The Raid: Redemption

As a kid, my favorite films were action, especially ones starring Jackie Chan, where people used hand-to-hand combat as opposed to guns or swords to defeat their foes. As the years went on and I got older, those movies never got too popular and I didn’t see them as often as I did when I was younger. Chan has making those films since then, but for a while Hollywood and other places started producing more elegant, whimsical, and traditional martial arts films like Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, which I loved, but it wasn’t the kind of brute action I still loved. I found what I was looking for a few times in recent years from Tony Jaa, but not much else.

Now, me and other fans like me have a new hope. The Raid: Redemption has no background story or purpose, nor does it need one. The plot is simple: a group of policemen are attempting to overtake a large apartment building controlled by a crime lord. You learn this in the first few minutes. The rest of the film is just action, pure and simple.

Butter

There are a lot of strange hobbies out there. Sometimes, many people share those strange hobbies and organize huge competitions to see who’s the best. One such hobby is making sculptures out of sticks of butter, and Bob Pickler, played by Ty Burrell, is the most successful and famous butter artist in Iowa, where our movie takes place. When he decides to judge the competition instead of compete, his overbearing wife Laura, played by Jennifer Garner, decides to give it a shot. Also entering in the local competition is Destiny, an 11 year old girl who has just found a decent set of foster parents and who is really talented, and Brooke Swinkowski, played by Olivia Wilde. Brooke is a stripper who Bob Pickler has relations with and is now on a revenge mission to get the money the Pickler’s owe her.

What to Expect When You’re Expecting

An increasingly popular idea for a film the past two years has been the absurdly large collection “A-list” actors all combining to make a movie about a bunch of different characters/stories with some sort of connecting trait or event. Movie’s like He’s Just Not That Into You started it, eventually growing into bigger collaborations like Valentine’s Day and New Year’s Eve. For some reason, I feel compelled to compile a list of all of the easily recognizable names featured in What to Expect When You’re Expecting. Here we go:

Cameron Diaz, Jennifer Lopez, Elizabeth Banks, Chace Crawford, Brooklyn Decker, Ben Falcone, Anna Kendrick, Matthew Morrison, Dennis Quade, Chris Rock, Thomas Lennon, Rob Huebel, and Dwayne Wade.

The plot is pretty simple: There are a lot several couples that in one way or another have a baby coming into their lives. Different experiences and relationships are explored and tested by the introduction of a child.

Cosmopolis

Robert Pattinson stars as Eric Packer, the son of an infamous businessman and president of a hugely successful population. The film covers his trip across the city in an attempt to get a haircut, but this is no normal day.

Lost in Translation – Detached