Iron Man

Iron Man is a 2008 American science fiction superhero film based on the Marvel Comics character of the same name. Directed by Jon Favreau, the film stars Robert Downey, Jr.as Tony Stark, an industrialist and master engineer who builds a powered exoskeleton and becomes the technologically advanced superhero, Iron Man. Gwyneth Paltrow plays his personal assistant Pepper Potts, Terrence Howard plays military liaison James Rhodes and Jeff Bridges plays Stark Industries executive Obadiah Stane.

The film was in development since 1990 at Universal Pictures, 20th Century Fox, and New Line Cinema, before Marvel Studios reacquired the rights in 2006. Marvel put the project in production as its first self-financed film, with Paramount Pictures as its distributor. Favreau signed on as director, aiming for a naturalistic feel, and he chose to shoot the film primarily in California, rejecting the East Coast setting of the comics to differentiate the film from numerous superhero films set in New York City-esque environments. During filming, the actors were free to create their own dialogue because pre-production was focused on the story and action. Rubber and metal versions of the armors, created by Stan Winston's company, were mixed with computer-generated imagery to create the title character. Hasbro and Sega sold merchandise, and product placement deals were made with Audi, Burger King, LG and 7-Eleven.

Reviews were very positive, particularly praising Downey's performance.The American Film Institute selected the film as one of the ten best of the year. Downey, Favreau and Paltrow returned in the sequel Iron Man 2, released on May 7, 2010. Downey also made a cameo appearance as Stark in The Incredible Hulk and appeared in the 2012 crossover film The Avengers. Another sequel, Iron Man 3 is set for a 2013 release, with Downey reprising his role. The film is the first installment of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Plot

Playboy and wunderkind genius Tony Stark, who has inherited the defense contractor Stark Industries from his father, is in war-torn Afghanistan with his friend and military liaison, Lieutenant Colonel James Rhodes (Terrence Howard) to demonstrate the new "Jericho" missile. Stark is critically wounded in an ambush and imprisoned in a cave by the terrorist group the Ten Rings. An electromagnet built by fellow captive Dr. Yinsen(Shaun Toub) keeps the shrapnel in Stark's chest from reaching his heart and killing him. Ten Rings leader Raza (Faran Tahir) offers Stark freedom in exchange for building a Jericho missile for the group, but Tony and Yinsen agree Raza will not keep his word.

Stark and Yinsen secretly build a powerful electric generator called an arc reactor, to power Stark's electromagnet, and then begin to build a suit of armor to escape. The Ten Rings attack the workshop when they discover what Stark is doing. Yinsen sacrifices himself to divert them while Stark's suit powers up. The armored Stark battles his way out of the cave to find the dying Yinsen, then an enraged Stark burns the terrorists' munitions and flies away, only to crash in the desert, destroying the suit. After being rescued by Rhodes, Stark returns home and announces that his company will no longer manufacture weapons. Obadiah Stane (Jeff Bridges), his father's old partner and the company's manager, advises Stark that this may ruin Stark Industries and his father's legacy. In his home workshop, Stark builds an improved version of his suit, as well as a more powerful arc reactor for his chest.

At Stark's first public appearance after his return, reporter Christine Everhart (Leslie Bibb) informs him that Stark Industries weapons, including the Jericho, were recently delivered to the Ten Rings and are being used to attack Yinsen's home village. Stark also learns that Stane is trying to replace him as head of the company. Enraged, Stark dons his new armor and flies to Afghanistan, where he saves Yinsen's village. While flying home, Stark is shot at by two F-22 Raptor fighter jets. He phones Rhodes and reveals his secret identity in an attempt to end the attack. Meanwhile, the Ten Rings gathers the pieces of Stark's prototype suit and meet with Stane, who has the group eliminated. He has a new suit reverse engineered from the wreckage. Seeking to find any other weapons delivered to the Ten Rings, Stark sends assistant Virginia "Pepper" Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow) to hack into the company computer system from Stane's office. She discovers Stane has been supplying the terrorists and hired the Ten Rings to kill Stark, but the group reneged. Potts later meets with agent Phil Coulson (Clark Gregg) of the "Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division", acounter-terrorism agency, to inform him of Stane's activities.

Stane's scientists cannot duplicate Stark's arc reactor, so Stane ambushes Stark at home, using a sonic device to paralyze him and take his arc reactor. Left to die, Stark manages to crawl to his lab and plug in his original reactor. Potts and several S.H.I.E.L.D. agents attempt to arrest Stane, but he dons his suit and attacks them. Stark fights Stane, but is overmatched without his new reactor to run his suit at full capacity. Stark lures Stane atop the Stark Industries building and instructs Potts to overload the large arc reactor there. This unleashes a massive electrical surge that knocks Stane unconscious, causing him and his armor to fall into the exploding reactor, killing him.

The next day, the press has dubbed the armored hero "Iron Man". Agent Coulson gives Stark a cover story to explain the events of the night and Stane's death. At a press conference, Stark begins giving the cover story, but then announces that he is Iron Man as the crowd cheers for him.

In a post-credits scene, S.H.I.E.L.D. Director Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) visits Stark at home, and, noting that Iron Man is not "the only superhero in the world", says he wants to discuss the "Avengers Initiative".

 

source: wikipedia

Night at The Museum

Night at the Museum is a 2006 fantasy adventure-comedy film based on the 1993 children's book The Night at the Museum by Milan Trenc. It follows a divorced  father trying to settle down, impress his son, and find his destiny. He applies for a job as a night watchman at New York City's American Museum of Natural History and subsequently discovers that the exhibits, animated by a magical Egyptian artifact, come to life at night.

Released on December 22, 2006 by 20th Century Fox, which presented the 1492 Pictures/21 Laps Entertainment Production in association with Ingenious Film Partners, the film was written by Robert Ben Garant and Thomas Lennon of Comedy Central's Reno 911! and MTV's The State and produced and directed by Shawn Levy. Also producing for 1492 Pictures were Chris Columbus and Michael Barnathan. The cast includes Ben Stiller, Carla Gugino, Dick Van Dyke, Mickey Rooney, Bill Cobbs, Jake Cherry, Ricky Gervais, Owen Wilson, Steve Coogan, and Robin Williams. A new novelization of the screenplay by Leslie Goldman was published as a film tie-in.

A sequel titled Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian was released on May 22, 2009.

Plot

Larry Daley (Ben Stiller) is divorced, unable to keep a stable job, and has failed at many business ventures. His ex-wife (Kim Raver) believes that he is a bad example to their ten year-old son Nick (Jake Cherry), and Larry fears that Nick respects his future stepfather,bond trader Don (Paul Rudd), more than him.

Cecil (Dick Van Dyke), an elderly night security guard about to retire from the American Museum of Natural History, hires Larry despite his unpromising résumé. Because of recent financial troubles, the museum plans to replace Cecil and his two colleagues Gus (Mickey Rooney) and Reginald (Bill Cobbs) with one guard. They advise Larry to leave some of the lights on and warn him not to let anything "in...or out".

Once night comes, Larry discovers that the exhibits come to life, including a living Tyrannosaurus skeleton nicknamed "Rexy" who behaves like a dog (who fetches one of his ribs); a mischievous capuchin monkey named Dexter (Crystal), which always steals Larry's keys (and also urinates on him and tears up his instruction manual); rival miniature civilizations led by Old West cowboy Jedediah (Owen Wilson) and Roman general Octavius (Steve Coogan); an Easter Island Moai (Brad Garrett), who calls Larry dum-dum and loves gum-gum; and wax models of the likes of Theodore Roosevelt (Robin Williams), and Atilla the Hun (Patrick Gallagher), who makes a habit of chasing Larry wildly through the museum with his Huns.

Roosevelt explains that since an Egyptian artifact—the Golden Tablet of Pharaoh Akhmenrah—came to the museum in 1952, all of the exhibits come to life each night. If the exhibits are outside of the museum during sunrise, however, they turn to dust. Roosevelt helps Larry by restoring order, and he decides to remain as a guard.

On Cecil's advice, Larry studies history to prepare himself better. He also learns from a museum docent, Rebecca Hutman (Carla Gugino), who is writing a dissertation on Sacagawea (Mizuo Peck) but does not feel she knows enough about her subject.

The next night, Larry uses what he has learned to better control the exhibits (helping solve the Neanderthals' quest for fire by tossing them a cigarette lighter; giving the Easter Island head a wad of chewing gum (which causes him to blow up a big bubble that pops); tricking Dexter with a set of toy keys; and making a truce between the dioramas). However, things go awry when his attempt at winning over Atilla with cheap magic tricks fails, the dioramas continue fighting despite their agreement with Larry and Dexter is able to steal Larry's keys again and let out all of the animal exhibits. The Neanderthals then set fire to a display and one turns to dust when he leaves the museum at dawn (his ashes are promptly swept up by a street sweeper), so museum director Dr. McPhee (Ricky Gervais) almost fires Larry. He offers Rebecca a meeting with Sacagawea, but she believes that he is mocking her and the museum, and leaves him.

Larry brings Nick to the museum to show him the exhibits, but none is alive. They investigate and catch Cecil, Gus, and Reginald in the act of stealing the tablet and other valuable objects. Like the exhibits, the guards receive enhanced vitality from the artifact; wishing to retain their health and fund their retirements, the three plan to frame Larry for the thefts, and disabled the tablet to stop the exhibits from interfering. Nick reactivates the tablet, but Cecil locks him and his father in the Egyptian room and flees with the tablet.

Larry releases the Akhmenrah's (Rami Malek) mummy from his sarcophagus. The pharaoh speaks English from many years as an exhibit at Cambridge, and helps Larry and Nick escape. The three find the other exhibits fighting all over the lobby, and Larry convinces them to work together. Although some of the exhibits capture Gus and Reginald without difficulty, Cecil escapes by stagecoach with Larry, Nick, Akmenrah, Jedediah, Octavius, and Atilla the Hun in pursuit in Central Park, where they stop him and regain the tablet. While in a taxicab, Rebecca sees the exhibits return to the museum before sunrise and realizes that Larry was telling the truth; so he enters the museum, and he introduces her to Sacagawea.

Dr. McPhee fires Larry due to the chaos during the night, but rehires him when news reports of the strange events around the museum—such as cave paintings in the museum's subway station, dinosaur footprints in Central Park, and cavemen sightings—raise attendance. Larry, Nick, and the exhibits celebrate, while Cecil, Gus, and Reginald are forced to become museum janitors to evade being sent to jail.

Production

The building featured in the film, which was constructed on a sound stage in Burnaby, British Columbia, is based on the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, external shots of which were used in the movie.

Trainers spent several weeks training Crystal, who plays the troublemaking monkey Dexter, to slap and bite Stiller in the film.

Director Shawn Levy credited Ben Stiller for the ensemble cast: "When actors hear that Ben Stiller is in a movie they want to work with him. It's a high-water mark and it absolutely draws actors in and I'm convinced that's a big part of why we got this cast."

source: wikipedia

Dark Shadow

Dark Shadows is a 2012 American horror comedy-drama film based on the 1966–1971 gothic horror soap opera of the same name. The film is directed by Tim Burton and stars Johnny Depp as Barnabas Collins, a 200-year-old vampire, and Michelle Pfeiffer as his cousin Elizabeth Collins Stoddard, a reclusive matriarch of the Collins family. It was released on the evening of May 10, 2012,opening fully the following day in the United States.

Plot

In 1760, Joshua and Naomi Collins sail from Liverpool to the New World, North America. They set up a fishing port in Maine called Collinsport, and also build Collinwood Manor. Their son, Barnabas, grows up to be a wealthy playboy in the town. He breaks the heart of one of their servants, Angelique Bouchard, who is a witch and kills his parents in revenge and curses his family. He then studies dark magic to prove Angelique is in fact a witch, falling in love with Josette du Pres in the meantime. Angelique, in an act of jealousy, puts a spell on Josette, which forces her to leap to her death from a nearby cliff called Widow's Peak. Barnabas runs after Josette but he arrives too late. He jumps over the cliff to kill himself, but Angelique has already turned Barnabas into a vampire before he reaches the bottom. Soon after, Angelique convinces the townspeople that Barnabas is a vampire, having them capture him and bury him alive in a chained coffin in the woods.

In 1972, a woman named Maggie Evans travels by train to Collinsport, responding to an advertisement to be the governess to a young boy, David Collins. While on the train, she decides to change her name to Victoria Winters, practicing asking the family to call her "Vicky". She hitches a ride with hippies to Collinwood Manor, where she meets Elizabeth Collins Stoddard, the matriarch of the family, her troubled nephew David, and the families' servants, Willie Loomis and old Mrs. Johnson. It is explained that David's mother died at sea and he believes his mother speaks to him. Elizabeth takes Victoria on a tour of Collinwood Manor, which is falling into disrepair. While on the tour, Victoria meets Elizabeth's 15-year-old rebellious and provocative daughter Carolyn. At dinner, Victoria meets the rest of the dysfunctional family; Roger, Elizabeth's brother and indifferent father of David, and Dr. Julia Hoffman, an alcoholic psychiatrist who had been hired to help David overcome his belief that he can speak to his dead mother, but thus far has been unsuccessful. David appears in a sheet to look like a ghost, trying to frighten Victoria. David talks of his mother speaking to him, and Carolyn calls him crazy, but Victoria states she believes in ghosts. After dinner, Victoria is in her room and believes she sees David again appearing under the same sheet. She removes the sheet, but sees the ghost of Josette instead, who remarks "He's coming", before hovering to the large chandelier in the foyer and falling as she did from the cliff.

That night, Barnabas is accidentally freed from his coffin by a group of construction workers. He feeds on them and makes his way back to Collinwood Manor, finding his once-magnificent mansion in a sad state. Barnabas convinces Elizabeth that he really is who he says he is, and asks her of the family curse and the story of how he died. She answers that nobody knows how he died so he explains that is because he didn't. Barnabas then shows her a secret room full of treasures as a proof of his identity. She says he may stay with them under two conditions: that he keeps the secret of the riches in the room and of his vampirism from everyone else in the house, to which Barnabas agrees. Barnabas is introduced to the family at breakfast. Elizabeth explains that he is a distant relative from England and Barnabas explains he has come to help the family revitalize their business. Barnabas decides to restore his family name.

Angelique, now a respected and successful resident of Collinsport, soon discovers that he has escaped his shallow grave. She wants to win him back so she visits the mansion and tells him to join her or he will regret it. He tells her he has no feelings for her and she leaves. He discovers that his family's fishing company is in ruins because of Angelique's business, Angel Bay Fishery, and takes steps to revitalize and rebuild the company (and the mansion), gaining the trust of the family in the process. As the Collins fishery begins to pick up, Angelique calls Barnabas to her office for a meeting, again offering that he either join and love her or she will destroy him and everything he loves. She manages to seduce him and they make love, wrecking her office in doing so. But when they are finished, he says can never love her as he has fallen in love with Victoria, again leaving. Barnabas turns to Carolyn for help as he tries to win over the heart of Victoria but doesn't know how. Carolyn explains he needs to be less "weird" and tells him he should get some normal friends. Later that night Barnabas goes out into the woods with the same hippies that drove Victoria to the mansion. They discuss love before Barnabas regretfully feeds on them.

The next day, Dr. Hoffman hypnotizes Barnabas in a therapy session and he confesses to being a vampire, as well as to the murders of the construction workers and the hippies. She is shocked and fascinated by him and runs to Elizabeth to ask why she keeps such a secret to herself. Elizabeth tells her not to tell anyone else of his secret. Dr. Hoffman offers to help turn Barnabas into a human via blood transfusions. At dinner, Barnabas decides to restore their name by having a ball. Carolyn retorts that they need to instead have a party, suggesting Alice Cooper as entertainment. Barnabas agrees and they throw a party for the entire town at their mansion, at which Alice Cooper indeed performs. On a balcony outside of the party, Barnabas finds Victoria, to whom he expresses his love. She explains her past to him though. It is then revealed through flashbacks that Victoria was sent to a mental hospital by her parents for talking to the ghost of Barnabas' love, Josette, who she strongly resembles. She is seen getting electroshock treatment as a child, then escaping through the window with sheets years later. They passionately kiss after she says she feels like she has always known him. Angelique crashes the party and sees Barnabas and Victoria kissing, becoming enraged. The next day, Barnabas discovers Dr. Hoffman is not giving him human blood, but taking several pints of his blood instead to turn herself into a vampire to avoid growing old. Enraged, Barnabas presumably kills her by draining her dry and dumps her body in the ocean with Willie's help. He then discovers David's sleazy father Roger snooping around the study, trying to find the secret room. Barnabas gives him a choice: stay and be a father or leave; Roger chooses the latter. Right after Roger leaves, Barnabas accidentally stands in a beam of sunlight after saving David from a falling disco ball and his skin burns. His secret is revealed to the children and Victoria and they are horrified.

Barnabas meets with Angelique that night and refuses her offer once more to cooperate with her to run the town, also refusing to return her love. While leaving her office, he is forced into a coffin waiting for him right outside her door, and Angelique then binds him with chains and drives him to the cemetery, leaving the coffin in a crypt and telling Barnabas she will destroy everything he loves. Just before driving to the cemetery, she blows up the rebuilt Collins canning factory by reciting a spell. While the fire is still raging, David learns from his mother that Barnabas has been locked up and where to find him. David goes to the crypt and frees Barnabas from the coffin. While the police and firefighters try to put out the fire, Angelique plays a cassette recording she recorded during her last meeting with Barnabas in which he confesses to being a vampire and killing the construction workers, the hippies, and Dr. Hoffman, revealing that the Collins family is harboring a murderer. This turns the townspeople against the family once more, leading them to the mansion. At the mansion, Angelique is shocked to see that Barnabas has escaped. Barnabas offers to be arrested in place of the family, but then grabs Angelique, prompting a policeman to shoot him several times. Revealed as immortal, he then shows the townspeople Angelique is a witch: as he squeezes her, her skin cracks like porcelain. The townspeople run away from the mansion in horror. Angelique starts a fight and sets fire to the mansion, bringing the wooden statues and portraits to life and making blood run down the walls from them, as well as splintering the walls of the building. Carolyn, who is revealed as being a werewolf (because Angelique had sent a werewolf to bite her as a baby), fights her, but is beaten back. Elizabeth, armed with a shotgun, stands up to Angelique, and David summons the ghost of his mother Laura (whom Angelique admits killing), who throws her into the chandelier. Angelique, her porcelain skin fracturing, literally offers her heart to Barnabas, insisting she did in fact love him, but he refuses, telling her she isn't capable of love and only wanted to control him. Upon being rejected by Barnabas, her heart literally breaks and she dies. Barnabas looks for Victoria, who hasn't been seen since it was revealed that he was a vampire. David tells him that his mother said she is headed for Widow's Peak. Barnabas catches up with her there, but Victoria tells him that they can never be together as she lives in the light and he lives in the dark shadows. Angelique's spell makes Victoria jump over the cliff. Barnabas jumps off after her and bites her on the way down, turning her into a vampire to save her life. Afterward, Victoria tells Barnabas to call her Josette, and Barnabas narrates that his curse has ended. The film then ends underwater, with a school of fish swimming away from the body of Dr. Hoffman, who opens her eyes, revealing that she too is now a vampire.


source: wikipedia