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Opening this week
Compiled by LEE CLARK ZUMPE
| Article published on Monday, Feb. 8, 2010 |
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![[Image]](/content_images/020810_lemovies-01.jpg) |
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| Photo courtesy of UNIVERSAL PICTURES |
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| Lawrence Talbot (Benicio Del Toro) morphs from a human into an unimaginable creature in the action-horror inspired by the classic Universal film that launched a legacy of horror, “The Wolfman.” |
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In Hollywood, love is in the air, the moon is full and Greek gods are feuding.
A number of new movie releases will hit theaters this week, including the following films opening in wide release.
Valentine’s Day
Genre: Romantic comedy
Cast: Jessica Alba, Kathy Bates, Jessica Biel, Bradley Cooper, Eric Dane, Patrick Dempsey, Hector Elizando, Jamie Foxx, Jennifer Garner, Topher Grace, Anne Hathaway, Ashton Kutcher, Queen Latifah and Shirley MacLaine
Director: Garry Marshall
Rated: PG-13
An all-star ensemble cast comes together in “Valentine’s Day,” which follows the intertwining storylines of a diverse group of Los Angelenos as they navigate their way through romance and heartbreak over the course of one Valentine’s Day. Couples and singles experience the pinnacles and pitfalls of finding, keeping or ending relationships in a day in the life of love.
Directed by veteran filmmaker Garry Marshall, the film stars Jessica Alba, Academy Award winner Kathy Bates, Jessica Biel, Bradley Cooper, Eric Dane, Patrick Dempsey, Hector Elizondo, Academy Award winner Jamie Foxx, Jennifer Garner, Topher Grace, Academy Award nominee Anne Hathaway, Ashton Kutcher, Academy Award nominee Queen Latifah, Taylor Lautner, George Lopez, Academy Award winner Shirley MacLaine, Emma Roberts, Academy Award winner Julia Roberts and award-winning singer-songwriter Taylor Swift, in her feature film debut.
The Wolfman
Genre: Suspense, horror and remake
Cast: Benicio Del Toro, Anthony Hopkins, Emily Blunt and Hugo Weaving
Director: Joe Johnston
Rated: R
Inspired by the classic Universal film that launched a legacy of horror, The Wolfman brings the myth of a cursed man back to its iconic origins.
Oscar winner Benicio Del Toro stars as Lawrence Talbot, a haunted nobleman lured back to his family estate after his brother vanishes. Reunited with his estranged father (Oscar winner Anthony Hopkins), Talbot sets out to find his brother ... and discovers a horrifying destiny for himself.
Lawrence Talbot’s childhood ended the night his mother died. After he left the sleepy Victorian hamlet of Blackmoor, he spent decades recovering and trying to forget. But when his brother’s fiancée, Gwen Conliffe (Emily Blunt), tracks him down to help find her missing love, Talbot returns home to join the search. He learns that something with brute strength and insatiable bloodlust has been killing the villagers, and that a suspicious Scotland Yard inspector named Aberline (Hugo Weaving) has come to investigate.
As he pieces together the gory puzzle, he hears of an ancient curse that turns the afflicted into werewolves when the moon is full. Now, if he has any chance at ending the slaughter and protecting the woman he has grown to love, Talbot must destroy the vicious creature in the woods surrounding Blackmoor. But as he hunts for the nightmarish beast, a simple man with a tortured past will uncover a primal side to himself ... one he never imagined existed.
Joe Johnston directs The Wolfman, and six-time Oscar-winning special effects artist Rick Baker brings his design and makeup talents to transform Del Toro into the fearsome title character.
Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief
Genre: Action, adventure, fantasy and adaptation
Cast: Logan Lerman, Brandon T. Jackson, Alexandra Daddario, Uma Thurman and Pierce Brosnan
Director: Chris Columbus
Rated: PG
Trouble-prone Percy Jackson is having problems in high school - but that’s the least of his challenges. It’s the 21st century, but the gods of Mount Olympus seem to have walked out of the pages of Percy’s Greek mythology texts and into his life. Percy has learned that his real father is Poseidon, god of the sea, which means Percy is a demigod – half human, half god. At the same time, the powerful gods on Olympus are feuding, which could launch a war enveloping our entire planet.
Now, Percy must prepare for the adventure of a lifetime, and the stakes couldn’t be higher.
With ominous storm clouds brewing over Earth and his own life now in peril, Percy travels to a special enclave called Camp Half Blood, where he trains to harness his newly discovered powers and prevent a devastating war among the gods. There, Percy meets two fellow demigods – the warrior Annabeth, who is searching for her mother, the goddess Athena; and his friend and protector, Grover, who is actually a brave but untested satyr.
Grover and Annabeth then join Percy on an incredible transcontinental odyssey that takes them six hundred stories above New York City (the portal to Mount Olympus) and to the iconic Hollywood sign, under which burn the fires of the Underworld. At journey’s end rests the fate of the world – and the life of Percy’s mother Sally, whom Percy must rescue from the depths of Hell itself.
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Article published on Monday, Feb. 8, 2010
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