The Reader

The Reader is an Academy Award-nominated and BAFTA, Golden Globe Award-winning 2008 British drama film based on the 1995 German novel of the same name by Bernhard Schlink. The film adaptation was written by David Hare and directed by Stephen Daldry. Ralph Fiennes and Kate Winslet star along with the young actor David Kross. It was the last film for producers Anthony Minghella and Sydney Pollack, who both died before it was released. Production began in Germany in September 2007, and the film opened in limited release on 10 December 2008.

It tells the story of Michael Berg, a German lawyer who as a teenager in the late 1950s had an affair with an older woman, Hanna Schmitz, who then disappeared only to resurface years later as one of the defendants in a war crimes trial stemming from her actions as a concentration camp guard late in the war. Michael realizes that Hanna is keeping a secret she believes is worse than her Nazi past, a secret that may cost her at the trial.

Winslet and David Kross, who plays the young Michael, have received much praise for their performances. The film has been nominated for several major awards.

Plot
The Reader begins in 1995 Berlin, where Michael Berg (Ralph Fiennes) is preparing breakfast for a woman who has spent the night with him. After she leaves, Michael watches a U-Bahn pass by, flashing back to a tram in 1958 Neustadt. A teenage Michael (David Kross) gets off because he is feeling sick and wanders around the streets afterwards, finally pausing in the entryway of a nearby apartment building where he vomits. Hanna Schmitz (Kate Winslet), the tram conductor, comes in and assists him in returning home.


Michael (Kross) reads to Hanna (Winslet) after sex.Michael, diagnosed with scarlet fever, must rest at home for the next three months. After he recovers he visits Hanna. The two begin an affair. During their liaisons, at her apartment, he reads to her literary works he is studying, such as The Odyssey, The Lady with the Little Dog and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. After a bicycling trip, Hanna learns she is being promoted to a clerical job at the tram company. She abruptly moves without leaving a trace.

After seeing the adult Michael, a lawyer, we see him at Heidelberg University law school in 1966. As part of a special seminar taught by Professor Rohl (Bruno Ganz), a camp survivor, he observes a trial of several women who were accused of letting 300 Jewish women die in a burning church when they were SS guards on the death march following the 1944 evacuation of Auschwitz. Hanna is one of the defendants.

Stunned, Michael visits a former camp himself. The trial divides the seminar, with one student angrily saying there is nothing to be learned from it other than that evil acts occurred and that the older generation of Germans should kill themselves for their failure to act then.

The key evidence is the testimony of Ilana Mather (Alexandra Maria Lara), author of a memoir of how she and her mother survived. Hanna, unlike her fellow defendants, admits that Auschwitz was an extermination camp and that the ten women she chose during each month's Selektion were gassed. She denies authorship of a report on the church fire, despite pressure from the other defendants, but then admits it when asked to provide a handwriting sample.

Michael then realizes Hanna's secret: she is functionally illiterate and has concealed that her whole life. She joined the SS to avoid a job promotion that would have revealed it. Michael informs Rohl that he has information favorable to one of the defendants but is not sure what to do since she wants to avoid disclosing this. Rohl tells him that if he has learned nothing from the past there is no point in having the seminar.

Hanna receives a life sentence for her role in the church deaths while the other defendants get shorter terms. Michael meanwhile marries, has a daughter and divorces. Rediscovering his books and notes from the time of his affair, he begins reading them into a tape recorder. He sends the cassette tapes and a tape recorder to Hanna. Eventually she learns to read, and writes back to him.

Michael does not write back or visit, but keeps sending tapes, and in 1988 a prison official (Linda Basset) telephones him to seek his help with Hannah's transition into society upon her upcoming release. He finds a place for her to live and a job, and finally visits. The night before her release Hannah hangs herself and leaves a note to Michael and a tea tin with cash in it.

Later, Michael travels to New York. He meets Ilana (Lena Olin) and confesses his past relationship with Hanna. He tells her that Hanna was illiterate for most of her life, and that her suicide note told him to give both the cash, some money she had in a bank account and the tea tin to Ilana. Ilana tells Michael there is nothing to be learned from the camps. Michael suggests that he donate the money to a organization that combats adult illiteracy, preferably a Jewish one, and she agrees. Ilana keeps the tea tin since it is similar to one stolen from her in Auschwitz.

The film ends with Michael getting back together with his daughter, Julia, at Hanna's grave and telling her the story.

Starring
Kate Winslet
Ralph Fiennes
David Kross
Alexandra Maria Lara
Lena Olin
Bruno Ganz

He's Just Not That into You

He's Just Not That Into You is a 2009 US romantic comedy film, based on the self-help book of the same name by Greg Behrendt and Liz Tuccillo, which, in turn, was based on a line of dialogue in Sex and the City. Produced by Drew Barrymore's Flower Films. Featuring an ensemble cast, it stars Ben Affleck, Jennifer Aniston, Drew Barrymore, Scarlett Johansson, Justin Long, Jennifer Connelly, Ginnifer Goodwin, Kevin Connolly, and Bradley Cooper; and is directed by Ken Kwapis

Starring
Drew Barrymore
Jennifer Aniston
Ben Affleck
Scarlett Johansson
Justin Long
Jennifer Connelly
Ginnifer Goodwin
Kevin Connolly
Bradley Cooper

Coraline Trailer

Coraline is a 2009 animated stop-motion 3-D horror fantasy film based on Neil Gaiman's novella of the same name. It was produced by LAIKA and distributed by Focus Features. Directed by Henry Selick, it was released in theaters on February 6, 2009. It is rated PG by the Motion Picture Association of America for thematic elements, scary images, some language and suggestive humor.

Taken Trailer

Bryan Mills (Liam Neeson) is a divorced, retired CIA operative.His 17-year-old daughter Kim (Maggie Grace) lives with his ex-wife Lenore (Famke Janssen) and her new wealthy husband Stuart (Xander Berkeley). Bryan is hired for security for a pop diva. After the show, the diva is attacked, but Bryan efficiently disables the assailant and gets her safely out of danger. Thankful, the diva expresses some interest in Bryan’s daughter and furnishes him with contacts to get Kim's career started.

The next day Bryan discovers that Kim wants to take a vacation to Paris with her friend Amanda (Katie Cassidy). Despite his initial concerns against the trip, Bryan agrees to allow it, later discovering that their actual plan is to travel round Europe following U2. Arriving in Paris, a young man named Peter (Nicolas Giraud) proposes to share a taxi with Kim and Amanda to the house where they are staying, and reports their address.

In the house, Kim receives a phone call from her father, which she answers in the bathroom. From the bathroom window she sees men entering the main room and abducting Amanda. Bryan is able to gain critical information about the kidnappers in the final moments after Kim is kidnapped by telling her to shout out everything about them that she notices. Briefly, Bryan talks to one of the kidnappers, warning him that unless Kim is released, he will pursue him and kill him, to which the kidnapper replies "good luck" before smashing the daughter's phone.

Exploiting his government contacts and the business connections of his ex-wife’s husband, Bryan travels to Paris to find her, informed that the kidnappers are Albanian sex traffickers and that he has only 96 hours to recover his daughter before she will disappear forever, and that the local leader is a man named Marko. He uses digital photos from the smashed remains of Kim's phone to locate Peter, who is killed by a truck while trying to escape.

He manages to save one of the kidnapped girls from the hands of the kidnappers and she discloses to him the address of the house where the Albanian kidnappers are holding them. He finds the house and several other girls including Amanda, dead from a forced overdose. Later, by torturing Marko, Bryan ascertains that Kim was sold to a man named Patrice Saint-Clair, who showed interest in making a profit from selling her because she is a virgin. He finds Saint-Clair by threatening Jean-Claude's wife, as Jean-Claude was receiving bribes for overlooking the trafficking.

By impersonating Jean-Claude, Bryan gains entry to the building where new girls are being sold, and secures entry to one of the buyers’ viewing booths. He sees his daughter as she is displayed on the auction block. However, he is caught before he can engineer an escape for himself and his daughter. He manages to escape and find Saint-Clair, whom he kills after learning that his daughter is being taken by Arab clients. Bryan manages to follow the car his daughter is being taken in to see her being taken away on a yacht. He jumps on to the ship from a bridge and eliminates all the people inside, finally killing the client and freeing his daughter. Back in the US, Kim is reunited with her mother. Bryan introduces Kim to the diva he saved at the beginning of the film, having arranged an audition with her vocal coach.

Inkheart Movie Trailer

Plot
Mortimer "Mo" Folchart (Brendan Fraser) and his 12-year-old daughter, Meggie (Eliza Bennett), share a passion for books. What they also share is an extraordinary gift for bringing characters from books to life when they read aloud. But there is a danger: when a character is brought to life from a book, a real person disappears into its pages.
On one of their trips to a secondhand book shop, Mo hears voices he hasn't heard for years, and when he locates the book they're coming from, it sends a shiver up his spine. It's Inkheart, a book filled with illustrations of medieval castles and strange creatures--a book he's been searching for since Meggie was three years old, when her mother, Resa (Sienna Guillory), vanished into its mystical world.
But Mo's plan to use the book to find and rescue Resa is thwarted when Capricorn (Andy Serkis), the evil villain of Inkheart, kidnaps Meggie and, discovering she has inherited her father's gift, demands that she bring his most powerful ally to life--the Shadow. Determined to rescue his daughter and send the fictional characters back where they belong, Mo assembles a small group of friends and family--some from the real world, some from the pages of books--and embarks on a daring and perilous journey to set things right.

Starring
Brendan Fraser
Eliza Bennett
Paul Bettany
Helen Mirren
Andy Serkis
Jim Broadbent

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button Trailer

The elderly Daisy (Blanchett) is on her deathbed in a New Orleans hospital as Hurricane Katrina approaches in August 2005. She asks her daughter Caroline (Ormond) to read aloud from a diary containing photographs and postcards written by Benjamin Button (Pitt). Caroline begins to read as the story transitions to Benjamin's point of view.

On November 11, 1918, just as the people of New Orleans are celebrating the end of the Great War, a baby boy is born with the appearance and physical limitations of a man who is 86 years old. The mother of the baby dies shortly after giving birth, and the father, Thomas Button, takes the baby and abandons him on the porch of a nursing home. Queenie (Henson) and Tizzy (Ali), an African-American couple who work at the nursing home, find the baby. Queenie, who is unable to conceive, decides to take the baby in as her own, against Tizzy's wishes. She names the baby Benjamin.

Over the course of the story, Benjamin begins to physically grow younger. In 1930, while still appearing to be in his seventies, he meets a young Daisy (Fanning), whose grandmother lives in the nursing home. The children play together and listen to Daisy's grandmother read from a storybook.

A few years later, Benjamin goes to work on a tugboat on the docks of New Orleans for Captain Mike (Jared Harris). In their free time, the captain takes him to brothels and bars. For the first time, he meets Thomas Button, who does not reveal that he is Benjamin's father. Later, Benjamin leaves New Orleans with the tugboat crew for a long-term work engagement. Before he leaves, Daisy makes him promise to write to her from "everywhere".

In Russia, Benjamin meets a British woman named Elizabeth Abbott (Tilda Swinton) and falls in love with her. Elizabeth is already married, with her husband working as a spy for the British government, but she has an affair with Benjamin. One day, on the morning of December 8, 1941, the day after the Pearl Harbor attack, Elizabeth leaves unexpectedly and leaves a note behind: "It was nice to have met you."

Benjamin gets caught up in World War II when Captain Mike's boat and crew are enlisted by the US Navy. During a battle, the tugboat rams and sinks a German U-boat in the Atlantic Ocean. Most of the sailors on board the tugboat, including Captain Mike, die of their wounds from the battle. A hummingbird appears, symbolizing Captain Mike's spirit per an earlier conversation where Captain Mike talked about the miracle of hummingbirds. After this, Benjamin sees death in a different way, as opposed to the retirement home where death seemed more natural.

After the war, Benjamin returns to New Orleans, and again meets Thomas Button, who is dying. Thomas reveals to Benjamin that he is his father and bequeaths all of his assets to Benjamin, including the house and the family button factory. Benjamin is now a wealthy man.

Benjamin learns that Daisy has become a successful dancer in New York City. Daisy attempts to seduce Benjamin but he refuses. When Benjamin travels to New York to meet Daisy at a performance, he finds Daisy has fallen in love with a fellow dancer. Later, Daisy falls victim to a car accident during a dance tour in Paris, inhibiting her dance career. Benjamin receives notice of this by telegram from one of her friends, and immediately travels to Paris to find her. Daisy's first comment upon seeing Benjamin is "you're perfect" – referring to his youthful appearance – but she turns Benjamin away, telling him to get out of her life. Later, Daisy regains the ability to walk through intense physical therapy.

In 1962, Benjamin returns to New Orleans and meets Daisy again. The two fall in love as both their internal and external ages become similar. Benjamin sells the house he had inherited from Thomas Button and moves into a duplex apartment with Daisy. Daisy starts a dance studio for young girls. However, the couple struggles with the issue of Benjamin growing younger while Daisy grows older. A couple of years pass and Daisy gives birth to a girl, Caroline. Benjamin, believing he can no longer be a "real father" due to his continuous reverse aging, decides to leave Daisy behind with his possessions and assets when Caroline turns one.

While reading this, Caroline learns Benjamin is her father. She becomes upset that Daisy took such a long time to inform her of this, but in turn finds that Benjamin sent her a postcard from everywhere for each of her birthdays telling her how he feels about his daughter.

Benjamin becomes younger and travels to various countries around the world. In 1980, he returns once again, now looking like a 25-year-old, to meet Daisy in her dance studio. At this point, Daisy is married to a widower, and Caroline is now twelve years old. Daisy introduces Benjamin to her husband and daughter as a long-time family friend. Daisy and Benjamin then meet privately in Benjamin's hotel where they share their passion for each other, while realizing that Daisy has become too old for Benjamin. Benjamin departs and continues to grow younger until he develops symptoms similar to dementia as a pre-teen, barely remembering his past. Daisy moves into the nursing home where Benjamin grew up and takes care of him as he becomes a younger, more confused 8-year-old boy with a growing temper.

In the spring of 2003, an infant Benjamin dies in Daisy's arms. At the moment before Benjamin dies, Daisy claims to have seen through his eyes that he still remembers her, despite the fact that Benjamin has no other way to communicate with her. In the 2005 hospital room, as the power goes out due to Hurricane Katrina, Caroline leaves the room while Daisy passes away, just after wishing to see Benjamin and seeing a hummingbird fly by the window (a symbol of spirits after death).

Bride Wars Trailer

Bride Wars (2009)Trailer

Emma (Anne Hathaway) and Liv (Kate Hudson) are best friends, and since they were young, they have always wanted to be married in The Plaza Hotel. Planning to marry their respective husbands to-be, everything seems to be going perfectly--the dates are set, their dresses are beautiful, and the maids of honor, each other, are as joyful as can be. However, when the pair of friends receive the bad news that their weddings were planned for the same day, the pre-wedding bliss is ruined. With neither willing to give up her dream wedding, Liv and Emma declare themselves to be engaged in the most heated and dangerous kind of war known to man--Bride Wars.They fight over dresses, tans, and even blue hair! Get ready for the journey of war! Bride Wars!

Marley & Me - Trailer

Marley & Me - Trailer

Marley & Me is a 2008 American comedy film directed by David Frankel. The screenplay by Scott Frank and Don Roos is based on the memoir of the same title by John Grogan. The film was released in the United States and Canada on December 25, 2008 and set a record for the largest Christmas Day box office ever with $14.75 million in ticket sales

Plot
Soon after their wedding, John and Jenny escape the brutal Michigan winters and relocate to a cottage in southern Florida, where they are hired as reporters for competing newspapers. At The Palm Beach Post, she immediately receives prominent front-page assignments, while at the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, he finds himself writing obituaries and two-paragraph articles about mundane news like a fire at the local garbage dump.

When John senses Jenny is contemplating motherhood, his friend and co-worker Sebastian Tunney suggests the couple adopt a dog to see if they're ready to raise a family. From a litter of newborn yellow labrador retrievers they select Marley (named after reggae singer Bob Marley), who immediately proves to be incorrigible. They bring him to Ms. Kornblut, who firmly believes any dog can be trained, but even she gives up and expels Marley from her class.

Editor Arnie Klein offers John a twice-weekly column in which he can discuss the fun and foibles of everyday living. At first stumped for material, John realizes the misadventures of Marley might be the perfect topic for his first piece. Arnie agrees, and John settles into his new position.

Marley continues to wreak havoc on the household, providing John with a wealth of material for his column, which becomes a hit with readers and helps increase the newspaper's circulation. Jenny becomes pregnant, but loses the baby early in her first trimester. She and John travel to Ireland for a belated honeymoon, leaving the rambunctious dog in the care of a young woman who finds him impossible to control, especially during the frequent thunderstorms that plague the area. Soon after returning from their vacation, Jenny discovers she is pregnant again, and this time she delivers a healthy boy, Patrick. When she has a second son, Connor, she opts to give up her job and become a stay-at-home mom, and the couple decides to move to a larger house in the safer neighborhood of Boca Raton, where Marley delights in swimming in the backyard pool.

John and Jenny welcome a daughter, Colleen, to their family. Although she denies she is experiencing postpartum depression, Jenny exhibits all the symptoms, including a growing impatience with Marley and John, who asks Sebastian to care for the dog when Jenny insists they give him away. She quickly comes to realize he has become an indispensable part of the family and agrees he can stay.

John celebrates his 40th birthday. Increasingly disenchanted with his job, he decides to accept a position as a reporter with The Philadelphia Inquirer with Jenny's blessing, and the family moves to a farm in rural Pennsylvania. Life is idyllic until the aging Marley begins to show signs of slowing down. When it becomes clear surgery will not help his debilitating condition, the family must prepare themselves for life without their beloved pet.

Cast
Owen Wilson as John Grogan
Jennifer Aniston as Jenny Grogan
Eric Dane as Sebastian Tunney
Alan Arkin as Arnie Klein
Sandy Martin as Debbie
Haley Bennett as Lisa
Kathleen Turner as Ms. Kornblut
Nathan Gamble as Patrick Grogan

Daniel Craig : Defiance

Defiance Trailer

Defiance is a 2008 American World War II film directed by Edward Zwick, director of Blood Diamond and The Last Samurai, and had a limited United States release on December 31, 2008[1]. Set in conquered Belarus during World War II, the film is an adaptation of Nechama Tec's Defiance: The Bielski Partisans based on the true story of the Bielski partisans. In the book, pacifistic and nonmilitant Polish Jews come together to train in the military arts and oppose the German and Russian occupation of their homeland.

Defiance stars Daniel Craig, Liev Schreiber, Jamie Bell, and George MacKay as four Jewish brothers from Poland who escape from the Nazis and fight back to rescue fellow Jews. Production began in early September 2007. The film is scheduled for full release on January 16, 2009.

Plot
During World War II, four Jewish brothers (Daniel Craig, Liev Schreiber, Jamie Bell, George MacKay) escape their Nazi-occupied homeland of West Belarus in Poland and join the Soviet partisans to combat the Nazis.[2] The brothers begin the rescue of roughly 1,200 Jews still trapped in the ghettos of Poland. The film tracks their struggle to evade invading German forces while still maintaining their mission to save Jewish lives

Cast
Daniel Craig as Tuvia Bielski, one of the four Bielski brothers
Liev Schreiber as Zus Bielski, one of the four Bielski brothers
Jamie Bell as Asael Bielski, one of the four Bielski brothers
George MacKay as Aron Bielski, one of the four Bielski brothers
Alexa Davalos as Lilka, a Polish refugee and the love interest of Craig's character
Tomas Arana as Ben Zion, a resistance leader

Bedtime Stories Trailer

Bedtime Stories Trailer

Bedtime Stories is a 2008 American family-fantasy-comedy film directed by Adam Shankman that stars Adam Sandler (his first appearance in a Disney film). Sandler's production company Happy Madison and Andrew Gunn's company Gunn Films have produced the film, and Walt Disney Pictures is distributing it.It is rated PG for some mild rude humor and mild language.