Shameless Self Expression

Kinda sorta based on the Grimm fairytale, Amanda Seyfried stars as Valerie. That’s right, the character isn’t named Red Riding Hood, she simply wears one. Well, some of the time. Anyway, Valerie is in a bit of a pickle. Two, actually. One the one hand, Valerie is caught between two young men. She fancies childhood friend and woodcutter Peter (Shiloh Fernandez), but her parents (Virginia Madsen and Billy Burke) have arranged for her to marry the son (Robert Pattinson-ish Max Irons) of a blacksmith. Meanwhile (in a plot thread nowhere near the Brothers Grimm), a werewolf has just killed Valerie’s sister. Although the townsfolk hunt it down and apparently kill it, famed werewolf hunter Father Solomon (Gary Oldman) claims they have killed a mere ordinary wolf. This puts Valerie, as I said, in a secondary pickle, because she discovers that she has a seemingly psychic link to the werewolf, which makes her seem awfully suspicious to the townsfolk, and especially the ruthless Father Solomo...

Small town sheriff Luke Goss hears that his screw-up brother has been killed by a gang he was trying to leave. When the police investigation appears to be going nowhere (that’s what you get when 50 Cent plays a cop), he decides to take matters into his own hands. He poses as a thug and soon finds himself taken in by local gangster Tamer Hassan, riding with offsider Ed Quinn as they off rival scum. Quinn is also the brother of Goss’ brother’s drug-addicted ex-girlfriend. AnnaLynne McCord plays an S&M freak lieutenant in Hassan’s crew, who may not be all she appears to be. Val Kilmer turns up as another gangster named Arturo (Yes, Arturo), and Bobby Lashley (!) plays a hulking fighter.   Although a bit slight-looking, former Bros member Luke Goss is a pretty decent direct-to-DVD action star (if the unlikeliest- a former member of a one-hit wonder Brit boy band? Really?), but this 2011 actioner from debut director Jason Hewitt (producer of the RVD action flick “Wrong Sid...

Set in Seattle, Michael Pitt stars as a defeated-looking Kurt Cobain stand-in, wandering aimlessly and zombielike around his mansion in the last few days of his seemingly miserable life. A few hangers-on and random people turn up every now and then like musician Lukas Haas, and Yellow Pages salesman Thadeus A. Thomas, but Pitt reacts to them in a passive, barely observant manner. He might be trying to avoid them by staying at the opposite end of the house, but that would seem to indicate effort. You have to be awake to do that, and Pitt seems at the very most somnambulant. Magician Ricky Jay turns up as a detective who seems more interested in telling anecdotes than anything else. Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth (who was an acquaintance of Cobain) plays Pitt’s mother. Asia Argento plays a woman named Asia ( presumably cast because...well, she’s Dario Argento’s daughter).   After the pointless debacle that was the shot-for-shot colour remake of “Psycho” , you’d think writer-di...

Liam Neeson plays an American scientist and university professor arriving in Berlin to attend a biotech summit. About to meet with his wife (January Jones), Neeson realises he left his bag at the airport and takes a ride in a taxi driven by illegal immigrant Diane Kruger (!). Unfortunately, they get into an accident, and Neeson wakes up in a hospital after having been in a coma. After a bit of recovery, he discovers a man (Aidan Quinn) claiming to be him , and even Jones claims to not recognise Neeson as her husband. And then someone tries to rub Neeson out! Just what in the hell is a-goin’ on here? Bruno Ganz plays an ex-Stasi officer who now does detective work of-sorts, Sebastian Koch plays the keynote speaker at the summit, and Frank Langella plays Neeson’s boss back home.   With lots of Hitchcockian touches, this Jaume Collet-Serra ( “Orphan” , an ordinary film with one of the best and most unpredictable twists you’ll ever see) thriller from 2011 is the kind of film ...