brainiacs, Leonor Watling plays Wood’s buxom nurse girlfriend, and Julie Cox plays Massey’s long-suffering musician daughter, who is perhaps a bit unstable. Dominique Pinon and Burn Gorman turn up as a glum father with a very ill daughter, and an embittered Russian student who...

Set in the 1920s, Andy Lau stars as ruthless Chinese General Hou, who kills his mentor/rival General Sung, but finds himself betrayed by his own lieutenant Tsao (Nicholas Tse). Ultimately this results in the loss of his daughter and the loss of the love of his wife (Fan Bingbing). Wounded both physically and spiritually, he is nursed back to health by a Shaolin temple cook (Jackie Chan) and the brethren, who operate like martial-arts variants of Robin Hood and his Merry Men, trying to help the poor and downtrodden by feeding them rice they steal from the rich and powerful. The once seemingly heartless warlord (he even shoots a surrendered enemy in the back) begins to take a different outlook on life and on the do-gooders he once thumbed his nose at. Meanwhile, Tsao has risen to power in his absence and is a far more ruthless warlord than the once ambitious Hou ever was, and is trading arms for Chinese treasures with foreigners. It seems he has trained his apprentice all too well! ...

Review: Blown Away Bomb squad member Jimmy Dove (Jeff Bridges) is just about to begin retirement, but when a new mad bomber appears to be on the loose in Boston, he finds himself drawn back in. Which is just as well, because the mad bomber in question is one Ryan Gaerty (Tommy Lee Jones), an Irish prison escapee fresh in America, who was somewhat of a terrorist back in Belfast (but apparently too crazy for the IRA). The same Gaerty whom fellow expatriate Dove (going by a different name back then) used to idolise as a young man, before his conscience made him realise that this was not the way. Once Gaerty (who has a fondness for Rube Goldberg-esque explosive devices) sees Dove on the TV news, he decides it’s time for a little revenge for what he perceives as past wrongs done to him by Dove. Meanwhile, Dove has to deal with a cocky soon-to-be replacement (Forest Whitaker), and domestic issues with new wife Suzy Amis and their kid. Lloyd Bridges turns up as his real-life son’s uncl...