Triple 9

After a crew of thieves – including two corrupt cops – partially botch the robbery of a bank’s safety deposit box for Russian gangsters, the team are given another chance and their fee is withheld until she successfully steal more information, key to the release of the gang’s boss. The only way to pull off the heist is to distract all the local cops long enough for a decent window of time, and the corrupt officers Marcus (Anthony Mackie) and Franco (Clifton Collins Jr.) believe the best way to do this is to pull a “Triple 9”, to kill a cop. And they think they’ve got the perfect target in Marcus’ new greenhorn partner Chris (Casey Affleck), the nephew of prominent Detective Sergeant Jeffrey Allen (Woody Harrelson). Meanwhile, the thieves’ leader Michael (Chiwetel Ejiofor) receives grief from the Russian boss’ wife Irina (Kate Winslet), whose sister (Gal Gadot) is the mother of Michael’s son. The rest of Michael’s team is comprised of Russell (Norman Reedus) and his younger, unstable brother Gabe (Aaron Paul).
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Katniss Sniddlegrass and the Cauldron of Mockingjays

Spoilers, spoilers, spoilers everywhere!

Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) lives in the world of Panem, and land rife with civil unrest. 74 years ago Panem, which is split into twelve working-class districts and one wealthy capitalist Capitol, was host to an uprising, during which the unruly numbered districts were defeated by the Capitol’s military powers, and during which District 13 was destroyed. As penance for this act, every year the Capitol holds an annual Hunger Games, for which a boy and girl aged 12 to 18 from each district are randomly selected, trained, presented to the public and thrown into a specially made arena to fight it out to the death, until only one player survives. Katniss lives in District 12, and the when her younger sister Primrose (Willow Shields) is picked in her first draw, Katniss volunteers in her stead. Her male counterpart is Peeta Mellark (Josh Hutcherson), a baker who only tangentially knows Katniss. Katniss asks her friend Gale Hawthorne (Liam Hemsworth) to look after her sister and emotionally frail mother (Paula Malcomson).
Jennifer Lawrence stars as 'Katniss Everdeen' in THE HUNGER GAMES.
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Seven Psychopaths

Marty (Colin Farrell) is an alcoholic writer (otherwise known as just a writer) who has the title of his latest screenplay – Seven Psychopaths – but is struggling for anything after that. His best friend Billy Bickle (Sam Rockwell) is desperate to help, and posts an advert in a newspaper, calling for any psychopathic characters to get in touch as inspiration. Meanwhile, Billy and Hans (Christopher Walken) run a dog-napping business, in which Billy ‘borrows’ the dogs from unsuspecting owners, only for Hans to return them a few days later and collect the reward. This all goes a little awry when Billy’s latest victim, Bonny the ShihTzu, is owned by ruthless mob boss Charlie (Woody Harrelson), and he really loves that dog.
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No Country for Old Men

In this most bleak and convoluted offering from the Coen brothers you rarely witness a characters ultimate destiny, although they are hinted at enough to make a fair assumption. Josh Brolin’s Llewelyn Moss, a welder out hunting deer in south west Texas, stumbles upon a botched drug deal and, finding a suitcase full of money, goes immediately to the authorities before returning home to his wife and living a largely uneventful life. No, of course not, he legs it, instigating a game of cat and mouse with Javier Barden’s Anton Chigurh, a ruthless, near robotic hitman with an unusual and extreme set of morals, himself pursued by Tommy Lee Jones’ small town sheriff Ed Tom Bell. Featuring a stellar supporting cast including Woody Harrelson, Stephen Root and Kelly Macdonald, some incredible scenery, lensed by Oscar winning regular Coen cinematographer Roger Deakins and highly memorable dialogue lifted directly from Cormac McCarthy’s seminal novel of the same name, this is a truly inspirational and unique film. Bardem in particular completely embodies his character, becoming one of the most iconic villains to grace our screens in modern times. Brolin however strikes me as an actor from the ranks of Shia LaBoeuf and Sam Worthington, snapped up and promoted by big name directors without having the talent to back up the expectations, flooding the cinemas with frankly mediocre acting ability.
Choose film 8/10

2012

Say what you will about Roland Emmerich, and many have and I’m sure many more will, but the man knows how to abuse a landscape. Given that within his back catalogue, the guy’s unleashed a giant reptile around New York, had aliens destroy all the major cities of the world and frozen the entire northern hemisphere, you’d think he’d be looking for something new, to stretch his horizon a little beyond the tedium of landscape desecration. Well now it looks like he may be doing just that, but before he goes, he wants to make sure he’s remembered for the disaster movie to end all disaster movies. So, in 2012, which historical landmarks are being reduced to so much dust in the wind? The Washington monument? The Sistine chapel? Christ the Redeemer? If you answered d) All of the above, congratulations, you’re correct, as Emmerich has had enough of humanity, and is blowing all of civilisation sky high. He even has a pop at Mount Everest, and we didn’t even build that.