Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. A small farming village is routinely looted by a gang of bandits, who steal most of their crops and pillage the town. The farmers are too weak and untrained to defend themselves, so they head into town to find warriors to fight for them, in exchange for food. They are successful, eventually recruiting a team of seven, who return to the village and help train the farmers for an upcoming attack.
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Category Archives: 08/10
The Naked Gun
After thwarting a mass international terrorist assembly single-handed, Lt. Frank Drebin (Leslie Nielsen) of Los Angeles’ Police Squad returns home to find his girlfriend has left him and his partner, Nordberg (O.J. Simpson) is severely wounded attempting to bust a drug deal at the docks. With the Queen visiting town and it looking like Nordberg might be involved with a criminal plot to assassinate her, Drebin is given just 24 hours to solve the case.
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Blind Spot: Lawrence of Arabia
In the First World War, British Lt. T. E. Lawrence (Peter O’Toole) is selected to assess the situation of Prince Faisal (Alec Guinness), who is having issues with the Turks. Going against the wishes of his superior officer, Lawrence catches the attention of the Prince, and advises a plan to attack Aqaba, a strategically positioned shipping port, by land, something deemed impossible due to the treacherous desert that must be crossed to do so. Even so, Lawrence and 50 men set out to do just that.
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Steve Jobs
During the preparations leading up to the public unveiling of three products – the Mackintosh in 1984, NeXT Computer in 1988 and iMac in 1998 – business “composer” Steve Jobs (Michael Fassbender) deals with the same handful of people and problems, including his friend and marketing associate Joanna Hoffman (Kate Winslet), co-Apple-founder Steve Wozniak (Seth Rogen), engineer Andy Hertzfeld (Michael Stuhlbarg), Apple CEO John Sculley (Jeff Daniels) and Chrisann Brennan (Katherine Waterstone), Steve’s ex-girlfriend and the mother of his potential daughter Lisa.
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Men & Chicken
This review was originally written for Blueprint: Review.
Brothers Gabriel and Elias (David Dencik & Mads Mikkelsen) discover they were adopted after their apparent father passes away. Elias’ mother died in childbirth, and the fate of Gabriel’s is left unclear, so the pair set out to discover their biological parentage. Their quest takes them to the small island of Ork, a place with barely 40 inhabitants, and a dilapidated house believed to be the home of their father. Upon their arrival, Elias and Gabriel face another shock when they meet their three other half-brothers, aggressive but protective Franz (Søren Malling), gluttonous Josef (Nicolas Bro) and simple Gregor (Nikolaj Lie Kaas). The brothers live in a state of disarray and constant fighting, which Elias fits right into, but Gabriel attempts to reform it, all while persisting to find his father and uncover the secrets of his mysterious basement.
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The Towering Inferno
On it’s opening night, a 138-storey skyscraper is having a celebratory party on the 135th floor. However, due to corners being cut during production a fire breaks out on floor 81. It is up to the building’s architect Doug Roberts (Paul Newman) and Fire Chief O’Hallorhan (Steve McQueen) to try to save as many people as possible as the blaze intensifies.
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The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert
After the death of one of their partners, three cabaret performers accept a job playing at a hotel in Alice Springs, two weeks drive away from their Sydney home. Equipped with a tour bus they christen Priscilla, the trio set out across the barren wastes of Australia, dealing with prejudice and other obstacles along the way.
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Bridge of Spies
Brooklyn, 1957. British-Russian Rudolf Abel (Mark Rylance) is arrested and charged with being a Soviet spy. In order for him to receive a fair trial he is assigned a defence lawyer in the form of James B. Donovan (Tom Hanks). Donovan has no choice but to accept the case, despite it being a guaranteed lose for him – the judge already calls Abel “The Russian” and has no qualms with admitting he has decided Abel is a spy before the case has even begun – and the case also puts a strain on Donovan’s personal life, with his family being attacked and Donovan being shunned in public. Even the police who respond to the call from the attack threaten to fight Donovan, yet he continues and pursues the case even deeper. After the case is over, American pilot Francis Gary Powers (Austin Stowell) is shot down using a secret spy plane, photographing key areas of the Soviet Union. When Powers is imprisoned within the USSR, Donovan is once again called upon to resolve the situation.
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The Godfather Part II
In 1900’s Corleone, Sicily, a young Vito Andolini is left the only surviving member of his family after his father, brother and mother are all killed by the local mafia head, Don Ciccio. Vito flees to New York and adopts the new surname Corleone, and eventually finds that perhaps the best way of life for him is similar to the one that led to his family’s demise. Inter-cut with this story and following on from the events of The Godfather, a now in-charge Michael (Al Pacino), Vito’s youngest son, struggles to maintain his power with threats on many sides, including possibly one from within the family.
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Blind Spot: A Clockwork Orange
In a semi-dystopian future London, Alex DeLarge (Malcolm McDowell) and his gangs of droogs (James Marcus, Warren Clarke and Michael Tarn) spend their nights terrorising the town, fighting with other gangs, beating up drunks and breaking into people’s houses, stealing valuables, and crippling and raping the inhabitants. When the gang turns against their leader, Alex is left injured at the scene of his latest crime and is sentenced to prison, wherein he attempts a new form of treatment set to “reprogram” him against his former behaviour.
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